Everyone is probably surprised at how well the 360 performs in terms of its technology despite being an year old and $100 cheaper than the Playstation 3. What if Microsoft decided on November 2006 as the month in which the 360 is to be released? What kind of technology would be in the system at its current cost? What kind of technology would be in the system if it came at $500 and $600 for the 2skus? Would it include double the ram, or a HD-DVD drive or would that still be too expensive for Microsoft in 2006? Keep in mind this is a realistic discussion focusing on the available technology that can be included in the 360 with consideration to the pricing and the competition. Software discussion and company strategies dicussions are discouraged.
What kind of specs would the 360 has if it was released in 2006
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N3xtG3nGam3r
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Supposedly the 360's GPU falls just short of being a DX10 complaint counterpart of the R600. So my best guess would be that the extra pipelines that were disabled would be there, as well as maybe a few new things, maybe some faster speeds, or even more impressive unified technology. The processor might have been faster, maybe a quad core, instead of a tri-core. System ram wise, its good how it is now, but if it was a little bit better, than we would be seeing much nicer looking games in the future than we already will be. They went the right way with the embedded EDRAM, and im not sure what type of advantage more EDRAM would provide. Maybe they could allocate things other than just free anti-aliasing. Maybe free depth of field, motion blur, and HDR, leaving the textures up to the ram, and then the GPU would be purely for polygons. Not that it would perform best that way. If it was a DX10 counterpart we could potentially see the GPU being used alot more creatively for things other than just graphics. We could see some stress taken off of the CPU by having the GPU do physics based calculations and simple things, allowing for more realistic gameplay. The 360 would probably have a 60GB HDD, instead of 20, possibly even bigger, and also HD-DVD could have been built in possibly, and used for...well i dont know what, because topping DVD9 is still a ways away.
I doubt it'd make much difference, they might have been able to include a HD-DVD drive at a higher price though.
If it was Q4 2007 things could be very different, you have the possibility of a later generation GPU and with 65nm chips both it and the CPU could be more powerful, more memory (RAM and FB) might also be possible. However using new silicon technology could introduce all sorts of potential manufacturing problems, that's probably why they started with a mature 90nm process.
In a very back of the napkin kind of way, I think you outlined most of the laymen issues particularly well. Definitely a faster core GPU clock (550 or 600Mhz), as well as support for higher precision blending (fp16 native as opposed to fp10) along with MSAA. At todays prices, i think a larger EDRAM could make sense. I dont remember the resolution to tiling ratio but im sure someone will highlight that later... the incorporation of EDRAM functionality on the GPU as opposed to a daughter die.
I think that X360 could have also benefited from a secondary bus/lane from the CPU to main memory to alleviate primary bus bandwidth issues. HDMI would have been native as well...
Are we assuming the PS3 was released when it was?
If Microsoft knew it was going head to head with the PS3 without the year's lead time, it would have upped the specs to compete, and it would not have been cheaper.
Without taking the PS3 into consideration, I'd hazard a guess and say very little would have been changed.
In the year since the 360 has been released, there still has not been a process node transition from 90 nm, so unless Microsoft suddenly changed its entire design philosophy, the CPU would likely have been the same as it is now.
The GPU would still be 90 nm, so any extras would result in the same cost downsides that made Microsoft choose the Xenos as it is now.
The memory market has not changed all that much, so that wouldn't change any either.
The hard drive situation is a Microsoft decision that had little to do with the level of technology in storage, so that wouldn't have changed either.
Anything that has to do with extra silicon capability or capacity would not have been much cheaper to implement. Perhaps the extra design time might have made a difference, but with cost being a much stronger constraint, probably not that much.
If Microsoft knew it was going head to head with the PS3 without the year's lead time, it would have upped the specs to compete, and it would not have been cheaper.
Without taking the PS3 into consideration, I'd hazard a guess and say very little would have been changed.
In the year since the 360 has been released, there still has not been a process node transition from 90 nm, so unless Microsoft suddenly changed its entire design philosophy, the CPU would likely have been the same as it is now.
The GPU would still be 90 nm, so any extras would result in the same cost downsides that made Microsoft choose the Xenos as it is now.
The memory market has not changed all that much, so that wouldn't change any either.
The hard drive situation is a Microsoft decision that had little to do with the level of technology in storage, so that wouldn't have changed either.
Anything that has to do with extra silicon capability or capacity would not have been much cheaper to implement. Perhaps the extra design time might have made a difference, but with cost being a much stronger constraint, probably not that much.
They would have likely added another CPU with 3 cores instead just like the patent indicated... unless the Xenon has on redundant core , if that is the case four cores makes sense.
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16mb of Edram with tiling would allow 1080p with 4XMSAA.
If has been said that the 360 is currently making $75 in profit, which means that the cost of producing the 360 has dropped at least $150 from November 2005. With that extra $150, what could they do? I suppose it could be used for a HD-DVD drive and extra 512mb of DDR3 ram. If it costed $500 and $600 like the ps3, that's an extra $350-$400 you can work with for the system. A $500 or $600 360 in November 2006 may have clobbered the ps3 specs-wise.
