Slashdot Mirror
Updated CPU For 360 Next Year
Next Generation reports that Microsoft has already lined up a new CPU for their next-gen console. Production with the new chip should begin next year. From the article: "Singapore-based Chartered has been a supplier of less-advanced 90nm SOI CPU products since the Xbox 360 console launch. By implementing the newer 65nm SOI technology, the system's transistors will retain less charge, allowing the microprocessor to operate faster."
Consoles don't usually change their cpu speed, but it will probably run cooler.
Unless you're happy playing the older, slower games. Or will games not be allowed to take advantage of the new high speed?
By reducing the number of failed starts, the cost of each chip falls. By reducing the amount of silicon involved, power demands fall. Both of those reduce the cost of the console.
If you can get a cheaper processor that uses less energy and install it into your console even though you've already shipped a million or so, why not?
This thread will include a debate over whether there are 360s available yet. Testimonials will be provided on how many stores they went to in their town, and the terms FUD and shill will be used.
I feel sorry for all those people paying lots of money to get the first 360's, just so they can get replaced by newer, better hardware a year later.
So I was an early adopter, now I have to pay the price, watching as other gamers soon obtain the same console for the same price (presumably), but with a cooler processor that could even boost game performance. (speculation by TFA) This sort of yearly one-upsmanship is to be expected of other console manufacturers (There's this "one company" who releases enhanced versions of basically the same product at least once a year, but the name of the company slips my mind...) When the original Xbox was released and MS cut the price aggressively after a few months, they gave "credits" to early adopters who paid full price shortly after launch. Hopefully MS again recognizes its hardcore fans who acquired the 360 early in the production cycle will expect some sort of compensation for their willingness to purchase a console with apparent heat/performance issues.
All of the beta test...err customers should take a bow! This happens all of the time now, but I'm sure Microsoft knew that heat could be a problem, but you never really know how much of a problem it's going to be until a couple of million units hit the streets. The Playstations had heat problems early on too. So everyone take a bow, soon we'll hear less about overheating Xbox 360s. Hopefully they'll be able to reduce the size of the power brick too, eventually. In any case, I'm glad to see that they are taking steps to improve the product.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
It's this sort of thing which makes me dislike the 360 more and more.
I use consoles for gaming over PCs, because any games I get for the console work; I don't have to make sure my system is up to date like I do with PCs.
What happens to the people that buy the 360 before this new chip? Is the performance worse for new games? Will they even be playable?
This would be good news if the performance stayed constant on the platform, but power consumption, noise production, etc. decreased.
Or it could actually be a bit faster (maybe 5-10%). Microsoft would have to remind the deveopers to target the original model (not that they should need the reminder, there are already millions of them out there), but for people who buy the newer system they may not get some of the minor slowdowns on some games that people with older systems report.
Mostly, I think it'll just run cooler and put less load on the power brick though, which is a good thing.
I read the internet for the articles.
The answer to that is an adjustable rate.
I would venture to say most algorithms are simple. They check to see if the input is occurring faster than humanly possible and if so, ignore it.
However, if you could adjust the rate of rapid fire, and add some small amount of noise to the period of the rate, you could probably fool most rapid fire detection algorithms.
At least, that was the premise when I was building my hack of the DualShock 2 controller.
:(){
You buy a newer game that's designed for the uber hardware and then it turns out that it won't play on your slower version. Good plan Microsoft.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
The overheating defects in the 360 are:
1) The faulty powersupply design
2) The ATI graphics card overheating
The CPU in the 360 is pretty much the only thing in the system that is not showing signs of defects or heat problems.
This should help Microsoft to reduce the manufacturing cost of the system a bit. However, Microsoft needs to get a handle on the massive defects problems like yesterday if they want to have anyone still interested in the system by the time this updated CPU is ready to go.
I just thought I'd point out that a lot of consoles have had this happen. The PS2 has gone through a bunch of revisions, and I remember reading that when Nintendo redesigned the Super NES, part of the reason was to reduce the number of chips they had to put into it.
I think some of you have been blinded by the fact the article mentions Microsoft, i.e. we must have a go at them! This is what console manufacturers do to reduce costs of their systems. How do you think Sony made the PSTwo, they sure as hell didn't put the original processor in it.
Did you get that thing I sent ya?
Some people have commented negatively about a change in specs in the middle of the production run. There's prior art for this, though: apparently the Playstation 2 has two processor speeds, 294MHz and 299MHz.
The fact that this has had so little impact that nobody realizes it has already happened speaks to the fact that it can be done without a whole lot of problems.
The days of being able to count cycles and depend on the timing that way are long gone anyhow. Console games need to use timers and handle the fact that sometimes the game will bog down anyhow. Tweaking the clock speed a little is something that everything ought to be able to handle in stride, or they're going to have big problems as soon as there's one too many polygons on the screen.
