Leaked Xbox 360 specs and Xbox Live details?
posted May 9th 2005 4:30PM
These could be completely fake, but some semi-plausible specs for the new
Xbox 360, as well as some details about Xbox Live, were
posted and then quickly pulled from the TeamXbox forums. The part about it having a 20GB detachable hard drive seems a
little sketch, since we'd heard something about it being a 40GB drive, but the rest of it seems to make sense. You have
exactly 77 hours to argue over whether or not these are
for real.
[Thanks, Joe]
2 types of Xbox Live:
Xbox Live Silver (no subscription required)
Xbox Live Gold (subscription benefits)
Features for Gold service
* Also for Silver
# Also for Offline
- Seamless transition to Xbox Live account from Xbox to Xbox 360
- Access to MMOs (additional fees may apply) *
- Free Xbox Live weekends *
- Multiplayer online gameplay
- Avatar for gamer profile * #
- Motto for gamer profile * #
- Personalized look for Xbox System Guide * #
- Offline achievments * #
- Online achievements *
- Access to other players’ Gamer cards via Live *
- Cumulative gamer score * #
- Location/language profile * #
- Reputation *
- Enahnced matchmaking using above
- Skill level matchmaking
- Gameplay style profile (casual, competitive, etc.)
- Recent players list *
- Free and premium download game content *
- Free and premium downloadable movies, music, tv *
- Downloadable demos/trailers *
- Microtransactions *
- Custom playlist in every game * #
- Play music from portable devices * #
- View images from digital camera * #
- Strem media from Windows XP * #
- Interactive screen savers * #
- Track info for CDs * #
- Communication with voice, video or text *
360 HW:
1. Support for DVD-video, DVD-Rom, DVD-R/RW, CD-DA, CD-Rom, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 cd, JPEG photo CD
2. All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing
3. Customizable face plates to change appearance
4. 3 USB 2.0 ports
5. Support for 4 wireless controllers
6. Detachable 20GB drive
7. Wi-Fi ready
Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU
- 3 symmetrical cores at 3.2 GHz each
- 2 hardware threads per core
- 1 VMX-128 vector unit per core
- 1 MB L2 cache
CPU Game Math Performance
- 9 billion dots per second
Custom ATI Graphics Processor
- 500 MNz
- 10 MB embedded DRAM
- 48-way parallel floating-point shader pipelines
- unified shader architecture
Memory
-512 MB GDDR3 RAM
- 700 MNz DDR
Memory Bandwidth
- 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
- 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
- 21.6 GB/s frontside bus
Audio
- Mulitchannel surround sond output
- Supports 48khz 16-bit audio
- 320 independent decompression channels
- 32 bit processing
- 256+ audio channels
Wow! if those are the real specs, i'm DEFINATELY getting one... FREE xbox live on the weekends!!!??? HECK YEAH!
Well, after buying a HDTV I have to get one if it does indeed do:
"2. All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing"
So what time / date is the MTV launch? I want to set my DVR to record it.... ?
just a question, sorry for being such a noob... but the wireless controllers... does anyone know what frequency they are going to be on? every 2.4 Ghz controller i've used messes with my wireless network. my xbox, all my computers, etc are all on a WiFi network, and when i've used controllers like the logitech controller, the wifi connections get all buggy and slow. any info?
It's nice to see that M$ isn't kicking themselves in the nuts by committing to a new disc format. Hopefully that'll keep the cost down.
20GB? Sound's like it's a
It's nice to see that M$ isn't kicking themselves in the nuts by committing to a new disc format. Hopefully that'll keep the cost down.
20GB? Sound's like it's a
Wow I would be really suprised if they give it away on weekends. Funny that they would loosen up xbox live for their new console when they have already established the pricing for xbox live on old xbox...
Custom ATI Graphics Processor
- 500 MNz
?
Is that 500 MHz or what?
Provided it does support USB 2.0, do you think that eliminates the need to buy the hard drive if I already have and Iriver H120 mp3 player (20 gigs)?
sounds totally made up to me. Firstly they dont mention anything about the PPU which I thought was confirmed for Xbox360, and also one of the confirmed spyshots clearly has a 40GB detachable HDD.
I still don't buy the three symetrical core at 3.2 GHz thing, it just doesn't make any sense
When it says "free xb live weekends" they mean that there might be special weekends where it is free. It's not like MS is going to hand out live for everyone every weekend.
