That's what I was thinking. It took 6 years to get 4 total cores to run with stability.Originally Posted by dryvlyne
That's what I was thinking. It took 6 years to get 4 total cores to run with stability.
Triple Core, can handle 6 threads.
Bulldozer type arch wouldn't be the best choice imo.
I'd believe an IBM Power7 quad-core chip first over an 8 module AMD chip. 4-Core Power7 chip can handle 4 threads per core, so that there is 4 physical cores with 16 logical cores. There you have your "16-core" CPU and I'd imagine a much better solution than an AMD. Plus MS is already in bed with IBM as tge x360 CPU is a PowerPC chip by IBM.
Last edited by red_dog007; 04-12-2012 at 02:12 AM.
16 core processor would skyrocket the price into infinity.I call bullshit on this rumour.
When the X360 specs were released, I could hardly believe we'd be getting a 3.2GHz double-threaded triple-core CPU, but the relative simplicity of the architecture brought the astronomical specs down to earth.16 core processor would skyrocket the price into infinity.
Yeah, the CPU was pretty nuts. Out before the Core 2's and Tri-Core! Before 2 cores was even normal. Though I have no idea how Power Architecture compares to x86, especially for console applications. All I know is that Power chips end up mostly in some bada$$ servers, but those chips ain't cheap. Apples used to be Power chips, but they even jumped ship to Intel eventually.
Anyways, it did skyrocket the price into infiniti. Just that MS absorbed a lot of the cost. Though I don't think that the actual chip was that expensive. They never really are as they do not have to pay consumer prices.
Last edited by red_dog007; 04-15-2012 at 03:53 AM.
Yields were three main issue, no? Which inflated the effective cost per chip.
I don't see an issue if they're basing on tech already out (Bulldozer). Clock rates are another issue.
Yields can always be an issue, especially if they are bad, or just not 99.9% in general. Though the chip yields seemed to be made more known about on the PS3 with them disabling 1 of the coprocessors to help boost usable yield. Maybe IBM on the x360 had the same issue, but Im sure not nearly as bad as Sonys as their console was more or less delayed because of the Cell and than the CPU was disabled partially because of yields.
Bulldozer would be and could be good, and could still be used. AMD could even have a custom Bulldozer that is being designed right now that is bada$$, but I doubt it.
Yeah, we might see an APU this generation even, but that doesn't rule out say an IBM P7 CPU married to an AMD GPU. It doesn't have to be both AMD cpu/gpu or Intel cpu/gpu.
This new generation will be interesting to see though. See what each company ends up deciding to do for final hardware specs. [yes]
Thats what I believe as well, i really doubt it will be a 16 core CPU. For it to be 16 with the current Power7 i believe it would have to be an MCM (multi chip module), since the die has max 8 cores. Having an MCM in a console is going to be too expensive and be too difficult to cool in a small chassis.
Though i still find it odd using a very heavily threaded CPU on a gaming console, but if it basically comes for free with the Power7 architecture why not.
Personally i expected Sony and MS to go Power7 but its looking unlikely.
It could be a 16-core ARM though.
Possible since it would provide a lot of flexibility for things and getting companies to dev for an ARM platform would surely help the cause of Windows 8 ARM since im pretty certain a lot of the dev tools will be shared between windows 8 and the next Xbox if they are both based on ARM. I would imagine MS would rather pour money into an architecture they support and its also help them get a jump on Apple with ARM support. Windows phone 7 also runs on ARM and has Xbox Live already so they will be able to have more Xbox Live arcade games that work on both platforms without much extra effort.
If you think about it...why develop for PPC port to x86 and ARM, when you could dev for x86 or ARM that they already support on the desktop OSes and then port from one to the other. PPC is an unecesary part of the chain.
It all makes a lot of sense...until you get to the hardware side though. If its a 16 core ARM chip what exactly would they use ?
I dont think anybody makes such a CPU, a 16 core ARM V7 CPU using something like Cortex A9 but with no graphics components (since they would be pointless to have if Xbox is using a AMD GPU, they will not be able to be used in tandem without big effort).
For it to be 16 core ARM they have to use multi chip modules like what Caldexa use in their ARM servers, 4 x Quad core Cortex A9 on a daughterboard i just dont see that being well suited for a games console and the chips will surely loose cache and memory performance with such a configuration.
Secondly if it is 16 ARM cores, do 16 Cortex CPUs have enough grunt...i have my doubts. In situations that simply do not require the heavy threading such a CPU will really struggle compared to even the average AMD K10 supposedly going to be used by the PS4. Their 16 core ARM CPU could look outdated within a year.
Unless they plan to shift certain things to the compute units of the GPU, but that leaves them even less stuff to make use of their heavily threaded hardware.
They could use an ARM V8 CPU, like A10 or X-Gene, they are just not ready and even if they are by Q4 2013 thats just far too late for MS to start mass production.
Personally id love to see it use ARM, but it would be a very very bold and brave move to do so.
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