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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.'"
And you can also use it to heat a two-story house!
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.
Over the last week or so, there have been a lot of XBox 2 related stories and now this "leak". I wonder if Microsoft is leaking all of this information to A) keep XBox in the news during a quiet summer and B) get some free advice from the community of interested gamers. Given its PC roots, I'd be willing to guess that XBox gamers are more technically knowledgeable as a group compared to other console gamers. If this is true, then their opinions with respect to XBox 2 specs could be valuable.
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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.
non-trusted (read: non-Microsoft)code will be locked out in the CPU itself.
Unless you are real handy with a laser, I don't see how you're gonna get around that.....
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
"The Xenon GPU is a custom 500+ MHz graphics processor from ATI. ... Xenon not only supports high-level shading language (HLSL) model 3.0 for vertex and pixel shaders but also includes advanced shader features well beyond model 3.0."
ATI doesn't have (true) Pixel Shader 3.0 development done yet... (if they did I'm sure there'd be an X800 XT Turbo or something) let alone implemented into a processor, even more ridiculous is the "shader features well beyond model 3.0".
Another thing is the technical limitations on have 3 CPUs and 1 GPU sharing the same L2 cache, while technically feasible, it's not a good idea, the bandwidth of the L2 cache would be severely taxed. It would make much more sense to have the smaller L2 cache for each processor. (Even this "locking down into segments" doesn't improve bandwidth...)
a 3 core processor each running at 3.5Ghz is pretty unlikely on a PowerPC based technology... 2.0Ghz probably... 3.0Ghz maybe. And a dual core probably not. But a 3 core... come on...
My money is on some lonely XBox fanboy made it up.
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we see it. That does sound might impressive but then again the xbox 2 or next or whatever you wanna call it, is how far away? Seriously these specs if even from M$ are probably still speculation to some degree. While next gen consoles (we need a new name for them) will need more power they also need to maintain reasonable prices. Giving it power and making the system cost $600 isn't exactly going to make them sell.
Granted the companies are already losing money on the consoles but you cannot expect it to all be made up for on games. Especially when you are M$ and you have a hard time selling your console outside the US. If they cannot win over console gamers in another country then they will always be playing 2nd or 3rd fiddle behind those boys at Sony and Nintendo.
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SMT is IBM's name for Hyperthreading, which is probably an Intel patented term.
You forget its a console not a PC. Less ram is made up for with a monster memory bandwidth. This means that they can just demand the textures as their used instead of caching everyone for the next 4 scenes in mem. The ps2 messed up because the video ram was smaller then the textures required ina scene but having a very large cache defeats the purpose of havign a large pipe to jam them through.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
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.
A PC has a very busy and congested memory bus, thus loading all the graphics onto the Graphics card is mro eefficient. To avoid the bottle neck in the memory bus. A console isn't as busy. It's doesn't have to run OS stuff while your playing. since code is miniscule compared to textures/ graphics the memory bus is almost dedicated to graphics. thus instead of having 1/3 of a 166mzh bus, you get 9/10 of a 233mzh bus. Which means you can just jam the textures when you need them.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
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.
I don't know the HDTV standard screen resolution but the standard PAL or NTSC out certainly won't be needing that many pixels per frame.
HDTV is either 1280x720 progressive (720p) or 1920x1080 interlaced (1080i). 1920x1080 progressive (1080p) will almost certainly exist at some point, but it isn't part of the current HDTV standard.
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I'm seeing a lot of incredulous posts regarding the ability of Microsoft/IBM's ability to put three cores on a die, etc. feasibly for power and/or cost reasons. However, IBM develops a number of lines of PowerPC family processors, not just those for Apple and RS-6000 workstations. My understanding is that these cores are some sort of hybrid between 4xx and 7xx (G) series processor cores. The 4xx cores are low power devices (with set-top box, printer, router applications) and are already in multi-core chips. I imagine that with a stripped down 7xx core and some of the low power features, the brains of Xenon will not melt the unit or break the banks of those poor, struggling artists at Microsoft.
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After some investigation I think it is fake. And my reasoning has nothing to do with the specs, etc. In the supposed "leaked document" the author, Pete Isenee, uses the letter 's' in spelling 'maximise' (second bullet point under "Hardware Goals".) That is not the way that word is spelled in the United Sates. It is spelled 'maximize'. The British use 's' where we use 'z'.
I found the guy's personal web site here:
http://www.tantalon.com/pete.htm
On that page he spells a similar word, 'optimize', with a 'z' and not a 's'. There would be consistency in the way he used 's' or 'z'. It looks to me that this was faked by someone in Britain.