On the topic of changing specs mid-stream, it has occurred to me to wonder if Nintendo's HD solution for the Revolution will be to release an HD-capable Revolution about two years after the initial release. 3D games up-sample pretty well, even if the first-gen games won't look quite as good as dedicated HD games, but on that note, even XBox 360 games need to work at SD, as well. They'll be able to still release that console at most likely the original price-point, and they'll be selling into a market where more people have HD displays than today. It'll be tricky, but since they could design the graphics card with the explicit purpose of having the same capabilities as the old one, just with the ability to do all the old stuff in HD in the same amount of time, it should be doable.
If this is their plan, they may be right; jamming all that expensive hardware into the PS3 and the XBox 360 may not be cost effective if you lock out a lot of people who would otherwise have purchased one.
As others have pointed out, don't expect to see a speed increase from this process change. Instead, this will allow for more stable and cheaper consoles (cheaper for Microsoft; who knows when they'll give us a price drop?).
What does proprietary vs. non-proprietary have to do with it? The original Xbox was "proprietary", even though it was based on standard parts (the CPU was a one-off design, the GPU was a one-off design, and everything was surface-mounted. You couldn't swap the CPU, GPU, or add more memory unless you were awesome with soldering). Anyway, you do realize that the original Xbox went through eight different "versions" ("revisions" may be a better word), right? Aside from getting screwed with a Thompson DVD drive (the version had little bearing on what drive you'd get, but that Thompson drives stopped shipping with later versions), all versions work exactly the same. In fact, the only reason you'd care about what version you have is if you need to do repairs yourself and need specific parts, or if you want to mod the box and need to make sure you get the right modchip package.
More importantly, this kind of product revision has always happened with consoles. Even Nintendo did it, way back with the NES. Sony does it, and obviously Microsoft does to. Expect to see a number of revisions of the 360 over the years, and unless they really screw something up (like Sony did with the PSTwo revision) you should expect all consoles to be equivalent.
You remember the old days of games? When processor speeds changed rarely and the climb of generations was a slow one?
Back then, game developers often clocked their games to the CPU speed. You could more or less rely on it. By the time the processor speed outmatched the routines you had to take care of "too fast" models, your game was outdated anyway.
Anyone who tried to run Wing Commander on a 486 or faster knows the result.
Now, game devs for PCs have wised up. They use time as the measurement now to calculate how "fast" the game may run.
I'm not sure if devs for console games, who (at least until now) could rely on a fairly uniform platform, take that into account. Your old games might start running a tad bit fast.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
But how about *integrated* HD-DVD player and a smaller power supply, all for the same $400?
That would be some update!
What would really be sweet is if you could buy the new cpu for $100 or so and install it yourself. Then you wouldn't have to buy a new console and it would appeal to the uber-geeks who love to take stuff apart and upgrade anyway.
I could say the same thing about early adopters of Apple Intel-based Macs. In a few months (Q3 latest) a much improved processor with 64-bit processing and Virtualization Technology will replace the current Core Duo models, at likely the same price. It happens all over.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Well, this might be a complete shock to PowerPC-oppressed Apple Users, but Intel routinely comes out with new-and-improved CPUs. The people that buy Mermon in Q3 will be "snowed" by whatever comes out in 2007.
Also, I have to say most of the posters on this story are idiots. A CPU die-shrink is hardly worthy of all the stupid conspiracy theories posted here.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
During a console's 5-6 year life almost all of them that have had any measure of success have had chip reductions.
This includes both of the playstations and most certainly the ps3 as well, not sure about nintendo, but definately the genesis and older systems.
Hmmm... Pie...
The overheating problems most people are having, ignoring the power supply crash, the system software or game crashes, all look like they are GPU overheating crashes. GPU overheating crashes have a pretty distinctive look to them. CPU crashes usually just freeze the screen.
At least that is my experience. Perhaps others are seeing different overheating problems, but I would lay the blame from what I've seen on ATI and not IBM.
"...doesn't have a fucking clue what a "console" is.
The XBox360 is just a limited PC."
Neither do you, apparently. All consoles are "limited PC"s.
"How far can you actually get if you don't have an internet connection for all the bugfixes?"
US broadband penetration is at 64% of households, but you don't need bugfixes to play games either, only for fancy features that you're not going to use, as you're online. For the games that aren't backwards compatible out of the box, you can burn the updates to CD. New dashboard revisions will likely be included in newer games (and demo CD/DVDs) as they're rolled out.
(cheaper for Microsoft; who knows when they'll give us a price drop?).
I don't know if it counts but stores are already selling the XC premium bundled with King Kong for 380 Euros. Since the XC itself would cost 400 Euros that seems like a minor pricedrop to me, though it may have been motivated by slow sales rather than any official changes (as these stores really have large piles of XCs sitting around unsold).
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Yet more evidence that Slashdotters are just out to bash MS and have absolutely no clue what they're talking about.
Every other console out there has done this sort of thing in the past. Only MS gets bashed for it.
Smacktard.
