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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga Hardware News => Topic started by: JetRacer on February 04, 2004, 11:17:40 AM
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The next XBox will have not one but three (IBM) PPC G5 in it. Also worth noting is ATI graphics hardware beyond what we will see in soon-to-be-released ATI boards. If true, this will drive down G5 price to rock bottom.
Check it out here (http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/7849191.htm).
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That's kinda cool!
I assume they'll use a JIT-x86 emulator, and the gfx, is DirectX, right?
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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, with doubt cast on Intel's ability to stay ahead of the market. AMD and IBM are grabbing the CPU headlines at the moment.
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Bizzare, M$ without Intel.. What's next? Cats and Dogs getting along? I must admit the X-Box 2 sounds interesting, unlike the X-Box one. 3 G5? How would 3 G5 be cheaper than one X86 chip? This is what I want to know.
If this comes true which it looks like it will, my hat will be off to Hyperion. They took alot of heat a few years ago when they insisted PPC would become dominant in the near future. M$ using it would indicate that, should help to drop prices down too. Right :-?
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three (IBM) PPC G5 in it.
Isn't this just a case of a journalist making false conclusions from "three IBM chips"?
It just doesn't make sense. The G5s cost a couple of hundred $ each, don't they? 3 CPUs? Why not 2, 4, or some other even number? Why would the XBox 2 need such a ginormous CPU power? The predecessor did its stuff with a lowly Celeron for a CPU, and a kickass graphics system.
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Two chips for CPU-tasks and a third for other tasks, perhaps? :-?
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Actually according to the rumour they are 3 dual core G6 processors and each can do 2 threads (so 12 in total).
The ATI chip is NOT the one due soon (R420), it's at least a generation ahead (R500).
How would 3 G5 be cheaper than one X86 chip?
Because they won't be high end CPUs, Apple will have those - The G6 is long romoured to appear later this year so Apple may even be onto the G7 by then.
Lower clocked processors cost a lot less money than high clocked processors (especially in the volumes we're talking about) and possibly more importantly run cooler - do you really want a 140 Watt beast in your X-Box? That's what Intel are predicting.
They also can take over tasks like sound and I/O, it's probably cheaper and quicker (to market) to use 3 CPUs than use custom chips.
In any case the PS3 is still likely to stomp all over it...
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Several things:
It's a "leaked" document.
It could be a concept design.
If could be used by M$ to squeeze out a better deal with Intel.
The CPU was not specified.
The Original XBox had almost nothing of the Prototype shown off by M$ in it.
We'll have to wait an see :-)
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Bizzare, M$ without Intel.. What's next? Cats and Dogs getting along?
Considering the specs of the new Xbox, how about AmigaOS running natively on Microsoft hardware? :-D
If this comes true which it looks like it will, my hat will be off to Hyperion. They took alot of heat a few years ago when they insisted PPC would become dominant in the near future. M$ using it would indicate that, should help to drop prices down too. Right
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.
What AMD and Intel has kept doing until now could easily be compared to Motorola continiuing to develop the 68k-series to 3k+ GHz-levels.
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.
Exciting times ahead for sure... Who knows? You know how Apple has kept an up-to-date version of MacOS for x86? What if M$ has the same for PPC? :-D I mean, there was a version of NT4 for PPC once...
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minator wrote:
Lower clocked processors cost a lot less money than high clocked processors
That's right. In the CPU production process, quite a few chips don't pass quality control. Rather than throw them away they're lowered to a clock speed at which they're stable and sold off. I believe Motorola did this for the 68040 and 68060, although in these cases it was the FPU that didn't make the grade and they were sold as having none.
All the same...it's hard to imagine that there could be massive stockpiles of lower quality G5s sitting around when there are so few real ones.
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Considering the specs of the new Xbox, how about AmigaOS running natively on Microsoft hardware?
Only if you like computing without a Hard drive :-(
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As for G5's costing too much - by the time this comes to market, a lot of time would have passed , also with so many new machines rumoured to go PPC, the quantity of chips should bring the price down.
And its M$ who can afford to subsidise the boxes in an attempt to make a killing on the content.
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Last time I heard of it, the PS3 will also boast a multiprocessor setup. That processor is dubbed 'Cell' and is being developed by Sony and IBM afaik. Seems both rivals will give their nextgen console's a bunch of raw horsepower.
What surprises me more is that the article mentions M$ is considering to give up on backward compatibility.
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The price of the G5 processor is already as cheap as can be.
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.
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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.
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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 (http://www.ppcnux.de/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2985) range from ~$100 to ~$400 (although that's for single unit retail sales (http://www.newark.com/NewarkWebCommerce/newark/en_US/support/catalog/productDetail.jsp?voucherCode=&id=88H9438), 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.
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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? :-)
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I bet you any money that the new XBox will be nothing like what that article said. That just rediculous!
- Mike
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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
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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.
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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.
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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? :-)
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@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.
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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!
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Should have concentrated on multiple ATI VPUs instead of CPUs....
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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.
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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…
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@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
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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
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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 $49 in 1,000-unit quantities?
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You forgot that Microsoft makes VirtualPC, and could run x86 (read, legacy XBox) software on PPC (read, X-box2 if done in PPC) easily.
Yes but could they emulate a game well? The x86 instruction set is horrendously complicated, I very much doubt a current PPC CPU could do it, not without some especial backup (like dedicated extra hardware that took care of some of the emulation work).
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@Mikeymike
I play a few PC games using VirtualPC on Mac OS X on Mac-on-Linux on my Pegasos, and it's acceptable.
