Activewin has made available the XBox 360 specifications.
XBox 360 Specs Available
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Activewin has made available the XBox 360 specifications.
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
It’s fun to read all the replys here. Everybody seem to know so much about Xbox360 and PS3! It’s nice to know that OSNews has so many readers that works for MS and Sony.
Before saying that PS3 will be so much better because of The Cell CPU (that we did not see in action as of now…) or that it will be slower because of only 256mb of ram… Or anything else about Xbox360, could you please WAIT until MS and Sony publish REAL SPEC?
And above all, it’s not just about the hardware. GAMES has to bee good too. With no game, any console would die.
Exactly what I was thinking…
2 threads per core, does that mean, this cpu is using SMT?
if thats the case, than it is nearer to power5 than to ppc970 (G5).
2 cores, each with SMT enabled….hmm the os would see 6 cpus….impressive.
i hope that the programmers can create multithreaded code
Sure, but it is always nice to speculate. I think it’s part of the fun. Of course zealots saying “Cell will 0wn y0ur @sss” is not included in that. However I read some well-written comments about the architecture here and based on that you could make “educated guesses”. For example, the programming on Cell is much more difficult because of the dedicated vector units (altough a clever compiler could fix part of that for you). Whereas the 3 Xenon core’s are more General Purpose and require obviously less intelligence of the programmer. In the end Cell might be more powerful if the programmer succeeds to unleash its power. I predict PS3 games will be inferior to Xenon’s at launch, but might surpass them years later.
Come on…I know MS has a lot of money, and I know that they lost a lot of money on each original Xbox machine. But seriously, the price tag per unit here is going to be pretty high, probably around 600 or more (PPC processors are pretty damn expensive, and IBM isn’t a cheap company). Remember, 3.2 GHZ in a PPC is roughly equal to 5-6 GHZ in an x86 processor.
And why is it now, that MS is going to use PPC processors, everyone is all excited, considering, no one even notice the 400 MHZ PPC processor in the gamecube (which agin is aroun 700 MHZ in an x86 processor).
MS is going to hype this machine like the first one, but, will it have the games? Personally, my feeling now is that the Xbox is the worst in exclusive games, and I don’t think that is going to change much.
And before you say, “Who cares, it’s the best system out there”, I will ask you, did you buy the Jaguar when it was the best system on the market?
I estimated the memory for ps3 from here.
http://www.blachford.info/computer/Cells/Cell6.html
So max 256mb, if you want more, additional logic is required, which costs more. So I’ll probably be 256mb. Considering sony is very stingy on ram. They didnt make ram on psp higher even when lots of developers asked for it. Also xbox had 4 times as much memory as ps2. So i think my estimation is quite reasonable. But im also eager to see real specs.
As a gamer I prefer to save my money and get a Nintendo Revolution as soon as it comes out
“What we need is not a next-generation machine but a next-generation way of playing games,” Iwata commented. “We need to propose a new idea so that the game industry can overcome its current crisis.” Iwata has been vocal in the past in denouncing the cyclical nature of videogaming, stating that innovation and uniqueness are far more important that visuals and technology.”
2 times as much…. to correct myself
let’s not forget though, when the PS2 came out. Wasn’t it around 2000? And the xbox and gamecube in 2002? Hmmm, the price of RAM dropped a lot in that time period, as well, as the proce of better equipment. But, I will still take my PS2 over an xbox, and game cube any day, for it has the most games, and some of the best exclusives on the market.
On that note, I will take the game cube over the xbox, because nintendo always makes some fun games, the mario’s, zelda’s, metriods, etc, are fun and exciting games. Whether they are aimed at kids or not, it’s actually fun to play a game….for fun.
surely ps2 has the most games but not the best
i search quality and inovating game like: zelda, metroid, resident evil 4, pikmin, mario paper and i found nothing similar
>I estimated the memory for ps3 from here.
>http://www.blachford.info/computer/Cells/Cell6.html
Erm, that’s being updated!
>So max 256mb, if you want more, additional logic is required,
>which costs more.
256MB is not the limit.
It can be configured in different ways so the actual limit is (theoretically) 36 GB with current XDR RAMs.
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The Cell article is based on the patent application but there have been some changes.
The patent mentions 4 Cells on a single chip so the natural assumption is PS3 will have 4. Reality is rather different, the chips are large as CPUs go and the prototypes consume anything up to 80W at 4GHz.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the PS3 had just 1 Cell.
But will it run Mac OS X? Add a TV tuner and you have the ultimate digital lifestyle hub.
What shocks me the most is the complete and utter lack of discussion about games in this thread!
