Over the past few quarters, the DRAM memory market has been on a downward trend in chip costs. In particular, it affected the GDDR graphics memory segment. For example, compared to the beginning of 2022, 8-gigabit GDDR6 chips in the spot market fell more than three times.
If, as of February 2022, an 8 Gb (1 GB) GDDR6 chip cost about $ 13, now it is available for $ 3.36. That is, if you buy 8 GB of memory for a video card on the spot market, like the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti or Radeon RX 7600, it will cost about $ 27. It is fair to say that graphics card manufacturers receive GDDR6 chips under long-term contracts, so in their case, prices may differ from the spot market. However, the general trend is clear.
Decrease in prices for graphics memory was largely facilitated by the fall in demand for video cards. The end of another “cryptocurrency fever”, associated with the transition of Ethereum to the Proof-of-Stake model in September last year, was reflected in the income of both GPU developers and GDDR6 chip manufacturers. For example, in the previous quarter alone, almost 40% fewer video cards were sold than in the same period in 2022.
Source:
3DCenter
