Xbox 2 Hardware 'LOCKED DOWN' - More Information in 2005

[jvd]

But they have to support HDTV resolutions, not 640x480 (which requires at least a progressive scan TV or an HDTV anyways).

1080i or 1080p even.

720p should be automatic but somewhat of a letdown. It would be looking back whereas 1080p would be looking forward to 1080p display devices, which should be out well within the next 5 years.

Why . Most likely 10% of house holds , prob even less have hdtv . Even less than that small number has 1080p.

Besides as the res goes up they don't need as high of an fsaa setting .

As the higher res helps to reduce jaggies themself .

I rather run 1600x1200 with 4x fsaa than 1027x768 with 8 x fsaa .

 

[Farid]

a 16x1 VPU at 800 Mhz sounds ok to me. or a 32x1 VPU at 500 Mhz.

At 800MHz with 170~250M (logic) transistors, even with Low-K (Black Diamond) @90n, the heat dissipation would need a "big" cooler, and when we know that this time the aesthetic of the XboxNext will be (more) important for MS than it was for Xbox, therefore it looks, imho, a little high for 2005.

A 400/500MHz GPU..Err VPU with 32x1 (or even 16x1) pipelines and a few Mo (yes Octets, Guden ) of edram as a framebuffer on a 90nm process (with TSMC low-K) is a more plausible scenario, IMO.

But who knows...

 

[jvd]

a 16x1 VPU at 800 Mhz sounds ok to me. or a 32x1 VPU at 500 Mhz.

At 800MHz with 170~250M (logic) transistors, even with Low-K (Black Diamond) @90n, the heat dissipation would need a "big" cooler, and when we know that this time the aesthetic of the XboxNext will be (more) important for MS than it was for Xbox, therefore it looks, imho, a little high for 2005.

A 400/500MHz GPU..Err VPU with 32x1 (or even 16x1) pipelines and a few Mo (yes Octets, Guden ) of edram as a framebuffer on a 90nm process (with TSMC low-K) is a more plausible scenario, IMO.

But who knows...

well a)you have to figure they may be on 65nm not 90nm b) in a console you would have more space for the actual chip cooling. More so than in a pc c) they could allways go with a hot chip in the first set of systems and then move on to smaller cooler chips later on if the need is there.

 

[Vince]

well a)you have to figure they may be on 65nm not 90nm

I've been thinking about this myself recently. What is publically known is the following:

• XBox2 @ TSMC[/url]]TSMC & Microsoft Announce Deal
  
  06/04/2004
  By: Derek dela Fuente
  
  Microsoft secures deal with world’s largest contract maker of semiconductors…
  
  TSMC, the world’s largest contract maker of semiconductors, today announced that it will produce chips for future Xbox game consoles.
  
  The agreement expands an existing relationship, and allows the Taiwanese based manufacturer to directly provide Microsoft with the most advanced semiconductor process technologies.
  
  TSMC will manufacture graphics chips for use on the technology provided by ATi; TSMC claim that Xbox 2 is set for release before the end of 2005.

And then, knowing it's very likely the part with have eDRAM, compare this with TSMC's Roadmap and you can draw your own conclusions.

 

[Farid]

well a)you have to figure they may be on 65nm not 90nm b) in a console you would have more space for the actual chip cooling. More so than in a pc c) they could allways go with a hot chip in the first set of systems and then move on to smaller cooler chips later on if the need is there.

For the a), i'm not sure that TSMC (since we heard that they will be the ones producing the XVPU) will have its 65nm ready for mid/end 2005... But that's just me.
b)... if you say so...
Jvd, feel free to explain your point of view here, i know a cooler didn't need to be "vertical", but in a console there's no really room left for... Anything, consoles are quite compact and the "air flow" could be quite a problem especially when we talk about 2/3 GHz CPU consoles with 500/800MHz VPU.
c)Yes of course.
But the firsts consoles will set the clockspeed.
If they can't pack the Proc, the mobo, the Vpu and the cooler on a reasonable sized bow, they will have to downclocked the machine (That's what they did for the GC and Xbox BTW).

