Current pc APU don't have GPU's nearly as powerfull as used in the XOne, so you can't compare those. Also memory bandwidth is relevant at 1080P or even lower, especially if they want to utilize 2gb-3gb for video memory.

It's not a case of yields, we know all the chips function fine as they are placing them in consoles.
It's an issue of leakage.

Microsoft would have a fair idea on how leaky their APU's are in a worse case scenario, it would simply require a fairly beefy voltage increase to cover even the leakiest of APU's going into the consoles.
This would have required Microsoft to have a fairly large chunk of extra cooling spare to be able to do it.

That's essentially what the entire issue boils down to, cooling.

Memory bandwidth is relevent, but certainly not that much of a deal-breaker at only 1080P, the esram is there to lend a hand after all.
Besides, they could always do some compute tasks on some of the shaders which doesn't need that much in terms of memory bandwidth.

@Permalite

It is an issue of yields then, getting the amount of 1200mhz chips that dont leak too much to make a redesign necessary and throw away the worst case scenario.

To overclock the gpu to attain the flops performance of the PS4 wouldn't be enough to overcome the advantage in memory bandwith and pixel fill rate of the PS4.
Don't forget guys the PS4 has twice the pixel fill rate of the Xbox One already.

No this wont happen, it would push an already high price higher, delay the launch and quite frankly developers arent even using 4G at launch, never mind more than that. If they did this they would only further hurt themselves.

Pushing the GPU clock speed would impact reliability - RROD back again.

making those chance close to the shipping process ? skipping testing phase ? not gonna happen, or Ring of dead 2: Shadows of old days ?

i thought u cud jus download ram from the cloud

Not buying the rumor or the actual console.

The hardware isn't the problem, it's Microsoft's attitude and game focus that's the problem

You must have no clue about Microsoft pricing model for "extra cost". I know your all about the 2014 price drop that will put everything on even ground and then the gen is over in your eyes. But seriously, get with the program. How much do hard drives cost?   pretty cheap huh?  Did that stop MS for charging a pathetic price on there external harddrives for the 360?   Nope, how much did it cost to buy that 120 gb hard drive for the 360 a few year ago?  what, like $129.00 or around there. ( not the slim one, the original one that clipped onto the side)  I know we are talking about ram here, but I'm using there tactics on harddrives as a precedent for there pricing model.

I don't know what to believe anymore. I also didn't believe that MS would be dumb enough to put in place the rumored DRM/anti-used games policies that were being rumored but that came true.

Then I was pretty sure that there was no way they would reverse those policies since MS rarely ever listens to consumers.... that also came to pass.

Anything is possible at this point. I'm just going to wait and see.