Xbox360 Hardware Specs

[pApA SmerF01]

Originally Posted by CaveMan

This was typed up awhile ago, and for a different site, I was comenting on the article on the site, and I was surrounded by ps3 fanboys so that’s were the attitude came from. But still most of it is up to date. I just didn’t feel like fixing it allover again, after it took me so long to do it in the first place.


PS3

The PS3 has all that CPU power, but the one big problem the machine has is its bandwidth. They said in their press conference at E3 that the PS3 has around (48.0 GPS) of bandwidth. But the 360 has around (278.4 GPS) bandwidth. That’s over five and a have times the PS3. If the PS3 has 2 teraflops of floating point computational power then why five in a half have time less bandwidth then the other guy, when your two time the CPU power.
It even said in this article that the bandwidth is very imported, when you’re talking about the preferments. And you can’t forget that the PS3 uses a lot of buzz words. If you still think that Kill Zone was in game, well they said it was, but latter they changed there mind and said it was representation of what it will be able to do. The RSX isn’t even belt yet.
That goes for the unreal engine demo too. Now think back to the PS2 conference. Look at the demos; the graphics in the games never got as good as their (tech demos) for example. Like I said a lot of hype
And who’s going to have two, not one but two HD TVs in the same room, much less same house. And don’t even get me started with that ugly boomerang thing they call a controller.
Based on measurements of running next generation games, only ~10-30% of the instructions executed are floating point. The remainders of the instructions are load, store, integer, branch, etc. Even fewer of the instructions executed are streaming floating point—probably ~5-10%. Cell is optimized for streaming floating-point, with 87.5% of its cores good for streaming floating-point and nothing else. The 360 is far more superior in general general purpose CPU computations.

XBOX 360

Now about the 360 I think they could have had a better showing….a lot better showing at E3. Shore they talked about the Xbox live community that’s good and all, but I think that there conference was like a pep rally…… a boring pep rally. They should have hade some tech demos, but real ones,
People started saying that the 360s at E3 were showing lag and showed some jagged parts in the game. ……well they were using the alpha units (not the finished units). They were using 2 (G5)for each xbox, you know, those Macs that cost around $ 2,000.00 each. And so those were showing the lag.
For those saying that the best game in the world in final fantasy XI well it’s going to be on the 360. So stop bragging. But really halo 2 got much more good revues then XI.
And it’s going to look much better on the 360, online.
One last thing, one of many things that the PS3 can’t do that the 360 can is procedural geometry. I’ll let you look it up for yourself.

OVERALL
Like every one said, it’s to come down to the games. For those who think that Sony has all the good game makers, sorry to burst your bubble but this next generation they coming to 360 too. Oh ya for those of you who believe that MS lost $10 million this year. Tell me why MS gained 8.0% of the market this year so far.





For a real comparison of the xbox360 and the PS3:

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/617/617951p1.html

that's exactly it. perfect post, detailing the one huge choke on the ps3, and highlighting things that people don't normally look at.

the 360 is 3x better at general integer operations and that's a huge deal to sony, that's why they haven't said a word about it.

oh yeah, glad to see you finally signed up ya slacker!

[korphaeron]

Overall, they will probably run as close to exactly the same you can get. I imagine the PS3 will run better, but that is based on facts so far (and everyone knows Sony and changing their minds).
It will only be nitpickers who notice the detail differences anyway.

[pApA SmerF01]

Originally Posted by korphaeron

Overall, they will probably run as close to exactly the same you can get. I imagine the PS3 will run better, but that is based on facts so far (and everyone knows Sony and changing their minds).
It will only be nitpickers who notice the detail differences anyway.

you really need to read up on bandwidth and its importance in the overall performance of a console.

ps3 is never going to run even close to full potential with 48kps in bandwidth, unless they're running a lunchbox.

the xenos gpu has more dedicated bandwidth for shader ops ALONE.

[citizen X]

360 will run better overall, I mean think about it. What kind of system runs the best on a few games that need mostly flouting point in the graphics? This is how I see it Sony’s trying a new technology call cell. Then they drench it in hype, and then they don’t talk about there big problem in cell. Like PapaSmerf said the SPE’s need to run in order not at the same time, they can’t run at the same time. That’s the design problem in the cell.

