Why is the cost of RAM so random?

A friend of mine told me to get the lowest amount of ram when buying a laptop that you customize on the company website. He said that i should buy the ram that i want separately, and that i could save a lot that way. so i went to the best buy, and circuit city websites, and the cheapest i found was a $59.99 1GB card ( i want to have 2GB in my laptop) so it would total to about $120. During my search i also found 1gb cards for as much as $145. What is the difference between these cards, and why is the price so different? would i be better off spending an extra $50 and just order the laptop with 2GB instead of replacing the 512MB card?

 

A lot of companies try to rip you off...that's why.

If you wait low prices, check out www.newegg.com

 

Why are gas prices so random?

 

Haha, tell me about it.

I actually checked out Newegg since i posted this and the prices were spectacular. Thanks guys i think ill save a bunch of money this way. I can get 2 GB for about $60 on Newegg, and i would've paid $120 for the cheapest i found before now.

 

Don't by memory from a retail store either. It will be significantly pricier than usual

 

It is based off of supply vs. demand. Each fluctuate, and this causes the variations in pricing. Also some companies have higher pricing, usually the big names like HP and Dell, because they have to charge for labor as well as hardware. Some places like BestBuy just like to make as much money as possible though, and enjoy ripping people off.

 

Because RAM is about the only hardware component that doesn't get obsoleted from minute to minute. It evolves slowly enough for people to speculate in it. It would make no sense to stockpile CPU's or harddrives to drive prices up, because by the time you have hoarded enough to make a difference, it's all last year's tech, and no one will want to buy it.

With RAM chips, it's different. Companies ( not just the manufacturers themselves) are constantly trying to control supply vs. demand by stockpiling and then selling, driving prices up and down as it suits them. There is actually a DRAM Exchange where all this goes on.

Also, profit margins are generally razor thin, and companies are always trying to strike the right balance between the amount of DRAM vs flash ram they should manufacture. And sometimes, they make too much flash, but too little regular RAM, so prices on RAM skyrockets, and sometimes, it's the other way around, and prices fall madly.

 

Buy ram while you can. Now the manufacturers are like giving them away for free. They are making little to nothing from their rams right now. I am stocking up some of these cheap rams for the system I am building in September.

 

Ok, thanks.