Nextbox I/O Processor - possible candidate!

[Guden Oden]

THIS is likely something we'll see in a next-gen microsoft console. We know ALi was contracted to supply the I/O and sound chip, so what we'll see will likely be:

* Intel High-Definition audio codec for sound
* Gigabit ethernet
* USB2 joypad ports
* SATA drive interface(s)
* PCI Express expansion bay??? (wild speculation mode)

Maybe/probably it won't be this exact chip listed in the link, but it'll be close enough I'm willing to wager. Maybe sound will mainly run on one of the CPUs rather than on a separate audio DSP like the current box, hard to say. Or it'll be something other than this fairly straight-forward solution, something more advanced with a dedicated processor. That would be more complicated though, both engineering-wise and from a programming standpoint. And more expensive too.

We already know though that the HD Audio specs support realtime encoding of stuff like Dolby Digital and DTS, so I'm not so sure there will be a dedicated audio chip. Maybe one of the CPU cores basically WILL be the audio processor...

Now add your own thoughts below, please.

 

[jvd]

I think it will come with dual giga lan personaly. ALso a built in firewall .

I doubt we will see a pci e expansion slot. No need for it.

 

[AzBat]

THIS is likely something we'll see in a next-gen microsoft console. We know ALi was contracted to supply the I/O and sound chip

<snip>

Now add your own thoughts below, please.

Umm. Actually it was SiS who got the technology agreement with Microsoft.

November 4, 2003
SiS Announces Technology Development Agreement with Microsoft
http://www.sis.com/news/press/sis_xbox.htm

Check out their site and then let us know if you find something similar. I have and I think you'll be surprised at what you'll find.

Tommy McClain

 

[Fox5]

* Intel High-Definition audio codec for sound
- Possible....but xbox2 has nothing to do with intel.
* Gigabit ethernet
- Doubt it, unnecessary cost that has little benefit.
* USB2 joypad ports
- Doubt it, USB1.1 based would suffice.
* SATA drive interface(s)
- Umm, no, it may not even have a harddrive, and ms definetely didn't use the faster connections available in xbox, the cable they used was cheap. For what will be done with the harddrive, no need for faster than IDE.
* PCI Express expansion bay??? (wild speculation mode)
- Probably not, I don't think ms wants expansions.

I think it will be as barebone and cost cutting as possible.

 

[jvd]

Gigabit ethernet
- Doubt it, unnecessary cost that has little benefit.

cost isn't that much. Its 15$ more for an athlon xp mobo with support for it and I'm sure it doesn't cost any where near that 15$ to add it in.

USB2 joypad ports
- Doubt it, USB1.1 based would suffice.

I don't belive there is a price diffrence between usb1.1 and usb 2. Perhaps the joypads themselves would be more expensive but then again i doubt it .

Umm, no, it may not even have a harddrive, and ms definetely didn't use the faster connections available in xbox, the cable they used was cheap. For what will be done with the harddrive, no need for faster than IDE.

why not ?

If they aren't going to add a hardrive why not keep the sata support. That way they can market a faster add on drive.

You seem to forget all this will be in one chip just like on a motherboard .

They can have one chip handle the sound , i/o , internal bus , usb2.0 , sata controller and other things while keeping the board very cheap since there wont be pci , agp , pci e and legacy ports on the board .

 

[Wiseblood]

cost isn't that much. Its 15$ more for an athlon xp mobo with support for it and I'm sure it doesn't cost any where near that 15$ to add it in.

Sure, the price difference may be small, but that's for a single unit. Multiply that price difference by millions of units and you'll see why Microsoft might not want to add something unless they feel it's absolutely necessary.

 

[jvd]

cost isn't that much. Its 15$ more for an athlon xp mobo with support for it and I'm sure it doesn't cost any where near that 15$ to add it in.

