Microsoft Roadmap, the XBox 720 and more - Leak
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Oops sorry, looks like I hit the reply button a bit too quick.
Also, I agree that a company could step in and put in a console that's more powerful than the PS4/720, but that could be said for any generation. 3 years in the generation, the systems will have a decent install base. No publisher is going to abandon that for a new console.
Oops sorry, looks like I hit the reply button a bit too quick.
Also, I agree that a company could step in and put in a console that's more powerful than the PS4/720, but that could be said for any generation. 3 years in the generation, the systems will have a decent install base. No publisher is going to abandon that for a new console.
No, but IMO it would put a ticking clock on the gen, provided it's well supported...
I think next gen will be a lot different in more ways than one. All three companies will not likely do well, you could see one or more launching a new console in more like 4 years into next gen than the 8 people are thinking, looks like the Sony/MS consoles will have quite different technical strengths (whereas this gen they are basically identical, which is a bit boring), etc.
No expert but some main points don't seem to makes sense to me.
4-6 x as powerful for $299 in 2013 and profitable day one including kinect V2?
If the Wiiu can barely manage 2x in late 2012 for probably $299 and profitable day one,what will change for MS in 6-12 months to help them achieve this?
4-6 x as powerful for $299 in 2013 and profitable day one including kinect V2?
If the Wiiu can barely manage 2x in late 2012 for probably $299 and profitable day one,what will change for MS in 6-12 months to help them achieve this?
wiiu is using very old tech, 2008. While MS is using current gen / next gen parts. Wiiu parts were 55nm while MS is at 28nm. There is some talk of the wiiu now at 45nm but i havent seen any reports of this.
upnorthsox
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So you agree with him???
Or you just wanted a post in an MS thread that mentions the wiiu 4 times?
I think you're missing my point. If MS can achieve 6X as powerful in 2013,wouldn't Ninty be capable of better than the projected power in late 2012 all else being close.
Just seems that one of the factors doesn't fit. Price,profitability, projected power,can they have it all?
There is the tablet cost but if every 720 has a Kinect V2 and HDD standard,thats extra cost.
Edit Not trying to bring Wiiu in but as a non technical person I can only use common sense and compare apples to apples.
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If it everyone had the same business model, but bear in mind that this is the same Nintendo that shipped Wii when Xbox360 had been on store shelves for 12 months.
Different priorities, different business models.
Dont really understand what you are saying.
They can be 10x ps360 right now. It have nothing to do with tech. There is more than enough power in current gpus designs. It all about what are their goals with the system.
Edit ERP said it better than I....
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This talk about 1TF GPU wouldn't sound bad if console was released in 2010, 5 years after 360, like every other gen. This gen will go for 8 years before new consoles are announced, and that kind of power is just to low.
I know that they had to go for long cycle because of initial loses and RROD and they couldn't introduce new consoles like they used to, but then I would guess they could still go for considerably more FLOPS on GPU in next xbox.
I know that they had to go for long cycle because of initial loses and RROD and they couldn't introduce new consoles like they used to, but then I would guess they could still go for considerably more FLOPS on GPU in next xbox.
Yeah, a console launched at the end of 2013 that is expected to last until 2020 getting a console with a 1TFLOPs GPU when there are PC GPUs with 212mm^2 cores pushing over 2.5TFLOPs and 352mm^2 GPUs pushing 3.8TFLOPs so by the time the end of 2013 rolls around we will be seeing those numbers soar as there as the process nodes mature (frequency) and transition to new nodes. It is looking very likely that high quality PC component purchased in 2010 will outperform the consoles (which is shocking). Even more it seems VERY short sighted that huge technologies that could give a legitimate life span bumps (stacked memory, 3D transistors/FINFETs, mature 20nm, etc) are just on the outside edge of availability. With the massive market down turn it is looking like new consoles should have come in late 2011 (6 years) or 2012 at the latest OR wait until 2014.
Not even to mention one of the biggest factors, the expensive tablet controller.
Ok again I think I'm not being clear. Of course anyone can achieve whatever power level they want. But if we apply the same rules to the 720 as we would the latest console..wiiu as a point of comparison...can the 720 really expected to be 6-8x as powerful for $299 and still be profitable in 2013?
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Sure but they all have the same limitations in terms of costs of parts. I don't doubt what's capable from MS in terms of power,anyone could put out a system that's 10x more powerful or whatever tomorrow. I guess I'm looking at it in terms of a triangle with cost,profit and power at each corner and making a comparison.
Yes. Xbox 720 can be 6-8x and still be profitable in 2013 at $299.
Wiiu is different because we have the specs[at least we know some of the basic specs like what gpu its based on and some about the cpu] and we have the size of the box. There is very big tdp concerns with that small of a box. When you have limited cost and a very small size it really limits the power. Then you add the wiiu is using very old parts. So you cant compare this directly to the xbox 720. I would also agree the wiiu controller would cost more than the kinect sensor bar as ranger said.
