[Bowie]

CPU

The Xenon CPU is a custom processor based on PowerPC technology. The CPU includes three independent processors (cores) on a single die. Each core runs at 3.5+ GHz. The Xenon CPU can issue two instructions per clock cycle per core. At peak performance, Xenon can issue 21 billion instructions per second.

The Xenon CPU was designed by IBM in close consultation with the Xbox team, leading to a number of revolutionary additions, including a dot product instruction for extremely fast vector math and custom security features built directly into the silicon to prevent piracy and hacking.

Each core has two symmetric hardware threads (SMT), for a total of six hardware threads available to games. Not only does the Xenon CPU include the standard set of PowerPC integer and floating-point registers (one set per hardware thread), the Xenon CPU also includes 128 vector (VMX) registers per hardware thread. This astounding number of registers can drastically improve the speed of common mathematical operations.

Each of the three cores includes a 32-KB L1 instruction cache and a 32-KB L1 data cache. The three cores share a 1-MB L2 cache. The L2 cache can be locked down in segments to improve performance. The L2 cache also has the very unusual feature of being directly readable from the GPU, which allows the GPU to consume geometry and texture data from L2 and main memory simultaneously.
Xenon CPU instructions are exposed to games through compiler intrinsics, allowing developers to access the power of the chip using C language notation.
GPU

The Xenon GPU is a custom 500+ MHz graphics processor from ATI. The shader core has 48 Arithmetic Logic Units (ALUs) that can execute 64 simultaneous threads on groups of 64 vertices or pixels. ALUs are automatically and dynamically assigned to either pixel or vertex processing depending on load. The ALUs can each perform one vector and one scalar operation per clock cycle, for a total of 96 shader operations per clock cycle. Texture loads can be done in parallel to ALU operations. At peak performance, the GPU can issue 48 billion shader operations per second.

The GPU has a peak pixel fill rate of 4+ gigapixels/sec (16 gigasamples/sec with 4× antialiasing). The peak vertex rate is 500+ million vertices/sec. The peak triangle rate is 500+ million triangles/sec. The interesting point about all of these values is that they’re not just theoretical—they are attainable with nontrivial shaders.

Xenon is designed for high-definition output. Included directly on the GPU die is 10+ MB of fast embedded dynamic RAM (EDRAM). A 720p frame buffer fits very nicely here. Larger frame buffers are also possible because of hardware-accelerated partitioning and predicated rendering that has little cost other than additional vertex processing. Along with the extremely fast EDRAM, the GPU also includes hardware instructions for alpha blending, z-test, and antialiasing.

The Xenon graphics architecture is a unique design that implements a superset of Direct3D version 9.0. It includes a number of important extensions, including additional compressed texture formats and a flexible tessellation engine. 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. For instance, shaders use 32-bit IEEE floating-point math throughout. Vertex shaders can fetch from textures, and pixel shaders can fetch from vertex streams. Xenon shaders also have the unique ability to directly access main memory, allowing techniques that have never before been possible.

As with Xbox, Xenon will support precompiled push buffers (“command buffers” in Xenon terminology), but to a much greater extent than the Xbox console does. The Xbox team is exposing and documenting the command buffer format so that games are able to harness the GPU much more effectively.

In addition to an extremely powerful GPU, Xenon also includes a very high-quality resize filter. This filter allows consumers to choose whatever output mode they desire. Xenon automatically scales the game’s output buffer to the consumer-chosen resolution.

The rest of the article can be found here: http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=231928

[hey69]