Sure, the price difference may be small, but that's for a single unit. Multiply that price difference by millions of units and you'll see why Microsoft might not want to add something unless they feel it's absolutely necessary.

what i'm saying though is the 15$ is what they charge us. I'm sure its 1$ or less.

 

[Wiseblood]

what i'm saying though is the 15$ is what they charge us. I'm sure its 1$ or less.

And if it is $1 extra, and they sell a million XBox2's at a loss, that's an extra million dollars that they lost. Do you think they're willing to take that on a feature that's pretty much unecessary?

 

[jvd]

what i'm saying though is the 15$ is what they charge us. I'm sure its 1$ or less.

And if it is $1 extra, and they sell a million XBox2's at a loss, that's an extra million dollars that they lost. Do you think they're willing to take that on a feature that's pretty much unecessary?

but who says its unecessary ? Whos to say that its 1 feature that is a 1$ who's to say its not all those features that add up to 1$ .

 

[Wiseblood]

but who says its unecessary?

That's up to Microsoft to decide, but I seriously doubt they'd decide to add Gigabit even if it only costs them only a penny more. This is a game console, not a file server. Even the 100Mbs/sec that the current XBox has is overkill.

 

[Guden Oden]

* Intel High-Definition audio codec for sound
- Possible....but xbox2 has nothing to do with intel.

It's an open industry standard, like AC97 is. Intel is just the one who developed it, and it's already getting integrated into PC chipsets. It's not an expensive fancy-pants solution like the soundstorm setup with three separate DSPs like the Nvidia custom sound hardware in the current box, yet it has raw specs that are way beyond soundstorm too; it supports 24-bit DACs and 192kHz samplerate and at least 8-channel sound too.

* Gigabit ethernet
- Doubt it, unnecessary cost that has little benefit.

Don't forget that big figures sound impressive, and the cost will be marginal to say the least. Next year practically all NICs integrated on mobos will be gigabit, since it's getting built into the chipsets themselves.

* USB2 joypad ports
- Doubt it, USB1.1 based would suffice.

You can "doubt it" all you want, but the joypad ports WILL be USB2, because that is what the root hubs built into southbridge chips offers today (and have done since...well, a long time). And the cables and connectors are exactly the same as USB1.1 too, so there is zero cost benefit.

* SATA drive interface(s)
- Umm, no, it may not even have a harddrive

LOL, it will still need an optical drive, and that will most likely be SATA. Why do you think they developed it in the first place if it wasn't cheaper and better than current parallel ATA?

* PCI Express expansion bay??? (wild speculation mode)
- Probably not, I don't think ms wants expansions.

We shall see. If the chipset offers it they might well use it. I too think it is unlikely, but an exciting and intriguing possibility nevertheless.

After all, PS2 has an expansion bay (PCMCIA interface), and GC has three...

I think it will be as barebone and cost cutting as possible.

But it won't! You think they'd stick in an expensive custom triple-core CPU and then worry about wether joypad ports are USB1.1 or USB2??? LOL, you make no sense.

 

[AlNom]

USB2.0 = no power?

 

[London Geezer]

If they think there is a need for some of those things, they will be there. Personally i'm not sure why they would NEED Gigabit Ethernet and SATA...

USB2 connections will be enough for any kind of Add-On needed, be it a Camera, special controllers (wheels, gloves, pants, whatever). Actually, even USB2 can be overkill for those...

Gigabit is overkill for anything bar servers today, who the hell will need that even in 2006-7-8-9-10? If it's free, great, if it costs money, then it won't be there.

SATA?? Why on earth would they need that unless it's cheaper?

Honestly, unless MS just gets a motherboards from a corner shop and slaps their new CPUs and GPUs and call it Xbox2, it's not gonna happen. The motherboards will be custom built, and unless they need them, or unless they feel like marketing the machine as the most feature-rich ever (even though those features will never be fully used), those features will not be there.

