New ATI Console interview

[Nightz]

Over here
http://www.gamestar.de/magazin/specials/hardware/26071/index.html

ATI is working with Nintendo on their future console Revolution. Why the developing team of the Revolution VPU has no connections with the other teams at ATI?
It would be very handy for ATI to share this information around between its various groups – but doing so would undermine the relationships that we have with the individual console companies. It’s important to Microsoft that it they suggest or request a feature in their graphics chips for their console that this doesn’t automatically mean that Nintendo get that for free too. And of course, it applies the other way round too, Nintendo need to be able to make their hardware design without fear that it could simply be copied by Microsoft. No console company would work with us without these rules.

 

[darkblu]

good read... erm, can we get it moved to the official PR thread, though?

 

[AlNom]

Accessing memory in arbitrary ways sounds like a very esoteric thing to do within a graphics chip, but actually it allows you to do some amazing things which mean that Xbox 360 games will be more like movies than you ever imagined.

another to add to the list...

It’s so powerful that I’d say that this feature alone makes the Xbox 360 technically superior to any other console planned for the next five years.

And another...

uhh.........

And although my focus is graphics it’s worth pointing out that the CPU cores in the Xbox 360 are seriously powerful too. There are three hyper-threaded cores each clocked at 3.2GHz each. That amounts to almost 20GHz of available processing power (6 * 3.2). Compared to the original Xbox CPU which ran at a lowly 0.7 GHz you can see that we should have roughly 30 times as much CPU power available.

.........

But ATI for its part has given Microsoft everything they need to succeed in the console wars. And I believe that Microsoft is really serious about making Xbox 360 the ultimate gaming machine. Microsoft’s chances now lie in their own hands. And I’m very much looking forward to the contest – my money is on Microsoft!

....what about Nintendo?

 

[BlueTsunami]

uhh.........

And although my focus is graphics it’s worth pointing out that the CPU cores in the Xbox 360 are seriously powerful too. There are three hyper-threaded cores each clocked at 3.2GHz each. That amounts to almost 20GHz of available processing power (6 * 3.2). Compared to the original Xbox CPU which ran at a lowly 0.7 GHz you can see that we should have roughly 30 times as much CPU power available.

.........

wow I weep for humanity

 

[Farid]

And although my focus is graphics it’s worth pointing out that the CPU cores in the Xbox 360 are seriously powerful too. There are three hyper-threaded cores each clocked at 3.2GHz each. That amounts to almost 20GHz of available processing power (6 * 3.2). Compared to the original Xbox CPU which ran at a lowly 0.7 GHz you can see that we should have roughly 30 times as much CPU power available.

.........

I'm crying right now...

 

[twotonfld]

So did ATI have to pay Intel in order to make that "hyper-threading" comment?

 

[two]

uhh.........

And although my focus is graphics it’s worth pointing out that the CPU cores in the Xbox 360 are seriously powerful too. There are three hyper-threaded cores each clocked at 3.2GHz each. That amounts to almost 20GHz of available processing power (6 * 3.2). Compared to the original Xbox CPU which ran at a lowly 0.7 GHz you can see that we should have roughly 30 times as much CPU power available.

.........

So Cell PS3 = 25,6Ghz (8*3.2Ghz)

 

[PC-Engine]

Ok so I guess my question is this, what aspects of Xenos does MS own? What aspects do ATI own?

 

[Titanio]

uhh.........

And although my focus is graphics it’s worth pointing out that the CPU cores in the Xbox 360 are seriously powerful too. There are three hyper-threaded cores each clocked at 3.2GHz each. That amounts to almost 20GHz of available processing power (6 * 3.2). Compared to the original Xbox CPU which ran at a lowly 0.7 GHz you can see that we should have roughly 30 times as much CPU power available.

.........

So Cell PS3 = 25,6Ghz (8*3.2Ghz)

Correction: 9*3.2Ghz = 28.8Ghz (2 hardware threads on the PPE, 1 on each of the SPEs)

 

[Tacitblue]

Are NVFLOPS cross contagious or something? Public relations level 4 containment is in order it seems (in a humorous way of course)

 

[Farid]

Ok so I guess my question is this, what aspects of Xenos does MS own? What aspects do ATI own?

MS owns the Xenos IP and its implementation.
Meaning that Ati can still use the Unified Shader Architecture, but not in the exact same implementation as found in the Xenos.

 

[Carl B]

How can it be so difficult for individuals who work in the very field we discuss to not know themselves how to come to an accurate MHz figure? It's ridiculous...

And you just know somehwere there's going to be people correcting other people like, "No, that statement is wrong, it's not 20 GHz, it's 9.6 like in the IGN article..."

 

[AlNom]

Meaning that Ati can still use the Unified Shader Architecture, but not in the exact same implementation as found in the Xenos.

a.k.a. no eDRAM?

 

[PC-Engine]

Ok so I guess my question is this, what aspects of Xenos does MS own? What aspects do ATI own?

MS owns the Xenos IP and its implementation.
Meaning that Ati can still use the Unified Shader Architecture, but not in the exact same implementation as found in the Xenos.

You know this for a fact? So MS owns the 3DRAM, MEMEXPORT, Tiling, etc. technologies?

 

[Acert93]

And although my focus is graphics it’s worth pointing out that the CPU cores in the Xbox 360 are seriously powerful too. There are three hyper-threaded cores each clocked at 3.2GHz each. That amounts to almost 20GHz of available processing power (6 * 3.2). Compared to the original Xbox CPU which ran at a lowly 0.7 GHz you can see that we should have roughly 30 times as much CPU power available.

Although partial pass on this specific quote. He is comparing Xbox and Xbox 360. It can be deficult to explain to general consumers the power increase of a system. I would expect the Xbox 360 CPU to be 15-30x more powerful in certain tasks compared to the original Xbox. People have been indoctrinated with "MegaHertz" so relevant benchmarks are irrelevant to mainstream consumers when trying to compare/understand new/different technologies.

If he was comparing any other systems than MS's own systems the totally negligent twisting of facts to arrive at some BS PR quote would be worthy of a heavy flame.

Of course the explaination is moronic, stupid, and re-emphasizes consumer ignorance Since when did the system get 6 cores? Nevermind, I withdraw my partial pass

 

[AlNom]

Since when did the system get 6 cores?

He's referring to the "hyperthreaded cores" i.e. 2 threads per core.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I was gonna say, 6*3.2 GHz?! People talk of 2 threads = 2 cores. Alas it's inevitable until the masses are educated, which of course they won't ever be.

 

[AlNom]

The CPU for Xbox is just 1 thread, right?...no?

 

[gosh]

Xbox has 1 core which has 1 thread, Xbox 360 has 3 cores with 2 threads each

 

[ralexand]

Then we have a total of 2 Terabits per second of bandwidth (you can also write this as “256 Gigabytes per second of bandwidthâ€￾) into the intelligent video memory. To give you a sense of the scale of these it’s roughly 50 times as much as was available in the first Xbox, and its equivalent to being able to copy roughly 50 DVDs across the memory bus every second. Every now and then I have to look at this number again to remind myself of just how huge it is!

Why does this number keep getting mentioned? Am I missing something? Isn't the connection 32-bit or is he saying that the bandwidth intensive ops like z, aa now has 2 Terabits of bandwidth?