Rumor: Xbox 720 to Have 'Ridiculously Powerful' 16-Core CPU

[bigdog44]

Half of those threads will probably be allocated to the GPU on graphically intensive games. Once you add in Kinect 2.0, AI, Physics, Hypervisor, ect. the available thread count doesn't seem so great. One of the main ideas behind having 4 threads per core is efficiency, in that if a given thread on a core is stalled while waiting on other resources, another can still run right behind, and another, and then another.

 

[jkflipflop98]

Also, everything you do must be through xbox LIVE so you have to spend 20 "points" every time you push the A button.

 

[blazorthon]

I know that there are new technologies out there, but let's look at a few things- What DX version are we at now? 11? 12? Hell I don't even know myself, but the fact remains that a lot of games are still coded in an earlier version of the DX standard.

DX9 may not have all of the sexy features you talked about, but is it really that bad? Does it adversely affect your gaming ability?

Regardless, it's all speculation and unless MS is following these forums, wish lists should be directed to MS directly.

The image quality difference between DX 9.0c and DX11 (that is current) is very obvious, even during game play. The image quality between the consoles 720p (it's up-scaled to 1080p, not true 1080p) and PC 1080p without even maxing out the quality settings is fairly obvious and with the settings maxed out and some AA, it is very obvious. All of this together makes the consoles look like crap side by side with a PC playing the PC version of the same game as the console, let alone a native PC game.

Does it negatively effect how well I play the game? Not really, but it hurts the experience with it's inferior picture.

 

[blazorthon]

Does this mean that developers will actually start utilizing hyper threading in games?

They already do... Just not with the i7s because the i7s have 8 threads with HTT enabled. With 4 being this difficult and already unbalanced, there is little reason to try to code for another four threads, especially when most customers won't benefit from it and those who do wouldn't benefit very much.

The i3's HTT works in quad threaded games and it even works very well for them. It works so well because the quad threaded games mostly have one or two heavy threads and the rest are light threads that fit more or less perfectly into the performance advantage of Hyper-Threading Technology. For that matter, it also works on all Hyper-Threaded dual core CPUs.

 

[photonboy]

A) it's probably not an x86 architecture, and

B) The actual POWER CONSUMPTION has not been reported.

C) the guy says "too much power" and "so it'll need a lot of power" (re: Kinect) in the same statement.

Really basically useless information without knowing the architecture and power consumption of the CPU.

 

[jryan388]

Saying it has "7000-series" graphics means absolutely nothing. Could be the equivalent of a cheap 160-core model, or more along the lines of the 800-core 7700 series, or even on par with the 7800 series (not likely tho).

 

[Doobie13]

[citation][nom]molo9000[/nom]The PS3 technically had 8 cores, so 16 cores isn't that outlandish.[/citation]

The PS3 didn't have 8 actual cores. They were SPE processing . The PS3 only had 1 actual core processor. Not to mention 2 of the SPE processors were used up by the system and were unavailable for developer use. If any of the next gen systems have an actual 16 core processor they will be tons more powerful.

 

[bigdog44]

Everyone go back and re-read the 2nd sentence "todays outlandish rumor..." Even the writer of this 3rd hand information recognizes that something is amiss with the info. The only semi-reliable sources thus far point toward the gpu being 6x as powerful (based only on hardware spec comparison) and the cpu being based on ibm's P7 core. The rest of the details lay in finding a way for everyone to reduce developement costs in the face of games that will be larger and more complex to develope...

 

[hellfire24]

THANK GOD!!!!
at last consoles can play minecraft at 640x480 resolution with 30 fps.

 

[Guest]

There's nothing surprising about a 16 core gaming console. Don't you guys remember that the PS3 shipped with 8 cores all those years ago? The number of cores is not the problem. If a processor with many cores was the goal, they could have come up with a 32 or ever 64 core processor.
Take a look at this news story from 6 years ago: http://techfreep.com/intel-80-cores-by-2011.htm.
But remember guys, mass production of gaming specific hardware allows companies to manufacture high-performance hardware for much cheaper than it costs to build a high-performance PC. So I would consider it normal for a 300$ Xbox 720 to outperform a 500$ gaming PC when it is released.

 

[zodiacfml]

It's unlikely as 16 cores would mean low speed CPUs. Great for power consumption and unique applications but not for gaming performance.

 

[daglesj]

The slide this came from has been found to be fake already.

As for the next gen. You can bet that whatever Sony and MS produce its going to be pretty equal in power. The developers will have told them it will be commercial suicide for them to have too much difference in power/facilities between the two consoles plus if they have any sense they will have realised that too. The market is now too ingrained and in the current climate could not really support three radically different tiers of development with regards to power.

I bet there is far more contact between Sony and MS than we think with regards to console development.

 

[analytic1]

developers need to start making better games , i am sorry but when i look back at games over the last ten years , the only thing that has really change is the graphics , better models ....

If they don't start using more cores in games there will be no point in making cpu's with lots of cores , and for a programmer to say that using more core is too complex just tells me they are lazy , i mean they have been using three core for the last so many years even if one is for the OS , but then there are a couple developers that have the know how and skill to make use of more cores .

what is gaming performance ? to me gaming performance means how a programmer using his tools , just take a look at the xbox 360 , that is gaming performance from a 7 year old tech .....

 

[blazorthon]

developers need to start making better games , i am sorry but when i look back at games over the last ten years , the only thing that has really change is the graphics , better models ....