Sounds awesome! Unfortunatly I'll be at uni when the system is realised so not much cash but I've gotta save up for one of these bad boys. Looks like the system is going be more digital image based, storage digi images on it?
wow...speecless if those are the real specs...
qustions:
i still want to know if i can play my old games (halo/halo2) to be more specific
Sounds about right to me, but no dvr? bugger
Microsoft will have xbox-live just like a cell phone, with certain amount of minutes you can play the more you pay, the more play hours you get. And on weekends you get unlimited amount of gameplay for free ;)
M$ is doing almost everything the right way
this time, custom skins is just briliant and if they go with the free xbox live thing on weekends or maybe one weedend a month it will still be so good and a very smart way to wheel in more gamers to its gold service, just briliant so far.
Microsoft will have xbox-live just like a cell phone, with certain amount of minutes you can play the more you pay, the more play hours you get. And on weekends you get unlimited amount of gameplay for free ;)
I repeat, the following is a major revealation. The design above isn't the true Xbox360.
ITS A FAKE! M$ is a GENIUS!!!!!!!!!!!!
Today ourcolony.net has released a new design of a console pic which is 10X better than that shit above there. WOW! Coz the new look is AWESOME! Better than that vertical shit if you ask an Xbox fanboy like me. Some genius cracked this image. Love him for that.
Check it out here.
http://xs28.xs.to/pics/05191/ourcolony-leaked_image.jpg
Yeah, I'm not so sure about the 3x 3.2ghz processors. Sounds like overkill to me. A ten-fold increase from the first generation console? Anyone else?
yeesh, how come consoles always seem to be crippled by memory. if these specs are real, the processors have plenty of power, but limited ram. remember what this did to the ps2? though it could be to stop peopel from turning them into pc's.
Hmmm...toilets? Different Skins....Definitely.
Hug-me,
with xbox live you won't feel so lonely and with wireless controllers you will still feel like a traveller.
i bet it has no dvr so people will buy windows mce computers
yes PS3 will be better then xbox 360, but one thing is for sure, you all PS3 only fans will want to get xbox360 when it comes or later cuz in the end its about having fun and not about where or with what machine you have it on.
the console battle will in the end be a close fight like nvidia against ATi,and this generation it will be alot tighter fight.
Wow, those specs are pretty powerful and their online options are definiately impressive. I haven't seen specific specs on the PS3 and I'm not too excited about the Nintendo Revolution, but the PS3 has to do something amazing and quick because both systems only get a few exclusive games. Congratulations to Microsoft for getting in and staying in the game.
I'm sure you got the leaked image from TeamXbox forums you dumb f*ck kevinbackstabber. Here is another angle of the same pic.
http://xs28.xs.to/pics/05191/ourcolony-leaked_image2.jpg
Fake.
There's no 1080i requirement in the developer briefs. 720p is the minimum requirement.
If one spec's fake, all of them are suspect. No doubt many of these will turn out to be true, but only because they're basically common sense (for example, it's no stretch to say the next XBL will have matchmaking capabilities).
I'm sure the system will be unveiled in 3 days and 75% of this stuff will turn out to be true or sort-of true, and everyone will say "they were right!" But no, these are not real specs, these are just culled from various previous rumors combined with other features that can be safely assumed.
CPU Game Math Performance
- 9 billion dots per second
wtf is dots per second?
what no HD-DVD or Blue Ray... Jedi Please... I thought Bill Gates said this was the year for HD....
/ thats how many dots per second the system can pump out. I remember the industry used to use polygons as the benchmark, so i think these specs r suspect.
"There's no 1080i requirement in the developer briefs. 720p is the minimum requirement."
I'm going to guess the machine upconverts 720p to 1080i. Many early HDTV adopters have no 720p on their sets and it would just blank out their TVs. Much like a HD cable box, you set your resolution to 720p or 1080i and whatever the format the TV show is in, is either displayed or upconverted.
"Custom ATI Graphics Processor
- 500 MNz
- 10 MB embedded DRAM"
That 10 MB can't be right, can it?
Wow PPC? PPC? M$? No way Windows on Mac sucked . M$ does not have a good histrory with ppc
my cpu is a nueronet processor, a learning computer.
