Quick Take: DRAM Price Follow-Up

As anticipated, global DRAM prices have continued their upward trend through September, 2009. We reported on August 4, 2009 about the DDR3 and DDR2 price increases that - coupled with a short-fall in DDR3 production - have caused a temporary shift of the consumer market towards DDR2-based designs.

Last week, the Inquirer also reported that DRAM prices were on the rise and that the trend will result in parity between DDR2 and DDR3 prices. MaximumPC ran the Inquirer's story urging its readers to buy now as the tide rises on both fronts. DRAMeXchange is reporting a significant revenue gain to the major players in the DRAM market as a result of this well orchestrated ballet of supply and demand. The net result for consumers is higher prices across the board as the DDR2/DDR3 production cross-over point is reached.

SOLORI's Take: DDR2 is a fading bargain in the server markets, and DIMM vendors like Kingston are working to maintain a stable source of DDR2 components through the end of 2009. While still Looking at our benchmark tracking components, we project 8GB DIMMs to average $565/DIMM by the end of 2009. In the new year, expect 8GB/DDR2 to hit $600/DIMM by the end of H2/2010 with lower pricing on 8GB/DDR3-1066 - in the $500/DIMM range (if supply can keep up with new system demands created by continued growth in the virtualization market.)

Benchmark Server Memory Pricing
DDR2 Series (1.8V)	Price Jun '09	Price Sep '09	DDR3 Series (1.5V)	Price Jun '09	Price Sep '09
4GB 800MHz DDR2 ECC Reg with Parity CL6 DIMM Dual Rank, x4 (5.4W)	$100.00	$117.00 up 17%	4GB 1333MHz DDR3 ECC Reg w/Parity CL9 DIMM Dual Rank, x4 w/Therm Sen (3.96W)	$138.00	$151.00 up 10%
4GB 667MHz DDR2 ECC Reg with Parity CL5 DIMM Dual Rank, x4 (5.94W)	$80.00	$103.00 up 29%	4GB 1066MHz DDR3 ECC Reg w/Parity CL7 DIMM Dual Rank, x4 w/Therm Sen (5.09W)	$132.00	$151.00 up 15%
8GB 667MHz DDR2 ECC Reg with Parity CL5 DIMM Dual Rank, x4 (7.236W)	$396.00	$433.00 up 9%	8GB 1066MHz DDR3 ECC Reg w/Parity CL7 DIMM Dual Rank, x4 w/Therm Sen (6.36W)	$1035.00	$917.00 down 11.5%

SOLORI's 2nd Take: Samsung has been driving the DRAM roller coaster in an effort to dominate the market. With Samsung's 40-nm 2Gb DRAM production ramping by year end, the chip maker's infulence could create a disruptive position in the PC and server markets by driving 8GB/DDR3 prices into the sub-$250/DIMM range by 2H/2010. Meanwhile Hynix, the #2 market leader, chases with 40-nm 1Gb DDR3 giving Samsung the opportunity to repeat its 2008/2009 gambit in 2010 making it increasingly harder for competitors to get a foot-hold in the DDR3 market.

Samsung has their eye on the future with 16GB and 32GB DIMMs already exhibited with 50-nm 2Gb parts claiming a 20% power savings over the current line of memory. With 40-nm 2Gb parts, Samsung is claiming up to 30% additional power savings. To put this into perspective, eight 32GB DIMMs would could about 60% of the power consumed by 32 8GB DIMMs (requiring a 4P+ server). In a virtualization context, this is enough memory to enable 100 virtual machines with 2.5GB of memory each without over subscription. Realistically, we expect to see 16GB DDR3 DIMMs at $1,200/DIMM by 2H/2010 - if everything goes according to plan.

