Xbox One (Durango) Technical hardware investigation
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These "official" claims they are on par, where are they? Please remember 'insiders' on GAF do not equal an official claim.
Secondly, you believe a random Blizzard employee who's job you don't even know over someone who actually helped design the next xbox who's telling everyone something different.
I don't know about you, but I know who I believe.
We know:
a) Vgleaks specs were right as of January, so it hasn't always been GDDR5 as the Blizzard guy said even if it's changed now, which is unlikely, adding more memory of the same type is perhaps plausible, completely changing the memory less than a year before the launch is unlikely.
2) Microsoft planned on and EXPECTED PS4 to be a more powerful console according to the same guy who actually worked on it, is it likely they are now running around making changes because it is? Would Microsoft really be pushing clocks upwards given the overheating problems in the current generation?
c) Wii changed the scene, to make money you don't need to have the best graphics, you need the best experience, now unless you suggest Microsoft aren't in the console business to make money then it's not hard to believe they have gone a different way this time. Especially as WiiU is/has flopped leaving the 50~60 million casual non-gamers attracted by the Wii there for the taking. Kinect beats move for these people, by miles.
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Damn it that is getting worse than the Wii/WiiU disbelief thread...
GDDR5 makes absolutely no sense imho. Along with the scratchpad memory I would think that the system would have more bandwidth that what the system can efficiently use.
16ROPs would have no use of that much bandwidth (+260GB/s), I'm iffy about the Shader cores, and CPU should suck a fraction of what is available now (with DDR3).
MSFT engineers are not crazy if they had +160GB/s of bandwidth to the main ram they would not have trade off execution resources for 32MB of eSRAM, move engines and overall what should a not that straight forward system to code for (vs a plain UMA with lot of bandwidth).
It doesn't make any sense to me, the 21th can't come soon enough the whole thing becomes painful and the xbox fans seems to loose any sense, get a grip people.
GDDR5 makes absolutely no sense imho. Along with the scratchpad memory I would think that the system would have more bandwidth that what the system can efficiently use.
16ROPs would have no use of that much bandwidth (+260GB/s), I'm iffy about the Shader cores, and CPU should suck a fraction of what is available now (with DDR3).
MSFT engineers are not crazy if they had +160GB/s of bandwidth to the main ram they would not have trade off execution resources for 32MB of eSRAM, move engines and overall what should a not that straight forward system to code for (vs a plain UMA with lot of bandwidth).
It doesn't make any sense to me, the 21th can't come soon enough the whole thing becomes painful and the xbox fans seems to loose any sense, get a grip people.
Everything about Durango seems to prioritize low power. The jag cores, eSRAM, DDR3 and the relatively limited numbers of CUs. Durango will be far easier to migrate to smaller form factors than the 360. It makes sense because this is the overall theme for a significant number of hardware vendors that service the x86 market. Intel's Haswell and AMD's apu both seem to working be towards making x86 applicable to the projected biggest tech market going forward and that is the ultra portable and mobile market. DDR3 hasn't even come close to being supplanted by DDR4, yet here we are with LPDDR3 already approaching the throughput of standard highend DDR3. DDR4 might end up being a dead end market because LPDDR4 is already slated for late 2014 as its a better option for the mobile and might prove to the memory of choice for the server market.
A potential attractive feature for Durango, is the ability to migrate its library to smaller form factors. You might have mobile hardware appear with similar performance characteristics but it won't have the added feature of being supported by a console library. The biggest impediment facing a Durango library migrating to mobile hardware is the amount of RAM. 8 GBs of RAM is going to be hard for any mobile/ultra portable device to swallow and expanding the amount to 12 or 16 GB is just going to make it an even more difficult proposition.
Durango with a shrink or two might be the perfect replacement for the hardware in Surface Pro, which is i5/Intel HD 4000 based supporting 4 GB of LPDDR3. Console level gaming would probably burn a hole through the battery of portable device outside of big gaming laptops. Sporting a bunch of unnecessary RAM is not going to help MS overcome that reality. We are talking about 12 CUs not Titans in SLI. 12 to 16 GB may become common place on gpus one day. However it won't be facillitated by the bandwidth available to Durango. Even the bandwidth available to the PS4 would pale to amount of bandwidth Nvidia and AMD would supply to their gpus to accommodate so much RAM.
All you get is a bunch of RAM thats just a feature of convenience and is not justified by its cost or its power consumption.
We might not like it but the console market for MS seems to be a beachhead with the Durango launch serving as MS'd D Day with the intention of invading the mobile space. We are talking about a market dominated by entertainment consumption not office work production. The Xbox ecosystem seems like a more natural fit for that space than the Windows ecosystem. MS using Durango to service multiple device with one single configuration means a non fragmented software library. Imagine if Vita was powered by Cell/RSX and made use of the PS3 library. Vita potential chance at success wouldn't be encumbered by a lack of software at launch or support by third party publishers.