3 Ibm PPC processors at 3.2? Impossible. It would have to be the size of a Powermac! I mean if 2 PPC @ 2.7ghz needs water cooling what the hell would 3PPCs at 3.2 need? liquid nitrogen?
#28 its dot products its cpu...gpus is polys
"That 10 MB can't be right, can it?"
Both ATI and nVidia have been rolling out low-end cards with tiny amounts of RAM, to take advantage of today's fast RAM and interconnects (PCI Express). I'd think in an integrated environment, with DDR3, no less, you wouldn't _need_ much on board RAM, though it does still sound cheap.
Speaking of cheap, "Wi-Fi ready"?! I guess they need to have some kind of add-ons to sell, now that it sounds like the thing will play DVDs straight out of the box.
#31 at 90nm its possible ...remember custom 970
3cores...and MS promises at least 20million chips from ibm
actually maybe at 65nm...doubt it though
Here is another ourcolony leaked image. For those in the dark, the original is a fake console. Here is the real deal as cracked by Xbox fanboys today!
LADIES & GENTLEMEN THE REAL XBOX 360 AS REVEALED AT MTV EVENT. NOT THE LIVE LEAKED EARLIER, THIS IS REAL!
http://xs28.xs.to/pics/05192/ourcolony-leaked_image3.jpg
the_wake - Keep in mind 3 cores don't have to mean 3 unique procs. Rather like it says 3 cores. One proc can have multiple cores.
Yeah right!?!? Get-out-a-town with those crazy ass specs!!!
If the Xbox 360 has 3 3.2ghz cores, Steve Jobs might drive a tank through IBM's headquarters. (yes, it will be a uber cool "ipod white" tank with U2 blaring from the stereo -- and yes, Steve will be wearing a bullet proof black sweater)
My God...I need it now.
P.S whats and MMO?
THe PPC cores used in this (and in the Sony Cell) are very different animals from what is in a typical modern desktop processor. You wouldn't want to design a PC around these but for a dedicated application like a gaming platform the requirements of an in-order design are worth in exchange for very high performance at a very low cost. If you've been wondering about developers complaining about massively increased effort required for programming the next generation, this is one of the reasons. Multi-threaded design is also very foreign to game developers but that is at least well documented and just a matter of a learning curve. In-order processors means that lots of hands on code optimizing will be required. Modern developers aren't accustomed to that but such is the price of making this stuff happen for a mass market price.
im the shmuck whose just getting xbox live this week, but this is a funny thing which may end up screwing ms. now im not a copyright lawyer but this toothbrush name may give ms a hard time w/ naming the new xbox if the name will be the xbox 360. http://www.colgate.com/app/Colgate360/US/Offers/OnlineMedia.cvsp?cid=msn360medrec2005
#42
yeah, and everybody's a frickin' expert about everything nowadays from reading cpu specs and extrapolating business data (whatever the hell that means), your guess is as good as any
All you guys knocking the xbox 360 are probably the same ones that are kicking yourselves for not buying the original xbox. You hated for so long, and now you can't go back on your opinion and admit that you like. I bet almost all of the people who took the time to say they hate the 360, are gonna be the first in line to get one when it comes out. Own up to your real opinions. It is going to be a damn powerful sexy looking machine.
It's just a modifier to an existing trademark in both cases, so both Microsoft and Colgate are fine with it. You can call your product a Mustang. Just don't try to call it a Ford Mustang.
Hey, just to point out, the processors are 3.2GHz 3 cores. So that means it is probably on one chip. Apple won't get mad because they will be doing dual core chips soon enough, this just is a tri-core chip is all.
Massive Multiplayer Online
Wow all of you really bitch about the little things, but when its released you'll be the one's waiting in line to get, because you know you want to play. We know you're going to buy it, so stop bitching about the small stuff and get excited about what's to come.
If it's truly worth it of course...
I'm ready to see a struggle for the market with these next generation systems.
These specs are insane, but some of it isnt really believable, the pipelines on the graphics are pretty hight up there, and the Ram, 10mb is highly doubtful, though the 20 gb hd could be the standard form of saving, while the 40 gb is an upgrade, and the memory card slots...would be used for transporting data....i really hope all this is real, but i dont see the possiblities...whatever the specs are, it is still going to be a sweet machine!
