Xbox 360 Motherboard In-Depth

jshaped writes "As a follow-up to their previously popular article, Anandtech has posted an in-depth look at the Xbox 360 motherboard. The IBM cpu core looks massive, and check out the ATI gpu with 2 dice on the package." From the article: "The original Xbox featured a 4-layer Intel motherboard, but given the incredible power requirements of the CPU and GPU on the Xbox 360's motherboard we would be astonished if the same were true today. Luckily with any console, especially early on in their life, you are getting a true bargain when it comes to the cost of hardware - so the number of layers on this PCB doesn't matter much to the end user, as Microsoft will absorb all costs above and beyond the core system's $299 price tag."

Comments

True costs?

[the computer guy nex]

The 360 is more powerful than any gaming machine on the market today. Adjusted for inflation the 360 is also cheaper at launch than NES SNES N64 PS1 PS2 and the Xbox1.

Microsoft has to be eating a ton of the cost for every console sold.

Re:True costs?

[Red Flayer]

"Adjusted for inflation the 360 is also cheaper at launch than NES SNES N64 PS1 PS2 and the Xbox1"

I know this has been gone over dozens of times on Slashdot, but that's not exactly true, since full functionality is not included in the base price. Never mind the hard drive, 2nd controller, etc...

Specifically, I'm talking about online play. Yes, this was not a capability of early gen consoles, but it's a core function of the coming generation of consoles. Factor in the cost of subscriptions, and the total cost is ridiculous.

I wouldn't make this distinction, except that a ton of games are being designed around online play, and you won't be able to get all the content you paid for purchasing the game unless you play online.

This business model for MS has worked in lots of markets... give the hardware for free or cheap, but make people pay for the service -- Cell phones are the easiest example I can think of, but there are many others.

Re:True costs?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Atari 2600 originally sold for $200. It had a single 1.19MHz processor. The 360 has 3 3.2GHz cores, which is theoretically 8000x more powerful than the 2600. So adjusted for inflation, the 360 would've cost 5 million when the 2600 came out. Not a bad deal.

Re:True costs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has to be eating a ton of the cost for every console sold.

The interesting thing about console videogame systems is that (like most electronics) the cost of manufacturing is really low, the 'Cost' of the system that (usually) is considered as a loss is the cost of the technology and development. The fact is that, when you discount the cost of licencing (which Microsoft got raped on), the most expensive part of the original XBox was the Hard-Drive; Hard-Drives are (reasonably) unique in Manufacturing because they're an expensive component to produce and you have to buy them from a third party vender (you can't just licence the technology and produce your own Hard-Drive).

Microsoft seems to have gotten around these hurdles because:

(1)They apear to own a lot more of the IP of the XBox 360's design (Nvidia and Intel owned the IP on their processors for the XBox)
(2)The Hard-Drive is (essentially) and external cost, so the XBox 360 costs $299.99 and its Hard-Drive costs $100

Now, if you discount the R+D costs (and only consider the per-unit cost of the XBox 360) I would be willing to bet that Microsoft is at least breaking even on the Base Unit and Hard-Drive, and could potentially be 'turning a profit' on the Base Unit.

Re:True costs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Adjusted for inflation the 360 is also cheaper at launch than NES SNES N64 PS1 PS2 and the Xbox1.

Don't forget that Adjusted for inflation:

• The ipod is cheaper than a record player from 1901

• The revolution will be cheaper than a book from 1542

• Oil today is cheaper than in was during the oil-shocks of the 1970's

• A 2005 Focus is cheaper than a Model-T

What's the point?
Because of mass-production, robotics and computer design things become both better and cheaper; this doesn't stop people from complaining that something (ie. Oil/XBox 360) is way too expensive because it reaches a level of cost that is either unprecidented or at least unprecidented in a mainstream product.

Re:True costs?

[Red Flayer]

"Now, if you discount the R+D costs (and only consider the per-unit cost of the XBox 360) I would be willing to bet that Microsoft is at least breaking even on the Base Unit and Hard-Drive, and could potentially be 'turning a profit' on the Base Unit."

Better also discount marketing costs and administrative costs. As MS produces more units, the marginal cost of a 360 will go down, but they've a lot of overhead that you've got to factor in.

Re:True costs?

[MindStalker]

But you could say that about any computer in exenstance today, prices are going down while power is increasing. Now lets say power increases 2X every 18 months and price drops by 5% every 18 months (probably not accurate numbers but just go with me here). Over 20 years that is 2^13=8192 increase in speed for the average desktop system. And I its been too long sense I took calculus and dealt with natural logs but lets say the average home computer has gone from 2 grand to 500 thats a 75% drop. Oh F it.. as you can see the Xbox cost almost as much as a full computer of todays standards while the Atari cost a small fraction. The atari probably was a fraction of computing standards for the day.. So what am I getting at here. I have no Fing clue except our stats are stupid too!! :P

Re:True costs?

[ivan256]

Microsoft has to be eating a ton of the cost for every console sold.

Doubtful.

