Microsoft Xbox Reveal Event - May 21, 2013

[Tap In]

Perhaps most intriguing, however, is that Xbox One gives game developers the ability to access Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform. That leads to a few obvious and immediate applications: All your downloaded and installed games and achievements are synced to the cloud and can be accessed and played without interruption on any Xbox One you sign in to; stable, dedicated servers for every multiplayer game rather than the notoriously fragile practice of hosting matches on one participant’s console; even multiplayer matches that can grow to 64, even 128 participants, rather than the usual limit of 16 or 32.


But other possibilities also come to mind. If developers are able to offload significant chunks of processing power to the cloud—conceivably even fundamental game mechanics like physics engines or collision-detection systems—that frees them to use local processing for even more intensive processes. In other words, the possibilities are limited only by the imaginations of thousands of game programmers. “It’s not like on day one, everyone will have figured out how to take advantage of that power,” Whitten says. “It’s just one of those stakes we’re placing.”

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/05/xbox-one/

 

[jonabbey]

28nm ... im guessing that 40nm was a typo

http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/21/...utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

Okay, good. 28nm as it should be.

 

[golem]

http://www.twitch.tv/xbox Architecture Panel about to start

 

[gkar1]

Architecture panel live now: http://majornelson.com/2013/05/21/xbox-one-architecture-panel/

 

[Strange]

Rough guess... SoC BGA is ~50 mm x 30 mm, assume laminate / PCB inside with 2 dies (DRAM / ESRAM and CPU/GPU combo like the Wii U. AMD Trinity GPU in 32nm is ~250 mm2 => SQRT (250) = ~15 mm x ~15 mm. Add some secret sauce, so maybe it's even 300 mm2 in 32nm ? From the WiiU it seems like 32 MB eDRAM is 2-3 mm2.

So should fit.

However, I can't imagine Microsoft went with 32nm. Should be 28 nm TSMC, which probably doesn't give much for die size (??), but lowers power.

PS: guess the second IC on the left (another large BGA) is the south bridge or I/O chip (= SATA, audio out, PCIe)

PS2: 10 DRAM chips ???? Maybe they are using two seperate DRAM controllers, but why 6 chips on one side and 4 on the other ?

I counted 16, some are in the shadows below the APU

 

[loekf]

A new 500-GB hard drive was designed in-house, likewise a custom-built Blu-ray–capable optical drive. A single 40-nanometer chip contains both the CPU and GPU rather than the two dedicated 90-nm chips needed in the 360. In fact, a custom SOC (system on a chip) module made by AMD contains the CPU/GPU chip, the memory, the controller logic, the DRAM, and the audio processors, and connects directly to the heat sink via a phase-change interface material. Whew. .

Oh my god...

Proprietary hard drive ? Why ? So still no chance to replace the HDD ?

Custom BD drive, ok nice for DRM

40 nm absolutely makes no sense to me, unless they developed this SoC already ages ago and struggled to get it out of the door or Microsoft marketing decided to milk the 360 somewhat longer. 40 nm for a SoC is a process node you could have picked 2-3 years ago.

It should have 32 nm or 28 nm.

I'm curious what Sony did. In principle same design with different secret sauce. Seeing the internals in the Wired article, that's one hell of a heat sink and fan. They could have made that box half the height.

But... if it's 40 nm, I can't imagine it still runs those Jaguar and GPU at the speculated clock speeds....

 

[Tap In]

architectural panel started

http://majornelson.com/2013/05/21/xbox-one-architecture-panel/

 

[jonabbey]

Engadget is streaming the architecture talk.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/21/xbox-one-architecture-panel-liveblog/

 

[Gipsel]

There is a higher resolution picture in that wired piece:

The 4GBit DDR3-2133 memory chips from micron measure 9x14mm. Anybody wants to shoot for a die size estimate? It's a bit fuzzy (can't really see the edge of the die) and not shot at a good angle, but I arrive at a bit above 400mm². With quite large uncertainty of course because of the non-optimal picture.

 

[Tap In]

talking offloading processing even for SP games... Physics AI rendering to the cloud... etc..

 

[Laa-Yosh]

This cloud thing is kinda cloudy...

 

[jlippo]

This cloud thing is kinda cloudy...

Indeed.
I'm sure some things can be done, but low latency Dependant stuff.. yeah.

 

[djskribbles]

This cloud thing is kinda cloudy...

ba dum tsshh

 

[Deleted member 7537]

Cloud Proccesing? But what if you don't have a connection good enough?

 

[jonabbey]

In the tech talk they're talking about the thing having flash cache on board.

Surely they're not counting the transistors in the flash ram in that 5 billion?

 

[Daozang]

The more I'm watching, the more I'm getting disappointed.

Even from a presentation perspective, I found Sony to be a lot more sincere.
Nothing about the hardware, nothing about games.
Everything about tv...

The whole reveal felt like a Microsoft advertisement of a cooler kinect, and a nice dvr.
And since all of Microsoft's kinect ads, were more or less, very misinforming, I really need to see it to actually believe it is as responsive and easy to use as they claim it to be.

 

[messyman]

So if I decided to play my games offline it's going to be inferior?

 

[Nisaaru]

Forgive me this probably dumb question, does transistor solely refer to the APU or could memory be included and all other chips?

With 8GB memory the number would be a "bit" higher then

Anyway, with 100W SOC it looks like a 7770..90 vgleaks design. The layout of the pcb doesn't really look in any way packed. Maybe all about spreading heat. I'm really underwhelmed about this.

Any open bets when the current MS XBOX management is "promoted"? I give them until autumn 2014.

 

[messyman]

Also no illumiroom at this show.

 

[Tap In]

Kinect incredibly improved,,, vastly it sounds