#44
The PPC core in the Cell is well documented and has been discussed extensively on more technically inclined sites. It's highly improbable IBM could deliver an inexpensive set of PPC cores at that speed without using the same approach to reducing the transistor count and simplifying the pipeline. The main difference is that Cell is taking an approach similar to the PS2 in having a bunch of processing units on the CPU and coupling that to a simple video processor, while the Xbox 360 resembles its predecessor and a PC more in having a straight CPU(s) and having the specialized elements concentrated on a heavy duty video processor.
The operations are going to happen somewhere in the system, it's just a question of where. PS3 developers will be writing their own shaders to run on the Cell's SPEs while Xbox 360 shaders will live on the ATI video chip. As crossplatform engines become available for licensing the developers won't give it as much thought. They'll write to a single engine with each version knowing where to send the commands.
Dude, if these are real, i'm gettin' one first day they come out. that's like the internet on the computer. This is gonna be rad, no doubts here.
I just hope this time 'round, the remote control can physically turn on and off the console itself.
sequoia/#3: As far as anyone knows, they'll be in the 2.4GHz range. There are steps you can take to limit the problems though. There are 11 channels in the US 2.4GHz range, if you stack certain devices on the same channels, you'll be able to limit the collisions. Phones, door bells, and other random devices can all be on the same channels as eachother. Also, if you live outside the US, the 2.4GHz block has a few extra channels and if you do live in the US, you can unlock those channels and have 3 of them all to yourself -- It's againist FCC Regulations, though. You also could switch to 802.11a for your wireless network.
thanks ryan #53, i'll research on how to do that on my router...
ummm if you dont know what you are talking about then dont put in your two cents. if you read the spec listings it say that the xbox 360 will supply ONE cpu which will have 3 cores running at 3.s ghz. Each core will handle 2 threads.
people please understand that a core is NOT a processor. These specs are impressive but dont blow it up to what it is not. ONE processor with 3 cores.
#55
"3 symmetrical cores at 3.2 GHz each"
it's going to be fun to see what sort of hacks people come up with.
Theosbournefreak , suck your mommy's tit and shut up.
Alot of these spec's could be real, for example the 20GB's for the harddrive would make it cheap enough to be included in every Xbox 360 unit. I believe by stating live is free on weekends they really mean to say access to gold package features is allowed to everyone on weekends. This means you can play the multiplayer components of Xbox 360 games (and barring backwards compatability orginal xbox games?)therefor weekend warriors won't have to pay a yearly fee to get their game on. This alone will boast Xbox Live's player base. It's also nice to see Massively Multiplayer Online games accounted for this round. As stated above the processor has three cores each code has it's own vmx register for floating point math, the cores while not verified at 3.2ghz are close to all the other spec leaks which range from 3.0ghz per core to 3.6ghz. The 10MB of embedded DRAM on GPU is the dedicated framebuffer.
Come on, it has to be fake. Why spoil it all now? If you get exactly what Microsoft is telling you now, wouldn't that ruin the fun? Isn't there some sort of joy we all derive from the mystique of the final product? But then being aware of the fact either makes speculating over specs no fun, or a kind of "tell yourself its fun" fun. Bah, w/e. I say it's fake, though some of those specs were probably really close guesses.
They prob need those 3 CPUs just to make the backwards emulation possible for christ sake.
33: power pc is not mac. power pc is made by motorola/ibm and apple has nothing to do with it, apart from buying them and using them in their computers.
#57
Do you know what a core is on a CPU? core can be in any way shape or form depending on how the developers want the core to be placed on the CPU. The cell processor is one CPU with 8 cores so that does not mean that the ps3 will have 9 CPU's. A core is placed on CPU's to handle threading and strings so that the CPU does not stress its stelf over the limit. So instead of putting 2 processors you design one processor with 1,2 or maybe even 4 cores to less the load on the processor and for multi-tasking ability on your comp so that you dont get any slow downs or malfunctions. M$ can never afford to sale the xbox 360 at $300-400 with 3 power pc processors and actually ever believe they will profit from such a low cost.
I've heard shit all about the games.
Don't like Halo, so they need to get something compelling.
