bgassassin
Member
Since we've seen multiple rumors about what will be under the hood of Xbox3, I came up with that notion in one of the other threads. I tried to find all of the rumors so hopefully I didn't miss any.
First was MSNerd's Loop rumor.
I only put that part in bold because that's how it was in the blog, but that said I don't remember it being there when we talked about it before. I was one of the ones originally believing this to be about a separate set-top box, but as we get more info about the SoC I think I'm getting a better perspective of this rumor in conjunction with more recent info. Also in the comments we see MSNerd talk about the possibility of one of the SKUs not having an optical drive. We see that apparently reaffirmed by Digital Foundry in a GameIndustry.biz article.
(Eurogamer link for those not signed up with GameIndustry. It's free though.)
We also got rumors that focused more on an SoC.
- Semiaccurate had three articles dealing with the first leak, the tape out, and initial production.
- Fudzilla later corroborates this info.
- Then we have IGN focusing more on the GPU stating it's akin to a 6670 and gives an estimated power target comparison.
- And Kotaku corroborating IGN's info.
I've written off the "dual GPU" rumor for now as it sounded like something someone made up from info available at the time.
So going back to the title of the thread. What if we are looking at an SoC with ARM cores acting as DSPs? This is how it sounds to me as of now when looking at it from that perspective. This would allow them to gain more power without the potential heat problems. Also taking the GPU rumors together, what I could see is maybe the final GPU with 8 CUs (512 SPUs) which would make it comparable to both a 6670 and a 7000, GCN-based GPU. I don't know how possibly being on a 32nm process would affect that idea though
From there the lower SKU would in essence be similar to the 4GB XBox 360/Kinect bundle, but also possibly without an optical drive. The gamer SKU would have the same basic hardware plus other functions.
This idea sounds similar to what Masaaki Tsuruta of Sony described in their future plans as well.
Finally an article of interest is that in the first Semiaccurate link there is a link talking about AMD and ARM, but I don't know how much that would relate to this idea. This is just an idea, so what does GAF think when seeing the info together?
First was MSNerd's Loop rumor.
I only put that part in bold because that's how it was in the blog, but that said I don't remember it being there when we talked about it before. I was one of the ones originally believing this to be about a separate set-top box, but as we get more info about the SoC I think I'm getting a better perspective of this rumor in conjunction with more recent info. Also in the comments we see MSNerd talk about the possibility of one of the SKUs not having an optical drive. We see that apparently reaffirmed by Digital Foundry in a GameIndustry.biz article.
(Eurogamer link for those not signed up with GameIndustry. It's free though.)
We also got rumors that focused more on an SoC.
- Semiaccurate had three articles dealing with the first leak, the tape out, and initial production.
- Fudzilla later corroborates this info.
- Then we have IGN focusing more on the GPU stating it's akin to a 6670 and gives an estimated power target comparison.
- And Kotaku corroborating IGN's info.
I've written off the "dual GPU" rumor for now as it sounded like something someone made up from info available at the time.
So going back to the title of the thread. What if we are looking at an SoC with ARM cores acting as DSPs? This is how it sounds to me as of now when looking at it from that perspective. This would allow them to gain more power without the potential heat problems. Also taking the GPU rumors together, what I could see is maybe the final GPU with 8 CUs (512 SPUs) which would make it comparable to both a 6670 and a 7000, GCN-based GPU. I don't know how possibly being on a 32nm process would affect that idea though
From there the lower SKU would in essence be similar to the 4GB XBox 360/Kinect bundle, but also possibly without an optical drive. The gamer SKU would have the same basic hardware plus other functions.
This idea sounds similar to what Masaaki Tsuruta of Sony described in their future plans as well.
Finally an article of interest is that in the first Semiaccurate link there is a link talking about AMD and ARM, but I don't know how much that would relate to this idea. This is just an idea, so what does GAF think when seeing the info together?
