Last Call before the Xbox Reveal: And the Durango hardware is ...

[Acert93]

OK, I have kept my head low the last couple months. I even have a couple posts ready for *after* the reveal as to give my impressions and where I lean

Since we have quite a few know it alls and wise guys here, this is your opportunity to put your rep on the line and prove to the world you do in fact know it all -- or are full of crap.

The question is simple: How close / far off were VGLeaks in regards to the Durango design? VGLeaks was nearly spot on with the PS4 -- the only major miss was the bump of GDDR5 from 4GB to 8GB. They nailed the processor (architecture, frequency, cache, number of cores) as well as the GPU (architecture and general performance).

So did they also nail the Durango?

The basics are Durango has an 8 core x86 (Jaguar) CPU with 4MB L2 @ 1600MHz with a 12CU AMD GCN design at 800MHz with 32MB of ESRAM and 8GB of DDR3. BluRay and HDD standard. You can read all the other details on the leak site or the bazillion threads here (or I am sure someone will post them for me).

Your Poll Options are as follow. Pick the best that fits your guess.

VG Leaks was spot on. Requires no clarification.

Minor differences in clock speeds. Minor being +/- 50MHz on the GPU and 100MHz on the CPU.

Major differences in clock speeds. Major being +/- 51MHz or more in the GPU and 101MHz or more in the CPU.

Changes to memory footprint. For example 12GB or 16GB of DDR3 instead of 8GB. (Or maybe even 4GB or 6GB!)

Changes to both memory footprint AND frequency. See above.

One component is significantly different. For example the is CPU is PPC and not X86; the GPU is a significantly different configuration like 20CUs or 64MB ESRAM (or Nvidia!); or GDDR5 instead of DDR3.

The design is an APU + GPU. Shocking!

The VG Leaks is just plain wrong. Durango rolls out as a ARM CPU and PVR GPU or an Intel all in one or a Nvidia Maxwell ARM/Kepler or, gasp, Intel+ NV. Whatever strange brew that emerges from silicon hell that is NOT an all AMD design ... unless it is Trinity or Kavri

VG Leaks was right but missing a CORE piece of kit that changes everything. This is MAJOR. For example every unit ships with HMD with tracking. Or Illumiroom+MultiKinect with an iPad like controller. Or the console is a dock for a docking Windows RT tablet that comes standard. Or Durango is really a cloud machine right out of the gate at launch (the packed HW is to run the dash and arcade apps--all AAA will be cloud games in 2013 and beyond). Folks, if you pick this, it needs to be HUGE and you MUST explain.

So there ye be! Have at it.

And have fun--because it is only your reputation on the line if you are a know it all.

 

[Acert93]

I have no clue But I was at Burger King recently and all the talk was about the new Xbox. So I take that as a sign and I am taking the Burger King approach: Either Burger King is right -OR- I can have it my way. So either my poll guess is right (VG Leaks was spot on) based on the insiders I met at the Burger King south of my house or, better yet, I get it my way (which is like a double Whopper!)

 

[James Car]

I'll throw my hat into the ring and say MS is cooking up a cloud assisted ecosystem where the (relatively) weak hardware is given assistance in the most computationally expensive part of the render pipeline:

Lighting

A pseudo pre-baked lighting solution that has access to every AAA game pre-loaded on the server farms to offload pre-baked lighting from the developer and giving some level of interactivity to scenes where light calculations would otherwise be static light maps pre-loaded on the disc.

In this setup, the server farm can calculate light maps, compare them to the default scenario (pre-user-introduced-destruction) and send the difference in light maps via broadband to the console.

This cloud assisted setup would/could also assist in game AI as well as voice and gesture recognition.

How's that for out on a limb?

 

[Scott_Arm]

I'm going with "spot on" as the most likely answer. The software (OS, kinect, voice control, services, apps, cloud etc) will be the biggest part of their story.

 

[Wynix]

Closest option i had to my choice was one part is "significantly different" but i think the only real difference will be the GPU which will see an increase from 1.2tf to between 1.5-1.6tf.
Maybe an increase in bandwidth too but i'm just going to stick with this one part being altered.

Get ready for:

 

[dobwal]

How about a choice of "Yukon or Yukon derivative" where the dev kits docs only describe the relevant portion of the hardware to the devs?

Durango as provided by Vgleaks serves as the application apu with a second apu services secondary features needs. Devs are given exclusive use of Durango (outside of two CPUs) and 5 GB while second (ARM based AMD version of Tegra with GCN) is provided a portion of the 3 GBs to service concurrent processing needs outside of the main application.

Comes with Kinect 2 and an illumiroom SDTV or 720p/1080i projector with a possibility that instead of illumiroom there is a media extender with 360 hardware BC.

The Xbox is able to offload the Siri like voice recognition, AI and things like an animation system to a cloud.