#61
Intel's dual core is basically just 2 processors on the same wafer. They connect using the FSB, and are therefore not much different than 2 separate CPUs. AMD is going with 2 cores that communicate through hyper transport, which allows higher core-to-core speeds (this is what I would define dual core as being). IBM may do it either way, or maybe something completely different, I don't know. What this article states is that each core will run at 3.2Ghz, I thought you were saying that the total (all 3 cores added up) speed of the CPU would be 3.2Ghz, that's why I quoted that part.
#61
Intel's dual core is basically just 2 processors on the same wafer. They connect using the FSB, and are therefore not much different than 2 separate CPUs. AMD is going with 2 cores that communicate through hyper transport, which allows higher core-to-core speeds (this is what I would define dual core as being). IBM may do it either way, or maybe something completely different, I don't know. What this article states is that each core will run at 3.2Ghz, I thought you were saying that the total (all 3 cores added up) speed of the CPU would be 3.2Ghz, that's why I quoted that part.
The specs again say nothing about progressive scan DVD playback!!!
"Support for DVD-video, DVD-Rom, DVD-R/RW, CD-DA, CD-Rom, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 cd, JPEG photo CD"
This was a MAJOR mistake IMHO in XB1. I hope this has been corrected with XB2
In one of the pictures you can read the hard drive. It says "40GB" right on it. Now i can't find the pic, but I know it was there
So it's going to be cool. Now will my $49 logitech controller and my $60 Psyclone HD cables, both of which I wouldn't want to game without, work with the new console?
So it's going to be cool. Now will my $49 logitech controller and my $60 Psyclone HD cables, both of which I wouldn't want to game without, work with the new console?
For the pratt who thinks that everyone secretly loves the XBox - wake up. There are many valid reasons for disliking the XBox - poor game selection, unwieldy controllers, poor game selection, faulty hardware (the DVD drives in some models are particularly problematic), and poor game selection.
I have a PC, a PS2, and a Gamecube, and there has not been a single worthwhile game (possibly Jade Empire, but time will tell) that I could not play on one of these consoles.
Bear in mind that the above is my opinion, and I understand that some don't mind the games or the controllers.
- 9 billion dots per second
dots almost certainly refers to "dot products" here, the most common mathematical operation when working with 3D vectors, equivalent to 3 multiplications and 2 additions.
A dot B = Ax*Bx + Ay*By + Az*Bz
I want one of those chips in my mac... That is a 3-core PPC 980 (Power5 derivitave). Why does microsoft get better PPC silicon than Apple?
Just like to say to Eric P. #43, Multi-threading is by far very well known by game programmers. I'm studying at Digipen (www.digipen.edu) right now, and we learned multi-threading in semseter two. I can assure you that almost every game programmed in the last 15 years has had multi threading. As for the 20GB hard drive, I don't know about the supposed 40GB picture, but 20GB is more than enough. If you can't manage your downloaded content and game saves to fit within 20GB, you need to start playing more tetris.
These specs don't seen unreasonable at all. I'm not saying they're true or false, but they're about what I was expecting.
The XB Live free on weekends thing doesn't surprise me, as the current rumors have the Nintendo Revolution online all the time for free.
And 10MB embedded RAM for a custom video card designed for gaming is plenty.
3 cores seems very suspect to me. If Intel and AMD's 2-core chips are several hundred dollars, and IBM/Apple hasn't even launched a 2-core PPC chip yet, how are they supposed to jam a 3-core chip in there and price it under $300?
DrDork, you are aware Microsoft was losing hundreds per console when they originally released the XBOX, right? Whats to say they aren't losing money once again because they know it will be made up with game sales & XBL?
microsoft gets better silicone due to the fact they sold us all out to the government to eleviate anti trust prolems ill tell a few things 1 ever get the blue screen of death after downloading mp3 or movies and upgrade-n your norton or mcaffe or gettin a microsoft upgrade they mirror your hard drive after upgrades alot of there evil is under the guise of home land security and deals they made to save there butts they are evil and sold us all out
but i still want a x-box 360 even if 3/4 of that shyte above is lies
ok i dont get it so u have a choice to get silver or gold, and what do they mean silver u dont need a subcribtion....does that mean it will be free and gold will cost money
It's worth noting that these numbers are most probably made up. Here's why: computers use base-2 numbers(binary) to represent things, now clock speed is different, so i'll leave that alone. Is ten a base-2 number? It can be represented in base-2, but it's ugly, and it dosent divide prettily(important when dividing up bits to put on various ICs). A more believeable number would be, say, 128, or 32. Also, even at high speeds, ram is cheap, and only ten megabytes sounds small.