If 360’s 3 CPUs ran in order it would be worthless to have 3 if u can’t use then at the same time. That’s why each CPU is duel threaded that means each CPU on its own can do two thing at the same time, you know that means the whole system with the duel threading, acts like it has 6 CPU’s. Yeah, that’s right, not 3, but 6.

[pApA SmerF01]

Originally Posted by citizen X

360 will run better overall, I mean think about it. What kind of system runs the best on a few games that need mostly flouting point in the graphics? This is how I see it Sony’s trying a new technology call cell. Then they drench it in hype, and then they don’t talk about there big problem in cell. Like PapaSmerf said the SPE’s need to run in order not at the same time, they can’t run at the same time. That’s the design problem in the cell.

If 360’s 3 CPUs ran in order it would be worthless to have 3 if u can’t use then at the same time. That’s why each CPU is duel threaded that means each CPU on its own can do two thing at the same time, you know that means the whole system with the duel threading, acts like it has 6 CPU’s. Yeah, that’s right, not 3, but 6.

exactly, and the 360 can afford to be optimized fully because it has more than enough dedicated bandwidth to not constrain the console. the only choke point, which isn't really a choke point on the 360 is they should have had a bigger cache. 1 MB isn't all that much to work with, i would've been happier if they gave 1 MB to each core.

you can program for the ps3 and unlock its "great" power, but you can never use it to its fullest with only 48.8 GPS bandwidth for the whole console. it's just not mathematically correct.

i'm sooo glad you made it on man, techie convos here we come, lol!!

[citizen X]

Originally Posted by pApA SmerF01

exactly, and the 360 can afford to be optimized fully because it has more than enough dedicated bandwidth to not constrain the console. the only choke point, which isn't really a choke point on the 360 is they should have had a bigger cache. 1 MB isn't all that much to work with, i would've been happier if they gave 1 MB to each core.

you can program for the ps3 and unlock its "great" power, but you can never use it to its fullest with only 48.8 GPS bandwidth for the whole console. it's just not mathematically correct.

i'm sooo glad you made it on man, techie convos here we come, lol!!

lol!!!!!

[Man Whore]

I saw somewhere can't rember but it showed that intel was doing a simler design of the cell before sony thought of it do anybody know what I'm talking about

[jonnyg]

yeah i heard of that too but not sure where

[xenocide05]

whats the CPU Game Math Performance of the original xbox compared to the 360?

whats the Polygon Performance of the original xbox compared to the 360?

whats the Shader Performance of the original xbox compared the the 360?

t

[Asylum_Man]

My G0D my Tv Will Probably Blow up the second the system is turned on!!

[TXSPheonix]

Originally Posted by xenocide05

whats the CPU Game Math Performance of the original xbox compared to the 360?

whats the Polygon Performance of the original xbox compared to the 360?

whats the Shader Performance of the original xbox compared the the 360?

XBOX-- XBOX 360

Polygons- 116 million per sec-- 500 million per sec

Total Memory- 64mb-- 512MB (!!!INSANE!!!)

Polygon Performance- 116.5 M/sec-- 500 M/sec

CPU Floating Point Performance- 1.466 GFLOPS-- 115.2 GFLOPS (*faintable number*)


Couple of notes...

First the Cell was originally "clocked" at 4MHz...yeah.

Then it was down to 3.2, then 3.0. (I even heard 2.8, but I don't think that was true)

Sony's "2 TFLOP" statement was BS to many devs interviewed...

Any thing else?

My G0D my Tv Will Probably Blow up the second the system is turned on!!

LOL LOL

That made me laugh so hard!!!

[xenocide05]

thanks man

[starlock]

There seem to be some misconceptions as to what Bandwidth actually enables and how it is quoted. People here are quoting the Xbox360 as having far more bandwidth than the PS3, this simply isn't the case.

From the so far released specs, the bandwidth of the Xbox360 main memory is 22.4 GB/S, but the front side bus is only 21.6 GB/S. This means that the memory can process instructions at 22.4 GB/S but can only then pass them on to the processors at 21.6 GB/s. This figure is the limiting bandwidth of the Xbox360. Then the 10Mb of edram within the graphics card operates at 256GB/S meaning that this small amount of fast memory within the graphics card has high bandwidth, but this is NOT the bandwidth at which the console operates, that is the limiting 21.6 GB/S

Then the PS3 - this has a 'main' bandwidth quoted of 25.6 GB/S with a video ram bandwidth of 22.4 GB/S. The lower bandwidth will be the limiting factor, the ability of the machine to pass data from the processor to the graphics card, at 22.4 GB/S

Hence the PS3 has a HIGHER usable bandwidth (22.4 GB/S) over the Xbox360 (21.6GB/S) and if there are any bandwidth bottlenecks on the machines, the Xbox360 is worse.