I will add the rest

========================================

GPU
The Xenon GPU is a custom 500+ MHz graphics processor from ATI. The shader core has 48 Arithmetic Logic Units (ALUs) that can execute 64 simultaneous threads on groups of 64 vertices or pixels. ALUs are automatically and dynamically assigned to either pixel or vertex processing depending on load. The ALUs can each perform one vector and one scalar operation per clock cycle, for a total of 96 shader operations per clock cycle. Texture loads can be done in parallel to ALU operations. At peak performance, the GPU can issue 48 billion shader operations per second.
The GPU has a peak pixel fill rate of 4+ gigapixels/sec (16 gigasamples/sec with 4× antialiasing). The peak vertex rate is 500+ million vertices/sec. The peak triangle rate is 500+ million triangles/sec. The interesting point about all of these values is that they’re not just theoretical—they are attainable with nontrivial shaders.
Xenon is designed for high-definition output. Included directly on the GPU die is 10+ MB of fast embedded dynamic RAM (EDRAM). A 720p frame buffer fits very nicely here. Larger frame buffers are also possible because of hardware-accelerated partitioning and predicated rendering that has little cost other than additional vertex processing. Along with the extremely fast EDRAM, the GPU also includes hardware instructions for alpha blending, z-test, and antialiasing.
The Xenon graphics architecture is a unique design that implements a superset of Direct3D version 9.0. It includes a number of important extensions, including additional compressed texture formats and a flexible tessellation engine. 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. For instance, shaders use 32-bit IEEE floating-point math throughout. Vertex shaders can fetch from textures, and pixel shaders can fetch from vertex streams. Xenon shaders also have the unique ability to directly access main memory, allowing techniques that have never before been possible.
As with Xbox, Xenon will support precompiled push buffers (“command buffers” in Xenon terminology), but to a much greater extent than the Xbox console does. The Xbox team is exposing and documenting the command buffer format so that games are able to harness the GPU much more effectively.
In addition to an extremely powerful GPU, Xenon also includes a very high-quality resize filter. This filter allows consumers to choose whatever output mode they desire. Xenon automatically scales the game’s output buffer to the consumer-chosen resolution.

Memory and Bandwidth
Xenon has 256+ MB of unified memory, equally accessible to both the GPU and CPU. The main memory controller resides on the GPU (the same as in the Xbox architecture). It has 22.4+ GB/sec aggregate bandwidth to RAM, distributed between reads and writes. Aggregate means that the bandwidth may be used for all reading or all writing or any combination of the two. Translated into game performance, the GPU can consume a 512×512×32-bpp texture in only 47 microseconds.
The front side bus (FSB) bandwidth peak is 10.8 GB/sec for reads and 10.8 GB/sec for writes, over 20 times faster than for Xbox. Note that the 22.4+ GB/sec main memory bandwidth is shared between the CPU and GPU. If, for example, the CPU is using 2 GB/sec for reading and 1 GB/sec for writing on the FSB, the GPU has 19.4+ GB/sec available for accessing RAM.
Eight pixels (where each pixel is color plus z = 8 bytes) can be sent to the EDRAM every GPU clock cycle, for an EDRAM write bandwidth of 32 GB/sec. Each of these pixels can be expanded through multisampling to 4 samples, for up to 32 multisampled pixel samples per clock cycle. With alpha blending, z-test, and z-write enabled, this is equivalent to having 256 GB/sec of effective bandwidth! The important thing is that frame buffer bandwidth will never slow down the Xenon GPU.

Audio
The Xenon CPU is a superb processor for audio, particularly with its massive mathematical horsepower and vector register set. The Xenon CPU can process and encode hundreds of audio channels with sophisticated per-voice and global effects, all while using a fraction of the power of a single CPU core.
The Xenon system south bridge also contains a key hardware component for audio—XMA decompression. XMA is the native Xenon compressed audio format, based on the WMA Pro architecture. XMA provides sound quality higher than ADPCM at even better compression ratios, typically 6:1–12:1. The south bridge contains a full silicon implementation of the XMA decompression algorithm, including support for multichannel XMA sources. XMA is processed by the south bridge into standard PCM format in RAM. All other sound processing (sample rate conversion, filtering, effects, mixing, and multispeaker encoding) happens on the Xenon CPU.
The lowest-level Xenon audio software layer is XAudio, a new API designed for optimal digital signal processing. The Xbox Audio Creation Tool (XACT) API from Xbox is also supported, along with new features such as conditional events, improved parameter control, and a more flexible 3D audio model.

Input/Output
As with Xbox, Xenon is designed to be a multiplayer console. It has built-in networking support including an Ethernet 10/100-BaseT port. It supports up to four controllers. From an audio/video standpoint, Xenon will support all the same formats as Xbox, including multiple high-definition formats up through 1080i, plus VGA output.
In order to provide greater flexibility and support a wider variety of attached devices, the Xenon console includes standard USB 2.0 ports. This feature allows the console to potentially host storage devices, cameras, microphones, and other devices.