Looking at the parts shown in this article, it doesn't seem that the price is far outisde the $350 range*. Really, the only super-expensive parts are the CPU and GPU, and recent articles have shown that custom high performance silicon in recent years costs considerably less to produce than analysts had been predicting. Plus they're using cost saving techniques like splitting components out onto multiple dies to improve yields. Add to that the the best economies of scale when manufacturing these things comes early due to the pre-release inventory build-up, and it seems to me that if they're not turning a profit on the average costs between the core and premium models, they will be soon.

(* $150 CPU (inc. heat sink, etc...), $50 memory (probably over estimating given how cheap GDDR3 is supposed to be and how cheap GDDR3 graphics cards are), $10 DVD-ROM, $100 GPU (again, maybe over-estimating), $40-80 packaging, glue logic, etc...)

Re:True costs?

[ivan256]

Now, if you discount the R+D costs...

Why bother? If they come anywhere close to selling as many of these as they predict, even the narrowest of profit margins will recoup the R&D costs very quickly. They probably spent $50 mil max on R&D. Sell 10 million of these things and your per-unit R&D costs get pretty slim.

The biggest cost was probably paid in "bribes" to third party developers, but hopefully they make those back in licensing. Microsoft learns quick, and they probably learned how to turn a tidy profit in their experience with the first Xbox. If they can make nice with the developers, they may well be a contender for winning this round.

Re:True costs?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft learns quick, and they probably learned how to turn a tidy profit in their experience with the first Xbox. If they can make nice with the developers, they may well be a contender for winning this round."

Well, that's nice. No relation to reality though.

Maybe I've been in the console biz for too long, but the complete and utter lack of any meaningful insight into the actual operation of the console market is staggering.

Not only does Microsoft have absolutely no chance at being the dominant platform this coming gen, they lost the battle months and months ago.

Re:True costs?

[RoadDoggFL]

LAN play works on existing networks and for all we know, free trials will continue. And you seem to think that the majority of Xbox owners are on Live, which isn't the case. Also, Silver will be free and while it won't allow online play, it will nevertheless be comprehensive and add to the gaming experience at no extra cost.

Xbox Live subcription fees aren't as damning as you seem to think. The point remains that even if the Xbox 360 isn't cheaper than all of those listed consoles, it's not as ungodly expensive as people make it out to be (if not as cheap as the original post made it out to be).

Re:True costs?

[Red Flayer]

Good points, but it doesn't invalidate that you're not getting full functionality without spending lots of extra cash.

You're right, of course, it's neither as bad as the FUD says, nor as good as the marketers and fanboys say.

Re:True costs?

[Castar]

Ahh, but is the Xbox powerful enough to parse whatever the hell you just said?

Re:True costs?

[aafiske]

Lots of extra cash = $6/month. As far as I know, that's the cheapest online service available that isn't free. And considering how smoothly it integrates with all the online games, the unified and useful friends list, the painless way of connecting, online voice chat ... I think pc players would pay $6/month for that service as well and be happy with the great deal they're getting. (Not that it's at all feasible on the pc, but you get the idea.)

Re:True costs?

[Red Flayer]

Assume a useful life of 3 years. 36*$6 = $216. My point was that the 360 is not cheaper than previous consoles when edjusted for inflation.

Not that the 360 is OMGWTF expensive, but it's not accurate to say that it's cheaper than it's predecessors or competitors.

Amazing Piece Of Hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

So you have the rejected leftovers from the Sony - IBM Cell development with a third core bolted on. Three cores all having to fight over the same 1meg cache. Can you say 'bottleneck'? Can you say 'nightmare to code for' having to write for a system where you have to deal with both in-order code execution AND manual cache partitioning to get any decent performance out of the system.

Stick an ATI card in there and you've got a system that is performing around the level of a dual 2.5ghz 970 PowerMac. Which is why you keep hearing first hand impression talk about how 360 games look no better than the games people are playing at home.

Although the games you are playing at home don't have the hideous jaggies all over the screen due to the retarded graphics system on the 360...

Re:Amazing Piece Of Hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

How much are you getting paid for this?

Re:Amazing Piece Of Hardware

[Babbster]

I know I'm feeding the troll here, but I feel the need to highlight one of the funniest things I've read on Slashdot in months:

"Stick an ATI card in there and you've got a system that is performing around the level of a dual 2.5ghz 970 PowerMac. Which is why you keep hearing first hand impression talk about how 360 games look no better than the games people are playing at home."

So, the quote above, in essence, means that Microsoft is charging $300 (the core system is supposedly going to play at least 99% of 360 games, though I expect HD-requiring games like MMOGs as the 360 goes on) for a gaming experience comparable to that of a $2,000 Power Mac with the actual consistent release of games? The tone says complaint, the content says "OMG the Xbox 360 is a fantastic deal!" :)

Re:Amazing Piece Of Hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

No retard.

It means, the 360 is the first console that doesn't outperform current desktop systems. That is an absolute embarrassment for Microsoft. No console company has ever shipped hardware that is so remarkable weak.

No wonder they are rushing the thing out the door before games for it are even finished.