Three is not a pretty base-2 number either, but it's more important to be here, because we're talking about hardware as opposed to simply addressing only blah number of widgets(in this case, processors). To implement real SMP, three cores would be a bit odd, not to mention that on a console memory bandwidth is crucial, and opteron-style memory management this aint. so divide the bus speed by three and that's how fast it will be with three cores. So it's probably not real SMP. As for multi-core procs, they ease memory bandwidth via neat on-die sleight-of-hand, but they are obscenely expensive, and when designing a console, price is important. Especially since MS's X-box division is probably looking to turn a profit or break even on a per unit basis this time. It's also worth noting that consoles are supposed to be pretty quiet, and three modern processors, even underclocked, would need some serious cooling, probably lots of fans.
Also in the price department, parrallellized pipelines are expensive, and I wasn't even aware that they existed in 48-way configurations yet. Memory bandwidth is also not to be measured in Gbps, at least not with numbers like 20+Gbps.
Not trying to ruin the party, even with my nintendo fanboyism I am buying the current generation of X-box, however, these numbers look pretty sony-ized.
Its fake. 48 parrel pipes on a graphics card? ATIs R520 core has 32 parrel pipes and it isnt even out yet and wont be out for a while. The CPUs are very possible since PS3 is using 3 cells at 3.2ghz each. The other thing also thats fishy is the hard drive. The harddrive will most likely be opintional. Also I doubt its going to support CD-R and DVD-R since the first xbox didt and because of copy right safty.
Also apple sucks. PCs have been faster for some time. The AMD FX-55 probley kills any G5 right now and the duel/triple xeons DEFENTlY do kill any G5.
I really expect this to sell north of the $300 price point, at least for the first 4-6 months. Maybe $500 - I mean, hell, if you can sell a top of the line video card for $500, why not sell a console for that much. And since you're going to sell out of them at christmas time anyways, you might as well milk as much money as you can out of it.
I dont think three PPC cores is unlikely, but it does seem excessive to have three PPC cores AND hyperthreading (or its PPC equivalent - in the age of more than one core on a chip, hyperthreading is really only needed with long pipelines and the PPC pipeline is not long compared to Intel's P4). (and yes, IAACompE) Unless everything is done in software except for video (ie sound, network, modem, etc) it would seem to me that 3 hyperthreaded cores would be excessive.
The 48-pipeline core seems really odd. Considering that graphics chips today are only 16 pipeline beasts, and even at 90nm this would consume a tremendous amount of silicon space, not to mention power, and the heat it would generate, I would venture to say maybe a 24 or even 32 pipeline configuration. But 48? Way too much die space. Unless they figured out some neat way to "share" transistors between pipelines.
The 10MB of EDRAM is actually located really close to the graphics chip, and is really fast. The "rest" of the graphics ram seems quite dubious - 512MB GDDR3 ram is REALLY expensive. Maybe 512MB of system memory (would do wonders to mitigate loading times), but I highly doubt 512MB of graphics memory.
I'd like to see how well it will integrate with my other windows computers around the house. Hopefully it'll be able to act as a media jukebox, showing photos, playing MP3s, WMAs, etc from computers around the house (much like my Tivo can do).
To GhOsT42o:
--> they mirror your hard drive after upgrades
That's the biggest bunch of lies ever. How do you expect Microsoft to mirror an image of your hard drive to their servers? Don't you realize how much time that would take even over a high speed connection (3+ Mbps)? You need to seriously look into network security and protocols before you make ludicrous claims such as this. Also, I'd be willing to be that you're posting your comment from a Windows 9x/NT machine. Ironic, eh?
Microsoft is an ambitious company that's doing a great job and succeeding with it's goals: to deliver high-quality products and to make money. They have their flaws just like very company.
Linux, at the same time has it's own place in the market, but sadly until *nix gets more user friendly (KDE is great no doubt) it will continue to dwell in the shadows and continue to be an excellent server platform.
