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Real Xbox Next Specs Leaked?
maaaaac writes "Looks like Xbox-Scene might have been sent a copy of the alleged specs for Xenon, aka Xbox Next [Spong.com has a slightly longer version of the document, apparently from Microsoft's Xbox Advanced Technology Group.] Interesting tidbits -- CPU: A 3-core (on one die) 3.5+ GHz IBM PowerPC processor w/SMT and 1MB L2 (accessible by the GPU, no less); GPU: 500+ MHz DirectX 9.0+ part from ATI, 96 shader ops per clock cycle, 4+ gigapixels/sec, 500+ million triangles/sec, 10MB EDRAM; RAM: 256+ MB of unified memory with 22.4+ GB/sec bandwidth (EDRAM has 32 GB/sec); Misc: all audio done on the CPU, 10/100 Ethernet (no wireless?), USB 2.0, VGA out (!), 12x DVD, undecided on HD but definitely as an option, at least, and what I think is one of the better improvements, 'The Xenon console will be smaller than the Xbox console.'"
Quickest guaranteed way onto /. Games is to claim you have an "authentic" list of Xbox2 stats. I'll believe a list when I see something with a bit more evidence to back up its authenticity than just a couple paragraphs of assorted stats with no clue where they were obtained at. I'd don't want a name, just something to give me a little confidence before I get worked up over the capabilities.
Who came up with the idea of having all of that CPU and GPU power with only 256mb of ram? Many games are already demanding more ram than that while running on systems that are otherwise half of that. For example, many games are now using 1024x1024 textures (or even 2048) which would mean that the XBox would only have enough ram for 256 textures if nothing else was loaded. I know that ram costs a lot now, but I think this could be a fatal mistake, espcially if they expect people to hook the XBox up to a normal monitor or HDTV.
ATI doesn't have PS 3.0+ support in their released products. The work they are doing for MS (and Nintendo) may be well ahead of the X800, and may be the reason PS 3.0 support didn't make it into the X800 itself, if they are concentrating on their console development. The original Xbox also included features that went beyond MS's PC graphics standard at the time (DX8), after all.
Today in order to survive as a console you need great games, and a large overall library. IE: if MS got something like a GTA4 as an exclusive launch title, that would do far more than just impressive hardware. It's all about the software today, and I will buy a system on the basis of where the great games are.
Dident I read a story the other day about UT2k4 using up 2 gigs of ram.
Memory is cheap now a days thow a gig of ram in the box.
It will look good on paper even if it is not used, or devs can use it as a ram drive.