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

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It could be true. The PS3 has 8 cores, and most PCs don't even have 8 cores yet. By the time this console hits its life expectancy, 16 cores will probably be passe.
 
[citation][nom]ragenalien[/nom]Not quiet toms. We're looking four cores and four threads per core according to this.http://img191.imageshack.us/img191 [...] 021512.jpg[/citation]

yup they are lying just like AMD did with bulldoser. just because it can run multiple threads it doesn't mean it has that number of cores. and shouldent be advertised as such, as it wouldent perform as a real 16core cpu would.
 
What's the point of having a 16 cores CPU when the GPU can (and will probably) handle all the parallelizable compute?
 
[citation][nom]neros1x[/nom]It could be true. The PS3 has 8 cores, and most PCs don't even have 8 cores yet. By the time this console hits its life expectancy, 16 cores will probably be passe.[/citation]

Probably not. The only PCs with 8 cores are those with crappy FXs and they are beaten by dual and quad core Intel processors such as the i3s and more significantly, the i5s. Considering that games are only jsut beginning to use 4 threads, I'd say that 16 cores is a long way off, especially with so many games and software applications still only being single/dual threaded. There is little reason to go past two cores and almost no reason to go past 4 unless you are doing professional/highly threaded work on them.

Besides that, the quad core Sandy Bridge i7s are faster than the octo core FX processors, so I really don't see core count going up any time soon. Even AMD recognizes that 8 is the most that even they will use in desktops for some time and considering that AMD are the ones who like to throw out highly threaded processors across their entire processor market, I doubt we will see even 10, 12, or 16 cores being common place for at least ten years. Quad core desktop CPUs came out like six years ago and they still aren't the industry standard yet. Even after they are, we still have 6, 8, and 12 core CPUs to make common place before the 16 core CPUs are common. By that time, we might not even be using X86, or at least not in it's current form.

[citation][nom]returnzork[/nom]That will cost too much money, for a console with 16 cores..[/citation]

How many cores a processor has does not define price WHATSOEVER. If it's something like 16 ARM A15 cores, then it would still be dirt cheap. If it's something like 4 Sandy Bridge cores, it would cost MORE than the 16 ARM A15 cores. Core count does not determine price any more than core count determines performance, both of which is next to neither.
 
I hear people talking about the need for the best GPU , 2560x1440 resolution or more is something your not going to see in console games for a long time , maybe even until the next gen after this one .

1) even in 5 years time the cost of a tv set using those resolution will cost .

2) even in five years time there will only be 1% of homes with a tv that fit that standard

3) microsoft will wait until the next gen after the 720 to make another console and gain more revenue

4) graphics for even PCs are set to a standard base on console , although there are some PC exclusive
and when i talk about graphics i am not talking about resolutions , im talking about art and models .

I think the best graphics of today will be the standard for years to come , and i know game developers are not going to make games that look life like just making the models and art work for that will take years and cost ,

I really think game play is so much more important , i am looking forward to seeing how GTA will look and play on a next gen console in 1080p 60fps and all other extras , but what i most looking forward to is if the AI saw a action i made in a area of the game and maybe became my enemy along with its friends , speeding , traffic lights where you have to stop or if seen chased by the police , when committing to many crimes if seen you photo fit will be in the news papers and will be pursued on sight , until you get a face lift which will cost loads , after blowing on a building , returning a few days later in game time to see builders maybe rebuilding that building ..


1080p graphics of today's PC standard is enough for consoles ..

If i had a choice out of life like graphics but playing on my own , or graphics of today's PCs playing with a bunch of other people , i know what i would choose .....
 
[citation][nom]teddymines[/nom]MS: please fix the issues with the optical drive. Make it an external device that can plug in to a usb 3.0 port and not have its serial number hard-coded to the motherboard.[/citation]

An optical drive connected to an USB 3.0 port is pointless since they can't even come close to saturating the bus, IIRC.

