Xbox 2 hardware specs?

[borntosoul]

what do you folk think will be running inside the xbox 2 ? will it be 3 ghz p4 and a nv40 or 3000+ athlon with a ati r450 ?? will it be much smaller ? xbox owners what else would you change ?

[Uttar]

My personal guess is a NV4A
As for processor, I really got no idea. I'd guess it would be between 2Ghz and 3Ghz.

Oh, and my personal wish for the NV4x is that it's not an IMR. But that's just a wish...


Uttar

[MUYA]

Nevermind the GPU and CPU speeds.....they will be Higher ......a hell lot higher than what we are used to today. PS3 with its mindblowing claims of a super duper computer in a console etc and you get the picture. But what is probably most certain is that with the leaning towards household appliance integration, i wouldn't put it past Sony or Mircosoft (with collaboration), to put the damn consoles in the in Freezer compartment of next gen fridge. Then u solve a hell lot of problems, integretaion, cooler for your higher speed cpu/gpu, smart fridge etc, u can surf the net too and then play HALO3 or MSG5 online? etc etc.........but where u put the dvd's to load g ames..I dunno.

[jbirney]

Originally posted by Uttar
My personal guess is a NV4A
Uttar

Hmm we have some "creditable" ruomors (if there is such a thing) that as it stand now ATI looks to be in the lead for the contract. Again this can change at any moment but MS thought that they were not getting a good enough price from NV took them to court over the deal last year on it. And since ATI has been able to produce comparable parts (perfromance wise) at a lower cost in the past then there may be some "meat" to the above roumors....

[Gar]

Well either way if NVidia is chosen they don't seem to get along with MS that much. I would be surprised if ATI is chosen. Guess well have to wait and see for another 2 years.

[Uttar]

My favorite way to destroy that ATI XBox 2 rumor is that ATI already got a contract with Nintendo.
I doubt either Nintendo or MS would allow to have ATI working for both of them.

ATI is officially trying to get a big contract. Nothing more.
As said by others, there are a lot of things which can be considered as big contracts. Limiting that to console simply makes no sense.


Uttar

[MUYA]

Originally posted by Uttar
I doubt either Nintendo or MS would allow to have ATI working for both of them.



Uttar

Very true.....I think its a game to make/bully nvidia into submission for lower price mobo/3dgpu to lower overall costs. But u never know.....u could have bitboys in that xbox of theirs :)
nv4a...most likely

[Mod]

I think it's too "easy" too guess NV4a. :) It's better try to be more specific about the details.

[suburbanguy]

Nvidia powered XBox2 = NV40 or NV45 derivative.
ATI powered XBox2 = R550, or even R600 derivative.

ATI is pulling ahead of Nvidia in terms of releasing more powerful VPUs so that's why i think an ATI powered XBox2 would use a chip that is ahead of anything NVidia would have in the same time period.

[gemini1313]

if u read uttars nv3x bible you would probably know that the nv30 was just a precursor for whats really to come. whereas basically the r300 is just a souped up dx8 part with some dx9 tech in it, the nv30 is a radically new chip that has a great future for growth and expansion, and it should be very easy to enhance the core tech wise with no problems. plus the nv30 is already on .13 whereas the r300 isnt :(

nvidia the way games are meant to be played, haha suckas

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by gemini1313
if u read uttars nv3x bible you would probably know that the nv30 was just a precursor for whats really to come. whereas basically the r300 is just a souped up dx8 part with some dx9 tech in it, the nv30 is a radically new chip that has a great future for growth and expansion, and it should be very easy to enhance the core tech wise with no problems. plus the nv30 is already on .13 whereas the r300 isnt :(

nvidia the way games are meant to be played, haha suckas

riiiiight. explain why gfFX uses the same tired FSAA technology as the gf3 and gf4 then. great, NV30 has more powerful shaders. seeing as how by the time they are actually used to any degree gfFX will be too slow to take advantage of them, i think i'll pass.

FSAA quality is something that matters to me, something tangible that exists today, tomorrow, and the day after that. sure, features are nice, but features that can actually be used count more in my book than features that aren't.

[jbirney]

Originally posted by gemini1313
if u read uttars nv3x bible you would probably know that the nv30 was just a precursor for whats really to come. whereas basically the r300 is just a souped up dx8 part with some dx9 tech in it, the nv30 is a radically new chip that has a great future for growth and expansion, and it should be very easy to enhance the core tech wise with no problems. plus the nv30 is already on .13 whereas the r300 isnt :(

nvidia the way games are meant to be played, haha suckas

Right, since the R300 and the nV30 have almost the same core rendering engine I guess that makes either the NV30 a souped up DX8 part with some DX9 tech tossed in, or that makes the r300 just as radically new design as the nV30 :rolleyes:

[Uttar]

IMO, the R300 isn't really a DX8 chip with DX9 tech tossed into it. I respect ATI design choices, and it certainly made a lot of sense based on their transistor budget and time limitations.

The R300 *architecture* is roughly the same as the R200 architecture. It's inflexible, and relies on brute force.

The NV30 architecture, however, is different from both NV20 & R200: the VS system is really interesting, since it allows better flexibility, higher efficiency and more features.
On the PS side of things, the NV30 is also differencing itself because its 32 shader calculators aren't allocated 4/pipe.
According to the latest information we've got, the R300 also got 32 shader calculators. But ATI doesn't seem to want to say if they're allocated 4/pipe or not :D

Are those signifiant advantages? No. But they show a clear architecture flexibility in the NV3x. The R300 doesn't have that flexibility. And that means derivatives are harder to create, as I said.

I don't think ATI really had the time to make those changes. The R300 was all about brute force. The R400, on the other hand, is about finesse - and it sure seems good on that point!

Why has the GFFX the same AA technology? Because they didn't know the Radeon 9700 Pro patterns before us, and they were made public *after* the GFFX tape-out. So nVidia assumed it wouldn't be a so big leap. And time was a big problem for the GFFX, as you all know, so they didn't think originally that they had time to work on AA Quality.


Uttar

[jbirney]

The R300 *architecture* is roughly the same as the R200 architecture. It's inflexible, and relies on brute force.

popy****. It was designed around DX9 from the begining and DX9 was about flexibilit. Brute force? ** Cough FX clocked so fast it needs "dustbuster flow" cough ** The R300 was a very balanced part I dont see how being the first DX9 part makes it about force?

Both the NV30/R300 share many simularites. The NV30 is slighly more flexible. Will that matter to 99.99% of the population/End Users?

Why has the GFFX the same AA technology?

I don't know why but for a company that has talked about better pixels they shure dont back it up much. Fact is nV may have been the first to offer AA in a consumer card, the have never had the best IQ. V5 for years held the best FSAA for edge removal even though it was slow. Now that honor goes to the R300. nV has had chances with GF3 Ti, GF4 and FX serries to match/better it but never did for some reason. I did think their xS modes were nice but not nice enough....

[tazdevl]

Couple of things...

ATI has not signed a contract to design the next GPU for Nintendo. So I'm not sure how that would affect ATI working on a chip or two for the Xbox.

Yes, they might have signed a non-compete with Nintendo for the Gamecube, but the term was probably for a couple years. Then again, ATI was bidding on the Xbox... so the non-compete seems unlikely.

That whole brute force and DX9 comment Uttar is a crock. Quit trying to make yourself feel better about your dedication to a product that didn't live up to the marketing hype nor meet the market's expectations.