This does not mean the Xbox360 will be the worse console, the simpler architecture and the fact the main processor is only slightly less powerful than the PS3 (6 symmetrical hardware threads at 3.2GHz vs the PS3's 7 hardware threads at 3.2 GHz) together with more pipelines in the graphics chip will I think lead to the Xbox360 just having the edge, but there won't be much between them, and ultimately the best machine for games will still be a PC, but the consoles will provide a lot, lot more for the bucks

(and I have already pre-ordered my Xbox360)

[Agent Smith]

The main choice is: Do want to play Halo 3, PGR 3, and slew of other good games or Jak 4, MGS 4 or whatever Sony is going to have. There will be people who like either or both. I think they will both run games that look equally good. My bet is that because of the XNA and other factors 360 games will look better first with the PS3 playing catch up. The Revolution I think is firmly entranced as family system not competing for graphics in this Next Gen.

So, my money is on M$. I liked the XBOX best out of the 3 (I own them all). I just prefer their style of controller, games, and everything.

[Arqentus]

Originally Posted by starlock

Hence the PS3 has a HIGHER usable bandwidth (22.4 GB/S) over the Xbox360 (21.6GB/S) and if there are any bandwidth bottlenecks on the machines, the Xbox360 is worse.

There is a problem with the comparrison. And thats the fact that the edram isent taken in account. While the PS3 has maybe 0.8GB/S more bandwidth, it cant not competed with the bandwidth that will be saved on the xbox360 thanks to the 10mb edram. Lets take AA as a example. Where the PS3 needs to constantly move data from its video memory, thus wasting its bandwidth, the xbox's edram performes this widout affecting the ram so much. Also z-buffer, and other thinks can also be done using the edram, all stuff that doesent need to go past the main bandwidth, and can be done with a 250 GB/s pipe. It's this what will save a lot of bandwidth on the main system pipes.

[magicmaster2121]

i also read several in opionons in this post that state the spe's have to be excuted in parrelel wich i realy dont beleve would be the case if they designed a memory controller that simply gave the spe's thear own memory pins linking them to the systems memory and gpu io resources etc . with out touching main bandiwidth . and also a main pin to link them all together in parrel but every thing eve heard is that the ps3's 3.2 ghz cpu is going to act like a puppet to the spe's wich sounds like the wrong aprouch interestingly if youve seen c++ code youll know what float data /objects are and theorticly you could code an entire program with just float returns wich code run on the spe's hehe . to act like processors . but hears the funny part they dont have access to system memory at all. the cpu in the ps3 going to have to pimp every thing imagine a war against japan right we loose a hundred thousand men they lose 2 millon

[magicmaster2121]

hehe why didnt they design the spe's with int units this would have saved some bandwidth and they would have provebly ran 15 to 25 percent faster

hehe oops what about ai lets ask 256 k of cell cache memory for help hehe
i provebly couldnt fit the data for the ai in a poker program with that much local memory
"the ps3's things going to crash as often as windows 95"

[starlock]

Yep, it's entirely correct that the Xbox360 ultra high bandwidth Edram will ensure that purely GPU instructions can be passed to memory nice and quickly, and this will ensure that shader instructions for lovely lighting effects, etc. can be ultra fast, but there could still be a bottleneck in terms of geometry and large textures, which will have to still rely on the main bandwidth - which will be no better than PS3

Ultimately we will have to wait and see what those clever code developers can do in terms of optimised programming for each system.

[cablekiller]

A game coded to be perfectly balanced across 3 cores at 70% efficiency would produce a game that is worthy to be worshiped.

[XTREK]

Originally Posted by cablekiller

A game coded to be perfectly balanced across 3 cores at 70% efficiency would produce a game that is worthy to be worshiped.

What does the 70% efficiency mean? Is this the percentage of non idle time for all 3 cores and the GPU?