Xbox One (Durango) Technical hardware investigation

[BeyondTed]

Could the new block be related to part of the audio subsystem that deals with Kinect speech processing?

I guess the general consensus is that the amount of SRAM looks rather big for audio purposes. At least the amount is quite a few times the amounts on the Hotchips slides if I recall correctly.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-09-04-xbox-one-hot-chips-processor-presentation

It has four DSP cores with 16KB/32KB I/D cache each and then 64KB SRAM.

I saw someone post 2560KB for the SRAM in the "new" block. Not sure were 2560KB came from but the block looks in that rough range of size relative to the two 16MB (+ ? redundancy) GPU SRAM blocks.



I guess no one really knows at this point.

 

[Grall]

I guess no one really knows at this point.

So if I say, "scratchpad RAM!", then we've covered all bases, yes? Not sure it's a cache, since I can't see any cache tags nearby, so it does look just like a standalone lump of SRAM like the main 32MB block(s), and located near the CPU cores it could be a scatchpad. Although as someone mentioned, private RAM for embedded security processor is also a possibility of course, but then you should be able to visibly identify that processor somewhere on the chip, but most of the surrounding logic just looks like "sea of transistors", without much if any structure...

 

[Starx]

First sorry for my english.

A GPU waiting for 100 clocks for data would run at 1/100 efficiency, i.e. 1% of theoretical performance!

http://www.sisoftware.net/?d=qa&f=gpu_mem_latency

I think the number of Compute Units is important but latency is more important , x1 architecture is all about the latency and reducing idle time of GPU with eSRAM and two graphics and compute command processors , IMO if the scheduling is correct and the data is placed in the correct location at the right time then developers can use the advantages of this architecture and release the power of system.
Please tell me what do you think about this theory?

 

[BRiT]

Some interesting tidbits on the Xbox One HardDrive if the information is to be believed...

• GUID Partition Tables
• 5 Primary NTFS Partitions
  • Temp Content partition sized 41984 MiB
  • User Content partition sized (drive size minus 102400 MiB rounded to nearest GiB)
  • System Support partition sized 40960 MiB
  • System Update partition sized 12288 MiB
  • System Update 2 partition sized 7168 MiB

 

[Globalisateur]

latency moot point

First sorry for my english.



http://www.sisoftware.net/?d=qa&f=gpu_mem_latency

I think the number of Compute Units is important but latency is more important , x1 architecture is all about the latency and reducing idle time of GPU with eSRAM and two graphics and compute command processors , IMO if the scheduling is correct and the data is placed in the correct location at the right time then developers can use the advantages of this architecture and release the power of system.
Please tell me what do you think about this theory?

X1 architects themselves on Eurogamer already told us that the latency was not an advantage with those modern GPU.

And the low latency advantages already brings the benefit in some cases of increasing the vram bandwidth from 109 to 150.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

First sorry for my english.



http://www.sisoftware.net/?d=qa&f=gpu_mem_latency

I think the number of Compute Units is important but latency is more important , x1 architecture is all about the latency and reducing idle time of GPU with eSRAM and two graphics and compute command processors , IMO if the scheduling is correct and the data is placed in the correct location at the right time then developers can use the advantages of this architecture and release the power of system.
Please tell me what do you think about this theory?

That's what caches are for. It even says that in your article. Do you think GPU manufacturers to date have had their GPUs running at 1% efficiency, and it's taken MS this long to solve it? Or even running at 80% due to memory latency?

As already mentioned, the XB1 engineers had chance to describe the benefits of lower latency SRAM, and they said GPUs are already latency tolerant and they aren't really talking about the latency of their system - it's no real advantage, save perhaps in some compute workloads. We don't even know how low 'low' is as there are no stats on that aspect of it.

 

[Billy Idol]

Kinect 2 is by far the most advanced piece of technology in either system. It is state of the art. It is cutting edge.

I agree with this. But I am also impressed by the PS4 design itself: relative compact and still not overheating and noise problems. This is quite impressive on a technical level imo and also cutting edge.

 

[Michellstar]

Some interesting tidbits on the Xbox One HardDrive if the information is to be believed...

• GUID Partition Tables
• 5 Primary NTFS Partitions
  • Temp Content partition sized 41984 MiB
  • User Content partition sized (drive size minus 102400 MiB rounded to nearest GiB)
  • System Support partition sized 40960 MiB
  • System Update partition sized 12288 MiB
  • System Update 2 partition sized 7168 MiB

Apparently they found a way of using other HDDs on XO, even larger than stock 500gb.

Apart from voiding the warranty, no word yet if Ms can block this upgrade, or if may ban your console....

 

[Rangers]

Apparently they found a way of using other HDDs on XO, even larger than stock 500gb.

Apart from voiding the warranty, no word yet if Ms can block this upgrade, or if may ban your console....

