Xbox One has a 40nm APU? [UPDATE: Probably not]

[NTMBK]

http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/21/4350322/xbox-one-specs

Whaaaaat? Why on earth is it on 40nm?! I wonder if someone misspoke...

 

[Jaydip]

Weren't we supposed to get a 7850 class gpu here?

 

[monstercameron]

Is that what they call news now? Is that all?

Would amd allow m$ to steal 28nm fab space from the desktop/mobile capacity?

 

[joshhedge]

Weren't we supposed to get a 7850 class gpu here?

I don't think the GPU was ever truly stated for the XBOX vs the PS4.

 

[mavere]

28nm should be mature'ish by now. One would think they'd lose more money on silicon costs and extra cooling by going with 40nm instead...

 

[sm625]

Microsoft knows 2 million people will shell out $X to buy a new console after their old one dies from RROD 2 months after the warranty period ends. Why wouldnt they go with 40nm?

 

[Namira Fang]

Why would they do this? Baffling.. Someone surely must have misspoke.

 

[sefsefsefsef]

Current 360 chips are manufactured using 45nm. If the XBO is manufactured at 40nm, and has 10x the transistors compared to 360 (according to MS), then that means that the XBO chip is going to be 8x larger than the 360 chip. That means 8x more expensive, along with a bunch of other negatives that come from large die sizes.

If the XBO chip were to be manufactured at 32nm (which I think is extremely reasonable), then it would be only 5x larger than the 360 chip. Still not great, but not as bad as at 40nm. At 28nm it would be only 3.8x larger than the 360 chip.

 

[Enigmoid]

Current 360 chips are manufactured using 45nm. If the XBO is manufactured at 40nm, and has 10x the transistors compared to 360 (according to MS), then that means that the XBO chip is going to be 8x larger than the 360 chip. That means 8x more expensive, along with a bunch of other negatives that come from large die sizes.

If the XBO chip were to be manufactured at 32nm (which I think is extremely reasonable), then it would be only 5x larger than the 360 chip. Still not great, but not as bad as at 40nm. At 28nm it would be only 3.8x larger than the 360 chip.

I think MS said a total of 5 billion transistors in the device.

 

[SPBHM]

Weren't we supposed to get a 7850 class gpu here?

the rumors for the xbox were more like 7770 level of performance, and 7850 level for the ps4.

 

[USER8000]

I think they made a mistake. The SOC is meant to have 5 billion transistors:

http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/21/...utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

Here is a picture of the internals of the console:

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/2013/05/20130514-XBOX-ONE-TEARDOWN-014-660x440.jpg

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/2013/05/20130514-XBOX-ONE-TEARDOWN-015-660x440.jpg

Some more pictures:

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/05/xbox-one/

 

[monstercameron]

Vliw4 vs gcn...

 

[USER8000]

Actually in the first link I posted it says the SOC is 28NM and also the GPU is DX11.1 meaning it is GCN based.

 

[ShintaiDK]

It must be 28nm. Jaguar is also designed for this.

 

[NTMBK]

Of course if it *is* 40nm, then at least they won't need to worry about the WSA for a while. Giant chips = more wafers used

 

[meson2000]

http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/21/hands-on-with-xbox-one/#continued

Engadget said it was 28nm in their write up...

 

[Jimzz]

It must be 28nm. Jaguar is also designed for this.

Thats what i thought as well. But I have seen the 40nm posted at several sites now.

Anyone know where the 40nm stat came from?

 

[blackened23]

I watched it, and the presentation didn't go in depth on the hardware specs and certainly didn't specify 40nm. I'm quite sure it will be 28nm, this "rumor" has to be a mistake.

 

[Olikan]

8-core jaguar
768 ops/cicle (aka 12 CU)
Cloud Computing

....man, M$ knows how to fail...

 

[VirtualLarry]

Perhaps the 40nm was from the APU/GPU sent out for the devkits, and not what the final retail product will be. I cannot imagine them producing a new chip on 40nm, it doesn't make economic, nor technical, sense.

 

[Unoid]

Perhaps the 40nm was from the APU/GPU sent out for the devkits, and not what the final retail product will be. I cannot imagine them producing a new chip on 40nm, it doesn't make economic, nor technical, sense.

40nm could be cheaper due to less demand than the latest 28nm.

But I agree with others, it's prolly a mistake

 

[KompuKare]

Perhaps the 40nm was from the APU/GPU sent out for the devkits, and not what the final retail product will be. I cannot imagine them producing a new chip on 40nm, it doesn't make economic, nor technical, sense.

If the GPU is DirectX 11.1 it's GNC. If it's a custom/semi-custom GNC then I can't see Microsoft having paid for an un-shrink up from 28nm to 40nm. Ditto if the CPU is Jaguar (and if it's 8 core what else can it be?) as that was also never designed for 40nm. A node shrink is costly and time consuming and although I have never heard of a node un-shrink I'm sure it would be costly too.

The more likely answer is 40nm is wrong (even if repeated often enough) and the design is 28nm. Even if Microsoft counted the memory in their transistor count I can't see them not going 28nm from a heat, power and noise viewpoint. Even if an old node 40nm was somehow possible any saving (if any) would be lost after a year or two since they'd then have to pay for a shrink rather than waiting a few more years and shrinking to 20nm or whatever.

 

[Vesku]

Will be pretty surprised if it turns out to be 40nm and not 28nm. 40nm would mean a pretty anemic iGPU and would mean a clear performance step pyramid from WiiU<Xbox One<Playstation 4.

 

[monstercameron]

it seems ars mentions 40nm...http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/...u-ray-drive-8gb-of-ram-and-lots-of-buzzwords/

 

[notty22]

Wired states 40nm also.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/05/xbox-one/#hardware

A single 40-nanometer chip contains both the CPU and GPU rather than the two dedicated 90-nm chips needed in the 360. In fact, a custom SOC (system on a chip) module made by AMD contains the CPU/GPU chip, the memory, the controller logic, the DRAM, and the audio processors, and connects directly to the heat sink via a phase-change interface material. Whew.