Quick Take: Dell/Nehalem Take #2, 2P VMmark Spot

The new 1st runner-up spot for VMmark in the “8 core” category was taken yesterday by Dell's R710 - just edging-out the previous second spot HP ProLiant BL490 G6 by 0.1% - a virtual dead heat. Equipped with a pair of Xeon X5570 ($1386/ea, bulk list) and 96GB registered DDR3/1066 (12x8GB), the 2U, rack mount R710 weighs-in with a tile ratio of 1.43 over 102 VMs. :

• Dell R710 w/redundant high-output power supply, ($18,209)


• 2 x Intel Xeon X5570 Processors (included)


• 96GB ECC DDR3/1066 (12×8GB) (included)


• 2 x Broadcom NexXtreme II 5709 dual-port GigabitEthernet w/TOE (included)


• 1 x Intel PRO 1000VT quad-port GigabitEthernet (1x PCIe-x4 slot, $529)


• 3 x QLogic QLE2462 FC HBA (1x PCIe slot, $1,219/ea)


• 1 x LSI1078 SAS Controller (on-board)


• 8 x 15K SAS OS drive, RAID10 (included)


• Required ProSupport package ($2,164)


• Total as Configured: $24,559 ($241/VM, not including storage)

Three Dell/EMC CX3-40f arrays were used as the storage backing of the test. The storage system included 8GB cache, 2 enclosures and 15, 15K disks per array delivering 19 LUNs at about 300GB each. Intel's Hyper-Threading and  "Turbo Boost" were enabled for 8-thread, 3.33GHz core clocking as was VT; however embedded SATA and USB were disabled as is common practice.

At about $1,445/tile ($241/VM) the new “second dog” delivers its best at a 20% price premium over Lenovo's "top dog" - although the non-standard OS drive configuration makes-up a half of the difference, with Dell's mandatory support package making-up the remainder. Using a simple RAID1 SAS and eliminating the support package would have droped the cost to $20,421 - a dead heat with Lenovo at $182/VM.

Comparing the Dell R710 the 2P, 12-core benchmark HP DL385 G6 Istanbul system at 15.54@11 tiles:

• HP DL385 G6  ($5,840)


• 2 x AMD 2435 Istanbul Processors (included)


• 64GB ECC DDR2/667 (8×8GB) ($433/DIMM)


• 2 x Broadcom 5709 dual-port GigabitEthernet (on-board)


• 1 x Intel 82571EB dual-port GigabitEthernet (1x PCIe slot, $150/ea)


• 1 x QLogic QLE2462 FC HBA (1x PCIe slot, $1,219/ea)


• 1 x HP SAS Controller (on-board)


• 2 x SAS OS drive (included)


• $10,673/system total (versus $14,696 complete from HP)

Direct pricing shows Istanbul’s numbers at $1,336/tile ($223/VM) which is  a 7.5% savings per-VM over the Dell R710. Going to the street - for memory only - changes the Istanbul picture to $970/tile ($162/VM) representing a 33% savings over the R710.

SOLORI's Take: Istanbul continues to offer a 20-30% CAPEX value proposition against Nehalem in the virtualization use case - even without IOMMU and higher memory bandwidth promised in upcoming Magny-Cours. With the HE parts running around $500 per processor, the OPEX benefits are there for Istanbul too. It is difficult to understand why HP wants to charge $900/DIMM for 8GB PC-5300 sticks when they are available on the street for 50% less - that's a 100% markup. Looking at what HP charges for 8GB DDR3/1066 - $1,700/DIM - they are at least consistent. HP's memory pricing practice makes one thing clear - customers are not buying large memory configurations from their system vendors...

On the contrary, Dell appears to be happy to offer decent prices on 8GB DDR3/1066 with their R710 at approximately $837/DIMM - almost par with street prices.  Looking to see if this parity held up with Dell's AMD offerings, we examined the prices offered with Dell's R805: while - at $680/DIMM - Dell's prices were significantly better than HP's, they still exceeded the market by 50%. Still, we were able to configure a Dell R805 with AMD 2435's for much less than the equivalent HP system:

• Dell R805 w/redundant power ($7,214)


• 2 x AMD 2435 Istanbul Processors (included)


• 64GB ECC DDR2/667 (8×8GB) ($433/ea, street)


• 4 x Broadcom 5708 GigabitEthernet (on-board)


• 1 x Intel PRO 100oPT dual-port GigabitEthernet (1x PCIe slot, included)


• 1 x QLogic QLE2462 FC HBA (1x PCIe slot, included)


• 1 x Dell PERC SAS Controller (on-board)


• 2 x SAS OS drive (included)


• $10,678/system total (versus $12,702 complete from Dell)

This offering from Dell should be able to deliver equivalent performance with HP's DL385 G6 and likewise savings/VM compared to the Nehalem-based R710. Even at the $12,702 price as delivered from Dell, the R805 represents a potential $192/VM price point - about $50/VM (25%) savings over the R710.