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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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
They were actually used to clock the processor DOWN. i.e. "Turbo" meant the processor ran at the full 25MHz or whatever, whereas with turbo disabled the processor ran at something like 4.77MHz to allow old DOS games and the like to run properly.
Take a dollar, divide it by 100, take two and call me in the morning.
They were actually used to clock the processor DOWN. i.e. "Turbo" meant the processor ran at the full 25MHz or whatever, whereas with turbo disabled the processor ran at something like 4.77MHz to allow old DOS games and the like to run properly.
Mod parent up, this is correct. A lot of really old software used the CPU timing instead of real-world time intervals. I remember in particular a biplane shoot-em-up that ran at ludicrous speed on a 486/33 in "turbo" mode.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
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
I doubt they'll run it at a higher clockspeed. They're implementing a die shrink, from 90nm to 65nm. This will run much cooler, resolving a lot of the 360s overheating issues. It also draws less power, potentially shrinking the 360's massive power brick.
People are speculating about higher speeds simply BECAUSE a die shrink would probably ENABLE higher speeds. That doesn't mean that Microsoft will do anything with clockspeed. They probably won't.
That said, they wouldn't be setting a precedent if they did raise clockspeed. Anybody remember the addon for the N64 that added more graphics memory? It enabled some games to run at higher framerates, with more detail. How is that any different from higher clockspeed in the 360? You have your "normal" mode that the game is targetted at, then you have your "enhanced" mode where more CPU power enables some more detail or features. That is no different than what Nintendo did with the N64.