Xbox One (Durango) Technical hardware investigation

[Docwiz]

But he forfeits nothing. If the intention is to jump in and get people believing and hoping on the implausible, his job is done even if it proves untrue. That's why response to ridiculous rumours should be to ignore them, or at least address them with a considerable measure of scepticism.

Look at the architecture design. CPU+GPU+DMEs+eSRAM all on the same unit. Is MS doubling all that? 8 DMEs for the devs to worry about instead of just doubling up performance of the 4? Two APUs sharing 60 GB/s DDR3 and then with 100 GB/s local storage each, while framebuffer is supposed to be in DDR3? How do they interact and share workloads? It's a crazy design! A lot of work. Far easier to just add a second GPU and disable that for low-power functions. The whole architecture fits the design of 8 x86 cores, 12 CUs, 60 GB/s DDR3 and local eSRAM. That's a nice, compact design that'll get real cheap to make real quick and can forwards compatible. The only thing it fails on is MOARE POWWEERRRR. If people stopped hoping for MOARE POWWEERRRR, then the specs and design fit nicely into a clear picture. Trying to turn that into something else is trying to bend reality to fit a dream. What if...what if...um, how can I take the knowledge we have and somehow expand it into something I'd rather want?...what if they...stick two of these systems together into one?! That must be it!

We've seen it time and again with consoles, that information starts to build up a comprehensive picture and yet people still hope for amazing extras and interpretations to produce the box they would rather have. And it would appear some random people like to bait these hopes, and some people are still willing to believe.

Here is the big problem....

We don't know if....
1) We have the complete specifications for the console
2) We have the latest specifications for the console

Without knowing 100 percent if it's the latest and fully complete specs, then logically it means that we just don't know. It's not about someone being a fanboy or wishing it's simply that we do not know.

This is the way I look at it, if it's significantly less power, then there must be something inside that box other than Kinect. Kinect 2.0 does not contain any motors and the NUI accelerator is built into the console with the SOC, also Microsoft has built their own technology from scratch and they are not using "Prime Sense" and so they are not getting paid. So, even though Kinect 2.0 has an active IR part and the camera is higher resolution, Kinect 2.0 should be cheap. Kinect itself was overpriced at $150 on purpose so Microsoft could pull a Nintendo and profit. Microsoft makes 1080p web cameras and has done so for a long time and they bought Canesta to make the next generation Kinect 2.0 technology.

I personally would like to see 12GB inside of the console, 8 gigs for the games, 2 gigs for the apps, 1 gig for Kinect depth maps and 1 for the OS.

 

[pjbliverpool]

I still remember when the last generation console specs were announced and people didn't have to make up wild theories about secret sauce to justify the lack of paper specs. I really can't wait until the specs are officially announced so we can put all this rubbish to bed.

 

[Proelite]

I would have been much more likely to believe it if he had said they were dropping in a second stock mobile APU, say a 4 core jaguar and 1 or 2 CU GPU, with it's own pool of DDR3, and then told developers, "Remember that system reservation we told you about? It's gone."

I don't think that makes sense either.

How would the two apus share Kinect data / voice library data? They'll have to either have two copies of the data loaded into the separate memory pool(likely but they would give up a lot of OS - game interaction functionality), use the same pool of memory (most likely), or have it loaded into a shared memory pool (highly unlikely), or have buses connecting the two memory pools (unlikely?).

The only reason IMO for two APUs is that manufacturing smaller components that can be easily decoupled from one another is cheaper than making one big SOC that has yield problems. It would probably be a fairly late solution, but one that they should have foresaw and prepared for.

 

[expletive]

IThe only reason IMO for two APUs is that manufacturing smaller components that can be easily decoupled from one another is cheaper than making one big SOC that has yield problems. It would probably be a fairly late solution, but one that they should have foresaw and prepared for.