Storage
The Xenon console is designed around a larger world view of storage than Xbox was. Games will have access to a variety of storage devices, including connected devices (memory units, USB storage) and remote devices (networked PCs, Xbox Live™). At the time of this writing, the decision to include a built-in hard disk in every Xenon console has not been made. If a hard disk is not included in every console, it will certainly be available as an integrated add-on component.
Xenon supports up to two attached memory units (MUs). MUs are connected directly to the console, not to controllers as on Xbox. The initial size of the MUs is 64 MB, although larger MUs may be available in the future. MU throughput is expected to be around 8 MB/sec for reads and 1 MB/sec for writes.
The Xenon game disc drive is a 12× DVD, with an expected outer edge throughput of 16+ MB/sec. Latency is expected to be in the neighborhood of 100 ms. The media format will be similar to Xbox, with approximately 6 GB of usable space on the disk. As on Xbox, media will be stored on a single side in two 3 GB layers.

Industrial Design
The Xenon industrial design process is well under way, but the final look of the box has not been determined. The Xenon console will be smaller than the Xbox console.
The standard Xenon controller will have a look and feel similar to the Xbox controller. The primary changes are the removal of the Black and White buttons and the addition of shoulder buttons. The triggers, thumbsticks, D-pad, and primary buttons are essentially unchanged. The controller will support vibration. [/QUOTE]

[hey69]

standart USB2
direct VGA OUTPUT nice.

but regarding the 3.5ghz CPU .. isn't it gonna be a hard way to cool that sucker down?

if it has something to do with the G5 CPU i saw that mac is coming out iwth their 2.5gig with watercooling . could this also be the case for XENON ? (Like the DC had some watercooling)

what i don't understand also is . the EVENTUAL addon of the HARDDISK.
so that means i think it will have some sort of TIVO function.
or they will enable it straigt away (maybe they are waiting what sony want's to do?) or they will release it without and sell the addon
(like they did with DVD playback ..some sort)

[Jabjabs]

While I am no expert in this field and I won't say that they are definetly authentic, they do look very real compared to all the other information that has been going around but I wouldn't be to surprised if when MS finally annouce the specs they are nothing like what is going around.

[Jov]

Originally Posted by hey69

but regarding the 3.5ghz CPU .. isn't it gonna be a hard way to cool that sucker down?

if it has something to do with the G5 CPU i saw that mac is coming out iwth their 2.5gig with watercooling . could this also be the case for XENON ? (Like the DC had some watercooling)

DC had watercooling?? I've opened one up and only saw a heatsink and fan on the side.

Personally, 3.5GHz will be too hot for a console without special/non-conventional cooling.

[hey69]

maybe not in the later versions but in the early versions, they had pipes acros the cpu (i think )

we discussed this in another thread a while back

[Wunderchu]

the Xbox Next CPU may be manufactured using a 65nm process, which should help alot with the cooling issue ...

[hey69]

yes but is that feasible for 2nd half of 2005 manufacturing?

[PC-Engine]

Originally Posted by Wunderchu

the Xbox Next CPU may be manufactured using a 65nm process, which should help alot with the cooling issue ...

Or it could use compact active watercooling devices made by Hitachi or NEC for the initial launch units similar to the DC, although the DC had passive watercooling.

[Wunderchu]

Originally Posted by hey69

yes but is that feasible for 2nd half of 2005 manufacturing?

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/d...807170512.html

[Jov]

Originally Posted by Wunderchu

the Xbox Next CPU may be manufactured using a 65nm process, which should help alot with the cooling issue ...

So IBM is using 65nm tech and assembly jointly founded by them and Sony to produce chips for MS?

[Megadrive1988]

The GPU has a peak pixel fill rate of 4+ gigapixels/sec (16 gigasamples/sec with 4× antialiasing). The peak vertex rate is 500+ million vertices/sec. The peak triangle rate is 500+ million triangles/sec.

this spec sounds like it is very outdated. both are sub-R420 / X800 levels
R420/ X800 gets over 6 gigapixels and 600 million vertices/sec, since we are talking about peak figures here


also, vertex rate and triangle rate should probably not be EXACTLY the same.