I personally think that the console wars will shape up to be a battle between Sony and Microsoft. Personally, owning a Linux box, Windows 2003 Server box, XP Pro box, Xbox, and PS2 (and some great retro boxes too :) ) I think that I have a valid opinion in the matter. I'm not a fanboy for either side, but I think that Microsoft is learning quickly, just like Sony did.
Finally, one trend that you may note: When Squaresoft broke their contract with Nintendo right before the dawning of the original Playstation, I knew there had to be something special about it, so I got one when it came out. I was amazed. I didn't even get an N64 because I was so pleased with my Playstation. I feel like I chose the right company for that generation, and the market share would show that Sony did indeed triumph. Now get this:
The creator of the Final Fantasy series is working exclusively with Microsoft to produce two games. Seeing as he is one of the best video game producers/designers ever, there's gotta be something sweet up Bill's expensive sleeve for the Xbox 360...
P.S. -- As for the specs, who knows. Looks great, especially if it can handle 6 different threads nicely at the same time. I think that with Microsofts money they could even afford to lose a little bit of money with every Xbox 360 sold and squeeze some extra-nice hardware in there. They will make up the profit in game and hardware accessories and Xbox live service fees.
Anyhow, that's my rambling 2 pennies.
coolrider64n, not to start a flamewar, but PPC has been shown to be faster than most x86 derivitives in everything but raw numeric output(which dosent matter on a console, since noone's going to be giving it a huge database of numbers to run matrix addition on). Raw calculations matter more on a GPU, not so much when you already have 2GHz processors to begin with.
There are also numerous issues with testing PPC aganst x86, the architectures are really quite different, to the point that it's not resonable to do a comparison with real world apps(due to compiler optimizations being unfair in many cases).
Although you may have a point about the FX55(gah, so fast!), it still costs five hundred dollars for one. Consoles need to be cheap.
Why did they take it off teamxbox.com if it was fake. Something to think about.
Oh I hope these specs are real.
I was going to post a bunch of stuff. But I don't think I'm going to get to any of you. We'll see if the specs are real at E3
Your all morons and don't know what your talking about. The 10 Mb is ram "on chip" that is solely set apart for the Graphics chip. The 512 is shared Ram that is used by the Graphics and the CPU and system. The first xbox had only 64 mb of Shared Ram. So if you know what your talking about, you would realize this is a huge!!!! huge!!! improvement. Make no mistake about it...the Xbox 360 will be capable of providing the highest level of graphics available today and in the near future. Only $500 graphics cards can compete with this level graphics.
Just search the internet for Unreal 3 Technology Demo to see the kind of graphics this thing can handle. There are currently NO PC games using Unreal 3 technology. Not a single one! Microsoft announced that all games made by MS Studios will use Unreal 3 technology. Go see the demo's and think about this. Mech Assault, Halo, Dead or Alive, Forza Motor Sport, Fable, Project Gotham, Cameo, Perfect Dark and more...All future iterations of these games will be using Unreal 3 technology and MS exclusive!
Bottom line...these specs = an amazing gaming platform that is quickly bringing gaming up many notches in one fell swoop.
Also, there is not a single provider of Downloadable Movies and TV to a set top appliance! Many are positioning themselves for this market, but If MS is breaking into this market with the 360, they will be the first and this is a huge deal. The Xbox 360 looks to be the device that finally brings to fruition the long touted arrival of seemless integration of computing and standard Televisions.
This is truly great for consumers and nothing less than a huge leap in the future of what we do in our living rooms.
Bluntist, the specs could be straight from Redmond, and it could still be a case of ps1-esque inflation. I never kept up with the specs for the original xbox as it was developing, but I watched as the ps1 and ps2 were inflated by sony into powerful supercomputers, using biased tests. I never meant to come out and say that it was fake(although I may have, it's late), but these numbers don't make much sense.
Also, astroturfing dosent always need the most accurate numbers, since it caters to the crowd that simply needed an excuse to buy it. teamxbox.net is astroturfing, or street-teaming, or whatever you kids are calling it nowadays.
Your all morons and don't know what your talking about. The 10 Mb is ram "on chip" that is solely set apart for the Graphics chip. The 512 is shared Ram that is used by the Graphics and the CPU and system. The first xbox had only 64 mb of Shared Ram. So if you know what your talking about, you would realize this is a huge!!!! huge!!! improvement. Make no mistake about it...the Xbox 360 will be capable of providing the highest level of graphics available today and in the near future. Only $500 graphics cards can compete with this level graphics.