Thats not a problem unless they stop updating the parts. Like if that keep a 2010 gpu in this box. I dont see why they would...
french toast
Veteran
Microsoft are not going to release a console that is not 10x as powerfull as ps360, by 2013 and with a history of picking very high end components in their consoles I see something very powerfull and well balanced.
Microsoft will not want to low ball the hardware too much as it would ruin the brand in short time, box360 has turned into a gigantic money spinner l, and they will want a massive install base to for things like advertising, xbox live, game & movie sales..
But I don't expect it to be anywhere near a high end pc gpu of 2013, that is unrealistic, but you would only need a mid range 2013 gpu to hit that 10x mark, using a midrange card would easily allow them to make some profit on hardware or at least break even, could be why they held off for a couple of years to bring the costs down to hit that magical 10x mark, eeking out Another few billion from 360 couldn't had been bad either
Quad OoO cpu @3.2 ghz ..
Mid range gcn derived gpu with around 1200 shaders.
4 gb of ram, maybe ddr 4 for future cost reductions.
256bit bus....
In a case around the same size as an xbox 360 slim..
No built in kinect 2.0...they will want to keep the 360 running with that install base as a wii like console, offering them a kinect 2.0 upgrade as well as making profit on every kinect would be rather appealing imo.
Microsoft will not want to low ball the hardware too much as it would ruin the brand in short time, box360 has turned into a gigantic money spinner l, and they will want a massive install base to for things like advertising, xbox live, game & movie sales..
But I don't expect it to be anywhere near a high end pc gpu of 2013, that is unrealistic, but you would only need a mid range 2013 gpu to hit that 10x mark, using a midrange card would easily allow them to make some profit on hardware or at least break even, could be why they held off for a couple of years to bring the costs down to hit that magical 10x mark, eeking out Another few billion from 360 couldn't had been bad either
Quad OoO cpu @3.2 ghz ..
Mid range gcn derived gpu with around 1200 shaders.
4 gb of ram, maybe ddr 4 for future cost reductions.
256bit bus....
In a case around the same size as an xbox 360 slim..
No built in kinect 2.0...they will want to keep the 360 running with that install base as a wii like console, offering them a kinect 2.0 upgrade as well as making profit on every kinect would be rather appealing imo.
Isn't this all because of the success of casual/indie/wii/iOS/mobile gaming? That, and combined with RROD costing MS a billion dollars and Sony arguably getting burned by bad bumps as well, even though PS3s generally seem to live longer than its warranty period at least.
IE, console makers seem convinced that customers don't really care about specs, and that they can get away with offering less than in the past, because building a high-powered console is just going to cost them a lot of money, and cost even more when they start breaking en masse relatively early in life due to lead-less solder.
Well I think that for a product overlook it makes a lot of sense.
WRT to the technical specs I would not take it to the letter.
Plenty of things would make the sytem quiet complex to support and built, you have:
Xenon for BC
EDRAM some where
The main CPUs
The ARM cpus
The GPU
I mean how many buses do they paln to use? On top of it they want memory coherency on the whole system.
Overall like said here I believe that Xenon has to go.
I'm not convinced by the 2 ARM CPUs for running the os and most likely all the media applications for the system.
It makes the whole system too complex imho. With Trinity burning idle 1 or 2 watts it's not really necessary. I don't think MS will go with an all ARM design if only for the genes of the company.
So I expect X86 core only. It's clear in the presentation that they want a reasonable BOM and power emvelope, we have no idea about whatthe jaguar cores are going to be but if they don't suck that much I could see MS going for a bunch of them clocked indeed in the ~2GHz.
WRT to their always on if not requirement let say feature (so low power consumption), I think it could be adressed really well by a SoC + GPU.
I'm writing right now on such a set-up (AMD switchable graphic in a laptop).
Still I don't think that they would need as much SIMDs/CUs as AMD is actually packing into their high APUs. Actually I think as low as 2 could do the job (zacate have only one).
I think it would have benefits for plain games 2 has even only 2 SIMDs should provide a speed up for non graphic tasks that are heavily parallelizable ( Kinect comes to mind, on the 360 database traversal is made on the GPU and takes a fraction of the GPU processing resources).
Overall (assuming Jaguar core are a nice set-up from bobcat cores) I could see something like 8 cores + 2 SIMDs being a reasonnable offering.
Zacate (2 bobcat cores, 2 MB of L2, 1 SIMD) are tiny, 75 sq.mm exactely. That's on TSMC 40 nm process. I expect MS to use 28nm TSMC process for both the SOC and the GPU.
For the GPU I can see MS ( taking in account those early design goals) going anywhere between 8 and 12 SIMDs/CUs. I would expect the GPU to be "ROPless". I would expect a clock speed ~800MHz (hd7750 consumes 45Watts @ that speed significantly more @ 900MHz).
