Athlon64 in X-box2?

[jdogg707]

I believe it is a Celeron with only 128KB of Cache @ 733MHZ

 

[FishTankX]

The pentium-M is also a massive chip and is expensive to produce. Intel would probably cut out 1/2 or 1/4 the cache.

 

[Wingznut]

magomago... The current Xbox is neither a Celeron or a P3. It has features from both processor families... (i.e. Cache size of a Celeron, FSB and cache associativity of a P3).

virtualgames0... Your numbers aren't accurate. (Where did the "It costs $50 to make a cpu" idea come from, anyway?... That mantra has been floating around the 'net for years.)

 

[FishTankX]

Wingznut - Any idea of how expensive it is to produce a Pentium-M in relation to past intel processors? Were they more difficult to produce or expensive than the PIII or PIV series?
Edit: In the event you're not allowed to talk about it, which is likely, any way you could comment on how likely a candidate the Pentium-M would be for the X-box??

 

[yhelothar]

Sorry, that was my ballpark number from the back of my head from when I read it somewhere in an article... perhaps you know how much it costs?
Yes I know the chip in the xbox isn't exactly a PentiumIII but it's pretty much the same thing... same cache but just labeled a celeron

 

[drag]

From what I understand the next Xbox isn't going to be x86 at all. They are aiming for PowerPC platform.

x86 was never designed to be secure, it just takes to much effort and time to redesign everything. They thought they had Xbox hacker proof, but obviously failed miserably. PowerPC is legacy free and most people are unfamilar with it, so they want to use that for the security thru obscurity method.

Which will obviously fail, but combined with other technics to harden the system they figure it might be enough to protect it.

After all not to many poeple are hacking the Nintendo gaming cube, right?

The 2 things nintendo did differently was to base it off of a PowerPC platform and use propriatory disk technology. Right now you can modify the Xbox to download games off of the internet and run it straight off of the harddrive, nobody is doing that with the Nintendo game cube, are they?

So again MS failed miserably to make a cheap product that is hacker proof so they copy off a company that got it right the first time.

Most of the signs point to it. They are bought out a virtual computer that runs x86 software on powerpc's (a example would be windows CE on PowerPC-based stuff), they are looking to hire someone with anti-piracy experiance that can create propriatory data and are tired of people ripping them off by taking cheap computers they sell at a loss and making linux computers out of them.

 

[FishTankX]

Using a MIPS core didn't protect the PS2.

Using unorthodox media is the only real way to protect a system. That way hackers can't duplicate it.

 

[digitalsm]

Originally posted by: drag
From what I understand the next Xbox isn't going to be x86 at all. They are aiming for PowerPC platform.

x86 was never designed to be secure, it just takes to much effort and time to redesign everything. They thought they had Xbox hacker proof, but obviously failed miserably. PowerPC is legacy free and most people are unfamilar with it, so they want to use that for the security thru obscurity method.

Which will obviously fail, but combined with other technics to harden the system they figure it might be enough to protect it.

After all not to many poeple are hacking the Nintendo gaming cube, right?

The 2 things nintendo did differently was to base it off of a PowerPC platform and use propriatory disk technology. Right now you can modify the Xbox to download games off of the internet and run it straight off of the harddrive, nobody is doing that with the Nintendo game cube, are they?

So again MS failed miserably to make a cheap product that is hacker proof so they copy off a company that got it right the first time.

Most of the signs point to it. They are bought out a virtual computer that runs x86 software on powerpc's (a example would be windows CE on PowerPC-based stuff), they are looking to hire someone with anti-piracy experiance that can create propriatory data and are tired of people ripping them off by taking cheap computers they sell at a loss and making linux computers out of them.

Actually people assumed they were going to use powerpc technology after they announced a deal to use IBM "technologies". IBM has a WIDE arrange of patents and licensing agreements. One thing is for sure, IBM will be doing the fabbing of whatever chip they use. It could be PowerPC, it could be AMD64, it could be an inhouse MS/IBM design using IBM technology/licenses. With the info out there it could be any of the three.

Come GDC(March) we should know who is supplying what.

 

[Dug]

And then there's still the question mark of the IBM/AMD alliance

I'd like to know what's going on there.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: FishTankX
Using a MIPS core didn't protect the PS2.

Using unorthodox media is the only real way to protect a system. That way hackers can't duplicate it.

You can't get to weird or it makes it to expensive. The hackers are as good as the engineers, in fact many hackers ARE engineers. In fact they would be the ones to hire if you want tamper-proof stuff. Of course if you grew up in Tailand sometimes its easier to make money pirating software then trying to prevent it.

When you create a hardware product to be used and under the complete control of another individaul you are fighting a losing battle if you think you can make it tamper-proof.


That's why Sony went out there way to provide linux support for PS2, it's easier to play along.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Dug

And then there's still the question mark of the IBM/AMD alliance

I'd like to know what's going on there.

IBM and AMD have had a long and fruitfull relasionship. So has IBM and Apple. IBM is were both AMD and Apple get a lot of the technology they use from. That's why it's kinda funny people burning on G5's and praising Opeterons or visa versa, the technology originates from the same place for both chips.

Such as SOI and a bunch of other stuff that I can't remember. Most of that stuff has been used in high-end stuff like Power series mainframe chips and stuff.

IBM is gigantic, much bigger then Intel and AMD is much smaller then Intel (or was at least) so trading technologies with IBM helps them out a lot.

 

[ejoech]

The AthlonFX is only going to be around for a limited time anyway. By the time XBox 2 comes out, there will be a different proc to use, not too mention the price of the AthlonFX isn't going to remain $800 forever

 

[OverVolt]

drag, if you read the article you would have seen that a PowerPC platform wouldn't have been a smart move because one of the things that made the Xbox so successful was its ease of development. Also it would make playing Xbox games unplayable on the Xbox2 which would also be a big drawback.

 

[EstoyLoco]

Well how about the whole nVidia / MS fiasco...

nVidia claims it takes a loss per every Xbox sold right now...
but MS funded their R&D for the nForce chipset...

So I would say nVidia got the nForce+nForce2 technologies out of the Xbox venture...

 

[EstoyLoco]

"drag, if you read the article you would have seen that a PowerPC platform wouldn't have been a smart move because one of the things that made the Xbox so successful was its ease of development. Also it would make playing Xbox games unplayable on the Xbox2 which would also be a big drawback.
"

Umm wtf? It's not the hardware that determines that... in a sense yes...
but both the XB1 and XB2 will use PC artihecture.... Mainly Windows based kernal + DirectX

thats what the XB1 is.. what makes you think MS will develop an entirely new OS + graphics API? when they have a very standardized set for XB1 console and PC market at no cost to them???