XBOX 2 to contain THREE 3.5Ghz 64bit PPC's

[System]

Microsoft's Xbox 2 architecture has been exposed for all to see - if a posting on a Chinese bulletin board is to be believed.

The schematic, which appears here on GZeasy.com, reveals a three-core 3.5GHz CPU backed by 256MB of main memory and a 500MHz graphics chip.

In what may be a blow to hopes of some AMD fans that the Xbox 2 contains Athlon 64 processor technology, the CPU is linked to main memory via a traditional North Bridge, not through an integrated memory controller.

According to the spec, each of the processor's three cores contains its own vector processing unit, along with 64KB of L1 cache, split 50:50 between data and instructions. The three cores share a single on-die L2 cache that's 1MB in size.

The processor connects to the North Bridge across a bi-directional bus with a total bandwidth of 21.6GBps, according to the spec. That, in turn links up to the South Bridge over a two-way 500MBps bus.

The console's unnamed graphics chip - known to be coming from ATI - apparently contains 10MB of embedded DRAM within the packaging. The GPU itself can run through 16 pixel shader interpolations per cycle, the schematic claims, along with 16 bilinear texture fetches and 48 ALU ops in the same period. The vertex shader and pixel shader are load balanced.

The North Bridge also feeds through to the console's video scaler unit.

The South Bridge features integrated DVD and 100Mbps Ethernet support, along with hard disk support, though the spec. notes that whether such a unit will be built into the console remains "not decided".

GZeasy notes separately that Xbox 2 will be officially announced on 2 June, though whether that's in preparation for a Christmas launch or a release in 2005 isn't known - assuming the June date is accurate. ®

[lame_duck]

After reading this site for about a year, this single post made me register a name and comment.  :-)

This rumor has been floating for about a year now. Started out with 3 1.6 G5 then to 2 2 G5's and some special GPU, now it's up to 3 3.5 PPC's. The schematics are wrong to begin with, it's no really schematic just a drawing. Schematics would be more detailed.

Also think about it, 3 3.5 PPC cpus? What needs that power?!? Also, can you say 2000 bucks a consol? Just my two cents.  :lol:

Next it will be 2 5gig PPCs with 1 x86 processor for backwards compatability.

[Magic-Merl]

I know Microsoft is losing money on each X-Box sold just to reap the profits & royalties from games but the losses on this baby would be huge.

Come on.

[Argo]

Watch, it will probably turn out that each core is 1.167 GHz and they will call it a 3.5 GHz CPU.
Like how the Nintendo 64 whas 64 bit cause it had 2 32 bit CPUs.

[KennyR]

It's not even practical.

Too hot.
Too noisy.
Too hard to share load between 3 CPUs.
Too expensive.

[ksk]

"the Nintendo 64 whas 64 bit cause it had 2 32 bit CPUs."

That was Atari Jaguar.

IIRC, Nintendo used MIPS CPU core (most likely 32bit) and 64bit GPU.

[Trezzer]

@KennyR:

It says three cpu cores - not three cpus.

[Peggus]

You're all forgetting that they're talking about 3 cores, not 3 cpu's. They are most likely using the same technology used in their power4 and power5 series of multicore processors.

Wether or not it will be to expensive, and hot can not be derived from the information divulged so far. You don't know how complex the cores are, there's no information about the manufacturing process, transisitor count, power consumption, detail size, etc etc.

As for utilization of multiple core, lets just say IBM has a bit of experience in this area.

[downix]

@ksk

I have the Jaguar's schematics, it does have 2 64-bit units ,the Blitter and Object Processor(their version of the copper).  The Jaguar had no less than 5 processing units, a 32-bit GPU, a 32-bit DSP, a 64-bit Blitter, the 64-bit Object Processor and a 68000 "for legacy compatibility".  Before you wonder "what legacy" you have to remember, the Jaguar was to be a follow-on to the Atari Panther, which Atari killed in favor of releasing the Jaguar sooner than it would have otherwise.  Explains why the Jaguar's support stunk, as they did not have time to develop the developers environment properly.  Also explains why the Jaguar was "downgraded" to pure cartridge with an upgrade to CD-ROM later when it was originally to be a pure CD-ROM unit with a Cart for "legacy-support" of Panther games.

The Nintendo 64's main CPU was the 64-bit MIPS R4310 CPU.

[legion]

It doesn't mean a THING without the software titles to back it up.  Traditionally, Sony has shown that they can release an inferior system and, with a library of games, still dominate the market.

This is just typical idiot management thinking of just throwing money at the problem.

[Quixote]

Legion lamented:

This is just typical idiot management thinking of just throwing money at the problem.

;-) And when you have Microsoft sized money, that thinking comes naturally....

[odin]

And probably still win :lol:.

[Waccoon]

For crying out loud.  If this console is more than a year away, waiting for an official specs sheet can't be too much to ask.

All I can say is, they'd better do something about the game disks.  Even with a hard drive, the load times for the original XBox are too damn long.  PS2 games load pretty fast for me, and a good load-balancing engine renders a hard drive pretty much overkill.

Though, getting rid of puny, expensive memory cards would be nice.  I can't believe Sony still wants $25 for an 8MB card.  They'd be smart to move to MemorySticks for the PS3 if they really want it to be multifunction.

[lame_duck]

My bad. By the way the schematics read there was three CPU's in a cluster type setup. But then agin, the schematics looked someone just drawed a bounch of squires and lines to fool people into thinking it was the real thing.  :-D  Not saying anyone would do such a thing.  :lol:

[Trezzer]

Uhm... Excuse me? Load times too long?

The Xbox is more or less consistently the fastest loading of the three current consoles. The GameCube has a theoretical advantage because of the way the discs are structured, but in real life terms that is often beaten by the combination of the harddrive buffering on the Xbox.

Go look at some of the comparative reviews on IGN.com. They do cross-platform reviews and one of the things they look at is how fast a game loads. A couple of times the PS2 has done well enough, but (to throw in a random number) 9 out of 10 times the GameCube and Xbox will beat it.