Xbox One (Durango) Technical hardware investigation

[Jwm]

Agreed...a fairly cheap SoC addon BC box that shares X720 drives and HDMI pass through.

And MS loves higher priced accessories I see $149

I use media center for all our dvr needs, so I want to see how the dvr rumors come into play.

Using the idea from SB, what if there are two 720s and one is closer to the settop box and will pass through the more powerful machine. I don't really want to buy an xbox Tv and an durango, but if they are not going to update media center with kinect for Vc this might be an option.

So xbox Tv - dvr and apps that can standalone plus full Bc (why not)
Durango - next gen with control and passthru

I am to far off topic but as a gamer I also love my media center setup and extenders, I hope to see it evolve this next gen.

 

[Orion]

The doc does say this, but it's in comparison to Xenos' efficiency and is more to do with Xenos being vector4 and GCN scalar.

So it's not like the Durango GPU is super efficient compared to Orbis as the efficiency MS is claiming in the doc is simply inherent in the GCN architecture both machines will be using.

Is similar high efficiency attained by currently on the market amd and nvidia gpus?

 

[Betanumerical]

Is similar high efficiency attained by currently on the market amd and nvidia gpus?

Well considering theres a entire heap of GCN cards on the market, yes

 

[(((interference)))]

Is similar high efficiency attained by currently on the market amd and nvidia gpus?

Probably

The architecture of the console sounds very interesting in different ways but it isn't the most powerful next generation.

That being said, next gent I want a CONSOLE. A true one. Imho, it's not worth paying an extra 200$ to push every single possible game to the max either.

But an extra $100 for the PS4 could be worthwhile, if all games will look better on it - especially if it lets you play used games.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Is similar high efficiency attained by currently on the market amd and nvidia gpus?

There was a gain in efficiency, but nowhere near 40% IIRC. In other words, there's gains in efficiency from moving from vector to scalar but that won't account for most of the efficiency gains going from Xenos (vector based ALUs) to GCN (scalar based ALUs). There's quite a lot of other bottlenecks, etc. And just to put that into perspective, that 53% efficiency (utilization) of Xenos isn't quite as bad as it sounds. I can't remember where I saw this but IIRC, I read somewhere that Radeon 78xx (what Orbis is most closely related to) was around ~73% or ~78% efficiency (utilization) in typical gaming loads.

Regards,
SB

 

[Acert93]

I am curious if this will be confirmed or someone feeling self important: 8-16 cycles to ESRAM.

If this is confirmed I have quite a few snippets from the source.

 

[astrograd]

For what it's worth I've just been reading the latest issue of EDGE. It has a PS4 versus Durango feature and they discuss the leek http://www.vgleaks.com/world-exclusive-durango-unveiled-2/ with a developer working with both machines. They confirm the leeks as correct although EDGE is careful to say that the GPU is from an unknown vendor but freely state the cpu as the Jaguar. Further when questioning the developer further he readily admits that the PS4 is the more powerful machine but the differences are marginal, like that from the 360 and PS3 he states. By the way it's St. David’s day and I'm Welsh so leeks is spelt correctly

Basically what EDGE is reporting are the leaks seen regarding Durango are essentially the real thing and I wouldn't expect anything different come it’s unveiling.

Don't magazines take like 4 weeks to get to print or something? Most likely the same story as they had on their site a month ago.

 

[Betanumerical]

There was a gain in efficiency, but nowhere near 40% IIRC. In other words, there's gains in efficiency from moving from vector to scalar but that won't account for most of the efficiency gains going from Xenos (vector based ALUs) to GCN (scalar based ALUs). There's quite a lot of other bottlenecks, etc. And just to put that into perspective, that 53% efficiency (utilization) of Xenos isn't quite as bad as it sounds. I can't remember where I saw this but IIRC, I read somewhere that Radeon 78xx (what Orbis is most closely related to) was around ~73% or ~78% efficiency (utilization) in typical gaming loads.