Or the smaller "System APU" which controls the OS and core apps will remain largely the same with future iterations of the console while the "Application APU" can be easily scaled every 2-3 years to something more powerful.

EDIT: With regards to the Yukon leak, theres a lot thats similar since then, the only pieces that would be missing are the "System APU" and Back Compat CPU (seems as if they thought the new GPU could handle what Xenos was doing). Based on that leak the CPU was 25% of the App APU and the GPU was roughly 33% of the App GPU, that obviously translates to a 2xjaguar + 4CU APU. (plus a Xenon CPU floating around on the mainboard somewhere)

Also, the document does make a specific note along the bottom that the system was designed to be easily scaleable clock speed and core number.

 

[astrograd]

Or the smaller "System APU" which controls the OS and core apps will remain largely the same with future iterations of the console while the "Application APU" can be easily scaled every 2-3 years to something more powerful.

EDIT: With regards to the Yukon leak, theres a lot thats similar since then, the only pieces that would be missing are the "System APU" and Back Compat CPU (seems as if they thought the new GPU could handle what Xenos was doing). Based on that leak the CPU was 25% of the App APU and the GPU was roughly 33% of the App GPU, that obviously translates to a 2xjaguar + 4CU APU. (plus a Xenon CPU floating around on the mainboard somewhere)

Also, the document does make a specific note along the bottom that the system was designed to be easily scaleable clock speed and core number.

For reference:

I think someone here suggested two SoC's wouldn't be doable due to power considerations? Evidently MS felt otherwise even with a higher clocked main CPU/GPU according to ole Yukon here.

Notes:

1) 2 x86 CPU cores and scaled back GPU for OS
2) The video output block there...that's our display planes
3) The clock ratio for CPU/GPU for the main gaming SoC is 2:1...same as the current leaks...so maybe both will see increased clocks up to 2GHz/1GHz?
4) In the other parts of the leak they mention possible replacement for eDRAM being eSRAM...32MB.
5) The skeletal tracking module there...that moved to main CPU (or is there really another SoC for the OS as per Yukon and inline with bkilian's response to what BClifford claimed)?
6) Audio DSP, HDMI in/out noted
7) Presumably a SATA HDD replaced the flash storage?
8) Any other similarities? ALU count on main gaming GPU?

This would have been in the works soon after the IBM guys came to MS in early 2010...so did they see this and consolidate everything into a single SoC or did they possibly create this Yukon design as two SoC's and later on had to modify it with extra kit for the graphics pipeline?

I know the overall Yukon architecture isn't being used anymore, but I'm curious exactly how far off the current setup really is. I don't think anyone noted the display plane concepts until now (flexible scaling, composition, 3D). If you read the patent for it you'll see they are all about those 3 areas with them.

Also, re-reading their patents I just noticed something quite interesting...

Versions of a multimedia computer system architecture are described which satisfy quality of service (QoS) guarantees for multimedia applications such as game applications while allowing platform resources, hardware resources in particular, to scale up or down over time.

​

Computing resources of the computer system are partitioned into a platform partition and an application partition, each including its own central processing unit (CPU) and, optionally, graphics processing unit (GPU). To enhance scalability of resources up or down, the platform partition includes one or more hardware resources which are only accessible by the multimedia application via a software interface. Additionally, outside the partitions may be other resources shared by the partitions or which provide general purpose computing resources.

http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20120159090

So the claim has been made that they abandoned Yukon...well, as of summer 2012 they were evidently nailing down a patent specifically for a dual SoC platform architecture that is almost certainly Durango. So again I ask, how far off Yukon are we talking about here? Also, the fact it refers to the OS SoC as "optionally" including a GPU makes me think they were still unsure on which way they wanted to go in that regard.

The last line there makes me think they are referring to the extra hardware supporting the GPU (DME's, display planes, eSRAM, etc).

I also found this new patent by the ppl working on Durango...

http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20130044222
http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20120245933

It might be referencing automatic calibration of the new Kinect device (rumored to be required to start the console).

