| WereKitten said: Good points there, and I'm trying to find the sources of those numbers. But you're wrong about one thing that might (partially?) explain the discrepancy: the RSX designed by nVidia is manufactured by Toshiba and they are the ones in agreement with Sony for the fabrication of the GPU chips. It was initially a joint venture, but I found something about Sony selling their facility in Oita to Toshiba at a later point. In any case we can assume that savings in fabrication will directly affect the costs on Sony's part. The upper cost cut might be with the 45nm Cells from IBM plants and if Toshiba also manages a cheaper fabrication of the RSX/ smaller package and coolers. There was a piece of info about a Nikkei report speculating that in 2007, but more recent news here. |
That is true. I didn't know that also RSX manufacturing was done by Sony and sold to Toshiba. On the other hand RSX wasn't even close as expensive part as Cell and Toshiba (Sony) propably pay licensing fee to NVidia every chip what is produced, so 45 nm technology doesn't give so big savings for RSX as it gives for Cell processor.
Also you should notice that Toshiba did put up new factory for 45 and 40 nm chip production and that did cost them a lot of money, so it's quite unlikely that Toshiba would put all cost reductions to Cell and RSX prices. Even in best case scenario Sony could drop PS3 manufacturing cost about 80 to 90 $ when they change they chips to 45 nm technology, but that 150$ is impossible without any other cuts (much depends on Blu-Ray component prices).