EDIT- Besides, the optical drive should remain integrated with the console; why on earth would you want it to be otherwise?
 
16 cores clocking in at 1MHz each, for a smashing 16MHz total processing power!

JK, this is great news if it's true. Let's see what the clock speeds are though.
 
[citation][nom]loops[/nom]The next or current battleground will be/is the living room. One media center that does it all will be money. I see this thing more as a media center/shopping device than an gaming only platform. If it is going to stick it will need to stay relevant. A CUP like that should be.But IBM?[/citation]

I would be more happy if the XBOX could playback more media types than it currently does. It sucks big time trying to encode DVDs to get them to work on WMC/XBOX.
 
[citation][nom]siuol11[/nom]IBM's Power 7 CPU's have 4-way multithreading, so I'm betting this thing only has 4 actual cores with 16 threads possible.[/citation]

It's no Egyption cotton, that's for sure :)
 
[citation][nom]molo9000[/nom]The PS3 technically had 8 cores, so 16 cores isn't that outlandish.[/citation]

Fixed. The PS3 simulates 8 cores. 1 of them was dedicated to the OS so in reality it had 7. And simulating isn't the same as something that is real. I'm not downing the PS3 because the cell chip is very powerful for what it was when it came out. But thats like saying you can play Starcraft 2 because your laptop has 512mb's of Vram when in reality it has 128mb's dedicated with an additional 384mb's coming from the memory itself. Its just not physically there to do the actual work.

[citation] I dunno...look at the hardware specs of the original Xbox and the 360...they weren't spec'd with the highest components and yet they are still going strong today. I mean, if one were to just judge a console by its graphics and gameplay, where exactly is the 360 supposedly falling short? [/citation]

There isn't anything amazing about what a console can do. The reason a console can be pushed to its limits is because developers have this one platform that NEVER will change in spec's which makes it easier for them to develop games on over time. Its all fixed. There going strong, but if your up to date with what technology is out today the consoles are outdated by a long shot. You just said Graphics and gameplay, the 360 can deliver gameplay no questions asked, graphically its outdated. Consoles can only run games on DX9.0c thats all they can show, no occlusion, no tessellation, no etc on consoles. There outdated and its a known fact. They need all the power they can get, that way us the PC gamers don't get stuck with this 9.0c crap 5 years later in games when 5 years ago we should have had games that ran dx 10.0 and on and on.. You get the picture.
 
I suppose it makes sense to have this many cores or threads, if they release a Kinect 3 that blows your socks off.
 


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.

 
I was under the impression that coding a game to use over 2 core was extreamly complex. In fact most game that I,ve benchmarker and made to run on 4 core barely do it (only 30-35% is splited on 2 core and the remaining 65-70% on the 2 others) and even BF3 achieve 6core only because the multi player part is seperated from the rest of the game and multi player only use 4core (wellt hats what I've heard didn,t tested it myself).
 
16 threads sounds correct, but remember they will be "based" upon P7, which means it will be running 4 threads per core, but the execution units won't be identical. Probably has twice as many SIMD units per core, etc. I'm picturing a beefier core than IBM's original, with 4 cores tied to 6MB L2, on the same die with AMD based GPU (960 spu's). The comment in the article about kinect 2.0 needing 4 cores ( or even 4 threads for that matter), is ridiculous.
 
Remember "Cores" is a vague term and it’s an IBM Power PC CPU so it’s not impossible that it could have 16 "Cores" of some type. The BIG question... is Microsoft making the same mistake Sony did with the PS3, i.e. making a system that’s powerful but one that developer’s didn’t like programming for because it was to complex.
 
[citation][nom]molo9000[/nom]The PS3 technically had 8 cores, so 16 cores isn't that outlandish.[/citation]
My graphics card has 192 cores (it's only a 550ti btw). Of course, each individual core barely means anything, and I'm guessing the xbox will be the same way.
 
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