If thats MS's intention then the question is "will it work?" I don't have any ideal because it looks like MS's version of Sony's BluRay strategy. The PS3 was hurt by it but it still seems like it benefited BluRay. Maybe MS is willing to sacrifice some of its potential marketshare with traditional gamers in return for a stronger product in the TV entertainment space and a chance to become a significant player in the mobile space.
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Le Photographeur
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Some thoughts..
For those insiders, or ex Microsoft people ( for example bkillian) and others. I have to ask some questions, because somehow, I don´t make sense of all of this..
Firstly, people who are not working for MS anymore, are you not still bound by a NDA?
And if yes, basically, you cannot deny nor confirm if the VGleaks are correct? Or how does this work?
Because I see lots of comment from people that speculate about other specs than the VGleaks and that they are being shot down from you guys. So how is it then? Bound by NDA or not? And if not bound by NDA, why dont you tell us more? Not just tiny pieces but the whole shabang?
Secondly, we heard lots of comments about how air tight security is at MS camp in the Xbox division. SO much that it is said that even within the Xbox group, there are groups that don´t "know" what the other group is doing. Is this correct? And if so, could this mean that the information you give/let us know, might just be one sided?
I just find it odd that when hearing other devs talk about next gen and especially Durango, they are like "Sorry, no comment on next gen Xbox", "we cannot talk about it".. "is it really coming?".... "what is sasquatch".. well, you get the point.
yes, MS has not announced anything yet but everything MS has been doing with Durango seems crazy secretive, even more so than 360.
Im sorry if I come out offensive or something like that, Im just curious because it does seem very odd that people here and at neogaf take what you say as the real deal and still, if its like the rumors are saying, that within Xbox group, that even there nobody knows everything (well, except project managers, or whatnot) then how can be know that what you are telling is correct for 100%?
Man ohh man I wish I could go to bed now and wake up by the 21st, because all of these rumors about Durango specs are getting quite out of hand now..
But seriously, no hard feelings, Im just curious on what to believe here..
For those insiders, or ex Microsoft people ( for example bkillian) and others. I have to ask some questions, because somehow, I don´t make sense of all of this..
Firstly, people who are not working for MS anymore, are you not still bound by a NDA?
And if yes, basically, you cannot deny nor confirm if the VGleaks are correct? Or how does this work?
Because I see lots of comment from people that speculate about other specs than the VGleaks and that they are being shot down from you guys. So how is it then? Bound by NDA or not? And if not bound by NDA, why dont you tell us more? Not just tiny pieces but the whole shabang?
Secondly, we heard lots of comments about how air tight security is at MS camp in the Xbox division. SO much that it is said that even within the Xbox group, there are groups that don´t "know" what the other group is doing. Is this correct? And if so, could this mean that the information you give/let us know, might just be one sided?
I just find it odd that when hearing other devs talk about next gen and especially Durango, they are like "Sorry, no comment on next gen Xbox", "we cannot talk about it".. "is it really coming?".... "what is sasquatch".. well, you get the point.
yes, MS has not announced anything yet but everything MS has been doing with Durango seems crazy secretive, even more so than 360.
Im sorry if I come out offensive or something like that, Im just curious because it does seem very odd that people here and at neogaf take what you say as the real deal and still, if its like the rumors are saying, that within Xbox group, that even there nobody knows everything (well, except project managers, or whatnot) then how can be know that what you are telling is correct for 100%?
Man ohh man I wish I could go to bed now and wake up by the 21st, because all of these rumors about Durango specs are getting quite out of hand now..
But seriously, no hard feelings, Im just curious on what to believe here..
The point of reference for much of this info is reportedly the actual developer documents that developers are getting with their SDKs to write Durango software. If we accept that (and comments by those who should know have supported this), then all the rumours should be viewed in context of the 'known' information, rather than the common preferred rumours being interpreted on the premise that MS's security is air-tight.
An understanding of human nature tells us if MS was supplying information to people, someone somewhere would pass that on. There may be identifying marks on the documents to help track violators of NDAs resulting in no public release, say, and we only hear from 'trusted sources', but an NDA doesn't shut people up, nor does a promise that you won't tell anyone. That's why rumours start to coalesce towards a status quo understanding as the release nears for all platforms, and in my experience this common understanding has always been accurate. It was accurate for PS3, XB360, Wii, WiiU, and PS4. The greatest ever upset in predicting technology was PS4 moving from 4 GBs to 8 GBs, which really isn't that extreme a difference and certainly doesn't undo any of the rumours except one quantity. The notion that we'll see a change from 12 CU+8 core Jaguar + SHAPE + Memory units + DD3 + ESRAM to something radically different is extremely implausible, going against everything experience and understanding point to.