[jvd]

Originally Posted by Jov

So IBM is using 65nm tech and assembly jointly founded by them and Sony to produce chips for MS?

i don't think it was jointly founded by them and sony .

I believe ibm had developed 65nm tech already and would be using it with or with out sony .

[GwymWeepa]

Originally Posted by Megadrive1988

this spec sounds like it is very outdated. both are sub-R420 / X800 levels
R420/ X800 gets over 6 gigapixels and 600 million vertices/sec, since we are talking about peak figures here


also, vertex rate and triangle rate should probably not be EXACTLY the same.

Well, it doesn't necessarily have to be exact, they are both north of 500 mil, by what degree isn't specified.

[jvd]

Originally Posted by Megadrive1988

this spec sounds like it is very outdated. both are sub-R420 / X800 levels
R420/ X800 gets over 6 gigapixels and 600 million vertices/sec, since we are talking about peak figures here


also, vertex rate and triangle rate should probably not be EXACTLY the same.

I don't believe the r420 gets 4+ gigapixels / second with 4x antialiasing.

[Wunderchu]

Originally Posted by Megadrive1988

this spec sounds like it is very outdated. both are sub-R420 / X800 levels
R420/ X800 gets over 6 gigapixels and 600 million vertices/sec, since we are talking about peak figures here


also, vertex rate and triangle rate should probably not be EXACTLY the same.

actually, now that you mention it, this 'leaked overview' does seem to contain info that is unmistakably similar to the "Xenon System Block Diagram" (which was debunked as either fake, or outdated) ( http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11884 )




I now agree with you, Megadrive1988, I now also believe that this 'leaked overview' is either fake, or outdated (or both )


the 'overview' is quite well written, IMO ... but it looks like it is just more or less a summary of the "Xenon System Block Diagram", which is considered inaccurate by most people, now

[Megadrive1988]

I suppose Microsoft will have to debunk these "leaked specs" as they tried with the no BC issue. 8)

[PiNkY]

4 GP/sec seems quite sufficient for the 720p output resolution. With its games expected to have rather long pixel shaders, raw fill rate is not a very important stat anyways. If this is legit, xenon looks like quite a nice system for the 2005 timeframe to me. I guess ms is doing what worked best for them with all their now successfull products: shortening life cycles and eventually overtake their competition (see windows, office, directx, etc...).

[Wunderchu]

Originally Posted by Megadrive1988

I suppose Microsoft will have to debunk these "leaked specs" as they tried with the no BC issue. 8)

hehe

[PC-Engine]

The GPU has a peak pixel fill rate of 4+ gigapixels/sec (16 gigasamples/sec with 4× antialiasing). The peak vertex rate is 500+ million vertices/sec. The peak triangle rate is 500+ million triangles/sec. The interesting point about all of these values is that they’re not just theoretical—they are attainable with nontrivial shaders.

[passerby]

I still wonder about the "3 3.5GHz cores with dual threads each". That will be more advanced than any solution available from Intel, AMD or Apple till... what? 2007? 2008? 2009? And this is going to cost how much?

Have to be really slim CPU cores if the numbers are true.

[PiNkY]

I still wonder about the "3 3.5GHz cores with dual threads each". That will be more advanced than any solution available from Intel, AMD or Apple till... what? 2007? 2008? 2009? And this is going to cost how much?

Amd is planning dual core opterons for mid-2005, and these also come with an integrated memory controller. Considering that PPC970 is a 50 Mio transistor part, i think it should be possible. About the 3.5GHz+ clock i have my doubts.

[Guden Oden]

Originally Posted by hey69

I will add the rest

Yeah, why not go for broke on the copyright infringement, huh?

The GPU has a peak pixel fill rate of 4+ gigapixels/sec (16 gigasamples/sec with 4× antialiasing).

8 gigasamples in reality, if ATi keeps the 2 Z-units per pipe (rather than 4). Anyway, even though "only" 4gpix/sec may seem "low", how much fillrate do you need for TV rez anyway...?

The interesting point about all of these values is that they’re not just theoretical—they are attainable with nontrivial shaders.