Regards,
SB

The 100% efficiency / 53 efficiency number were based on a specific shader iirc. Which did utilise GCN 100% from what it looked like, but I don't remember any over all numbers.

 

[DopeyFish]

I am curious if this will be confirmed or someone feeling self important: 8-16 cycles to ESRAM.

If this is confirmed I have quite a few snippets from the source.

wouldn't that be higher than DDR3 latency?

(10-20 ns)

 

[astrograd]

Maybe they aren't working on Xbox?

The team Mejdrich leads (which is the group you guys are referring to) specifically is working on the new Xbox. Tubbs and Shearer and some others are all part of Mejdrich's team and also specifically are working on the new Xbox, iirc.

Maybe they did work with AMD, saw what AMD was doing with its APU, and said, "Yeah, you know what? You guys actually know what you're doing and there's not much more we can add to the APU design"...

They also pulled in a pretty major player in AMD's R&D (Grossman, GPU architect for Durango). I can assure you Marc Grossman knows very well what AMD's engineers and research teams are capable of seeing as he has been the company's senior GPU architect and R&D fellow for the 7 yrs prior to joining MS.

As for the CPU side your argument might as well suggest IBM has no clue what they are doing as these guys were the brains behind most of IBM's recent designs. Not sure that would hold up under scrutiny either way. I'd say it is somewhat more likely that once MS decided on AMD they went and poached the top talent from IBM so they could leverage as much valuable expertise as possible. Not just on the CPU end of things, but on the general SoC angle. Having the best minds across the industry there is surely not a bad thing for MS to put on a project like this.

Maybe they were there to determine minimal backwards compatibility hardware to be added, and the MS decided to drop BC as an unnecessary cost?

So MS brought this team on specifically to head up the entire architecture of the new Xbox and spend 3 yrs doing so and you think they did this just to investigate their options for BC? No...

 

[Betanumerical]

So MS brought this team on specifically to head up the entire architecture of the new Xbox and spend 3 yrs doing so and you think they did this just to investigate their options for BC? No...

No, so they could have a good machine at a decent cost, just because they bring in some smart engineers does not mean they are going for some super secret sauce architecture. These guys would be perfect for making the economical APU that the rumours have been mentioning.

 

[Hardknock]

This reveal will be really interesting. Because from all leaks they have standard ddr3 ram, standard under powered gpu and standard jaguar cores. What on earth have those ex ibm and amd engineers been doing at MS all this time? The system is bog standard components that amd could have engineered on their own.

 

[astrograd]

No, so they could have a good machine at a decent cost, just because they bring in some smart engineers does not mean they are going for some super secret sauce architecture. These guys would be perfect for making the economical APU that the rumours have been mentioning.

Ugh...Nobody is talking about any secret sauce. I'd appreciate it if ppl would stop trying to label absolutely ANY open speculation about Durango as 'lol secret sauce durrr'.

And those guys would be perfect for making the best SoC under the sun in general, not just as some sort of cheap APU setup. I don't see anything suggesting they brought these guys on board for cost reasons. Too many ppl seem eager to parse the discussion and any accompanying speculation at the extremes; it's either super cheap, underpowered hardware or secret sauce/wizard jizz generalizations. Not helpful.

 

[Betanumerical]

And those guys would be perfect for making the best SoC under the sun in general, not just as some sort of cheap APU setup. I don't see anything suggesting they brought these guys on board for cost reasons. Too many ppl seem eager to parse the discussion and any accompanying speculation at the extremes; it's either super cheap, underpowered hardware or secret sauce/wizard jizz generalizations. Not helpful.

I don't see anything really suggesting anything about these guys, you have seen postings about jobs and people moving to Microsoft and are trying to insert what you think should be happening into it, as others have said there is nothing that says this has anything to with Durango. There are others xbox projects don't forget.

 

[astrograd]

This reveal will be really interesting. Because from all leaks they have standard ddr3 ram, standard under powered gpu and standard jaguar cores. What on earth have those ex ibm and amd engineers been doing at MS all this time? The system is bog standard components that amd could have engineered on their own.

