anyone have a cheap source for pc3200 memory?

[Ben Scott]

On Sun, Apr 20, 2008 at 11:34 AM, Bruce Labitt <bruce.labitt at verizon.net> wrote:
> It has PC3200 memory (DDR 1 400 MHz).  Anyone know of an
> inexpensive source for some 1MB sticks?

  I assume you mean "1GB".  A Google Product Search finds vendors
selling it on eBay for as cheap as $15 per 1GB stick.  You're still
paying too much, but at least it's not $50/stick.

http://www.google.com/products?q=PC3200+1GB&scoring=p

  Be warned that a lot of older hardware is limited to a 32-bit (4
GiB) hardware address bus (even if the CPU has a 36-bit bus).  If so,
the system will not be able to "see" the full 4 GiB of RAM.  (The RAM
gets bumped out of addressable space by other hardware.)  You should
get at least 3 GiB of usable RAM, maybe 3.5 GiB or so.  YMMV.

>  I originally thought it might be cheap.  However, from what I have seen,
>  it has now passed into the realm of rather expensive relative to the
>  performance you get.

  Yah, tech pricing tends to follow a bathtub curve.  When it first
comes out, it's rare and expensive.  As it goes mainstream, it gets
cheap.  As it becomes obsolete, prices go back up as it gets hard to
find -- anyone who still wants it must *really* need it.

-- Ben