It just goes to show how xBox users are becoming more and more akin to PC users who only care about having the most l33t spec. Both the PS2 and GameCube have a serious advantage over xBox in levels of quality and original games. Nintendo make games that are fun to play, it’s a game after all. ignoring EA, Sony too are creative, supporting Gran Turismo, the superb Ratchet & Clank series as well as Jak & Daxter, and for real original content, Ico.
xBox has Halo, which when played side by side with Half Life 1 on PC, you notice how poor Halo really is.
heh.. game quality is probably why I still use my NES, n64 and dreamcast more than my ps2
PS3s processor will have a performance of 1 teraflops so taking such 100 PS3s in some Linux port with beouwolf computing (clusters) will create the fastest but cheapest ever supercomputer. This just seems to be a joke.
Both the PS2 and GameCube have a serious advantage over xBox in levels of quality and original games.
——————————————
If you dont play those original games, why should it matter to you? I have a buddy of mine that is a huge football fan and his library consists of mostly Madden NFL (he has almost every year) and a few RPGs. The XBox version of Madden 2005 is graphically the best out there. I own the PS2 version and when I played him on the XBox for the first time, I could tell a big difference.
Anyways, I probably wont be getting and XBox360 when it comes out. I already have a PS2 and a good library, so backwards compatibility is key for me. That and the PS2 seems to have the best RPGs, something I expect to continue on with the PS3. I do think Microsoft is shooting themselves in the foot by not having backwards compatibility, but it sounds like its technically undoable. I have heard that Nintendo is even considering it for their next system.
“Both the PS2 and GameCube have a serious advantage over xBox in levels of quality and original games”
Please. Most of the games for GameCube are little kid games and even for PS2, Mario Karts and the like are the staple. You don’t get KOTOR or Jade Empire on the PS2 and of the games they both share, the X Box version is always better.
No one knows for sure if the xbox 360 will or won’t have B/C but I think it will if you get the hdd, with the specs being as they are or even a little different, that is still more then enough power to run a Xbox x86 emulator from the hdd to play original Xbox games.
Having 3 coes on one cpu is nothing new, not to IBM anyways, last year they showed off a prototype 8 core POWER5 processor. IBM and even Sun have been doing multicore cpu’s longer then AMD and Intel, so even though dual core on the pc is NEW it’s not in anyway new to IBM.
I love the idea of having 3 cores, each core can do whatever the developers want of them, so 2 for AI and other game stuff, while the 3rd helps the GPU doing physics math or whatever.
Also the ATi GPU sounds to be way more advanced then what we have out now. the 10mb of eDRAM helps speed things up also, working like cache for the gpu. By contrast the PS3’s graphics system had 4mb of texture RAM. Also the new ATi gpu is said to have 48 pipelines, just to compare the ATi Radeon X850XT PE has 16 pipelines and even the newer R520 core is said to have 32 pipelines. so 48 is more then even the newest pc graphics cards to come out in a few months.
To top it all off MS is giving developers lots of good support in the form of XNA and other tools. These should help speed up and make games a bit easier to make. It’s also said that the cell chip will be a pain to code for and very complex. This just makes things hardwer for game developers. If the specs for the xbox360 hold true, and it’s under $400 with the hdd to buy plus easier for developers to work with, then support will rise and more games will come it’s way.
There are also stories of it having custom shells which you can change. That’s another cool thing, if you don’t like white or silver just go with black or blue or whatever you can think of and buy.
it all sounds good for me, and i’ll probably buy one at some point.
“By Zakksis
Please. Most of the games for GameCube are little kid games and even for PS2, Mario Karts and the like are the staple. You don’t get KOTOR or Jade Empire on the PS2 and of the games they both share, the X Box version is always better.”
ps2 have a lot of game, but a lot of shit
hahaha big joke, please, when you do not even know what you talk, shut up
sure theses games are for kids: Resident evil, metroid, zelda, pickmin, Baten Kaitos, Tales of Symphonia, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, mario paper, soul calibur 2 (very nice rpg)…
have you only tried pokemon game to say as much bullshit?
another wannabee, pathetic
I wonder if there will be a z/xbox in a few years as well 😉
(hey, those microsoft-guys had hardware and OS mixed up! they should read the news from those who [forced by jurisdiction] made software possible more carefully.. heh)
Kroc Camen, yoy mentioned GT4. Well, Microsoft released a little game called “Forza Motorsport” a few days ago and word on the street, or should I say every major game site and magazine is that Forza is “the new king of racers”.
People that say Xbox lacks great exclusive games don’t really know much about the console or its games. Do some research first. 😐
I should also point out that only four new games have been released for the Nintendo Gamecube in the past two months.
I know this sounds Crazy, but the new Cell Processor from Sony, will have NINE cores, running at over 4Ghz and will be 64 bit.
http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-15015-1483-4-4-x
I have an Xbox, and the games are really lacking, even the “Xbox Only” games, arent really that great. Other than Halo, Doom 3, which I really didnt care for, and a few others. There just arent as many good games to play on Xbox than there is on the PS2.
http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-15015-1483-4-4-x
Have you been on Gamespot or IGN lately?