One thing I don't understand is that some ppl say the extra hardware kit are all bog standard things in any GPU (DME's are just DMA's, display planes are worthless, eSRAM is only there as patchwork to make up for low bandwidth)...if that is true then why didn't they use DDR3 for OS and GDDR5 for application accessible RAM and save on the die space? Why go through the effort to design special DME's when the AMD GPU has them already built in anyhow? Why move them outside the GPU?

I personally don't think the specs are changing. That said, I also think there is still some room to speculate what the real world outcomes of MS's design has compared to their more obvious alternatives.

ModNote: Orbis removed

 

[eastmen]

its because no one knows what everything is exactly and how they can be leveraged to make the system better.

MS wouldn't have added in these things just for the hell of it. They have their purpose we just gotta wait and see

 

[astrograd]

I don't see anything really suggesting anything about these guys, you have seen postings about jobs and people moving to Microsoft and are trying to insert what you think should be happening into it, as others have said there is nothing that says this has anything to with Durango. There are others xbox projects don't forget.

This team would be working on all major Xbox projects. Not 'everything except Durango'. And I'm not inserting any assumptions. You are the one who seems to base your view on the assumption they brought in some of the world's best tech talent in these areas to work towards a cheap setup. I am simply noting that this team of top tier tech experts are working on Durango and they aren't there for BC options. I've no doubts they aim to make the design as powerful as possible, for as cheap as possible (they are engineers, that's their job), and that they would work on a possible 360 super slim if that is indeed a thing.

And are we even certain this setup would be cheap compared to more obvious alternatives to begin with? For instance, 5GB of GDDR5, 3GB of DDR3...stock Jaguar CPU except 8 cores (could very well be the case here)...stock AMD GPU...dual output display planes. No need for eSRAM or special DME's to surround the GPU or the 3rd display plane. Wouldn't this option be a cheaper/simpler alternative to what they want? If no, why not? If yes, then why would they forego that setup and look to the one they chose?

 

[Betanumerical]

And are we even certain this setup would be cheap compared to more obvious alternatives to begin with? For instance, 5GB of GDDR5, 3GB of DDR3...stock Jaguar CPU except 8 cores (could very well be the case here)...stock AMD GPU...dual output display planes. No need for eSRAM or special DME's to surround the GPU or the 3rd display plane. Wouldn't this option be a cheaper/simpler alternative to what they want? If no, why not? If yes, then why would they forego that setup and look to the one they chose?

5GB of GDDR5 is probably >$100. So yeah 32MB of eSRAM is way under that afaik. The rest is not really going to add a lot of cost onto the system, so yes it seems like a cheaper way to get more performance in certain situations without breaking the bank too much.

 

[(((interference)))]

From the Yukon leak, MS's goal was to offer something referred to as Xbox 361 sometime in 2012 iirc. Verge has been pushing the rumor for a while now that it was a streamlined 360 aimed at being a set top box with limited gaming capabilities.

Yes, however things have changed a bit since the leaked 2010 roadmap.

MS will not end of life 360 when Xbox 3 comes out, like it did with the original Xbox (due to its high cost of manufacture) but repackage it and sell it as a low cost option with a great software library for emerging markets and price sensitive consumers, much like Sony did with the PS2.

However, MS is definitely going to also release an Xbox TV device, mostly as a hedge against Apple TV and similar devices. This is ARM based so will not run 720 or 360 games but will run WinRT so work with Win 8 apps/games and be used primarily for Netflix/Xbox Video streaming (and also be able to connect to the 720 and stream media, recorded TV etc from it, possibly including game mirroring)
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/df-hardware-the-cloud-is-coming-home

 

[Jwm]

Pure speculation - what if the current 360 or the 360SS doubles as a remote play device? No, not many households have a console in multiple rooms like some of us. Neat idea though, own one 720 and the 360 is a full extender for 720 games (I would need the ability for two separate games to be running).

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