Price of DDR4 8GB higher than 16GB.... REALLY?

[XeonSam]

I'm almost sure this is in the wrong forum, but couldn't find the right one.

I sold off a bunch of DDR4 ram which I no longer needed, and was amazed how quickly all the 8GB modules went. I did a quick check on ebay to see the prices and realized that 8GB was the same price range as the 16GB modules!

Lordy lord.... how can this be?????

Does anyone know why the 8GB modules aren't even close to half the price of the 16GB? Manufacturing costs per dram chip contradicts this, yet ebay seems to value the 8 more than 16/32....

Trying to make sense of the world.

 

[Patrick]

RDIMMs I am guessing.

Basically memory manufacturers started pushing 16GB as minimum DIMM sizes earlier this year with the shortages. There were not a lot of 4GB/ 8GB DDR4 modules made. As a result, prices went up.

 

[XeonSam]

Yep, RDIMMs
Wow... If I knew this I would have charged a lot more.

Do you know how long the prices are going to stay up? I might see if I can buy back what I sold. And perhaps get more.

 

[Evan]

I have never laid eyes on a 8gb DDR4 rdimm, can’t really imagine what anybody would want them for other than vendors to move a system with minimum ram possible to save $$

The only other edge case would Xeon W and epyc just to populate some channels where you really done need ram volume.

 

[Patrick]

I have never laid eyes on a 8gb DDR4 rdimm, can’t really imagine what anybody would want them for other than vendors to move a system with minimum ram possible to save $$

The only other edge case would Xeon W and epyc just to populate some channels where you really done need ram volume.

Atom C3000 and Xeon D are two good examples that come to mind.

Also, MSPs often purchase Dell EMC/ HPE/ Lenovo with minimal CPUs and RAM to then pull and put in less costly aftermarket gear if the reseller is carrying the service contract.

 

[Marsh]

I am happy that no one else like 8GB ram, I been buying 8GB DDR4 for around $30 each shipped.
Given today high RAM price, I been collecting many relative inexpensive 8GB and 4GB RAM stick for my homelab.

 

[XeonSam]

Hmmm... to be honest. I don't really like 8G and prefer 16 any day.
No point in stocking up.

That would be silly

 

[Evan]

Bigger dimms are always better so long as it’s still rdimm and not lrdimm unless you need to fill channels for performance that would not be filled with bigger dimms.

32gb on scalable gives 192gb for each channel used per socket, and double if you fill the 2nd socket. Kind of a sweet spot really

 

[T_Minus]

Hmmm... to be honest. I don't really like 8G and prefer 16 any day.
No point in stocking up.

That would be silly

For you maybe for others who know they're expanding there's more than enough history proven reasons to stock up on cheap RAM

 

[Marsh]

I run few hobby K8s cluster in my homelab , consists of 4-6 coreos vm , 1 ubuntu vm , 1 virtual router using Proxmox.
The entire cluster uses around 18-28 GB with the benefits memory page sharing.

The facts is that I have way too many machines , not all need 128GB ram.

 

[nthu9280]

I am happy that no one else like 8GB ram, I been buying 8GB DDR4 for around $30 each shipped.
Given today high RAM price, I been collecting many relative inexpensive 8GB and 4GB RAM stick for my homelab.

Ugh! I have only seen 8GB $50-$60 range and excluded 4GB & 8GB in my searches all this time. I have been holding out for reasonable prices of 16GB or 32GB in hopes of consolidating my homelab for over a year. Got 2 X10SRA-F and X10DRI-T4+ and decent V3 QS CPUs not enough RAM to clear out V2 systems.

 

[Marsh]

I have a friend that sells me 8gb and 4gb server ECC ram when he upgrade the system. I don't get the ram all the time, couple times a month.

Like nthu9280, today, my target price is around $85-$90 per 16GB , higher than my $55-$60 target back in 2016.
I was able to purchase 96GB ( 6 x 16GB ram ) within $85-$90 last months in few auction listings.

A dual CPU E5 v3 or v4 systemboard, has 16 RAM slot, using 8GB ram , 16 x 8GB = 128GB RAM.

Anyway, I have over 50 systems that use DDR4 ram , It would take me couple years to populate them within my budget.

 

[nthu9280]

@Marsh - Wow! 50 V3 systems for a homelab? how many of the previous gen or have you disposed them? IIRC, you have been retired for a while. Here I was seriously thinking of seeking EAP for myself and I have 6 servers with only one or two in use.

 

[Marsh]

In 2016, It start out with buying over 50 x $75-$130 various E5 v3,v4 CPU ( only 1 CPU out of the bunch is ES ).
The rest CPU are QS or retail.

Such a good deal, how could I pass the deal, $125 each for retail E5-2683 v3 , $85 for E5-2666 v3 QS CPU.
$80 for E5-4655 v3 QS chip.
It just turn into another obsession.

I have way too many V1, V2 systems in power off state. Just too ashamed to admit it.

 

[nthu9280]

Wow! $125 each for retail E5-2683 such a steal!!! I think the thread on V3 turbo-unlock caused a major spike on E5 V3 prices. I got a couple of E5-4650 v3 QS last year for about $225 before folks figured out they work fine on dual proc systems. I was not courageous enough to go thru' the BIOS hack SM boards though.

 

[Marsh]

So far , I talked about the winner.
All the low price CPU is purchased AS-IS, no return
I also brought few dud CPU, caused me few hundreds dollar.