Well it IS at least 1 to 2 years from being fully for-sale. So that may look like a lot NOW, but in a year when Athlon64's are 3Ghz and video cards are SUPER fast etc... it may not be that much higher then current specs style when it does come out.
3 CPUs means a lot of die space regardless of whether it's now or 3 years from now. I very much doubt they'll be using 3 CPUs in a production machine unless IBM has some excess fab space that they'd rather use for this than sit idle.
Edit: I should add that 3 CPUs also complicate the memory management and more importantly it means many, many pins/data lines. All that makes data path routing on the circuit board both complicated and expensive regardless of when it's actually delivered.
Originally posted by: SunnyD
Not just 3 3.5ghz cpus, 3 POWER 976 3.5ghz cpus! I believe these are essentially the equivalent of dual core hyperthreaded cpus. That means 6 physical CPU's, + hyperthreading. So essentially 12 cpus if I read correctly.
I guess I'm not the only one who was floored by that.
The funny part is that, if I'm reading it correctly, it blows away any PC that is on the market or could be built on the standard budget... the problem with that is even in three years I don't think any game makers will use even a third of this power, so why waste money and jack up costs on the thing? (Unless they have some SERIOUSLY groundbreaking and monumental plans for it.
isn't this always done though? by the time the xbox is manufactured (2005/2006) these specs won't be overkill any more. i.e., more "economically feasible."
=|
I'm going to cry if they dont put a hdd in this one, however if they use a usb2 interface
we might yet be able to attatch a hdd to it. I hope this next gen will be as mod friendly
as the original. That ability alone has won me over.
Plus i'd guess that vpu - video processing unit not virtual processing unit.
we might yet be able to attatch a hdd to it. I hope this next gen will be as mod friendly
as the original. That ability alone has won me over.
Plus i'd guess that vpu - video processing unit not virtual processing unit.
Homerboy
Lifer
- Mar 1, 2000
- 30,890
- 5,001
- 126
Agreed.
Everything and anything can (eventually) be hacked though... I mean they've finally broken way with the GC and such.
Build a better man-trap...
Edit: BTW that schematic shows a HD controller. So *fingers crossed* MInd you it lists as "(built in not decided)" so hopefully they will decide to built it in or at the very least this leans towards the suggestion of external HD
SunnyD
Belgian Waffler
VPU in the CPU either is a Virtual Processing Unit, or since it's a POWER architecture, more likely Vector Processing Unit (SIMD). There would be no reason for each CPU to have a video processing unit, especially since the console has a dedicated GPU being made by ATI.
XZeroII
Lifer
- Jun 30, 2001
- 12,572
- 0
- 0
Originally posted by: ness1469
Originally posted by: SunnyD
Not just 3 3.5ghz cpus, 3 POWER 976 3.5ghz cpus! I believe these are essentially the equivalent of dual core hyperthreaded cpus. That means 6 physical CPU's, + hyperthreading. So essentially 12 cpus if I read correctly.
I guess I'm not the only one who was floored by that.
The funny part is that, if I'm reading it correctly, it blows away any PC that is on the market or could be built on the standard budget... the problem with that is even in three years I don't think any game makers will use even a third of this power, so why waste money and jack up costs on the thing? (Unless they have some SERIOUSLY groundbreaking and monumental plans for it.
Actually theywill make use of it. Game makers are only holding back now because they have to please the lowest system. They want sales, so they make their games work with crappy old systems. With consoles, EVERY bit of power is eventually used. Trust me.
Homerboy
Lifer
- Mar 1, 2000
- 30,890
- 5,001
- 126
i would be VERY surprised if that's accurate. current POWER4's highest clock speed is 1.6ghz, and this is from and architecture that hit 1ghz over a year ago. plus.. it's not really clear, but it looks like three cores on one chip.. currenlty they make them with 2 cores, and I would assume it would be cheaper to put in 2 of those rather than a new 3-core variation. just speculations on my part though.
Originally posted by: XZeroII
Originally posted by: ness1469
Originally posted by: SunnyD
Not just 3 3.5ghz cpus, 3 POWER 976 3.5ghz cpus! I believe these are essentially the equivalent of dual core hyperthreaded cpus. That means 6 physical CPU's, + hyperthreading. So essentially 12 cpus if I read correctly.
I guess I'm not the only one who was floored by that.
The funny part is that, if I'm reading it correctly, it blows away any PC that is on the market or could be built on the standard budget... the problem with that is even in three years I don't think any game makers will use even a third of this power, so why waste money and jack up costs on the thing? (Unless they have some SERIOUSLY groundbreaking and monumental plans for it.
Actually theywill make use of it. Game makers are only holding back now because they have to please the lowest system. They want sales, so they make their games work with crappy old systems. With consoles, EVERY bit of power is eventually used. Trust me.
He's very much right. Console game development != PC game development. Also, is it just me, or does the multi-processor setup remind anyone else of the Sega Saturn? That had two processors in it too, but developers were too lazy to take the time to make it work to its full potential.
Koing
Elite Member <br> Super Moderator<br> Health and F
- Oct 11, 2000
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I'll go with PS3 when that comes out probably. I'd like my PS2 games to work on it and whatever Sony has to offer with game wise. If they jump to Xbox2 and they don't have that crappy ass controller (personal opinion but some of my friends love it) I may get it. But I'm not much of a gamer anymore.
Koing
Koing
SunnyD
Belgian Waffler
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