IBM wins the CPU contract for the Microsoft's X-BOX 2.

[dammy]

Poster: KennyR Date: 2003/11/3 18:17:39

It may well be that modern x86 chips are too hot and power hungry for console boxes. But I'm jumping to conclusions. If consoles did jump to PPC it would be great news for AmigaONE and Pegasos boards.

Modern PPC (970) is just as hot as x86 CPUs.  The last PPC that could get away with using a heat sink and no CPU fan, was what, the G3 600MHz?  That's not going to be enough horsepower for the XBox.  Besides, imagine trying to port M$ to PPC for the XBox to run on.  Not pretty.

Dammy

[dammy]

Poster: KennyR Date: 2003/11/3 19:21:23

And what was the last x86 CPU that could run without a large (more than 3cm^2) cooler and fan? 266 MHz Pentium 2?

Latest Pentium, would be the Pentium 4-Mobile at 2 GHz, think it averages about two watts.  IIRC, you can find a fair number of x86 low power (7-12 watts) from Intel, AMD, andTransmeta.  My point is, laptops are driving the need for low power, fast CPUs.  PPCs are not the only beast in the low power catagory.

Dammy