Just search the internet for Unreal 3 Technology Demo to see the kind of graphics this thing can handle. There are currently NO PC games using Unreal 3 technology. Not a single one! Microsoft announced that all games made by MS Studios will use Unreal 3 technology. Go see the demo's and think about this. Mech Assault, Halo, Dead or Alive, Forza Motor Sport, Fable, Project Gotham, Cameo, Perfect Dark and more...All future iterations of these games will be using Unreal 3 technology and MS exclusive!
Bottom line...these specs = an amazing gaming platform that is quickly bringing gaming up many notches in one fell swoop.
Also, there is not a single provider of Downloadable Movies and TV to a set top appliance! Many are positioning themselves for this market, but If MS is breaking into this market with the 360, they will be the first and this is a huge deal. The Xbox 360 looks to be the device that finally brings to fruition the long touted arrival of seemless integration of computing and standard Televisions.
This is truly great for consumers and nothing less than a huge leap in the future of what we do in our living rooms.
Its fake specs, the cpu will range from 2.0 Ghz to 2.5 Ghz. No tri-core, most likely a dual core. For christ sakes, its a Power PC gentlemen (and some gamer ladies :) The ATI Video Chipset will have more than 10mb, at least a minimum of 32 MB (look at Nvidia TurboCache or ATI type [All using the technologies of the PCIe). Hard drive size in gaming may be 20GB or 40GB but remember that most games applied with the original XBox rarely use the hard drive, so im assuming 20GB or maybe the 40GB. Also Ethernet connectivity is required and guaranteed, also wireless B/G might be subjected depending on if they listen to what Nintendo Revolution is venturing towards. I repeat no game system will ever have better specs than what you can get with a PC or MAC. I understand the fact that the GHZ Cpu wars are over and we are implementing a more parallel way of getting better performance, but there is no chance it will have a 3.2 ghz processor.
well the specs are confirmed to be true since I have seen same specs on a Swedish gaming site that says that they have confirmed everything from a printed source...
Check this:
http://www.monitor-media.com/comments.php?id=480_0_1_0_C
They are talking about how the camera works and how the powerbutton will glow when someone wants to get hold of you with Xbox Live and how you can change faceplates and a lot of other things.
The 10MB of eDRAM is just enough to fit a 720P framebuffer. That alone will give unprecedented speed for bandwidth-intensive operations like anti-aliasing.
The 512MB of system memory is way more than enough.
720p content will likely be upconverted to 1080i (but still rendered at 720p, given the 10MB framebuffer).
Also, from what I've seen this processor is more directly related to IBM's line of Power5 (single, dual, quad, eight+ core) line of processors based on MCM, than it is to the crippled PowerPC 970 chips that end up Cupertino.
I don't speek Swedish.
Regarding the shading:
The brunt of the hyperthreading integer dispersion will require that a processor of any less than 3.27Ghz (actually 4.3Mhz squared within a brookstone algorithm) be interpolated to a specific resolution which is native to the on-board video card's maximum baud rate.
It is then clear that i have absolutely no idea what I am talking about, and should be tracked down and given an extremely painful wedgie.
I SAID GOOD DAY SIR!!
Make no mistake about it, Xbox 360 will easily be a better gaming system than the PC as developers can depend on a set standard of Hardware. PC developers must take the lowest common denominator into consisderation which for PC is usually very low. I guarantee you for the next few years, we will see the most beautiful and graphic intense games on Consoles and not PC's. There are currently no games available running on the Unreal 3 platform for PC. Xbox 360 will have many and so will PS 3 when it arrives. When Unreal 3 is used for PC few will be able to take advantage of it without upgrading. Graphics Card: $200 + up, PC: $$$ = buy a next gen console for $299-399 and have the best gaming experience for less money.
# 84
Er... I dunno about YOUR XBox, but almost EVERY game I have for it uses the harddrive, either exclusively (ie, no memory card useable at all) or in joint useage with a memory card if you have one. The very fact of an included harddrive made the necessity of a memory card almost nil.
Now, the number of games that take advantage of the harddrive for other uses is somewhat lower, but still far more then say, the PS2's. Far more games have downloadable content, a few can be patched, a number support custom soundtracks, etc.