xbox 360 specs (unofficial, but believable)

[jvd]

cell with 16 SPE far better than xenon's cpu(about 8 times)
and nvidia gpu 2-4 times faster than ati

^^^^ How is this even applicable to the conversation :?

heh . Wonder where he gets that from . So by his assumptions its a

1x16 at x mhz
a nvidia gpu with 2-4 times the performance of the ati gpu
x amount of ram (i guess he is going to want to say 1gig )
bluray


All for under 500$ ? Or is sony willing to loose 800 + on this dream console of yours ?

Also a 16spe version of cell will most likely be close to double the transistors and size of the xgpu . So i would hope it would be faster .

 

[darkblu]

You are disappointed by the prospect of 9GHz machine with a better-than-top-of-the-line video card for $300?

I think considering a 3-core 3GHz chip to be a 9GHz chip is an outrageous fantasy. Even the 3.2GHz 3-chip quote in these "official" specs won't net the performance of a single core 9GHz chip.

i think you're overestimating the ability of single core cpus to handle efficiently inherently multi-threaded tasks. as in: if you have a task that can be divided nicely into N threads, then N cpus of clock M* can, and usually do perform better than a single cpu of clock NxX.

* where M is a clock that satisfies the purposes of each of threads.

 

[wco81]

Either they do it right and put dedicated hardware for the PVR portion or they don't offer the PVR functionality at all.

Who ever said it would have a PVR?

jvd.

Someone else mentioned HTPC as well.

I kind of doubt it too. After all, MS wants to sell you Media Center Editions on top of 360s.

 

[Carl B]

jvd.

Someone else mentioned HTPC as well.

I kind of doubt it too. After all, MS wants to sell you Media Center Editions on top of 360s.

Well yeah, HTPC extender capabilities yes - but the hard drive for such functions will still be the one resident on the Media Center PC.

 

[jvd]

jvd.

Someone else mentioned HTPC as well.

I kind of doubt it too. After all, MS wants to sell you Media Center Editions on top of 360s.

Well yeah, HTPC extender capabilities yes - but the hard drive for such functions will still be the one resident on the Media Center PC.

I never said it would have htpc .

I have said in the past it would be nice if they did include it and that a 40 gig drive would be a good size .

I've also never thought they would allow you to record while playing a game and i think that idea is just stupid . If they do allow htpc functions even if you can't record while playing a game your still getting a feature that would cost around 200$ for a stand alone version which would suit me fine

 

[Megadrive1988]

No like a triple core PPC CPU with a 1MB L2 cache.

During microprocessor forum 2003, ibm showed some processor containing 4 chips, each one being double-core with 1.92 MB L2 and 36MB L3 cache..

http://www.dvhardware.net/article2020.html

these types of CPU configurations, MCMs, have been around for awhile. the did it with the Power4, and again with the Power5.

 

[Megadrive1988]

PS3 development started in 1999. N5 development I believe began in 2000/2001 timeframe with X360 starting a lil later.

that's true.

Sony set up straight after PS2 to work on its sequel, it seems. They've thrown stupid amounts of money and forged alliances to drive a more powerful solution for their needs. Comparatively MS have spent less time and less money,

yeah.

Playstation3 and Cell have been in development since Microsoft started seriously working on the original Xbox ....it's been *that* long. roughly 6 years.

Xbox2/360 wasn't started until, around early 2002, about 2.5 years into PS3's development.

 

[BOOMEXPLODE]

That's the best rationale I've heard yet for PS3 being more powerful, it makes more sense than just "it's being released later."

 

[jvd]

That's the best rationale I've heard yet for PS3 being more powerful, it makes more sense than just "it's being released later."

None of those equate to a solid reason or proof that it wil lbe faster . They will both be working with the limitations of modern process tech .

Also while the cell chip may be in developement longer the parts the x360 cpu are based off of and borrows tech from are just as old as cell (as some say it borrows from the cell ) and older .

The ati gpu has also been in developement as long as or longer than the new gpu from nvidia .

So the fact that sony started before ms doesn't really mean anything as while the final combination and specifications on the ps3 may be older than the xbox the technology may not have had more years or money thrown at it than the xbox parts

Not to mention that being older tech can also bring other problems .

I really don't accept they worked on it longer and spent more so there fore its better as a reason why .


In the end as i've been saying the diffrence in power of all 3 consoles will be so little that it will equate into almost nothing in games , mabye even less than the current ps2-xbox jump

 

[Shinjisan]

In the end as i've been saying the diffrence in power of all 3 consoles will be so little that it will equate into almost nothing in games , mabye even less than the current ps2-xbox jump

And you consider the PS2 to Xbox jump insignificant?
Microsoft made 40-50% of its current userbase thanks to that jump
Also we don't know anything about the GPU but the gap between Cell and the Xenon CPU is massive,we talk about 2 to 3 times the power.

 

[pc999]

PS3 development started in 1999. N5 development I believe began in 2000/2001 timeframe with X360 starting a lil later.

that's true.

