XBox 360 Specs Released [Triple Core @ 3.2Ghz each]

[Kirkland]

To those complaining about Microsoft getting these first. XBox 360 will not be released until CHRISTMAS. I highly doubt these chips are in high supply at the moment so why on earth would Apple release machines with them now. Order your 3 core 3.2Ghz PowerMac G5, shipping Dec.

Wait for WWDC.

 

[lewdvig]

Nintendos Revolution is rumored to run on a custom 4 core G5 running at 2.5Ghz each.

Xbox 360 is supposed to run with the R500 video card, while the Revolution is supposed to be running an R520. The Revolution will be a lot better, power wise, than the Xbox 360.

dual core ATI based on R520 - wow

 

[lewdvig]

To those complaining about Microsoft getting these first. XBox 360 will not be released until CHRISTMAS. I highly doubt these chips are in high supply at the moment so why on earth would Apple release machines with them now. Order your 3 core 3.2Ghz PowerMac G5, shipping Dec.

Wait for WWDC.

Apple is going to have to do soemthing special to justify the price of the G5 - it will suck to have a console that is twice as powerful selling for $299.

 

[Lacero]

It's going to be sold way under cost. Microsoft will gladly pay billions of dollars to gain number 1 spot for gaming consoles. Because it brings in more game developers, which means more licensing revenue, which ultimately means more money for Microsoft.

 

[maxvamp]

IBM some time ago started an industry push towards fabless chip makers to offer a service to help design chips. It only makes sense that IBM would want to start with the Power Core as the basis of any design they help design and manufacture.

On that note....

As we have seen from the cell processor, the power core was used, and is of high speed. The actual processing power from the Power core, however, does not come close to matching the performance of a 970 ( no longer using G5 since it is a generic term for a class of processor ). It is a processor that understands PowerPC instructions, but is in itself a unique creature.

I strongly suspect that this XBox processor is also from the IBM program to help design processors, yet again has little to do with a G5.

If anyone here wanted to design an embedded processor with IBM's help, I suspect that they would end up with a unique processor with a Power core and Altivec. Oh, and some other really interesting things attached to it.

Max.

 

[itsa]

*Jaw Drops* ..... Left in Awe

 

[yoda13]

OK, I admit that I don't really understand the difference in the processors. I know they are different than the G5s that Apple is using, but that just sounds so much better than what we have. Are the specs bogus, and if not, why are the PowerMacs lagging so much? Please don't flame me here...I really am trying to understand this difference.

 

[iEric]

I think the price will be $499 during Q4 2005 with the price dropping to $399 by Q2 2006.

I don't think so. That's not what happened with the XBOX.

 

[Phat_Pat]

Just watched he MTV show. Holy crap those games look AMAZING.

 

[tjmcardl]

It doesn't make sense to knowingly inflate system specs to only underachieve them.

Ummm...have you read ANY of the recent articles about Longhorn? This is the same company afterall...

 

[ZildjianKX]

"My modded $300 Xbox 360 runs Tiger faster than your $3000 powermac"

J/K

Any info on backwards compatibility?

 

[MontyZ]

Why does it look like a Dell tower PC? UGLY!

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/home...ox-360-everything-you-want-to-know-103378.php

 

[Marlon_JBT]

OK, I admit that I don't really understand the difference in the processors. I know they are different than the G5s that Apple is using, but that just sounds so much better than what we have. Are the specs bogus, and if not, why are the PowerMacs lagging so much? Please don't flame me here...I really am trying to understand this difference.

Hi Yoda.

I don't understand either... I want an explanation too!

 

[solvs]

Meh, it's ok. Of course, I barely even use my PS2 nowadays... so I'm not exactly the target market.

But for those wondering - no, you couldn't just use one of these as a Mac. The CPU is much simpler, for one. PowerPC does not equal G5, as has been said. Video card will probably be nice, but it's customized just for the xBox (and I'm sure M$ gets a small discount for ordering, like, a billion of them). Motherboard and architecture are completely different. And I doubt Apple will still have 2.7GHz as their top end by the time this thing is actually for sale (I would hope... but lately, who knows).

