Xbox One (Durango) Technical hardware investigation

[Silent_Buddha]

It's just a huge plastic case with a large fan/heatsink and not much else in it. Nothing special to it, really, and overall quite inefficient use of space. There's no reason whatsoever the PSU for xbone couldn't be internal as well. There's certainly room for it, and sony has proven many times now that heat isn't an issue either. It's just MS being lazy, possibly incompetent, that's all.

It's actually the most efficient enclosure design if you intend the system to run fanless either most of the time or a significant portion of the time (not gaming). It's the only way to make a silent system (no forced airflow) for quiet rooms designed for home theater use. It's why good high quality home theater amplifiers use a massive "box" shape with lots of free internal space and lots of vents.

Sony knows this just like any other electronics manufacturer. Hence why their home theater amplifiers use large boxy shapes with a lot of spare internal space combined with lots of vents. It's the most efficient way to cool a system without introducing noise associated with forced airflow into the equation.

Anything less (PS4 design for example, is likely to require the fan being on even in low load situations like watching 1080p video. With a case like that with such limited space and such limited ventilation, going without forced airflow isn't likely to be an option. For the relatively noisy livingrooms and bedrooms that many people have it may not be a problem when watching video. For people with a more quiet environment, it's likely to be quite noticeable.

My desktop case with a single active fan (low noise Noctua) + PSU which has a fan that only ramps up after load hits 400+ watts (quite rare) is unnoticeable in my downtown apartment (too much ambient noise from outside to notice it) but is hugely noticeable out at the family ranch where there is virtually no ambient noise outside of a yearly window when we separate the calves from their mothers or when doing work that requires motorized vehicles/machines.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Are you sure about these power draw estimates? I have a MacMini running an Ivy Bridge quadcore 2.3Ghz i7 (3615QM), 16Gb DDR3 RAM and two 1Tb HDDs and the maximum draw is 85 watts.

Admittedly we don't know the power draw of Kinect 2 but even so.

MacMini also doesn't have a GPU core even remotely as powerful as what is in the Xbox One. When active the GPU core should draw a significant amount of power. At load in a demanding game, I wouldn't be surprised if the SOC in the Xbox One drew well over 100 watts. 100 watts is what I believe Microsoft stated as the "typical" power draw or something along those lines, not the max. I'd expect the SOC in the PS4 to draw even more than that, especially if developers take advantage of the compute advantage that the PS4 has.

Regards,
SB

 

[SlickShoesRUCrazy]

MacMini also doesn't have a GPU core even remotely as powerful as what is in the Xbox One. When active the GPU core should draw a significant amount of power. At load in a demanding game, I wouldn't be surprised if the SOC in the Xbox One drew well over 100 watts. 100 watts is what I believe Microsoft stated as the "typical" power draw or something along those lines, not the max. I'd expect the SOC in the PS4 to draw even more than that, especially if developers take advantage of the compute advantage that the PS4 has.

Regards,
SB

on the announcement date, engadget put up this article http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/21/building-xbox-one-an-inside-look/ and it states that the xbox 1 soc goes up to 100w, which I understand as meaning that it's the max, but they also stated that it has varying power scenarios.

quote from the article:

Microsoft wouldn't give us specifics other than to say, "The system is designed for an SoC up to about 100W, but will vary on the scenario."

 

[Cyan]

Such statements can be safely ignored (same is true for labeling the PS4 GPU "Pitcairn").

Yup, what I initially thought. It's hard not distance oneself from some of the people writing those articles, not because the articles are bad but because he is an hardware engineer and oddly enough he seems to know less than me in that sense. I am feel so much like a noob here, yet those articles are so frivolous, airheaded and superficial that they seem to be created just to gather attention.

Besides that, now there are many sites around featuring news saying that Kinect costs more than the Xbox One already, just because an Xbox developer said so on Redditt. They are oblivious to reality.

Nobody asked the alleged Xbox developer to answer questions there, and in fact there are professionals called journalists who can handle a true interview just fine.

