Athlon64 in X-box2?

FishTankX

Platinum Member
Oct 6, 2001
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That is *So* not going to happen. You know the current X-box? Part of it's advantage is SMA. It can dedciate RAM to either the GPU or the CPU.

Using the Athlon64 would complicate things *immensley* becaues the graphics chip would have to go through the CPU for all of it's RAM requests, slowing down the whole console. The thing couldn't even *texture* without talking to the CPU.

Unless ofcourse, it has it's own dedicated RAM pool. Which will cost Microsoft *alot* of money, in combination with the already expensive Athlon64.
 

draggoon01

Senior member
May 9, 2001
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Originally posted by: FishTankX
That is *So* not going to happen. You know the current X-box? Part of it's advantage is SMA. It can dedciate RAM to either the GPU or the CPU.

Using the Athlon64 would complicate things *immensley* becaues the graphics chip would have to go through the CPU for all of it's RAM requests, slowing down the whole console. The thing couldn't even *texture* without talking to the CPU.

Unless ofcourse, it has it's own dedicated RAM pool. Which will cost Microsoft *alot* of money, in combination with the already expensive Athlon64.

this isn't a problem with the rumored ibm cpu?
 

jdogg707

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2002
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I think it would be pretty interesting, but the link to the article on the inquirer is crazy, if Microsoft bought AMD, they would not only have everybody on the software side yelling Monopoly, but also everyone at the Intel camp saying the same thing. Microsoft can't get into hardware, if they do, how could you keep from not having Windows optimized for a certain chip? Or GPU? Or motherboard? I mean, it would then be a Microsoft world, and there would be nothing but BSOD's to remind us of what we had.
 

Stunt

Diamond Member
Jul 17, 2002
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Hey we have been discussing this in the xbit labs forums for anyone who is interested.
feel free to add to the discussion.


Xbit Discussion
 

Rectalfier

Golden Member
Nov 21, 1999
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Originally posted by: FishTankX
That is *So* not going to happen. You know the current X-box? Part of it's advantage is SMA. It can dedciate RAM to either the GPU or the CPU.

Using the Athlon64 would complicate things *immensley* becaues the graphics chip would have to go through the CPU for all of it's RAM requests, slowing down the whole console. The thing couldn't even *texture* without talking to the CPU.

Unless ofcourse, it has it's own dedicated RAM pool. Which will cost Microsoft *alot* of money, in combination with the already expensive Athlon64.

The Athlon64's on die memory controller can be disabled. So although still unlikely, it is not impossible for the Xbox to be sporting an AThlon64.
 

jdogg707

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2002
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Nothing is impossible, but I think it will depend greatly on how much Microsoft will be able to buy these for, because no one is willing to buy a console with a price tag over 299.99, especially with the console wars going on between Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. Of course the Athlon64 that goes into these machines could bear very little resemblence to the desktop Athlon64 we know now, I guess we'll have to wait and see.
 

Dug

Diamond Member
Jun 6, 2000
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TextUsing the Athlon64 would complicate things *immensley* becaues the graphics chip would have to go through the CPU for all of it's RAM requests, slowing down the whole console. The thing couldn't even *texture* without talking to the CPU.
Why would it slow it down. The xbox2 will have to have more memory anyway. 64mb isn't going to cut it. What difference does it make if they allocate seperate memory for video and system.
 

FishTankX

Platinum Member
Oct 6, 2001
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rectalfier - If you disable the onboard memory controller, you've got a big complicated AthlonXP with 64 bit support and very little advantage over normal Athlons.

 

Rectalfier

Golden Member
Nov 21, 1999
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Originally posted by: FishTankX
rectalfier - If you disable the onboard memory controller, you've got a big complicated AthlonXP with 64 bit support and very little advantage over normal Athlons.

Athlon 64 uses a hypertransport bus, so if they built a memory controller into the chipset, it would definately have a higher FSB than the Paltry 400Mhz in the Athlon. It would still perform a lot better than a normal Athlon.
 

Rectalfier

Golden Member
Nov 21, 1999
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Originally posted by: FishTankX
rectalfier - If you disable the onboard memory controller, you've got a big complicated AthlonXP with 64 bit support and very little advantage over normal Athlons.

Athlon 64 uses a hypertransport bus, so if they built a memory controller into the chipset, it would definately have a higher FSB than the Paltry 400Mhz in the Athlon. It would still perform a lot better than a normal Athlon.
 

Wingznut

Elite Member
Dec 28, 1999
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Imho.... AMD doesn't have the capacity to manufufacture cpu's that they will make about zero money on. Right now, they can sell every single cpu that they can make, and for a lot more than MS would pay. They aren't about to sacrifice that precious manufacturing space for the next Xbox.

Second, I doubt MS would utilize AMD, since AMD would not be able to supply enough cpu's or be flexible enough to meet demand in the instance that MS needs it.
 

BenSkywalker

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
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I agree with what you say in terms of manufacturing capacity and the lack of reason for AMD fabbing chips for MS Wingz, but it may be possible that MS could license the A64 tech and have them fabbed elsewhere.
 

Wingznut

Elite Member
Dec 28, 1999
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Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
I agree with what you say in terms of manufacturing capacity and the lack of reason for AMD fabbing chips for MS Wingz, but it may be possible that MS could license the A64 tech and have them fabbed elsewhere.
And then there's still the question mark of the IBM/AMD alliance.

 

yhelothar

Lifer
Dec 11, 2002
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Doesn't it cost AMD like $50 to make an Athlon64? Well if it gets made into 0.09µ form, it would only cost around $30... no? If MS would offer $80 per chip... AMD would make a lot more than selling to them for PCs.
Though good for AMD... I personally don't think it's going to happen either.
XBox was designed so that the CPU doesn't do any of the graphics rendering and just needs to calculate stuff like physics, while the graphics chip does all of the rendering. That's why a P3 700MHz was sufficient for XBOX.
I think something like the Pentium-M would be the perfect solution for XBOX.
 

FishTankX

Platinum Member
Oct 6, 2001
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That's just the thing. The AthlonXP doesn't take that big of an advantage of memory bandwidth. If it did, there would be tons of 400mhz FSB versions of the Athlon. But there aren't.

The very thing that differentiates the Athlon64 from the AthlonXP in 32 bit performance is it's internal memory controller. Which has 1/3 the latency of the Nforce2 chipset.
 

magomago

Lifer
Sep 28, 2002
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Originally posted by: virtualgames0
Doesn't it cost AMD like $50 to make an Athlon64? Well if it gets made into 0.09µ form, it would only cost around $30... no? If MS would offer $80 per chip... AMD would make a lot more than selling to them for PCs.
Though good for AMD... I personally don't think it's going to happen either.
XBox was designed so that the CPU doesn't do any of the graphics rendering and just needs to calculate stuff like physics, while the graphics chip does all of the rendering. That's why a P3 700MHz was sufficient for XBOX.
I think something like the Pentium-M would be the perfect solution for XBOX.

I thought it was a Celeron...