Sony set up straight after PS2 to work on its sequel, it seems. They've thrown stupid amounts of money and forged alliances to drive a more powerful solution for their needs. Comparatively MS have spent less time and less money,

yeah.

Playstation3 and Cell have been in development since Microsoft started seriously working on the original Xbox ....it's been *that* long. roughly 6 years.

Xbox2/360 wasn't started until, around early 2002, about 2.5 years into PS3's development.

That can mean that Sony will present more outdated tech than MS, so it is not a good argument

 

[a688]

In the end as i've been saying the diffrence in power of all 3 consoles will be so little that it will equate into almost nothing in games , mabye even less than the current ps2-xbox jump

And you consider the PS2 to Xbox jump insignificant?
Microsoft made 40-50% of its current userbase thanks to that jump
Also we don't know anything about the GPU but the gap between Cell and the Xenon CPU is massive,we talk about 2 to 3 times the power.

Since when have the official specs for either the xbox360 cpu or ps3 cpu been released?

 

[Titanio]

Since when have the official specs for either the xbox360 cpu or ps3 cpu been released?

I can't wait till next week so people can't dance around the obvious anymore

But seriously, it's looking highly likely PS3 will have a decent advantage on the CPU side. If you wish to propose a more likely scenario, feel free..

 

[stepz]

The X360 cpu sounds awfully like the cell PPE (or whatever the big core is called today): a really highclocked smallish (you can't have 3 of them on a chip otherwise) in-order PowerPC core with a VMX unit and 2-way multithreading. Actually anything other than this would be really stupid: designing a general purpose CPU core is just too damn excpensive to do it twice.

The supposed GPU specs aren't at all that clear. First, 10MB of "eDRAM" probably wouldn't reasonably fit onto the GPU die and the hybrid process won't do any good to clockspeed and yield. If it's on the same module then it begs the question, why only 10MB. I really don't think a 256Mbit DRAM die would be much more expensive. Does anybody know more about MCM packaging. Can the dies be tested separately? How many leads could a chip reasonably have and what are the limits? What's the cost compared to regular BGA packaging?

 

[ERP]

OK Here's a question and a data point.

How much faster is Xbox than PS2?
I have a game here that is clearly not done, but a couple of random measurements.

1 frame on Xbox 40ms
the same frame on PS2 180ms

The performance bottle neck is collision and animations (all fp work), so using that metric Xbox is > 4x the power of PS2.

But hang on the PS2 has more flops than Xbox's CPU!!!!!

So what's the point, no metric can give you an indicator of how somehing will actually perform any particular task.

I have seen benchmarks of the same code run on pre-production Cell (PPU and SPU) and xenon CPU's, a lot of people here would be surprised by the results especially when they are compared to current P4 and G5 results for the same code.

 

[stepz]

]Since when have the official specs for either the xbox360 cpu or ps3 cpu been released?

Detailed info about Cell was released quite a while ago.

But seriously, it's looking highly likely PS3 will have a decent advantage on the CPU side. If you wish to propose a more likely scenario, feel free..

I would expect the PPE core be around 1.5 times slower than an equivalently clocked (hypothetical) K8 core on code that isn't pure numbercrunching. So somewhat faster than a Athlon X2 4800+, which is fast.

Though that's an somewhat educated guess based on a gut feel. Somebody who actually does games programming would probably be a more accurate source for predictions.

 

[therealskywolf]

OK Here's a question and a data point.

How much faster is Xbox than PS2?
I have a game here that is clearly not done, but a couple of random measurements.

1 frame on Xbox 40ms
the same frame on PS2 180ms

The performance bottle neck is collision and animations (all fp work), so using that metric Xbox is > 4x the power of PS2.

But hang on the PS2 has more flops than Xbox's CPU!!!!!

So what's the point, no metric can give you an indicator of how somehing will actually perform any particular task.

I have seen benchmarks of the same code run on pre-production Cell (PPU and SPU) and xenon CPU's, a lot of people here would be surprised by the results especially when they are compared to current P4 and G5 results for the same code.

In a good way? Or like "Geez....that isnt all that faster than the P4...."


And PPU? What do you mean? (read my sig)

 

[Titanio]

I would expect the PPE core be around 1.5 times slower than an equivalently clocked (hypothetical) K8 core on code that isn't pure numbercrunching. So somewhat faster than a Athlon X2 4800+, which is fast.

This doesn't really tell me much..unless the X360 CPU is a hypothetical, equivalently clocked K8 core and your assumption is correct

Few of us here have access to actual hardware - I don't - so forgive me if for now I work with paper technology. Comparing theoretical to theoretical seems fair to me, for now, in the absence of benchmarks/hardware, and I feel that a significant difference on paper isn't going to be so betrayed in the real world as to reverse the situation.

 

[MechanizedDeath]

BTW...WTH was version going on about with 16 SPEs? I doubt it, but you don't say something like that and not offer an explanation. :? PEACE.

 

[Titanio]

BTW...WTH was version going on about with 16 SPEs? I doubt it, but you don't say something like that and not offer an explanation. :? PEACE.

He likes to speculate, but say it in a way that might lead you to think he's not just speculating.