 

[dagamer]

Yup, what I initially thought. It's hard not distance oneself from some of the people writing those articles, not because the articles are bad but because he is an hardware engineer and oddly enough he seems to know less than me in that sense. I am feel so much like a noob here, yet those articles are so frivolous, airheaded and superficial that they seem to be created just to gather attention.

Besides that, now there are many sites around featuring news saying that Kinect costs more than the Xbox One already, just because an Xbox developer said so on Redditt. They are oblivious to reality.

Nobody asked the alleged Xbox developer to answer questions there, and in fact there are professionals called journalists who can handle a true interview just fine.

Makes me wish some of these sites had a technical editor. Despite being tech news sites, their writers don't seem to have a clue.

 

[BeyondTed]

on the announcement date, engadget put up this article http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/21/building-xbox-one-an-inside-look/ and it states that the xbox 1 soc goes up to 100w, which I understand as meaning that it's the max, but they also stated that it has varying power scenarios.

quote from the article:

Maybe it is already 115W or 125W but they said "about 100W"? I still can't fathom 100W for that freaking huge chip and heatsink. And that power section *looks* like it can handle more.

Unlikely but the way the spec details have been "fuzzy" who knows.

More waiting for clarification I guess.



Sure hope some MBA didn't come up with the brilliant idea of a low power console and just plucked 100W out of thin air while the engineers shook their heads.

 

[katsikaki]

Any idea why Microsoft are discussing the XBOX One silicon at the Hot Chips event? I can't see the point if they really are trying to hide the specs due to them being inferior.

Link: http://www.hotchips.org/

 

[BeyondTed]

Any idea why Microsoft are discussing the XBOX One silicon at the Hot Chips event? I can't see the point if they really are trying to hide the specs due to them being inferior.

Link: http://www.hotchips.org/

Maybe there is something special about it that warrants it being the closing paper for the conference.

Can't see closing a conference with a paper on a nothing special or inferior chip.

Guess we just wait and see.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Maybe there is something special about it that warrants it being the closing paper for the conference.

Can't see closing a conference with a paper on a nothing special or inferior chip.

Guess we just wait and see.

My guess would be ESRAM, the audio processor or the some of the silicon for Kinect. I doubt they'd talk to much about the CPU or the GPU architecture outside the ESRAM.

 

[ERP]

My guess would be ESRAM, the audio processor or the some of the silicon for Kinect. I doubt they'd talk to much about the CPU or the GPU architecture outside the ESRAM.

That would be my guess, though I would expect them to justify its inclusion which would require discussing the GPU at least in terms of efficiency, which in and of itself is interesting.

 

[warb]

My guess would be ESRAM, the audio processor or the some of the silicon for Kinect. I doubt they'd talk to much about the CPU or the GPU architecture outside the ESRAM.

Yes. There is lots of unique custom silicon to talk about.

 

[dumbo11]

Sure hope some MBA didn't come up with the brilliant idea of a low power console and just plucked 100W out of thin air while the engineers shook their heads.

One answer is that the problem is scaling.

http://www.energystar.gov/products/specs/sites/products/files/Final%20Draft%20Version%201%200%20Comment%20Response%20Document.pdf

One stakeholder commented that power scaling does not have infinite elasticity and that in order for the manufacturer to "hit" a certain downscaled number for media streaming, the manufacturer may have to opt for a chip that has an energy ceiling below that which is optimal for other, non-scaled functions, like game play. Alternatively, there may exist a subset of chips that could handle both extremes (e.g., a chip designed for high-end ultra books) but at an exorbitant cost relative to what is an affordable option for a device priced at several hundred dollars. It also noted that redesigning consoles' motherboards to accommodate scalable architecture is an incredibly complicated and expensive process and even if the next generation was updated it may require more processing power.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

MacMini also doesn't have a GPU core even remotely as powerful as what is in the Xbox One. When active the GPU core should draw a significant amount of power.

