[shard]

I think that actual manufacturing costs are often the reason for price differences between a top of the line and one with lower specs. The processor dies are huge and costly, and throwing out non-perfect dies is undesirable. Due to the intricacies of silicon manufacturing, the same design can have different maximum speeds on different dies, and due to defects, the same design can have different operational sections on different dies. This leads to speed grading and the disabling of cores/caches, and hence a whole line of chips from one design.