That being said, I'm sure it will fast, and great for you 'fraggers out there. And I'm sure they'll sell a bunch. As has been said, I think some people may not even need their PCs anymore (SOME people, I said, not all). I'm still waiting to see what Sony will do with the PS3, and if I'll need to upgrade.

 

[mcarnes]

What does triple core mean anyway? Is it equivalent to 3 processors (assuming the software is written to run on triple core).

 

[nsjoker]

ps3>xbox360

i don't know about the rest of you but i'm not impressed at all by this. the system looks horrible, it's almost a standard atx mid-tower. it's totally unsymmetrical and i don't really notice that great of a leap in graphics from the current xbox. dota beach volleyball looked better than that racing game they showed imo. xbox live is nice though, eitherway i'll wait for my ps3.

 

[zv470]

hmm, anyone notice the resemblance between the light on the power button and the symbol on Mac power buttons?

 

[yoji]

It seems like Apple could have an interesting opportunity here, with all the next gen consoles using PPC architecture. If said architecture is compatible with Tiger or could be made to run on Tiger, Apple could have a huge games library instantly available to them.

Historically the Console business has made money from games sales not console sales, this would be a win win situation for all concerned. It would cannibalize some console sales but not enough to really cause concern.

It would be very interesting to see if the console code translates over to the Mac. Any developers have any insight into this?

 

[ZildjianKX]

i don't know about the rest of you but i'm not impressed at all by this. the system looks horrible, it's almost a standard atx mid-tower. it's totally unsymmetrical and i don't really notice that great of a leap in graphics from the current xbox. dota beach volleyball looked better than that racing game they showed imo. xbox live is nice though, eitherway i'll wait for my ps3.

You're not going to notice a graphical difference from what you saw on MTV, the biggest things you'll notice is the fact that all the games run in 720p. which is a nice upgrade, and that all games have native Xbox Live support with many more people in game.

For first generation games, they look fantastic... just wait until 2 years from now.

 

[jared_kipe]

hmm, anyone notice the resemblance between the light on the power button and the symbol on Mac power buttons?

Thats the universal symbol for power, for those of you who are interested a ring with a dot in the top (where the verticle line is in a power symbol) means reset.

I just love the people that say the hardware is BS specs. You people do know that it was anounced right, and last time I checked it wasn't April first.

 

[Lacero]

The form factor and color looks much nicer in a livingroom than the ugly, current XBox design. I think this console will be a hit. Why? Because even a jaded thing like me wants one. The specs alone look pretty damn impressive. The only thing holding it back, it to see how diverse the game selection is for the 360. It'll be so cool if you could hook up a keyboard with it so you can play DoOm 3. Some of the better games out there require a PC with a keyboard. How else can one chat with another player?

 

[Highland]

hmm, anyone notice the resemblance between the light on the power button and the symbol on Mac power buttons?

Yeah, it's the international symbol for power and not unique to Apple in any way.

 

[Vader]

Thats the universal symbol for power, for those of you who are interested a ring with a dot in the top (where the verticle line is in a power symbol) means reset.
...

Yeah, my Visual Sensations monitor has that on the power button, glows greenish yellow too, so it is just likke the Xbox, except the button isn't made for babies to be able to hit.

 

[danr_97070]

Linux!

The XBox 360 ought to run Linux like a bat outta hell!

 

[jiggie2g]

For the most part these specs are very impressive but the part that dosen't seem to make any sense is that about the GPU performance. It says 500M triangles/sec , and nothing about the fill rate which is getting even more important that polygon count. My Leadtek Geforce 6600GT does over 400M Triangles/Sec when OC'ed and 375M stock. The Geforce 6800 Ultra Does over 600M Tri/sec and the ATI Radeon X850XT PE does over 800M Tri/sec.

For the Xbox to be based on the R500 core which is 1 gen after the X850 series it should do close to 1 Billion Polygons/sec or 10 billion pixels+texels/sec. 500 million just seems very underpowered with all that CPU horsepower under the hood , i would go as far as to call a GPU a bottleneck. If that is the they would have been better off with a X800XL since that is more powerful hitting close to 700M Tri/sec. this has got to be a mistake.

I know the R500 core will suppoert 3Dc , SM 3.0 and full 32bit color precision processing.Plus it's a 500mhz core so it's gotta be atleast a billion Tri/sec.