Not from BG, and yes all specs are not final, just the current state.
I'd throw in Bkillian has hinted here at Durango featuring a beefy CPU. Some say an IBM 6 core (but that part about IBM 6 core is extremely speculative so don't hold me too it)
Big assumptions but sometime it can help set some "borders".
If Sony goes with 18CU I would assume a GPU ~200 sq.mm.
We hear MS is Weaker on the GPU front. I'm not sure the dev would make such a comment (though he didn't give precise statement). I don't think ! or 2 SIMD would make the GPU "weaker". Both would be in the same ballpark at an early stage that kinf of difference is kind of marginal (6% and 11% clock for clock).
On the other hand I would not assume that Durango has let say 50% less SIMD. That would be 9 SIMD.
Based on this early feedback I would put durango anywhere between 10<< xx <<18 SIMD
I could definitely buy 12 SIMD. It's weaker 33% is weaker significantly though it's nothing horrible.
Some thoughts at this point:
The GPU is going to be tiny (without changes) it could be 150 sq.mm
With a pretty tiny GPU the odds for a SOC goes higher.
--------------------------------
Then we have the statement from BgAssassin that Durango is "weird".
The only thing I could think as weird and taking the rumors above in account is that the balance of power between the CPU and GPU is indeed "weird".
Actually I could push further and assert that even the CPU choice is weird, not what you would expect from MS looking at both the xbox and the 360 which were pretty conventional designs.
------------------------------
So we have one side 150 sq.mm of silicon for the GPU, possibly a SOC and lot of CPU power.
If I go by AMD own GPU, from an economic pov I would say that anything above 350 sq.mm is too expansive. So I would assume that a reasonable (wrt to cost) high chip could be anywhere between 300sq.mm (gtx680) and 360 sq.mm (~ hd7970 and gtx560).
So we have anywhere near 150 sq.mm and 200sq.mm (let make it simple the point is not to be accurate) to be invested in CPU and cache.
That would definitely allow for 6 cores which on a core basis would pretty much the same size as half a piledriver module.
Point is "is that weird'? Not really to me. It's pretty standard SOC set-up.
I would not be that surprised if MS went further with more cores, and more throughput oriented ones.
----------------------------------------------------
Then we have the amount of RAM (>4GB) which discard GDDR5.
That let the sytem with a significant bandwidth problem.
I could only see it addressed in two fashions:
1)Xenos approach with a smart edram die.
2) enforcing tile based rendering (and tiny tile that would fit in the caches or LS of the GPU).
I could see one turning as a significant investment, Ms may be pursuing 1080P, deferred render and becoming the standard, etc.
Taking "weird" in account I could see actually MS enforcing the 2 approach. Risky business though. The fastest DDR3 will only grant them +60GB/s worse of bandwidth.
The impact on the GPU could be increased size for the cache and local store. The CPU could also with an healthy amount of cache to make the most of data locality.
--------------------------------------
So if I let my imagination works I could envisioned something "weird" something like this:
*It could be a SOC.
*It would use IBM 32nm that allows for EDRAM
*It could be north of 300 sq.mm
*There would be 8 Xenon2 cores
*Those cores would be reworked Xenon cores:
-3 issue and a bit wider CPU
-Integer pipeline OoO + other improvements and a bit more resources(ALU, AGU,LS units)
-SIMD IO, improved VMX128 still 4 wide, would supporting integer help?
-4 way SMT
-reworked cache hierarchy, faster L1, L2 faster included in the "core" 256 KB.
-There is a beefy L3, at least 8MB
-slower based clock speed than Xenon + turbo.
*The GPU is 12 SIMD, with two ACE. has more LS and cache than off the shelves GPU. Based on last AMD products. Heavily compute oriented.
*They implemented coherency between the CPU and the GPU. the GPU can access the L3.
*8GB of RAM
With regard to software the thing
is complicated . Ms is to use C++ AMP or any other language that allow to program for both the GPU and CPU.
I would say 8 cores and 12 SIMD are the bottom line for the design.
OK, that's enough for the hairy speculation. I've serious stuffs to do