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

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kawininjazx

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I doubt it will be 16 cores, unless it's 16 low clock speed low powered cores. These consoles need to launch for $399 or less in my opinion, so I don't see how you can put a $300 processor in them.
 

Shin-san

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I wonder if the end product will have 16 cores. They need to be able to get it under 75W. Also, this is a dev kit, so it may have higher specs or extra cores to handle debugging
 

bjaminnyc

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[citation][nom]kawininjazx[/nom]I doubt it will be 16 cores, unless it's 16 low clock speed low powered cores. These consoles need to launch for $399 or less in my opinion, so I don't see how you can put a $300 processor in them.[/citation]

I imagine when you buy blocks of 500,000 units the price goes down substantially, if they actually buy them from IBM rather than just buying licencing rights to the chip design. I would think the volume of chips MS would require for the Xbox would double the annual output of what IBM makes for their servers.
 

waxdart

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@kawininjazx - They don't make money on the console they make a big loss. Over time they'll get costs down and then make a small profit on each one if they are lucky. The real money comes from the game software and accessory profits. But with this next generation of hardware, there will be a huge amount of online services to really rake in the cash. Sure they don't want to make too much of a loss; but if they are planning this for 10 years, a $300 processor gives it the life span to go the distance.
 

neuromancer2701

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molo9000 just about to say that. Current x86 processors have 8 as well. Why these consoles use PowerPC baffle me especially Microsoft(all of the x86 experience they have but the first xbox for hacked like crazy because of the off the shelve processor).
 

freggo

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"too much power"

Seriously; you reporters and writers have to stop using this expression when talking about computers.
There is no such thing as too much power,speed, memory etc. Programmers will find a way to use any amount of processing power given to them !
 

neon neophyte

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hard to picture atm. give it a year and a half and it might seem more feasible. maybe theyre thinking forwards.

would really be amazing to see the envelope pushed so far. would be a real step up in gaming to see so many cores utilized.

anyone know of any 16 core ibm power pc processors that fit the bill?
 
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I'm sure 10 of these will be used in an always-online DRM protection.
 

willard

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[citation][nom]neuromancer2701[/nom]molo9000 just about to say that. Current x86 processors have 8 as well. Why these consoles use PowerPC baffle me especially Microsoft(all of the x86 experience they have but the first xbox for hacked like crazy because of the off the shelve processor).[/citation]
PowerPC is actually simpler to develop for, since they're RISC chips. I believe the chips themselves also tend to be cheaper.
 

analytic1

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I was reading many years ago that microsoft were doing a lot of research and development for their next console , looking into cpu design as well as many other functions that a console uses .
I have read many times that having a 16 core cpu is impossible , what makes a company with billions of dollars resources less intelligent than the man on the street ?

even if they did intend to use a 16 core processor who says it will cost $300 ? it could be low powered and the way it processes data is the job of somebody who has knowledge in computer science .

Anyway , from a accounting point of view , if you have a contract with a company for 30 million processors over a period of lets say 7 years , even if the processors cost $200 each today with the said company have a 15% profit margin included in that price and that is the cost of production ,
every year that product will deprecate in production cost and after a few years will become old tech .
So a deal to supply 30 million processors at least over a period of time could be put into a percentage ratio per console , lets say 25% as a example and it deprecates at 1% a year or what ever the deal details ....

I done a calculation and i guess the processor will cost microsoft roughly $100 per processors per console over its life cycle , as a lot of research and development has already been done by microsoft over the last 5 years , microsoft is not just some stupid company with no idea or money ,
and just to add , when you look on the inter net and see a $300 16 core cpu that price also includes packaging , production , transport , research and development cost , advertisement , the retailers profit margin , plus tax ......

Just a thought , could you imagine a game played on a 400sq island with 30 plus players where you are able to talk with the AI using kinect which have a basic data base of responses , can you imagine leaving your console while its still running and players are still playing , while you fly over to another island =console with another 400sq island , just because they haven't done things like this yet doesn't mean it can not be done , you don't need a powerful GPU for consoles as they work on 1080p tv's ..

I think PC's are cool and can be very much more powerful than consoles , but are develops programming for the PC ? what i mean by that is optimization of the standard set of tech in a console can be much more effective than the different tech you find in a PC .....


 

hakesterman

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Yeah that's all we need is another Egg fryer from MS. I doubt the console will be under $ 399.99 unless they put out a bare bones unit from day one. Probably more like 549.00 for a driveless non backward compatable Console, and $699.00 for media drive backward compatable Console.
 
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