Hmm. That'd be a first EVER if that was to be true! (Btw; color me sceptical.)

A 720p frame buffer fits very nicely here.

720p sans floating-point precision sans antialiasing...

In addition to an extremely powerful GPU, Xenon also includes a very high-quality resize filter.

Stuff like this makes me think this might actually BE an official document, because it's not really something a fanboi would come up with.

Anyway, it probably means every game will "support" 1080i/p, except it's just upscaled 720p, so no extra image information.

The Xenon CPU is a superb processor for audio

This also makes me think it's an official text, because a f-boi would have invented an array of DSPs n shit like with the current box. Using CPU grunt to do audio is a logical choice, especially since the company they chose to do the southbridge has no known experience in developing audio solutions (umm, well, not that Nvidia did EITHER now that I think about it... ).

The Xenon system south bridge also contains a key hardware component for audio—XMA decompression.

I wonder what use this would be for though. Compressed samples would take up less space, but would have to be decompressed before they could be processed and combined, needing (lots) of extra CPU cycles per voice, and there's really no point in compressing output buffers as they take up little space anyway, and it'd just be a waste of CPU resources since the southbridge will decompress the stream anyway before output.

Methinks pre-orchestrated soundtracks for background music in games, rather than MP3s or ogg vorbis or any of the other solutions we've seen so far, MS makes their own format.

The Xenon console will be smaller than the Xbox console.

Thank GRUD for that!!!

The primary changes are the removal of the Black and White buttons and the addition of shoulder buttons.

Ok, so let's remove our own small "innovation", and steal an "innovation" of Sony's... Now MS has copied Nintendo and Sony pretty much to an equal amount (general joypad design and analog stick from Nintendo, dual sticks from Sony, analog stick layout from Nintendo, clickable sticks and analog face buttons from Sony.)

This document doesn't seem obviously fake. It has some PR spin to it - which one could say just makes it more believable as MS is the master of PR hehe - but it is also very informed regarding the technical bits.

Most f-boys are fairly ignorant of how things really work. They wouldn't know a push buffer if it bit them in the arse, and usually subscribe to the "bigger is better" school of thought when it comes to numbers. Rather than saying 4+ Gpix/s fillrate, they'd take the current leader and multiply by factor 2 or more. Repeat with pretty much every other number, and that is not the case with this text. So if it is forged, it is a VERY GOOD forgery. Of course, it can still be outdated.

The number I question the most is 3.5GHz CPU, knowing that IBM has trouble hitting even 3GHz right now. Of course, a process shrink might help, but considering they're stuck at "only" 2.5GHz now it means they're a full GHz from their desired target. 30% higher clock speed required in less than 1 1/2 year. Doable? We'll see.

Cooling doesn't worry me. Even if it burns 150W, that's not more than a large light bulb consumes, and as it is supposed to be a triple core, the chip area is 3x that of a single CPU. A large slow-spinning fan and an efficient heatpipe copper cooler will deal with the heat. Of course, there's the risk the GPU + memory might want ANOTHER 150W!

[PARANOiA]

CPU

The Xenon CPU is a custom processor based on PowerPC technology. The CPU includes three independent processors (cores) on a single die. Each core runs at 3.5+ GHz. The Xenon CPU can issue two instructions per clock cycle per core. At peak performance, Xenon can issue 21 billion instructions per second.

Am I the only one that thinks this is going to make for some damn bad programmers in the next couple of years?

I remember when resources were very finite - and coders had to have things running effectively. 3x3.5gHz?? That's unbelievable. Even older consoles had very slow CPU's compared to what was available on for PC. How could a feasable game run poorly on that?

Although... the fact is that multi-processors require good timing of code-running. Throwing multiple processors at a task can make it run much slower if an app is coded poorly.

We shall see.

[Jov]

Originally Posted by Guden Oden

Cooling doesn't worry me. Even if it burns 150W, that's not more than a large light bulb consumes, and as it is supposed to be a triple core, the chip area is 3x that of a single CPU. A large slow-spinning fan and an efficient heatpipe copper cooler will deal with the heat. Of course, there's the risk the GPU + memory might want ANOTHER 150W!

That still doesn't worry you?

It doesn't worry me either if I can get it to heat the bed.