 

[jvd]

well in a pc the card is upside down. The cooling is upside down which is not optimal for cooling .

Not only that but since the card hangs in there the weight of the heatsink is also a factor

IN the console they can have 1 big heatsink across the cpus and the vpu that leads diffrectly out of the case like the current gpus in the pc do.

THe first ps2 heatsink in japan was a huge thing. Much begger than any pc heatsink i've ever seen .

I can easily see 700-800 mhz vpu in the system. We have 500mhz ones right now with a small cooling setup (x800xt) . I can see on 90nm or even 65 nm ( i believe tmsc will get the 65nm process working by the end of 2005. )

the cpus might be a little bit harder to get over 2 ghz . But i suspect 2 ghz will be doable. THe ibm chips should be done on ibm fabs and if sony will have 65nm fabs ready in 2005 then i see no reason why ibm wouldn't have them. I can see 2 ghz with multi core , multi chips

 

[cthellis42]

I can easily see 700-800 mhz vpu in the system. We have 500mhz ones right now with a small cooling setup (x800xt) . I can see on 90nm or even 65 nm ( i believe tmsc will get the 65nm process working by the end of 2005. )

They might, but that kicks Xenon at least a quarter into 2006. If they're trying to keep to a Q4 2005 schedule, it looks like the VPU at least would be starting on 90nm. (The CPU could be put on 65nm for a launch then, I'm sure. Cost difference would probably be negligible with the lower yields, but the design would be a better fit and the yields would quickly improve.)

 

[jvd]

I can easily see 700-800 mhz vpu in the system. We have 500mhz ones right now with a small cooling setup (x800xt) . I can see on 90nm or even 65 nm ( i believe tmsc will get the 65nm process working by the end of 2005. )

They might, but that kicks Xenon at least a quarter into 2006. If they're trying to keep to a Q4 2005 schedule, it looks like the VPU at least would be starting on 90nm. (The CPU could be put on 65nm for a launch then, I'm sure. Cost difference would probably be negligible with the lower yields, but the design would be a better fit and the yields would quickly improve.)

I guess it will come down to how quickly they think 65nm will ramp. If its only 6 months away i can see them launching with a massive heatsink for it.

Also remember ati is very very good at keeping power and heat down.

 

[London Geezer]

Also remember ati is very very good at keeping power and heat down.

And also transistor counts, and it seems lately even features. Sorry couldn't resist.

 

[jvd]

Also remember ati is very very good at keeping power and heat down.

And also transistor counts, and it seems lately even features. Sorry couldn't resist.

Well hay mabye this time from sony we will get more than fillrate

 

[vb]

If it is based on now-cancelled-for-PC R400, it coud be a very fast (+1 GHz) 8 pipe ATI part

 

[cthellis42]

I guess it will come down to how quickly they think 65nm will ramp. If its only 6 months away i can see them launching with a massive heatsink for it.

Could be, but I don't think any of the consoles want to have enormous heatsinks inside, and if Microsoft is still wanting to cut down on the size of the unit... (Though I guess if there indeed is no possibility of a HD that will cut down on a lot itself.)

Also remember ati is very very good at keeping power and heat down.

True, but this is from a "readiness" perspective and production ramp-up. (Not to mention getting screwed if TSMC has line issues and there's no fallback.)

Offhand, I'd expect they're just releasing a bit later, since the PS3 isn't expected until Q1-2 2006 at the minimum, and trying to push well ahead of them in launch time will likely mean going with larger processes. (They could always shrink later for cost savings, but they lose what performance they can eek out designing for 65nm over 90nm.)

Since I don't think next generation will be "won" or "lost" by release date, I think they can safely let it slip to something closer to PS3's to make sure their console is in the best shape they can make it. It's fine to get a headstart, but if the race is lasting for 5+ years... Heh.

 

[jvd]

Remember ms may be talking about cutting costs but we don't know at what point in its life they want to do that.