There's also the other bit folk forget, IBM has developed a hybred PPC/x86 chip before, the 615.
The lack of nVidia is more likely going to be limiting than the lack of x86.
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I play a few PC games using VirtualPC on Mac OS X on Mac-on-Linux on my Pegasos, and it's acceptable.
What does that mean?
I class Jedi Academy occasionally running at speeds of 20 - 30 FPS on my PC (http://www.legolas.com/mikes/mypc.txt), when generally it runs at ~60 fps as being just about acceptable, but really for a console and games specifically designed for it, that performance loss isn't acceptable.
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Hey, it's news remember. What did you expect? The truth? :-)
Personally I think the whole thing is a load of BS. It fits the profile of being a hoax perfectly:
1. It's too well written, meaning, too much information and too many quotes. The author want's to prevent people to search for confirmation.
2. There's no rational explanation for any of the statements. It looks like the author is trying to force M$ to publish real facts.
3. Author phone number at the bottom.
But if it fools 100% of the slashdot readers, then it's probably news enough to be published here too. You people probably want to check out the comments they made:
http://games.slashdot.org/games/04/02/04/1933241.shtml?tid=127&tid=152&tid=185&tid=186&tid=211
Warning! There's ALOT of comment in that link...
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The Dreamcast had CE yes, but only about 5 games actually took advantage of it, such as Namco Musuem, Midway's Arcade pack, Kiss: Psycho Circus, and two who's names elude me right now.
All other games were written directly to the hardware, not using Direct X or CE for that matter.
In the end I can say I'll either end up with a Nintendo or XBOX 2, but NEVER a Sony, I hate them more than Mircrosoft, they themselves are Mircrosoft haters who campain against the evils of Microsoft while adapting there same policys, one of them being there LIES!!!
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I would love to see M$ go PPC myself. I've been wanting to trade my 2.6GHZ PC system I dont use much for a decent G4 based Mac for some time. If M$ goes PPC then it would made development fly on the processors. Thi would bring the price down and get rid of X86 at last.
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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.
Untrue. The Dreamcast wasn't powered by Windows CE, it was just compatible with it. (The logo on the machine says as much.) The only titles "powered" by Windows CE were those built with the WinCE SDK. The bulk of the Dreamcast library, much to Microsoft's dismay, were built with the Katana SDK.
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The Dreamcast had CE yes, but only about 5 games actually took advantage of it, such as Namco Musuem, Midway's Arcade pack, Kiss: Psycho Circus, and two who's names elude me right now.
Sega Rally 2 definately was. I believe Spirit of Speed 1937 was also built with it.
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The price of the G5 processor is already as cheap as can be.
Building chips is a very, very expensive involving $2 Billion on a Fab (Chip Factory), development of the process technology, development of the chips and probably a lot more besides.
The cost of materials used is a pittance compared to this.
The more you make the wider you can spread these costs, so the more you make the cheaper they get. The G5 isn't being produced in huge numbers yet, probably less than 1% of the x86 market at the moment.
Those prices have a long way to fall yet...
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Untrue. The Dreamcast wasn't powered by Windows CE, it was just compatible with it. (The logo on the machine says as much.)
I use the said word as one can install either Linux or Windows on X86 HW and under the context of Windows. Refer "http://wtvhelp.hypermart.net/news.html"'s marketing blurb as an example.
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Speaking about backwards compatibility--anyone hear that PS3 will be backwards-compatible?
Yes, both PS1/PS2
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/32615.html (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/32615.html)
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@Seehund:
Somewhere around $100-$300 for low volumes, depending on what you buy, I'd speculate. This is decidedly cheaper than other 64bit processor solutions, and on par with the high performance 32bit solutions (but with greater performance per Mhz and per Watt)
Obviously in bulk (many thousands..) or extreme production runs (games consoles can run into the many millions within 6 months of launch) it gets significantly cheaper.
As for assumptions: EVERYONE makes them here.
The assumption that a PowerPC is more expensive than an equivalent x86 processor is downright misplaced. Of any bit-count.
If Microsoft have chosen the PowerPC as the core of the XBox 2 (and IBM sources have confirmed they HAVE - but it's most likely a G5+ and some other chips, not 3 CPUs) then it may be significantly cheaper than the XBox to both produce and sell.
As such, XBox can launch at a wildly low price, perhaps competing with the current consoles in that area: imagine a $150 XBox 2 positioned against the $99 Gamecube and $160 Playstation II, and for Microsoft to be profiting or breaking even from day one.
The days of haemorraging money on console hardware are over.
=Neko=
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Somewhere around $100-$300 for low volumes, depending on what you buy, I'd speculate. This is decidedly cheaper than other 64bit processor solutions, and on par with the high performance 32bit solutions (but with greater performance per Mhz and per Watt)
Note that the current PPC 970 (.13 micron, SOI, 8 levels of copper interconnects) is quite different compared to Motorola’s G4 in terms of TDP.
Note that the of price $49 per 1000 is applied for a certain X86 processor (not Intel). Careful with the time differential when comparing current product A to unreleased product B.
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As such, XBox can launch at a wildly low price, perhaps competing with the current consoles in that area: imagine a $150 XBox 2 positioned against the $99 Gamecube and $160 Playstation II, and for Microsoft to be profiting or breaking even from day one.
Note that there are other non-CPU-factors that made X-BOX adventure less profitable for MS e.g. Hard disk, GPU, APU and 'etc'.