BlueFalcon on 22 January 2013
| Stinky said: So approx $160 for 8GB of GDDR5, I can see why MS hasn't specced it. |
It is expensive but not that much. The GDDR5 pricing is from HD6970/580 generation (2011 model year). Prices on GDDR5 have fallen since then as HD6970 2GB was $369 but HD7950 3GB of GDDR5 sells for $280-300 in retail now. 3GB of GDDR5 was only present on a $550 GTX580 last generation.
It's all about priorities. If MS is dead set on focusing on Kinect 2.0, well then unless they want to take a larger loss, Sony simply has more of the capital budget to spend on the components. It appears Sony just chose to prioritize the GPU and its memory sub-system while MS is focusing on features rather than outright graphics leadership.