If history is any indication certainly not. "Gray market", non-MS official, chinese knockoff hard drives were openly sold on Amazon for 360 and nobody was banned.

I even run my old "Elite" 120G HDD in a new "Slim" unit. I bought a slim 4GB, and recycled my old Elite's HDD into it using a $5 caddy they sell on Amazon so it fit perfect. So i have in effect a 120GB Slim. No issues.

Microsoft is not going to care or look for the bad pub of banning people over that. the only way I can see if they would is if it becomes some asset to hacking.

 

[BRiT]

Apparently they found a way of using other HDDs on XO, even larger than stock 500gb.

Apart from voiding the warranty, no word yet if Ms can block this upgrade, or if may ban your console....

Yeah, though the currently released tools are very rough. Its where i ripped the drive information from to post here.

They have a Python script that invokes "parted" (Linux partition tool) to create the 5 partitions with the NTFS filesystem. After that step, you then need to copy over files from the original drive. Right now this isn't for noobs, but I'm sure they will make a Windows or Dos version soon.

The interesting tidbit is no need to flash the drives with specific firmwares or set particular serial numbers or keys elsewhere in the system. I would have thought you'd have to also copy over certain security sectors too. That doesn't seem to be the case.

Only time will tell if raw copying games to the drive will bypass installation or if the files are encrypted per 1 time activation key tied to that specific console. Thus preventing piracy.

Also no word on if the existing files on the drive are the same for all units or if they use a married / 1 time activation key to that specific console.

If they had the drive mounted similar to the xbox 360 slims, then I'm sure they could have offered user replaceable drives like the PS3 or PS4.

 

[imaxx]

As already mentioned, the XB1 engineers had chance to describe the benefits of lower latency SRAM

One question, I am curious: do we know how many ACEs are present in the xbone?
I mean, how many command queues in parallel can the CPU feed?
Is it two like Tahiti architecture, or more?
This is would be very interesting to know....

 

[BRiT]

Here's the first rundown of someone ( Brian D Williams ) testing out different drives in the XBox One by using Clonezilla. The alternate drives are a 500 Gig Samsung EVO SSD and a 1 TB Seagate Hybrid drive.

Loading COD:Ghost

• 33.5 seconds Stock
• 27.7 seconds Hybrid
• 27 seconds SSD

 

[Gubbi]

The interesting tidbit is no need to flash the drives with specific firmwares or set particular serial numbers or keys elsewhere in the system. I would have thought you'd have to also copy over certain security sectors too. That doesn't seem to be the case.

Only time will tell if raw copying games to the drive will bypass installation or if the files are encrypted per 1 time activation key tied to that specific console. Thus preventing piracy.

Considering their problems with hacked firmware in optical drive/HDD last gen, I'd expect them to treat every storage device as untrusted/insecure.

Cheers

 

[RudeCurve]

Here's the first rundown of someone ( Brian D Williams ) testing out different drives in the XBox One by using Clonezilla. The alternate drives are a 500 Gig Samsung EVO SSD and a 1 TB Seagate Hybrid drive.

Loading COD:Ghost

• 33.5 seconds Stock
• 27.7 seconds Hybrid
• 27 seconds SSD

Sweet, hopefully MS allows this unofficially so people who are willing to void their warranty are free to do so.

 

[Betanumerical]

One question, I am curious: do we know how many ACEs are present in the xbone?
I mean, how many command queues in parallel can the CPU feed?
Is it two like Tahiti architecture, or more?
This is would be very interesting to know....

2 with 8 queues each.

 

[dobwal]

X1 architects themselves on Eurogamer already told us that the latency was not an advantage with those modern GPU.

And the low latency advantages already brings the benefit in some cases of increasing the vram bandwidth from 109 to 150.

Not everything is as latency insensitive as the gpu. X1 archs have also highlighted the ability of the system to move around data rather quickly.

 

[dobwal]

Could that 2.5 mb of SRAM be related to an iommu and it's tlb. There are a lot of io devices on the SOC and must go through an iommu to hit the main memory.

 

[Cyan]

Here's the first rundown of someone ( Brian D Williams ) testing out different drives in the XBox One by using Clonezilla. The alternate drives are a 500 Gig Samsung EVO SSD and a 1 TB Seagate Hybrid drive.

Loading COD:Ghost

• 33.5 seconds Stock
• 27.7 seconds Hybrid
• 27 seconds SSD

Very interesting. Sorry but I prefer the stock model and would never pay 300$ more for a 5 seconds improvement -even less when you power the console on-.

A Bloomberg article on the 3 OSes the Xbox One does use.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...operating-systems.html?cmpid=otbrn.tech.story

 

[imaxx]

2 with 8 queues each.

nice to know.
So, on complex GPU workload, the front end should likely be bottlenecked.

 

[imaxx]

A Bloomberg article on the 3 OSes the Xbox One does use.

The hypervisor is... an OS?!?!