If they don't start using more cores in games there will be no point in making cpu's with lots of cores , and for a programmer to say that using more core is too complex just tells me they are lazy , i mean they have been using three core for the last so many years even if one is for the OS , but then there are a couple developers that have the know how and skill to make use of more cores .

what is gaming performance ? to me gaming performance means how a programmer using his tools , just take a look at the xbox 360 , that is gaming performance from a 7 year old tech .....

Game developers don't program the OS, only the game(s) that they are developing. It is very difficult to code for more than one core and coding for more than two cores is extremely complex. It's not about being lazy. As time moves on, it seems to have gotten harder and harder to code for computers over the last decade. Unless Sony and M$ find a way to make this easier (it could be done), then there will probably not be games that even use 8 cores (I think that even BF3 maxes out at 6 cores).

Due to the complexity of coding, even quad threaded games use their threads in an unbalanced manner that has one or two heavy threads and the rest are much lighter. This works out for Intel's i3s and dual core i5s/i7s perfectly, but for anything else, it does not because it leaves two or three cores at less than half usage while one or two cores are maxed out. Even some dual threaded games are like this, one heavy thread and one light thread.

 

[analytic1]

I was going to make a more educated post , but have some other things i am doing , but i would say , if i owned a company that developed games and was told it was to complex , i would found somebody else who was more skilled at the task , can you imagine a football player saying he doesn't feel like playing when he is fit enough to play ..... btw BF3 uses 6 cores , my point it is not hard but takes a lot of time to do more complex code , its time and not hard ....

 

[secretxax]

But can it run Super Mario?

 

[analytic1]

http://www.dimensionsguide.com/how-big-is-the-first-computer/ just a big computer i wonder how have it was to program this beast lol . and then make me think of how a computer works ....

 

[dreadlokz]

good! I hope they do a rly good job for a JUMP on gamming, cause this fkng consoles are ruining gaming developement for PCs! I just hate them all, so they better do something about it!!!

 

[blazorthon]

I was going to make a more educated post , but have some other things i am doing , but i would say , if i owned a company that developed games and was told it was to complex , i would found somebody else who was more skilled at the task , can you imagine a football player saying he doesn't feel like playing when he is fit enough to play ..... btw BF3 uses 6 cores , my point it is not hard but takes a lot of time to do more complex code , its time and not hard ....

BF3 has a dual threaded module and a quad threaded module (the multi-player part of the program). It's not the same as the entire program being six threaded and that is the only game that is like that. Besides that, it only makes a difference with 6 core CPUs if you have a ton of players (32 to 64).

It is difficult to code a game to use even 4 threads and going beyond it is very difficult. BF3 uses a work around that has the game's engine using two cores and the multi-player using up to another four cores. The point is to get the game engine to use four or more threads. The extra four cores over two will only help with processing the players in the game, not the actual game itself (other than offloading the multi-player from the two cores, making it look like it helps. It's not the same and only matters for games like BF3 that are built for huge player counts).

Making the game engine use more than two to four threads is very difficult and complex.

 

[nebun]

we will have to wait and see....if you think that 16 cores is a lot i will tell you that it is not....most graphic cards have well over 700 cores....

 

[blazorthon]

we will have to wait and see....if you think that 16 cores is a lot i will tell you that it is not....most graphic cards have well over 700 cores....

Each core in a GPU is a different type of core than what is in CPUs. GPUs are huge floating point calculators, CPU cores are integer calculators. It's different types of math. CPUs also have some floating point computing with their FPUs, but programs and all that that run on a CPU (such as a game engine) are mostly integer math. Besides that, only most AMD cards would have that many cores. Most Nvidia cards do not come close to that many because their cores are faster than AMD's cores. In fact, the GTX 580 only has 512 cores. The only Nvidia card with more is the GTX 680 at 1536 cores. Until Nvidia gets more Kepler cards out, that's the way it is.

For CPUs, 16 cores is a lot. There is only one brand of X86 CPUs with 16 cores and it's AMD's 16 core Interlagos Opterons.

 

[analytic1]

Now i am believing 16 cores is not correct , but i wanted to know what cpu does BF3 max out on , because if its a i7 from Intel , then if the next xbox is not using a modified version the most powerful cpu on the market , what type of cpu and how many cores will it need to max out BF3 on the next xbox ?

If the games in development are meant to be bigger and better than the current games of today, from what i read so many times about PC titles being a console port , what resources will the next gen games in development need ? also taking multi player into account ? and then because console game are optimized how will PCs handle these games ? Are you going to need to upgrade the PCs cpu within the next 2 to 3 years ? or is BF3 the type of game quality we will see over the next cycle of the next gen of game consoles ?

 

[redeye]

for example; the Ipad3 has 4 cores.... it actually has 2 cpu cores and 4 gpu cores. true! the Ipad uses 4 cores!!!... (sarcasm... to prove possible confusion)
hmmm, same thing with the xbox?... 4 cores, 16 gpu cores?

 

[callmesmorz]

i doubt its 16 cores unless its a super low clocked, like a server (doubtful) or maybe even ARM. that was speculated a while ago, too. My guess is 8 MAX

 

[PCgamer81]

Yeah, let's not forget that when the PS3 came out, the CPU was touted as the "most powerful 8 core beast known to man". Rumors about how the Air Force were using them as super computers and such were abounded. The particle effects and million shard explosion videos made it's way around.

And you know what?

A core 2 duo, 2GB of DDR2, and 8800GTX owned it.

History has a funny way of repeating itself in this PC vs Console war.