Spot Register August is the cruellest month

Memory

Prices are softening slightly with 64Mb PC-100 OEM modules going below the 60US$ barrier, writes Marco Fumagalli of Akros Italia. Requirements are still driving prices down, with gap between PC-100 and PC-133 technology narrowing ever closer. Overall the price reduction in memory market from the end of July until now is 6-8 per cent. The performance is acceptable when considering that in Europe this is the weakest sales month of the year.

The decrease in prices seems to be mainly due to broker's overstocks, while the chip manufacturers' price level has been relatively stable over the same period. The combination of new CPU prices in September together with an expected increase in demand could drive prices up again in the near future.

Here are the US$ prices in detail for volumes:

PC-100

64MB OEM brand 58/59
64MB Major brand 64/65
128MB OEM brand 117/119
128MB Major brand 128/130

PC-133

64MB OEM brand 60/61
64MB Major brand 65/66
128MB OEM brand 118/125
128MB Major brand 132/135
256MB Major brand 275

CPUs

AMD's sudden price cuts have thrown Intel and its distie OEMs into confusion. There're a lot of offers of Intel CPUs into the open market and prices are going down, sometimes significantly, with many OEM excess options available. Prices for PIIIs have now reached the lowest levels of the year. The demand is weak though - as most buyers are delaying purchases until after the 27th.

PIII500 103US$
PIII550 119US$
PIII600 160US$
PIII650 165US$
PIII700 190US$
PIII750 225US$
PIII800 270US$

Theres are plenty of AMD Athlon chips available in the market, already with new reduced prices. Slot A is still the more popular package. Thunderbird chips (both slot A and socket A) are available mainly at lower speeds (700 & 750MHz). ®