Thoughts?

 

[AlphaWolf]

I think someone here suggested two SoC's wouldn't be doable due to power considerations? Evidently MS felt otherwise even with a higher clocked main CPU/GPU according to ole Yukon here.

That doc seems to suggest its a single soc, with ~50W consumption (112ALU's total...). Durango's rumored 12CU 800Mhz gpu part will exceed 50W on its own.

 

[astrograd]

That doc seems to suggest its a single soc, with ~50W consumption (112ALU's total...). Durango's rumored 12CU 800Mhz gpu part will exceed 50W on its own.

Is it just a single SoC? It looks like it is sectioned off to be two...one for application and one for system. Or no? Are we looking at one SoC with 2 GPU's and 2 CPU's on it?

And if it is two, maybe 50W each? What's the ALU count on the leaked Durango GPU as per VGLeaks? Anyone know off hand?

 

[Betanumerical]

Is it just a single SoC? It looks like it is sectioned off to be two...one for application and one for system. Or no? Are we looking at one SoC with 2 GPU's and 2 CPU's on it?

And if it is two, maybe 50W each? What's the ALU count on the leaked Durango GPU as per VGLeaks? Anyone know off hand?

The Durango Conference doco from last year mentions a high priority system queue on the 12CU GPU for system graphics, I think thats pretty telling for wether or not its going to have a system GPU.

Also, why a system GPU, its not like the system needs to render massively complicated 3D games you could probably get away with a much smaller, cheaper and colder DSP to the overlays for you, but even then, why bother?, seriously, how much GPU time does the system take up?.

 

[astrograd]

The Durango Conference doco from last year mentions a high priority system queue on the 12CU GPU for system graphics, I think thats pretty telling for wether or not its going to have a system GPU.

Also, why a system GPU, its not like the system needs to render massively complicated 3D games you could probably get away with a much smaller, cheaper and colder DSP to the overlays for you, but even then, why bother?, seriously, how much GPU time does the system take up?.

Dunno. I suppose the rumors about the system taking up 3GB for the OS stuff might fit into that? I recall ppl pondering what could possibly need that much space in RAM for OS stuff. Maybe there is a connection there somehow?


Hmmm....actually, if you read the specific claims they are trying to cover here we might be getting glimpses of architectural design options they were considering at some point.

1. A multimedia computer system for performing processing subject to one or more quality of service (QoS) guarantees for a multimedia software application comprising: a platform computing resources partition comprising a platform central processing unit (CPU) and a platform graphics processing unit (GPU); and an application computing resources partition comprising an application CPU and an application GPU; and a shared resource accessible by a platform partition resource and an application partition resource.

...

15. A multimedia computer system for performing processing subject to one or more quality of service (QoS) guarantees for a multimedia software application comprising: a platform computing resources partition comprising a platform central processing unit (CPU) and a platform graphics processing unit (GPU); an application computing resources partition comprising an application CPU and an application GPU; a memory accessible by each of the processing units; and one or more computer storage media having encoded thereon instructions for causing at least one of the processing units to perform a method for changing an operation mode to a requested mode of the at least one processing unit between a multimedia mode and a general purpose computer mode.

...

16. The multimedia computer system of claim 15 wherein the method for changing the operation mode of the at least one processing unit between a multimedia mode and a general purpose computer mode comprises: storing current mode execution state data of the at least one processing unit in the memory; and storing current runtime memory contents for any applications executing on the at least one processing unit in the memory.

...

18. A multimedia computer system comprising: a platform computing resources partition comprising a platform central processing unit (CPU); an application computing resources partition comprising an application CPU; and a system CPU for executing a general purpose operating system concurrently with any of the application or platform processing units.

19. The multimedia computer system of claim 18 further comprising: a system GPU for providing graphics processing for applications executing on the system CPU.