And XBox One isn't running at a nominal 2.3Ghz (3.3Ghz on Turbo), or running two 7200rpm drives. The systems aren't directly comparable, but there are components in the MM running at much higher speeds than the Xbox one. The problem for both boxes is the same.

It's why good high quality home theater amplifiers use a massive "box" shape with lots of free internal space and lots of vents.

I think that mostly to accommodate all the ports on the backplate. Look at the rear of STR-DA5800ES receiver:

Anything less (PS4 design for example, is likely to require the fan being on even in low load situations like watching 1080p video.

The GCN architecture power gates. If something like MPEG-4 decode taxes GCN, both consoles are in a lot of trouble. We've not seen the inside of the PS4 yet, but I wouldn't be surprise if it had a big, low RPM fan. Too low to hear, but shifting a CFM airflow.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

My guess would be ESRAM, the audio processor or the some of the silicon for Kinect. I doubt they'd talk to much about the CPU or the GPU architecture outside the ESRAM.

But hasn't the Esram already been labeled as complicated next to inferior? According the leaks, everything in the box should be difficult to share out in the open...except for the new kinect and maybe the CPU.

 

[Gipsel]

My guess would be ESRAM, the audio processor or the some of the silicon for Kinect. I doubt they'd talk to much about the CPU or the GPU architecture outside the ESRAM.

Let's hope until then MS will have found out how wide the interface and hence the bandwidth to the eSRAM actually is.

 

[warb]

But hasn't the Esram already been labeled as complicated next to inferior? According the leaks, everything in the box should be difficult to share out in the open...except for the new kinect and maybe the CPU.

The only reason to talk about the CPU or GPU at all would be if they had bought stronger stock components than their competitor. They didn't.

The eSRAM we don't seem to know enough about?

 

[ERP]

Hot chips isn't really a PR event, they'll be talking about something interesting to that community.
Could be the ESRAM, GPU, the TOF sensor, the audio chip who knows.

 

[Scott_Arm]

But hasn't the Esram already been labeled as complicated next to inferior? According the leaks, everything in the box should be difficult to share out in the open...except for the new kinect and maybe the CPU.

I see no reason why they could not talk about the ESRAM. It seems like the most likely candidate for a processor talk, to me.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

I see no reason why they could not talk about the ESRAM. It seems like the most likely candidate for a processor talk, to me.

hmmmmmm. so perhaps we'll hear an update on if they hit or broke their theoretical limit to the Esram, maybe?

 

[SenjutsuSage]

But hasn't the Esram already been labeled as complicated next to inferior? According the leaks, everything in the box should be difficult to share out in the open...except for the new kinect and maybe the CPU.

I don't think so. Even if it doesn't somehow magically make up for some performance difference between the two machines, that in itself is pretty irrelevant nonetheless. If the ESRAM implementation is somehow deemed significant enough warranting a full on disclosure as to how it was incorporated into the GPU and what the benefits of that are going to be, then it matters very little if the Xbox One's ESRAM solution is ultimately deemed more complex or inferior to what another console might be doing. I've always hated comparing the two directly, because I think the Xbox One is its own very capable system and what's more relevant is that devs have plenty enough power to do amazing things with the system, and that it's a big enough jump over what the 360 was capable of. It meets both those standards quite easily.

While most might be more concerned with how it's suppose to somehow make up this gap in performance (not saying that's what you're concerned with. just a general statement), that might be largely missing the point since it's usefulness might be better shown in the fact that there's some very important techniques or even basic operations that may become cheaper or just handled more efficiently allowing for resources to be better spent elsewhere. Maybe a higher quality version (or the appearance of such) of an effect than what it would otherwise be without ESRAM, and where that technique is possible on the console at a rock solid or mostly solid 30fps with ESRAM, as opposed to a technique that is possible on the console at an average 25-27fps. The point isn't to compete with anything else, but to deliver great looking and playing games at a certain high quality level, and if ESRAM contributes to that in a meaningful way, then it's worth talking about. Forget the effects talk, if it somehow improves the performance of important basic operations in a meaningful enough way, then that makes for a very good talk.