If they talk about low latency and ... move engines , that's all you need to know about the hardware .
The move engines, as presented this far, aren't anything spectacular. Certainly nothing revolutionary, or doing anything that couldn't be accomplished some other way. They add a little bit of convenience and efficiency and that's it. They don't lift durango as a whole to an entirely new level.
Stop chasing fairy tale dreams people, please.
Stop chasing fairy tale dreams people, please.
Non-technical discussion on the rumours has been moved to the rumour thread. I'm not sure where the GDDR5 discussion belongs as it centres around who to believe, and not the technology and console design, so don't be surprised if subsequent posts get moved.
But they don't charge luxury car prices for low-end cars. I'm talking about Paul Thurott's claim that he knows xbox 720 will cost $500.
The rumor about AMD Volcanic Islands being released at the end of the year with 20nm might change the perception of what Durango might be. Durango's GPU could be based on a stripped down(256 instead of 512 bus), 12 instead of 16 CU Arrays,16 instead of 64ROPs, 64TMUs instead of 256TMUs and lower clock version of that design. It would explain the yield/heat problems and other rumors about it which just don't match with the vgleaks design.
Le Photographeur
Newcomer
Hmm, I think this is a bit of a stretch in Durango.
Something in the lines of Bonaire is what eventually will be in it... but this is based on what is revealed by VGleaks + what is know about Bonaire.
(And I just recently made a huge point on that VGleaks is not showing the whole picture (or even the proper picture)
That's been moved to the rumours thread.(And I just recently made a huge point on that VGleaks is not showing the whole picture (or even the proper picture)
bkillian knows a LOT, it's obvious, but if he confirmed or denied anything he would break his DNA.
I heard on the grapevine that... more rumours.
This colossal unknown apu from could be the SoC inside Xbox Infinity, this site suggests.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20130508194707_Unknown_AMD_SoC_Features_8_Bulldozer_Modules_1024_Stream_Processors_512_Bit_Memory_Bus.html
bkillian knows a LOT, it's obvious, but if he confirmed or denied anything he would break his DNA.
I heard on the grapevine that... more rumours.
This colossal unknown apu from could be the SoC inside Xbox Infinity, this site suggests.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20130508194707_Unknown_AMD_SoC_Features_8_Bulldozer_Modules_1024_Stream_Processors_512_Bit_Memory_Bus.html
the 512 bit bus is DDR3.. hum this make me think, can it be but...
, 4096 stream processors, 256 texture units and 64 raster operating units?
it's too powerful for a console, it's two times the fast 7950, it's a SOC monster that alone should cost 1000$, came on, if Microsoft put this inside durango, Microsoft will go to bankrupt in 1-2 years
it's not a SOC for desktop anyway, who will use ddr3 on such gpu? I bet fake
Likely, yes.
However...nothing is fake to me anymore after all the crap people are going through with this Xbox announcement, hence I created a countdown on a different thread, because this is not normal.
Only bkillian is my true god/goddess, true love lulz when it comes to rumours.
Lol...no.
Please, why even bothering to post such utterly and obviously bogus clickwhore rumorlinks? If that image is at all genuine (and some signs as well as common sense point towards all of it being utter hogwash), it's much more likely to be a HPC server APU than something we'll ever see in a console.
Why would it? Volcanic Islands seemingly major difference between it and Sea/Southern Island doesn't seem to be its gpu components. Its major difference is that AMD calls an APU a GPU when its thrown on a graphics card.
Im guessing the only thing you could surmise from the limited info of the V island diagram is the possibility that the Durango APU is actually just the GPU component of the console. Given that diagram, Nvidia's plan with Maxwell (onboard ARM cores), AMD and Intel (Haswell), one can predict that the traditional setup for highend PC gaming will consist of dual apus (LOL). Basically a CPU with highly parallel accelerators cores for general purpose tasks and a discrete GPU that has serial processors for graphics or high performance gpgpu tasks
Basically what we saw with Yukon (MS's leak minus Xenon) might be an early look at the hardware configuration that will drive PC gaming in the future.
But saying "dual apus" around here tends to make people flip out? Maybe that will change given that dual apus aren't typically imagined as a configuration where each apu plays at distinct role in the hardware. Seem a lot of B3Ders look at that concept analogous to a two socket CPU configuration where the two processors share the same role by attempting to virtually serve as one processor.
Whats the prospect of the Xenon still serving the same role in the 720 as it did in the 360? From a FLOP standpoint, isn't Xenon comparable to 8 Jag cores? Is it feasible to allow Xenon to play the traditional CPU role and the jags cores can be committed to working with the CUs for nothing but gpgpu tasks for rendering and things like physics or AI. MS's leaks shows the inclusion of Xenon while ditching Xenos.
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