I bought a 360 in March and I can honestly say that it is one of the best 400$ entertainment decisions I have made in a while. Say what you want, it is a blast. It's not perfect but it is well worth the money.
Xbox Live Marketplace provides a ton of demos and free stuff, the Achevement system is addictive (but meaningless like it should be), worldwide and friends sorted leaderboards are great (expecially for those live arcade titles), and the games are are a blast. Oblivion is one of the best games I have played in years.
I am not a fanboy but I certianly like my xbox enough to call myself a fan. If the PS3 and Revolution are this much fun I will buy those systems too, in a heart beat!
Hell a high end PC graphics card costs about as much as a 360 (and you will need a decent one to run Oblivion).
If MS wants to make the thing cooler and cheaper in the next year why do I care? I have my gaming goodness right now and I am happy.
Ves
Well of course it happens everywhere, but in areas where it is EXPECTED like the PC industry as you have pointed out. I don't buy a PC today and NOT think that in 3 months something better won't come out. But when I buy a console system, especially a BRAND NEW product that is billed as the coming of the next messiah, now that is a problem.
Microsoft suffers from a complete lack of focus and direction mixed with a total lack of customer service and greed. Yet they thrive, so they have no need to do otherwise.
What kills me is how otherwise educated people get sucked in along with Joe Sixpack and get screwed over and over again. Must feel good.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
That was the idea at first, but then the two clock speeds seemed to be chosen almost at random once it became mainstream, although as games progressed to newer hardware, the speed they generally tried to clock to may have changed.
Timely CPU upgrades? Inconceivable!!
:)
(I can only dream of what I'll see in a year or two when my Dual G5 is due for replacement
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Not yet. Microsoft's DRM is akin to trusted computing- only signed code runs, so there's no way to get a virus to run.
so there's no way to get a virus to run.
...yet.
Go open up a first-run Playstation 1. The inside is a giant two-sided silicon board jam packed with chips and bits.
Now go open a last-run Playstation 1. It's a big empty shell with an itty bitty circuit board.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Not that they're the only ones who are guilty of screwing early adopters--what company doesn't?
This article, A Fanboy Intervention, talks pessimistically about the Revolution, but really it can be applied to any new console. See step 10: No console is worth buying on launch day. Or, as the case would see, launch year.
All of the angst over the new generation of consoles makes me want to buy a PS2 and pretend it's still 2002.
What's with all the gnashing of teeth, and wringing of hands? This happens all the time in the console world. The Playstation purchased on launch day in 1995 was not the same beast as the Playstation bought in 1999. Chip consolidation and improved manufacturing techniques let Sony lower the price on the Playstation as they put the hardware through different revisions. But you wouldn't know if if you didn't read the model numbers.
Similarly, Nintendo has done this with the GameCube, dropping the component/progressive output video port from later models. Sony's continued the process well into the Playstation 2's lifecycle, even before the radical re-design of the PS Two (and for that matter, the 2000 re-design of the PS One). In fact, Nintendo's been doing this since at least the SNES, and Sega's been doing it since the Master System. This kind of thing is old hat.
Microsoft was never able to do this with the original XBox because they didn't own all the silicon inside. Improvements in manufacturing techniques meant Intel and nVidia could sell XBox CPU's and GPU's to Microsoft at a higher margin, but Microsoft didn't directly reap the benefits of improving technology as the component pieces of its system got cheaper.
Not so this time. Microsoft made sure they owned the entire XBox 360 end-to-end, and they're going to leverage it to make the product more profitable as market forces drive the retail price of the machine down. This is all about manufacturing cheaper XBox 360's. It's not about stepping up the CPU speed, it's about cheaper consoles and higher margins, and it's nothing that every other player in the market hasn't done before.
So chill out, y'all. There's no conspiracy, and nobody's getting screwed.
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
I'm not an expert on this, but aren't the bugs in the design, not from the manufacturing process? It's just like writing software, they find design errors and declare them shippable if they are minor enough. Switching the manufacturing process shouldn't change the errata at all.
Same goes for the timing, sure they might be able to run the new version at a higher clock rate, but they won't. Since it's the exact same design, the timing will be the same when run at the same rate.
...or am I too old? Sopwith .
Console manufacturers refactor hardware all the time. They do it to make the hardware better, cheaper, slimmer, cooler but NOT faster. Oh you thought the GBA, GBA Micro, GBA SP and the DS's GBA support were identical? Ditto the original PS2 vs the slim model? The Playstation vs. PSOne?
Don't you guys remember what consoles are? It's bad enough that both Sony and Microsoft have gone down the dark path of firmware and game patches, there's no way they'll start changing the core hardware platform after shipping.
Sometimes I have to remind myself this is a tech enthusiast site with the wild speculation and lack of rationality. I can't believe how the OP has been indulged.
Nick
PS2s shipped with two diffrent clock speeds. The original had 294MHz and later versions had 299MHz. It's not new, it produced no issues when Sony did it then, why would it now with the newer 360? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS2#Technical_specifi cations
Someone save me from this sanity.