its an odd mishmash of high end on the ram, upper mid range on the gpu, and lower midrange on the cpu ...

using the gddr5 will help hide issues in the cpu but i still feel twoards the end of its life the "eight core" (4 module ) will actually limit what the gpu can do. it will be an interesting switch form this gen where the ram and then gpus were the choke points. and due to the design of the cores, if a game is not programed to take advantage of how the 4 modules operate they could actually slow down the performance below that of a quad core as has been shown on ars in the past.

it will be interesting to see where they take this, at least programming support will be easier... though if they had used intel could have been much easier ....

stupid fake 8 cores .... but then all about arguing what makes a core....


so i guess in summary the ram is a neat choice, the gpu is not as high end as i hopped but not a POS and since its custom may have trick up its sleave
and the cpu leaves a lot to be desired (are we 100% on its clock speed yet)

Elaborate

the clock speed is not really going to be that much of a problem if indeed this is a 3D stacked TSV which im pretty sure it is because the CEO over @ Sony back in jan of 2010 Confirmed it as such, and already Sony is using 3D stacked TSV design already for the PSVita.

But there were talks of Durango GPUs already being in semi-full production early this year (30K or so) and that they had a very tight schedule if they were going to meet a Nov release target.

And so far rumours have proven to be quite accurate.

I'm betting X720 will go for the slower RAM and a 1.2 TFLOP GPU because MS is so much about casual market nowadays and they're trying to keep the multiplat COD dudebro market by beating Sony with a cheaper entry price.

What's the incentive for MS to make a powerful machine only for Halo? They know multiplat publishers will make a smooth X720 version of all their titles even for a slightly slower console.

When ps3 was announced blu ray was new now it's much more less expensive and this time there is not a cell processor.

So much awesome news, loving they have decided to finally bundle a headset with every PS4. Tons of good stuff today.

WOW.

This kinda post is the perfect example of spreading the wrong information, yet making as if what you are saying is true.

A lot of people (mostly Nintendo fans, and EVERYONE on NeoGAF said that the PS4 wouldn't have more than 4 GB of DDR5 RAM). 

So how does the Wii U compare to it?

For PS4 I am thinking $449 too and Sony making a slight loss of $50 on each unit.

Meanwhile MS will sell the weaker X720 for $399 at break-even and thereby attract the casuals and COD kids, who are known to be very price sensitive but poor at judging long term costs like Xbox Live subscriptions. MS strategy is to attract with low entry price and milk them later.