New XBox with 3x PPC G5

[ksk]

Three CPUs would be as insane as XBOX1. There really is no-way to sell it profitably.

IMHO: it is more likely that M$ is getting a special version of G5 core, like celeron of intel, and putting three of those cores on a single die. Also the reality could just mean that the XBOX2 is capable of running three simultaneous threads on the single (but improved) G5 CPU (it is public knowledge that the next generation of PPC9xx will have multithreading).

And the rest is marketing & FUD.

[Seehund]

The price of the G5 processor is already as cheap as can be.

Which is?
Is my guesstimated volume price in the proximity of $200 for a midrange G5 totally whack? G4s seem to range from ~$100 to ~$400 (although that's for single unit retail sales, it seems).

Do not make wild, rash assumptions about the cost of a chip based on Apple and Eyetech's system prices.

Heh, I don't think anyone does that.

Anyway, now the buzz is about something custom made "based on the G5", so I guess it could mean anything.

[DanDude]

Speaking about backwards compatibility--anyone hear that PS3 will be backwards-compatible?

HEY -- wouldn't the nex-gen Amiga have a chance in this game market especially with the G5 installed?  :-)

[Glaucus]

I bet you any money that the new XBox will be nothing like what that article said. That just rediculous!

  - Mike

[Glaucus]

Two chips for CPU-tasks and a third for other tasks, perhaps?

What other tasks? The only thing I can imagine is that they want to go heavy into the online gaming market and would perhaps want to allow gamers to run a server and play a game simultaneously. This almost makes sense, and then you read the bit about having only 256MB, which is just silly if you're gonna run 3 64bit RISC chips, which by nature will require far more memory then normal 32bit CISC chips. I would think a 1GB would need to be standard for such a setup (and to play a game while running a server).

Next one would need to imagine what kind of power supply this beast would require and how many cooling fans would be needed to prevent it from burning a hole in your carpet. This thing makes no sense as a gaming console. This article is pure nonsense!

  - Mike

[mikeymike]

I take the "3 PPC" with a pinch of salt as well, and I think having a PPC CPU is still a doubtful move for MS, but maybe they want the X-Box 2 not to be ultra-bulky like v1 was...

PPC must throw backwards compatibility completely out of the window though.  Also an unusual move for MS, and I doubt they're going to play the console market to the same standards that their console competitors do.

[Madgun68]

HEY -- wouldn't the nex-gen Amiga have a chance in this game market especially with the G5 installed?

About as much of a chance as a snowball thrown in to an active volcano.

[mikeymike]

HEY -- wouldn't the nex-gen Amiga have a chance in this game market especially with the G5 installed?

Ok, you've got an operating system and a CPU so far, what about graphics, the board, mobo chipset etc...

Bear in mind the reason Sony are ahead in the console market is because they designed their own graphics chipset, unlike Nintendo who are happy to go on losing with standard parts...  shades of how Amiga won the market once anyone? :-)

[downix]

@mikeymike

You forgot that Microsoft makes VirtualPC, and could run x86 (read, legacy XBox) software on PPC (read, X-box2 if done in PPC) easily.

[XDelusion]

I've been guessing that they will take advantage of Virtual PC as well. Perhaps a handful of titles may not work, but I am sure they will be developing this with Halo 1 and 2 not to mention some of there other top sellers as the testing canidates.

 I will be saddened if they do not include a Hard Drive. It is in my highest wishes that we'll be able to hack these puppies like we can the original XBOX, and fill them up with emulators and OS's...

...AROS or MorphOS anyhow!?!? No, how about that Mac emu under Linux?

 Screw buying another home computer if this is true!

[Hammer]

Should have concentrated on multiple ATI VPUs instead of CPUs....

[Wain]

Right now the big worry is how on earth they're going to make the Next Box backwards compatible seeing as it will be running on a PPC with an ATI chipset, when the X-Box is Intel/Nvidia.

The likelihood of 3 G5's is pretty bad.

[Hammer]

It's a bit of an odd jump for MS, I think they're a bit uncertain about how CPU development will go in the future

Microsoft has supported multiple ISA editions via Windows NT 4.0 and Windows CE. There's nothing new here except that MS now has .NET to tie their products together. Their first non-X86 console adventure was with  Sega’s Dreamcast (SH4).

AT&T's WebTV was MS's next adventure.
They probably will run out CPU ISAs before they give up…

[Hammer]

@Wain

There should be a Sega Dreamcast Emulator running on X86 Windows floating somewhere in the WWW.  I haven’t tested the performance of the said emulator.  Sega Dreamcast is powered by Windows CE 2.x with DirectX 6 class GPU i.e. PowerVR and 200Mhz SH4 processor.

Refer to
http://www.pocketpclife.com/issues/issue199911/dreamcast001.html

[Hammer]

The future of the CPU-market looks very uncertain at the moment. The x86 has been pushed as far as possible; a new generation must come soon.

AMD’s K9 would probably push the X86 further e.g.  dual cores.

I don't think that Intel's future is so bright anymore.
There will be problems if the x86-platform is split up, and I don't think that AMD, Intel and Via will cooperate to create a successor to the x86.

Note that, AMD64 ISA  is a collaboration between AMD and MS. The decision to cut Win16 from Windows XP(X86-32) Pre-install Edition mirrors the decision to cut X86-16 from AMD64 ISA. This may be re-applied IF Microsoft and IBM are working together for a processor solution for the X-BOX2.

Officially, both Transmeta and AMD support AMD64/X86-64 ISA.

References
http://www.sharkyextreme.com/archives/may01_25.shtml

[Hammer]

Do not make wild, rash assumptions about the cost of a chip based on Apple and Eyetech's system prices. They both make some kind of insane profit over the raw materials.

Would it cost $49 in 1,000-unit quantities?