iSuppli Corp. on Thursday released a breakdown of the materials contained in the new US$1,299 Intel iMac, coming to the conclusion that it contains $873 worth of parts. Unsurprisingly, the most expensive item is the Intel Core Duo processor, estimated to cost $265, with a $45 Intel mobile 945 core-logic chipset supporting it.
iSuppli senior analyst Andrew Rassweiler noted that those two items account for 35% of the BOM (bill of materials) cost in the new iMac. Other major integrated circuits in the computer include a $30 northbridge for the ATI Radeon X1600 video card and $20 for GDDR SDRAM (256Mbit x 4) from Samsung. The iMac also carries a $25 manufacturing and test cost above the $873 worth of parts.
iSuppli also identified other major parts in the new computer, including a 17-inch wide-format LCD panel from LG Phillips and a 160GB SATA hard drive from Maxtor. The complete breakdown analysis is $3,500.