As its set up already they are cutting major costs on the gpu by liscensing it instead of buying the fabbed chips. Which could through out the life of the consle save hundreds of millions.

They may still be willing to loose a 100-200$ at launch if the believe a few months to a year down the road they can cut costs down that much .

This is the way sony is working .

 

[Natoma]

But they have to support HDTV resolutions, not 640x480 (which requires at least a progressive scan TV or an HDTV anyways).

1080i or 1080p even.

720p should be automatic but somewhat of a letdown. It would be looking back whereas 1080p would be looking forward to 1080p display devices, which should be out well within the next 5 years.

Why . Most likely 10% of house holds , prob even less have hdtv . Even less than that small number has 1080p.

Besides as the res goes up they don't need as high of an fsaa setting .

As the higher res helps to reduce jaggies themself .

I rather run 1600x1200 with 4x fsaa than 1027x768 with 8 x fsaa .

Agreed. HDTV is super expensive right now, and probably will remain so for the forseeable future. Hell I have a 36" WEGA XBR and I'm quite happy with that for the time being. Probably won't upgrade to HDTV until 2006/2007 when the switchover is supposed to take place anyways.

 

[I.S.T.]

I can understand not supporting 1080i or 1080p, but 480p and 720p are on TVs cheap enough for a good deal of people to have one. I hope they include those two at least on the next system. Probably will but we dunno as of this moment, lol.

 

[jvd]

I can understand not supporting 1080i or 1080p, but 480p and 720p are on TVs cheap enough for a good deal of people to have one. I hope they include those two at least on the next system. Probably will but we dunno as of this moment, lol.

I think 480p would be best to support.

As i said they can support 720p with 2x or 4x fsaa while at 640x480 (or whatever ntsc is) they have 8 x fsaa . The performance should be the same adn the resulting image quality should be about equal. With the 720p edging it out .

the gamecube looks horrible after playing a game on my pc. Even when playing with out fsaa . 1027x768 looks much better than standard tv. Its so bad i can actually see tons of jaggies in the games and it bothers me while playing.

I do have a hdtv . But many people I know don't have it and by going into best buy only 2 models have the highest res setting. Most have sdtv and other wierd names for it .

We got a 10 inch lcd tv for 500$ and it only supports 480p .

So it will be a while before things change. I expect ps4/xbo2/ns6 to be the systems to embrace hdtv. Because in 7 years it will have the pentration for it .

 

[cthellis42]

It's not really a question of loss in that case, but of readiness. If TSMC won't have their 65nm lines ready until the end of 2005, how could the Xbox 2 launch in any reasonable volume in that same timeframe? It also keys them to TSMC's schedule, which can work very much against them--from both cost and timeframe standpoints--if problems were to arise. (And I don't think Microsoft has done any additional investing in TSMC to try to smooth things over as much as possible.)

If TSMC is simultaneously saying the Xbox 2 is launching in 2005 and is not showing their 65nm tech until the end of 2005, how could it remotely support that launch? Consoles are a volume machine, unlike high-end GPU's which can get away with slow trickles to support the much-smaller amounts needed. (Not to mention those cards are sold for much more all by themselves than a whole console would be.)

If both timeframes are to be accepted, then the machine won't be able to sustain a launch of any reasonable degree, or the GPU will end up looking much different than we expect. It's not all matters of cash--this would seem to be a matter of realistic production for the product it's aimed for.

 

[Dural]

In J Allards interview with IGN/Gamespy Live during E3 he said HDTV resolutions will be standard on the next Xbox.

 

[thop]

Hmm so all games will run at 1080 with 30/60 FPS? I wonder if this is a good thing. They might have to cut some polygons here and there to make it work, which will be a waste for people who still run regular TVs (the vast majority). Or will they make two versions? Not sure they really thought this trough yet.

 

[jvd]

In J Allards interview with IGN/Gamespy Live during E3 he said HDTV resolutions will be standard on the next Xbox.

we he hasn't said all or which of them will be standard .


They may be in all games but with less fsaa than lower res. If the devs put it in