 

[rabidrabbit]

SATA has currently virtually no speed advantage over PATA, so there's no reason for MS to put an SATA drive on next xbox.
Unless by that time, SATA drives are more common than old parallel drives, and the cost is equal or lower.
Gigabit LAN might be needed, if the next xbox functions as a multimedia streamer with a PC server.
USB 2.0 might not be needed for controllers (they're wireless), and if the PC acts as a server, all connectivity will be from there.

 

[London Geezer]

SATA has currently virtually no speed advantage over PATA, so there's no reason for MS to put an SATA drive on next xbox.
Unless by that time, SATA drives are more common than old parallel drives, and the cost is equal or lower.
Gigabit LAN might be needed, if the next xbox functions as a multimedia streamer with a PC server.
USB 2.0 might not be needed for controllers (they're wireless), and if the PC acts as a server, all connectivity will be from there.

Gigabit LAN is and will be overkill for years to come. Even 100Mb is somewhat overkill, since no internet provider will offer such speeds for a looooooong time.
USB2.0 might still be needed for other means of control, like a camera. It's not certain that the controllers will be wireless. Personally i couldn't care less about the wires, but i would care if the batteries run out right in the middle of a game.
USB2.0 is the easiest and most future-proof type of connection they can put in there for any add-ons they might think about in the future.
SATA = If it's cheaper, it will be there.

 

[Guden Oden]

Why SATA?

Because PATA is old and obsolete technology with many pins, requiring 5V-tolerant I/O circuitry that unneccessarily complicates things. SATA needs exactly TWO pins on the chipset (as opposed to 20+ for PATA), four pins for two channels in case of a harddrive plus optical drive.

Getting rid of old legacy crap WILL be a cost saving. That's why there will likely be gigabit LAN no matter if it's NEEDED or not, because it makes stuff EASIER. Gigabit will be a common standard, and it is smarter than previous ethernet implementations too with autodetection of the TX/RX pairs as standard so you don't need crossed cables in some special cases either. This cuts down on consumer confusion and support costs for MS.

Also, bigger numbers on the box makes it look better in the eyes of Joe Schmoe Public, heck, a 500MHz P!!! made the internet go faster back in the day so why not gigabit ethernet on nextbox for tEh 500p4 fa57 sp33dZ?

It's not exactly LYING, it's just not telling the whole truth. Just like marketing in general, typically speaking.

 

[London Geezer]

I know how marketing works. And the fact remains that in the end the 733MHz P3 made people go wow because in terms of processor power, the more the better, and they can see the results straight away.

If Gigabit ethernet is there, no one's gonna notice. And i mean NO ONE. Because no one will EVER need that kind of connection on a console. Unless it's doing some exotic stuff we still don't know about, which i really don't expect.

Hell, i can only think of PS3 benefitting from it, if we talk about "distributed computing", and we know that's not gonna happen either, so....

 

[jvd]

Hell, i can only think of PS3 benefitting from it, if we talk about "distributed computing", and we know that's not gonna happen either, so....

My server is running on gigabit ethernet. It works nicely . we have 5 computers hooked into it and we can transfer files to each other very very quickly . It also cuts down the lag in lan games.

I would like to have my xbox 2 hook into that too

 

[London Geezer]

Hell, i can only think of PS3 benefitting from it, if we talk about "distributed computing", and we know that's not gonna happen either, so....

My server is running on gigabit ethernet. It works nicely . we have 5 computers hooked into it and we can transfer files to each other very very quickly . It also cuts down the lag in lan games.

I would like to have my xbox 2 hook into that too

Exactly my point. A Server.

 

[a688]

Hell, i can only think of PS3 benefitting from it, if we talk about "distributed computing", and we know that's not gonna happen either, so....

My server is running on gigabit ethernet. It works nicely . we have 5 computers hooked into it and we can transfer files to each other very very quickly . It also cuts down the lag in lan games.

I would like to have my xbox 2 hook into that too

Exactly my point. A Server.

So....why wouldn't a client benefit from having an equally fast connection?