Check out their recent reviews list — Xbox is the only console consistantly getting great games on both the multiplatform and exclusives side. This isn’t early 2003 anymore when it was rare to find a great Xbox title besides Halo.
Does Sony have plans to improve their situation in online gaming with the PS3? Xbox Live seems to be light-years ahead of where Sony online games are at and more and more Xbox games are making use of it. I am finding that online play capability is a major factor when I am choosing what games to buy these days and it will be a big drawback for the PS3 if there is no improvement over the PS2 on this situation.
“Have you been on Gamespot or IGN lately?
Check out their recent reviews list — Xbox is the only console consistantly getting great games on both the multiplatform and exclusives side. This isn’t early 2003 anymore when it was rare to find a great Xbox title besides Halo.”
All right, let’s read some IGN, shall we?
The Editor’s Choice section has 175 titles. 62 of them are sports, which I personally couldn’t care less about. Also, 3 are wrestling. That’s 37% of all the games.
Of the remaining 110, there are maybe 10 (yes, 10) games that are
1. Not ported from PC.
2. Not out on other systems, and/or PC.
3. Don’t have a PC version in the works.
4. Worth playing.
To each his own of course, but to me, there are more games in GC library that fit the above description than in the XBox library.
I dont know, I mean, it would be smart for them to move towards a subscription based model, but with the PSP, online gaming is free, so who knows.
I got all three so really it doesnt matter, I’ll probably get all three next gen too, but the only thing is they’re going to be more expencive, so it might take some time this time around.
Having 3 coes on one cpu is nothing new, not to IBM anyways, last year they showed off a prototype 8 core POWER5 processor. IBM and even Sun have been doing multicore cpu’s longer then AMD and Intel, so even though dual core on the pc is NEW it’s not in anyway new to IBM.
IBM brought dual core to servers with the Power4. There have been ASICs with multiple powerpc cores around for longer than that in the embedded market. Other companies have been doing multicore in embedded systems for just as long.
As for the 8 core Power5, you are probably confused with the packaging. With the larger Squadrons boxes, MCMs and books are used as building blocks. A Power5 MCM has 4 physical Power5 chips, 4 L3 cache chips and lots of I/O buses (>5000 pins per Power5 chip). Each Power5 chip has 2 cores with SMT (4 hardware threads/Power5 chip). A book contains 2 MCMs and up to .5 TB of memory. So what you’re talking about was probably just a fully populated MCM and not an 8 core POWER5. IBM’s manufacturing is good, but not that good.
sure, nintendo games are aimed toward kids, and xbox games are aimed for adults….but…which one’s are more fun to play? I’ll take the nintendo games anyday.
As for best systems for RPG’s….SNES, PS1, and GBA. Enough said. PS2 has some nice RPG’s, but SNES, PS1, and GBA have a good collection of RPG’s, with exceptional game play and stories.
Steve wrote:
this is a ridiculously powerful machine. if this were a pc it would be priced at 2,000 bucks or something, the only downside is the 512 ram, but for a console that is amazing. how can microsoft price 2,000 dollars worth of hardware for under $400?
Simple: Through corporate subsidies. They have over $40 Billion dollars to subsidize their efforts to plunder market after market after market.
Their business practices haven’t changed.
I’m not going to bother with the Xbox 360 because of all of the garbage Microsoft and company have been perporting for all these years. I’m waiting for PS3.
Most people don’t have a low self-esteem problem, so they don’t need games to make them feel adult, powerful. Kiddie games are really funny and entertaining, and can be (and are!) played by all generations.
>I find this hard to believe too. Tripple core CPU? The >consumer dual-core CPU is very new.
In the 2006 time period, AMD would have a sample released their quad-core AMD64 processors. Product release dates was never to be 1 to 1.
Typical… whenever *anything* comes up about gaming consoles, it just turns out to become a useless flamebait battle between Sony fanboys, MS fanboys, and Nintendo fanboys.
Lord… get a life. If you’re *TRULY* a gamer, it shouldn’t matter *which* system puts out the best games.
w00master
Most everything matters, especially in as much life as possible. What is a gamer?
You’ve convinced me that I should not buy any further game consoles. I have an Xbox with 32 games. I swear that I will sell it for $350 USD plus shipping. Is anyone interested.
The XBOX 360 will be rubbish. And I’m going to be laughing when all those Microsoft goons race to spend their pocket money on one of these consoles, plug it in to their ADSL lines and get infected with loads and loads of nasty viruses. You’ll never be safe running Microsoftware.
And of course we’ll install Linux on it. Bring it on Microsoft! Mark my words, within a few months we’ll hack your hardware to pieces, delete that pile of shite kernel of yours and get GNU/Linux installed and maybe do something useful with the machine. Or maybe do it just to spit in your face…. There are a lot of us Linux on PPC architecture afficionados out there: we’re going to rip your console APART. However much you try to encrypt BIOS configuration etc, we’ll break it. 🙂
Bring on the PS3 – get some proper gaming going.