Cost per GB Over Time
RAM cost per GB in USD (log scale)
Memory Bandwidth by Generation
Peak theoretical bandwidth (GB/s)
| Standard | Year | Bandwidth | |
|---|---|---|---|
| DDR | 2000 | 3.2 GB/s | |
| DDR2 | 2003 | 8.5 GB/s | |
| DDR3 | 2007 | 17 GB/s | |
| DDR4 | 2014 | 25.6 GB/s | |
| DDR5 | 2020 | 51.2 GB/s | |
| HBM3e | 2024 | 1.2 TB/s |
Sources
John McCallum's Memory Prices Last updated 2020
RAM price per MB from 1957 to 2020. ~10x drop every 5 years. Widely cited in academic research.
Wikipedia: Memory Bandwidth Live
Peak bandwidth by generation: DDR through DDR5, GDDR, HBM.
hblok.net: Storage Cost History 2024
Continues McCallum's work. Downloadable CSVs for RAM, HDD, SSD, and flash prices. CC BY-SA 3.0.
AI Impacts: DRAM Price Trends Last updated 2022
DRAM price-per-GB analysis with decline rate modeling and methodology discussion.