I thought the DEV kits did'nt have the R500??

[scatteh316]

As seen in one of the post's below, modder have managed to get a 360 DEV kit.

Only inside the machine was indeed the R500 complete with EDRAM, I thought the DEV kits did'nt have the R500 in them as Microsfot cited that as the reason for poor perfermance and frame rate problems.

Have Microsoft been liing about the DEV kits???

The R500 and its EDRAM can be clearly seen

http://dwl.xbox-scene.com/pictures/XeDK-smartxx/smartxx-xbx360-45.JPG

 

[msia2k75]

Yes they didn't have the R500 in their alpha kits, but I think it is in the BETA kits. Not sure though if it is running at full speed...

 

[Farid]

Yes they didn't have the R500 in their alpha kits, but I think it is in the BETA kits. Not sure though if it is running at full speed...

That's the correct answer to this thread.
The first Beta kits had, indeed, a lower clocked CPU, I'm not sure about the GPU clockrate, though.

Note that final XeDKs have been shipped very recently (in the last two weeks, to be exact).

 

[Hardknock]

I find it funny you automatically assumed MS was "liing" about it

 

[msia2k75]

I find it funny you automatically assumed MS was "liing" about it

Well the fact is Microsoft doesn't help either with all this alpha/BETA kits mess...

 

[Tap In]

Well the fact is Microsoft doesn't help either with all this alpha/BETA kits mess...

??

every system has an Alpha/Beta/Final scheme with more or less power available depending on where the hardware is in production.

 

[hey69]

you can clearly read the serial on the motherboard, isnt that dangerous for the modders?

 

[tEd]

alpha kits = x800
beta kits = r500 lower clocked(<500mhz)

 

[Acert93]

alpha kits = x800
beta kits = r500 lower clocked(<500mhz)

Correct, has been a series of changes:

Alpha Kit w/ 9800 series
Alpha Kit w/ X800 series
Beta kit w/ underclocked chips (id Software even mentioned having to REPLACE chips manually!)
Final Beta Kits

Which of course is typical in development. MS's goal was to get kits out early and to upgrade them regularly. This is inline with their Software Development Platform strategy. Their emphasis is on the tools... the hardware will come.

 

[jvd]

Final dev kits should have just started going out from my understanding with final xenon and xenos clock speeds .

 

[mckmas8808]

So I guess at TGS we should hear the running at 50% talk this time right?

 

[jvd]

I dunno. You'll prob hear that they still have to optimize for the final hardware . Its only been like a month or two now since most devs got beta kits

 

[pipo]

you can clearly read the serial on the motherboard, isnt that dangerous for the modders?

I was thinking the same thing. One would think MS tracks the kits right?

 

[Uncle]

So I guess at TGS we should hear the running at 50% talk this time right?

I remember reading somewhere that the beta kits had something like 70-80% of the power of the final hardware. But a) I could be wrong b) the source could be wrong c) both. But the power doesn't matter if they haven't had the time to fully utilize the beta kits. I guess we'll see at TGS (or X05 at least).

 

[Megadrive1988]

As seen in one of the post's below, modder have managed to get a 360 DEV kit.

Only inside the machine was indeed the R500 complete with EDRAM, I thought the DEV kits did'nt have the R500 in them as Microsfot cited that as the reason for poor perfermance and frame rate problems.

Have Microsoft been liing about the DEV kits???

The R500 and its EDRAM can be clearly seen

http://dwl.xbox-scene.com/pictures/XeDK-smartxx/smartxx-xbx360-45.JPG

in May of this year at Xbox 360's unvieling, J Allard said that developers would be getting Beta kits very soon, within a matter of weeks. I believe Beta kits came out in late May, if not for certain in June. as soon as that happened, developers basicly had the 'R500' more correctly known as C1 or Xenos. even though they were not clocked at full speed.

it was the ALPHA developement kits that did not have R500/C1/Xenos, but these have been
in circulation since late 2003 and all of 2004 and the first half of 2005. the first Alpha kits had R350s (Radeon 9800 Pro) and later Alpha kits had R420 (Radeon X800 XT).

so yes, development kits DO have R500, provided that they are BETA kits.