20. The multimedia computer system of claim 18 wherein either of the system CPU and the system GPU may be a shared resource by the platform partition and the application partition.
​

​

​

​

The setup seems similar to the Yukon stuff while also being similar to some current leaks/rumors too. Maybe they went with claim 18-20's embodiment there?
​

EDIT: Whoops! Seems the patent was only published in mid-2012. It was filed in December 2010, so only a few months after the Yukon roadmap doc was created. Even still though, if things were dramatically different they would presumably have filed for another patent. So either there is a more up to date Durango platform patent out there...or whatever they switched to is already covered in the above claims.
​

 

[Betanumerical]

Dunno. I suppose the rumors about the system taking up 3GB for the OS stuff might fit into that? I recall ppl pondering what could possibly need that much space in RAM for OS stuff. Maybe there is a connection there somehow?

You do not need much extra RAM to do multi GPU/CPU systems, I think the rumoured part reason for the 3GB OS was something to do with kinect (skeletal library?) or something along those lines.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Is it just a single SoC? It looks like it is sectioned off to be two...one for application and one for system. Or no? Are we looking at one SoC with 2 GPU's and 2 CPU's on it?

And if it is two, maybe 50W each? What's the ALU count on the leaked Durango GPU as per VGLeaks? Anyone know off hand?

Maybe the 50W is just supposed to be for the main soc, 64alu + cpu but I do not know how it would use near that. Smallish CPU with almost nothing for GPU.

There are 64ALU's in each CU for a total of 768 in the rumored durango gpu.

I'm not sure what Yukon is or was meant to be, but there won't be much next gen about a 112 ALU part. I don't think it's really worth discussing in terms of the xbox720, it is clearly something else.

 

[Xovek]

That´s what I´ve been asking since yesterday in this thread: if the system power was showed in VGL at the very beginning.

And as I said yesterday, one guy in a spanish forum wrote weeks ago the system power was 150W-160W, but I did not see anything like that in the VGL.

I guess the system power could explain it self some thing didn´t appear in the VGL.

 

[Betanumerical]

That´s what I´ve been asking since yesterday in this thread: if the system power was showed in VGL at the very beginning.

And as I said yesterday, one guy in a spanish forum wrote weeks ago the system power was 150W-160W, but I did not see anything like that in the VGL.

I guess the system power could explain it self some thing didn´t appear in the VGL.

I think we need to take leaks that do not provide much evidence pretty skeptically, the only reason I am even believing the vgleaks is because of how much information they are providing and that some of it is verifiable with some people, some guy on a spanish forum saying something is no where near the same level of credibility imo.

 

[Xovek]

I think we need to take leaks that do not provide much evidence pretty skeptically, the only reason I am even believing the vgleaks is because of how much information they are providing and that some of it is verifiable with some people, some guy on a spanish forum saying something is no where near the same level of credibility imo.

Totally agree with you.
Is just that in that time I didn't realize the meaning of their commentary until now.

 

[astrograd]

Maybe the 50W is just supposed to be for the main soc, 64alu + cpu but I do not know how it would use near that. Smallish CPU with almost nothing for GPU.

There are 64ALU's in each CU for a total of 768 in the rumored durango gpu.

I'm not sure what Yukon is or was meant to be, but there won't be much next gen about a 112 ALU part. I don't think it's really worth discussing in terms of the xbox720, it is clearly something else.

Read the patent. This is very clearly Durango. Or was. Some elements of the Yukon design are very clearly still fulfilling major roles in Durango's leaked/rumored setup.

 

[Betanumerical]

Read the patent. This is very clearly Durango. Or was. Some elements of the Yukon design are very clearly still fulfilling major roles in Durango's leaked/rumored setup.

The leaked setup is 1 GPU / 1 CPU for Durango. I have yet to see anything aside from Yukon and a single patent that suggests otherwise.

a dual GPU setup does not make any sense, there is no point in increasing the cost to develop the machine and also increase the complexity of the system for such small gain. The only kinda difference is going to be in the CPU, it will gain two more cores. But is it really worth it for all that extra silicon and all the extra heat and cost?. I see it as a minor increase for not much real reason.