 

[James Car]

...and things like an animation system to a cloud.

I hadn't thought of that one... I like it. Computationally expensive (if physics based), and a core part of the interactive experience while at the same time, the data to be sent for rendering is relatively low bandwidth.

I think MS will have to come up with some compelling reason to keep gamers feeding MS $50+ per year...

 

[Lycan]

I have no clue But I was at Burger King recently and all the talk was about the new Xbox. So I take that as a sign and I am taking the Burger King approach: Either Burger King is right -OR- I can have it my way. So either my poll guess is right (VG Leaks was spot on) based on the insiders I met at the Burger King south of my house or, better yet, I get it my way (which is like a double Whopper!)

You run a poll at Burger King? My english is severley lacking, but that's what I understood reading this piece.
That's a first!

 

[MrFox]

I used occam's razor on this one. Because I'm a chicken.

But in the spirit of not being boring, I think there's still a tiny chance of last minute adjustment to the memory frequency, depending on the type of chips they had planned to use from the start.

1866 for 32bit wide parts
2133 for 16bit or 8bit
2400 for 8bit or 4bit

We'll have to wait for a teardown to know that.

 

[Wynix]

You run a poll at Burger King? My english is severley lacking, but that's what I understood reading this piece.
That's a first!

You understood him, he is going by what he overheard at burger king.

 

[Le Photographeur]

Of course it will be APU + GPU.
somehow they have fitted the HD8970M with 8 Jagcores in an gargantuan APU + a Bonaire GPU on the side, to achieve 3TFLOP.

Isn´t it obvious?

 

[GrimThorne]

Well Ace as usual you don't give the most clear cut options. If you get mixed results again, you've only got yourself to blame. You bring it on yourself buddy.

The closest option I can go with is - The design is an APU + GPU. Shocking!

Like dobwal, I'm still holding to a Yukon influenced solution. I think the VGLeaks Durango APU is there, but it's not the core game GPU or perhap even the core APU. The main points I look at-

-Microsoft's protection of Yukon (only one claimed officially and insisted upon it's removal)
-Durango design and projected costs are looking very modest (even you admitted so)
-Microsoft is still hiding something (despite VGL the information black out continues)
-Top insiders (Thurrott) still guessing right up to the last minute
-3rd Party devs appear to be out of the loop
-The reveal being held on campus to keep it among loyalists and contain leaks
-Aarron Greenberg (nuf said)
-AMD's delay of 8000 series that should have launched (same thing in 05)
-The world class team of MS+IBM+AMD SoC engineers (Durango is unremarkable and beneath their standards)

I could go and on, but I'm not trying to create a laundry list or even trying to convince anyone. If I turn out to be wrong I don't have a problem with my reputation, I don't get the impression that too many views running counter to VGL are acknowledged with much consideration or even respected here.

And besides if I'm going to make a call? I'm gonna be bold, to hell with playing it safe.

 

[eastmen]

More ram + higher clocks + small internal ssd as a scratch pad .

Figure a 80 gig ssd 500/110 read/ write speed. Bluray writes to the ssd and the ssd is there to feed the ram.

I think the extra ram we are hearing about will be dedicated to the audio chip.

 

[(((interference)))]

While I think it's possible we'll see an increase in clocks, the fact that we've had no actual leaks (or even claims by GAF 'insiders') actually claiming that MS have increased clocks means that it's still less likely to me than the specs remaining unchanged.

Nearly everything else I don't see happening - unless MS have managed to pull off the biggest disinformation campaign ever.

Though maybe 12GB DDR3 is possible since the devkits have that amount. The last minute RAM doubling for the 360 was possible as the devkits had 512MB so perhaps they can do the same this time around. That's a lot of slow memory though and I don't quite see the need for it, especially given PS4 seems to be using more memory than expected for the OS.

But we'll see

 

[DJ12]

I think it will be the same but I doubt we'll find it out today. If it is what we know ms gain nothing from telling us about it.

 

[Xenio]

Change in frequency and memory, maybe some major surprise, I think at a whole new xboxlive (cloud system)

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I expect it to be pretty much spot on what VGleaks has said and MS will only speak vaguely about the tech (8GB, AMD APU etc.) and focus on other things, but I still have little bit of hope left in me for it to be more powerful by some means

 

[ultragpu]

A slight clock bump at most, I really can't see MS going through all that hardware conspiracy.

 

[Cjail]

You should add a "No specs reveal, the madness goes on" option

 

[(((interference)))]

I'm surprised no one has chosen the major clock increase option yet.
That would have been my second preference, mainly because Acert's definition of a minor clock increase (~6%) is such a small difference as to not be worth the hassle to increase it in the first place.

No, if they're going to increase the clocks it's going to be more substantial than that (say between 10-25% higher).