Mac Mini Haswell CPU pricing

[FEIX20]

Not an overclocking question, but I was wondering if there's any useful information out there on the pricing of the Haswell CPUs Apple uses in the 2014 Mac mini line? These apparently are the i5-4260U (1.4GHZ, Turbo 2.7Ghz), i5-4278U (2.6/3.1), i5-4308U(2.8/3.1) and i7-4578U (3.0/3.5). The 4260U shows a tray price (nominal wholesale per/thousand) of $315, the same as the 2.6Ghz 4278U even though it has lesser clock and GPU (the sacrifice for the lower TDP).

I was wondering if there is any general ballpark sense of what Apple might be paying for these chips given their volume and sway with Intel? And if not, whether they are likely getting a lower price on the 4260U than the 4278U, despite having the same nominal price? The mid-range mini with the 4278U is effectively charging $50 for the CPU upgrade, which given Apple's margins on RAM/storage items hints at a $20-$25 cheaper price for the 4260U.

Also, the premium for an i7 mini seems to be about $300, although the difference in the i7 and i5 tray prices is around $100. This is a bit much even by Apple standards - would they be getting substantially higher discounts on the i5 than the i7?
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[Karsten75]

Apple, like any single supplier in a specific market, uses functional pricing. - For instance, if 16GB is priced at $100, then 32 GB is priced at $200 and 64GB will be double that again - no relation to the price of the underlying component.

There will be practically zero public or leaked pricing information on any Apple/Intel deals. Most likely they have an overarching contract that encompass all units at relatively steep discounts even from the "tray" pricing Intel makes public.

However, the i7 unit pricing will be purely on the perceived function pricing plan as indicated above. It's dependent on whatever Apple wishes to portray as the functional increase over then next component.

When functional pricing is used like this, the higher-end units carry a higher profit margin and the lower-end units sometimes have a small loss (probably not in the Apple scenario) or a lower profit margin to be more competitive in the marketplace.