My guess for the $400 premium would be:
Tri-core at 3.5 ghz (like in the original blue print), 3 mb L2 cache, more system bandwidth, 150 GFLOPS
1024 mb DDR3 unified ram,
600mhz Xenos with 64 unified threads
HD-dvd drive
16 mb Edram
1 HDMI
60gb HD to compete with the ps3
internal PSU
My guess for the hypothetical $600 premium:
Quad core at 4.0ghz, 4mb L2 cache, 300 GFLOPS
1024 mb DDR3 Unifed ram
three Xenos with total 192 unified threads, encouraging general purpose computing with the pipes via MEMExport,
64 mb Edram
Hd-dvd drive
1 HDMI
2 giga-bit enthernet port
100GB HD
internal PSU
I suppose the $600 premium would be a huge machine.
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in how many tiles?
There is no redundant core, and without a process transition and a significant redesign, no additional core could be added with just a year's time.
Most of that would come from economies of scale and improvements in production that result from releasing it a year ago.
If released now with no change, the Xbox360 would cost ~$150 more to produce. Nothing as signficant as an extra core or a silicon redesign have occured to make anything cheaper. An HD-DVD drive would still be a gamble Microsoft was not willing to make a year ago and still isn't, and RAM is not that much cheaper than it was a year ago at the speeds currently rated.
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Rainbow Man
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What about the same specs as last year but with less of a loss on the hardware when sold.
I don't see that all that much has xhanged in the semiconductor industry. The dramatic increases in performance suggested by some here strike me as somewhaty unrealistic.
The 360 is a very competent piece of kit just as it is. I don't see it needs to be improved especially not in a mishmash haphazard way.
Peace.
I don't see that all that much has xhanged in the semiconductor industry. The dramatic increases in performance suggested by some here strike me as somewhaty unrealistic.
The 360 is a very competent piece of kit just as it is. I don't see it needs to be improved especially not in a mishmash haphazard way.
Peace.
It would take a like 3.9 something tiles.
My original intent is the M$ has been planning to release the console in 2006 all along. Thus, in 2002, they have been making plans to incorporate the most advanced technologies up til 2006.
Are you being serious? How come MS can get 2x the RAM of PS3, faster GPU, Blue-Laser HD drive, large eDRAM and 60 GB HDD, for $200 less than PS3?!
As 3dilettante has said, tech hasn't really moved on. Cost reduction comes mostly from refinements in production which are dependent on production experience. If MS were to make XB360 now with a year's prior experience, costs would be similar to it's original launch. The difference in components isn't a huge amount. The RAM may well be cheaper now as that was rare in '05. Everything else is on the same fabrication processes that were mature in '05.
I expect a XB360 would release now at similar spec '05, fitting in with MS's original designs. The only that would change is if MS aimed higher expecting a process shrink early, and took a larger hit on initial hardware knowing savings would be just around the corner.
I don't see any reason to believe there would be any significant difference in specs. Maybe a 3.5ghz cpu instead of 3.2ghz -- small changes like that, at best.
It would have launched on the same fab process, so that sort of kills any chances of significant changes (no 4 core cpu, no two cpu system, etc.).
The only thing I could think of would be a more expensive sku with an HD-DVD drive.
It would have launched on the same fab process, so that sort of kills any chances of significant changes (no 4 core cpu, no two cpu system, etc.).
The only thing I could think of would be a more expensive sku with an HD-DVD drive.
From a silicon standpoint, if MS had gone for anything beyond what the 360 is at now, such as the transition to 65nm, the 360 would have been delayed until later this year.
The current CPU is probably as good performance-wise as it can get, given the other concerns Microsoft placed more importance on.
Unless Microsoft had a completely different set of parameters all those years ago, we'd still have the XBox 360, or a very late XBox 360 if things were different.
Forget the parameters and restrictions of the xbox 360. What is the specs of the console that Microsoft would release alongside the ps3 at a similar price but with a clearly a power advantage since M$ would pressed to outcompete Sony.
I'm sure I remember reading that MS decided to forgo OoOE on the CPU as (probably along with other reasons) they didn't have enough time to develop the chip given their launch deadline. Perhaps with another 12 months the design could have been different.
No idea where I read this now, I think it was in an interview with one of the MS or IBM engineers ... anyone?
No idea where I read this now, I think it was in an interview with one of the MS or IBM engineers ... anyone?
Well, every system is a product of its restrictions and what was ongoing at the time of planning.
Without anything to work from, pretty much any option is open.
MS possibly could have mirrored the CPU die so that there would be 6 cores on-chip with two L2 caches shared between each triad. It would be larger than Cell, and more costly, but overall it would probably be easier to utilize and have much higher performance for non-multimedia tasks.
They could have gone hog wild and went for more RAM, possibly some dedicated to CPU and GPU, and a hard disk.
If the gaming division didn't care if HD-DVD became a niche product, they'd have an HD-DVD, and probably suffer limited production quantities.
The cooling system would need to be revamped and would be much pricier and louder, but hey, no constraints.
The hardware would likely sell at a loss for most, if not all of its lifetime.
Then again, without any design constraints at all, why not just buy a gaming rig from Alienware and put an X360 sticker on the front?
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