 

[astrograd]

I think we need to take leaks that do not provide much evidence pretty skeptically, the only reason I am even believing the vgleaks is because of how much information they are providing and that some of it is verifiable with some people, some guy on a spanish forum saying something is no where near the same level of credibility imo.

Well clearly MS thought the Yukon setup could be rated at 120W. I think to be sold as an always on STB in some states (CA, in particular) you have to meet certain power requirements and I seem to recall the limit being 120W or so.

 

[bagofsuck]

Read the patent. This is very clearly Durango. Or was. Some elements of the Yukon design are very clearly still fulfilling major roles in Durango's leaked/rumored setup.

wasn't 16 cores rumored back in the day?

 

[DopeyFish]

Maybe the 50W is just supposed to be for the main soc, 64alu + cpu but I do not know how it would use near that. Smallish CPU with almost nothing for GPU.

There are 64ALU's in each CU for a total of 768 in the rumored durango gpu.

I'm not sure what Yukon is or was meant to be, but there won't be much next gen about a 112 ALU part. I don't think it's really worth discussing in terms of the xbox720, it is clearly something else.

i think you're reading it wrong; how I understand the GPU descriptions:

64 ALU GPU = 16CU GPU (64 SIMDs)

48 ALU GPU = Xenos

The leaked setup is 1 GPU / 1 CPU for Durango. I have yet to see anything aside from Yukon and a single patent that suggests otherwise.

a dual GPU setup does not make any sense, there is no point in increasing the cost to develop the machine and also increase the complexity of the system for such small gain. The only kinda difference is going to be in the CPU, it will gain two more cores. But is it really worth it for all that extra silicon and all the extra heat and cost?. I see it as a minor increase for not much real reason.

I hate to sound like a broken record but

Developers would NOT be detailed on the OS portions of Durango. They will NEVER have control of it... so there is absolutely no point in telling them about it. All they know is... there's a DSP and they have calls to one? Maybe there is a 3xPPC in there for BC. Only MS knows that... only people in MS know this. All leaks since Yukon have CLEARLY been developer leaks. Only a little piece of the puzzle. Maybe Xenos is the DSP? (could it even function like that? I dunno.)

This is platform planning. Creating a wall in between the gaming environment and the operating system environment. Multitasking. Security. Convenience.

 

[eastmen]

The leaked setup is 1 GPU / 1 CPU for Durango. I have yet to see anything aside from Yukon and a single patent that suggests otherwise.

a dual GPU setup does not make any sense, there is no point in increasing the cost to develop the machine and also increase the complexity of the system for such small gain. The only kinda difference is going to be in the CPU, it will gain two more cores. But is it really worth it for all that extra silicon and all the extra heat and cost?. I see it as a minor increase for not much real reason.

There is one point in it making sense.

Xbox TV .


Durango APU = Xbox TV
-------------------------------------
Durango APU x2 = Xbox high end console.

or

Durango APU + GPU = Xbox high end console.


If Durango does have the waternoose in it then you can even replace the xbox 360 with it and just ship a single sku that will be a media center extender + tv tunner + xbox 360 game machine and maybe even new games.


The real question is how would taking the high end Durango games and getting them to work on the low end. Could the high end simply run them at 1080p with better filtering and aa ? and then Durango base would run them at 720p with lower filtering and no aa ? Devs do it for the pc already


The dual apu thing would work cause MS can just crank out even higher volumes of chips bringing down costs more. the xbox tv using the same apu would lower costs even more as again volume would increase. or the additional gpu would allow ms to create the gpu in higher quanitys . Also 2 pools of ddr 3 8 gigs would most likely still be cheaper than a single pool of gdr 5 at 8 gigs.

I doubt this rumor is true though