Why should it be that expensive? The cost of a processor depends on the yield and the yield on the number of transistors. This processor does only have 52 millions of transistors which is 3 millions less than the P4. This means that the cost shouldnt be much higher than the P4. This is also the reason that the Power4 its so expensive. It has around 180 millions of transistors.
And what about the laws of supply and demand?
On the DDR memory - Nvidia were making noises about 1Ghz DDR (i.e. actually 500Mhzx2)for their NV30 Chips, unfortunately, they are very rare and expensive.
What could be used is either quad band memory or DDR-II so it could be 225Mhzx4 instead of 450x2