Re:Amazing Piece Of Hardware

[Prophet of Nixon]

Er, the PS1, PS2, N64, and possibly the Dreamcast were all underperforming compared to desktops at their time (especially the PS1 and N64).

Re:Amazing Piece Of Hardware

[scot4875]

The N64 had 3D hardware capable of trilinear mip-mapping, texture anti-aliasing, perspective correction, and z-buffering. It was released for $200 in 1996.

This was at a time when nearly every installed video card was only a 2D accelerator, and most rendering (say, Quake) was done in software.

Are you just not old enough to remember this? Or were you a beta tester for 3dfx?

--Jeremy

Re:Amazing Piece Of Hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

"Er, the PS1, PS2, N64, and possibly the Dreamcast were all underperforming compared to desktops at their time (especially the PS1 and N64)."

Uh, no.

Not even close.

Let me guess you have no idea of any of the relevant performance metrics that one would use to make such judgments.

Re:Amazing Piece Of Hardware

[Prophet of Nixon]

Hardware rendering or not, it looked terrible. There were software PC games, like Future Shock or Quake, that looked far better than the N64. There were also 3D accelerated games prior to 3Dfx. I had an 8 MB Virge card which ran Descent 2 (the best Descent, and there was even a hardware-accleration-only level pack for it) and Mechwarrior 2 beautifully. I had a friend who had a Matrox (can't recall the model) which could hardware accelerate Quake and the first Unreal. Those also looked far better than the N64. I actually avoided 3Dfx until the Voodoo 2 came out, and I still kept the Virge after that. The N64 and the PS1 are among the awfullest things I've ever seen, and I gladly sat out that entire console generation.

Re:Amazing Piece Of Hardware

[Babbster]

Now you're just being silly. No console (well, maybe the Neo-Geo) has ever shipped with - for example - more memory or a faster CPU than a state-of-the-art PC available at the time of console launch. So, the argument is bullshit. The argument is made even more ridiculous because nobody with half a brain is going to be caught deciding between an Xbox 360 and a $2,000 Alienware system based on system specs. They may decide on the PC because of particular games, particular display capabilities and, perhaps most important, general purpose versus gaming only, but not because the Xbox 360 is "remarkable [sic] weak" - an assertion which, again, is stupid on its face given the monstrous price difference.

Re:Amazing Piece Of Hardware

[Babbster]

I don't know the exact release date of the Voodoo, but their original 3D acceleration daughter cards were also released in 1996, so you're talking about a maximum potential difference of months. It's also irrelevant since MOST consoles are not bought at launch, so by the the time most people have a videogame console it's already lagging state-of-the-art PC gaming rigs in any case.

Re:Amazing Piece Of Hardware

[DeadScreenSky]

I don't think you are realizing exactly what time period we are talking about here. The N64 came out in 1996, two years before Unreal was even released. The N64 came out roughly the same time as Quake 1, and there is no way that at release that looked better than games like Mario64 and Waverace, especially with PC hardware at the time. The texture filtering of the N64 alone put it ahead. Certainly towards the end or even middle of its lifespan the N64's graphics were outclassed and ugly (not to mention now in hindsight!), but that wasn't remotely true at the console's release. At the time the N64's graphics were amazing, even for somebody who was keeping up with PC gaming.

Re:Amazing Piece Of Hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess you have no idea of any of the relevant performance metrics that one would use to make such judgments.

Well it's obvious that you do not, or you would have taken the time to prove your point instead of attacking the alleged lack of knowledge on the other side.

Frankly, 20 years of experience with desktops and consoles tells me that he's right. Consoles lose the hardware comparison and win the price comparison (duh). Put up evidence to the contrary or continue to look like a blithering idiot.

Re:Amazing Piece Of Hardware

[Jarlsberg]

I don't agree. N64's graphics were adequate for its time, but it was was nothing revolutionary. You can't seriously mean that N64's graphics were superior to Quake 1 (try running Quake 1 with a Voodoo 2 card and tell me that's graphically and technically inferior to Super Mario 64 -- it's not!).

Re:Amazing Piece Of Hardware

[mink]

N64 1996
VooDoo2 1998

Really people need to compare tech from the same time.

Yeah but...

[imstanny]

Soon it will be what the original xbox became; pretty cheap for consumers AND microsoft. They're still selling the same 'ole PIII 700mhz derivative.

Re:Yeah but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate to rain on your parade, buddy, but the original Xbox never was and never will be cheap for Microsoft.

Wait, I lied. I love raining on your parade.

Re:Yeah but...

[snuf23]

They're still selling the same 'ole PIII 700mhz derivative.

Huh? Xbox 360 uses a custom triple core PowerPC chip - not an off the shelf Celeron like the Xbox.
The hardware in the 360 takes almost a completely opposite approach from the original Xbox. Very few commodity market components.

Can we please stop calling dies "dice"?

[blincoln]

Pretty please? I keep expecting to see 2d10 in their photos.

Re:Can we please stop calling dies "dice"?

[KDR_11k]

Roll the ten sided dies, if you roll an 18 or over we will obey.

Wow, 2 Dice??

[dorkygeek]

A motherboard with 2 dice? Well in this case, alea iacta sunt.