Weekly Memory & Motherboard Price Guide: December 2000 2nd Edition

Introduction

It's that time of the week for AnandTech's Weekly Price Guide and this week the spotlight is on memory and motherboards.

The basic goal is to provide you with the best deals, and follow price trends of the listed products. We have selected a leading team of on-line vendors, and will be tracking their progress on weekly basis. Please note that all vendors were selected according to their best price offered. Some vendors may ask that you place a phone-order to make sure that you receive our listed price; others simply ask that you mention where you found the price (in this case AnandTech). We have tried to eliminate vendors with low feedback rating, but we do encourage you to do some research before purchasing any product from this list.

If you encounter any problems with a vendor on our list, please email us, and we will take appropriate action. Remember that we will only list vendors with positive customer feedback. If you have any suggestions, don't hesitate to let us know.

Also be sure to check out AnandTech's Hot Deals Forum for even more great memory, motherboard, CPU, video card and other technology buys.

Disclaimer

AnandTech does not endorse any vendor listed in the following price guide. AnandTech does not receive any advertising fees and/or sponsorship from the listed vendors. All views expressed by listed vendors do not reflect the opinions of AnandTech.

AnandTech, nor any of the vendors mentioned guarantee that the prices listed in this guide are accurate.

This Week

Two weeks after our last memory price guide we see that pricing among a wide variety of memory types has come down. Specifically PC133 SDRAM CAS2 and CAS3 modules have come down quite a bit, offering great performance at a sound price. Not only do we have price drops with SDRAM but also with the usually expensive RDRAM which are small overall yet are still decent price drops.

On the DDR SDRAM front prices for PC2100 (133 MHz DDR) and PC1600 (100 MHz DDR) RAM are up significantly. Crucial is the predominant supplier of DDR SDRAM modules thus they have the capacity to change prices as demand increases, which is reflected in this weeks prices. DDR motherboards based on the AMD 760 chipset are currently all but impossible to find and you'll pay a big price premium to get one right now. The situation is reminiscent of the release of RDRAM into the marketplace, and DDR SDRAM prices are actually just about equal to RDRAM at the moment. However, there are quite a few differences here. First, demand for DDR SDRAM is high and it is a brand new technology, while RDRAM has been out for more than a year and demand is still very low. More importantly is the fact that DDR SDRAM is a fundamentally similar technology to SDR SDRAM, so it has quite a bit more backing and prices will drop as production/availability increase.

For now, however, the VIA KT133A chipset may actually be the best purchase for those needing a Socket-A motherboard. The addition of a 133 MHz DDR FSB puts its performance very close to that of the AMD 760, but without the need for DDR SDRAM. Earlier this week, the KT133A made its way into the AnandTech labs - read our in-depth review for more information. KT133A boards haven't quite shown up in the marketplace, but they should be here before AMD 760-based boards and will command a negligible price premium over current KT133 designs.

ALi MAGIK1 boards have yet to show up at retailers, so it looks like DDR SDRAM will have to wait until 2001 before making its way into the do it yourself market. Right now, the only easy way to get a DDR SDRAM system is to buy a prebuilt one from the likes of Micron (who is currently shipping the most DDR SDRAM systems).

For now, KT133 motherboards are fallling in price as are i815E-based boards which is a plus since both of these types of boards provide an excellent solution for buyers looking for a quality motherboard. The i815EP boards should also be making their way into the market place soon. The i815EP is identical to the i815E with the exception that the integrated video has been removed to cut costs slightly.