There is going to be an "smart" eDRAM chip as in the 360. It's going to be smarter though as I expect it to be made so the GPU can read from it. I don't expect that to be accessible from the SOC even less coherent.
32MB sounds like a sane proposal. I would expect a chip around 100 sq.mm
overall I could see the system consiting of 3 tiny chips (x2 120/130 sq.mm x1 100sq.mm) linked together.
I don't bite in the rumors that claim humongous amount of RAM in the sytem. Put shortly UE4 voxel thingy for lightninh is really nice thing on devs station but I don't see how that is worth the investment on the console it-self. I mean it looks crazy expansive for what it does and it seems to be a content creation friendly feature => not that relevant at the end of the spectrum.
Imo MS should not comply to such a rough requirement coming from only one actor.
I would bet on 4GB of RAM not the most expansive kind on top of it.
Overall the system would defintiely look like a lesser PS4.
I mys self clearly wlecome a more diverse offering than this gen. With a low end WiiU (if it does a bit better than the poor show off Nintendo set for it...) MS being the most complete box, doing indeed everything interacting with most of your devices, etc (and in a convinient package) at the high end would be the Sony PS4 ( at least wrt to processing power).
In most case I see none of the system really being high end wrt to the pc world, even the rumored PS4 is to pull below high pc part of its (upcoming) time.
WRT to the technical specs I would not take it to the letter.
Plenty of things would make the sytem quiet complex to support and built, you have:
Xenon for BC
EDRAM some where
The main CPUs
The ARM cpus
The GPU
I mean how many buses do they paln to use? On top of it they want memory coherency on the whole system.
Overall like said here I believe that Xenon has to go.
I'm not convinced by the 2 ARM CPUs for running the os and most likely all the media applications for the system.
It makes the whole system too complex imho. With Trinity burning idle 1 or 2 watts it's not really necessary. I don't think MS will go with an all ARM design if only for the genes of the company.
So I expect X86 core only. It's clear in the presentation that they want a reasonable BOM and power emvelope, we have no idea about whatthe jaguar cores are going to be but if they don't suck that much I could see MS going for a bunch of them clocked indeed in the ~2GHz.
WRT to their always on if not requirement let say feature (so low power consumption), I think it could be adressed really well by a SoC + GPU.
I'm writing right now on such a set-up (AMD switchable graphic in a laptop).
Still I don't think that they would need as much SIMDs/CUs as AMD is actually packing into their high APUs. Actually I think as low as 2 could do the job (zacate have only one).
I think it would have benefits for plain games 2 has even only 2 SIMDs should provide a speed up for non graphic tasks that are heavily parallelizable ( Kinect comes to mind, on the 360 database traversal is made on the GPU and takes a fraction of the GPU processing resources).
Overall (assuming Jaguar core are a nice set-up from bobcat cores) I could see something like 8 cores + 2 SIMDs being a reasonnable offering.
Zacate (2 bobcat cores, 2 MB of L2, 1 SIMD) are tiny, 75 sq.mm exactely. That's on TSMC 40 nm process. I expect MS to use 28nm TSMC process for both the SOC and the GPU.
For the GPU I can see MS ( taking in account those early design goals) going anywhere between 8 and 12 SIMDs/CUs. I would expect the GPU to be "ROPless". I would expect a clock speed ~800MHz (hd7750 consumes 45Watts @ that speed significantly more @ 900MHz).
There is going to be an "smart" eDRAM chip as in the 360. It's going to be smarter though as I expect it to be made so the GPU can read from it. I don't expect that to be accessible from the SOC even less coherent.
32MB sounds like a sane proposal. I would expect a chip around 100 sq.mm
overall I could see the system consiting of 3 tiny chips (x2 120/130 sq.mm x1 100sq.mm) linked together.
I don't bite in the rumors that claim humongous amount of RAM in the sytem. Put shortly UE4 voxel thingy for lightninh is really nice thing on devs station but I don't see how that is worth the investment on the console it-self. I mean it looks crazy expansive for what it does and it seems to be a content creation friendly feature => not that relevant at the end of the spectrum.
Imo MS should not comply to such a rough requirement coming from only one actor.
I would bet on 4GB of RAM not the most expansive kind on top of it.
Overall the system would defintiely look like a lesser PS4.
I mys self clearly wlecome a more diverse offering than this gen. With a low end WiiU (if it does a bit better than the poor show off Nintendo set for it...) MS being the most complete box, doing indeed everything interacting with most of your devices, etc (and in a convinient package) at the high end would be the Sony PS4 ( at least wrt to processing power).
In most case I see none of the system really being high end wrt to the pc world, even the rumored PS4 is to pull below high pc part of its (upcoming) time.
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