Further increase in DRAM prices expected for PCs

The days of cheap DRAM prices for notebooks and PCs appear to have gone out the window and may not return. After prices spiraled down for much of 2012, recent months have seen a trend of increasing costs, and that doesn't appear to be changing any time soon. 

According to a report by Digitimes, major OEMs have been grumbling about the increases and expect that to continue into the second half of this year. Acer chairman, JT Wang, believes that this issue can be traced down to increased activity of smartphone DRAM production lines, leaving insufficient supply for the PC industry. Wang also mentions that even if companies were to ramp up PC production, it would take at least 3-4 months for the changes to take effect.

Acer isn't alone in this line of thought, as ASUS recently indicated at an investor's conference that they have stockpiled supplies of DRAM in order to combat the price hike that is expected. Other OEMs have also adopted a similar strategy, and this competition is expected to grow even fiercer with the advent of Intel's new Haswell generation.

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