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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."
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.
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.
Pretty please? I keep expecting to see 2d10 in their photos.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Windows is like decaf - it tastes like the real thing, but it won't get you through the day.
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!"
Er, the PS1, PS2, N64, and possibly the Dreamcast were all underperforming compared to desktops at their time (especially the PS1 and N64).
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
Jesus was a liberal
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.
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.
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.
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.
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon
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!).
N64 1996
VooDoo2 1998
Really people need to compare tech from the same time.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.