It is no secret that DRAM prices have been on the rise recently, and this apparently could lead to a shortage that will last until the end of 2014. Sony and Microsoft’s latest generation consoles will reportedly be adding to the demand as each console possesses a whopping 8GB of DRAM each.
With so much hype surrounding the launch of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 it isn’t surprising that shipments are going to be high. With millions of consoles expected to sell this year with 8GB of DRAM each that looks like a lot of DRAM that the DRAM industry in its current state can’t really keep on top of.
So what can we expect? Well the PC market is weak right now and will probably take the biggest hit out of all this. PC DRAM will experience some shortages and significant price rises, maybe even “Thai Hard Drive Crisis” style price rises. All of this could cause further grief for CPU, graphics card, storage and motherboard vendors who will see overall demand fall down. This is expected to be further compounded by smartphones and other consumer gadgets which are both more popular and have higher retail value so seem to be scooping up most of the DRAM supplies.
The only companies who will benefit from all this are the DRAM vendors and AMD. This is because AMD is going to be making all the processors/APUs for these new consoles while DRAM vendors will be struggling to sell their products fast enough.
Image courtesy of Samsung
