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Microsoft builds a Franken-processor
CONSOLE GAME MAKER Microsoft has devised a GPU and CPU combo to power the Xbox 360.
Microsoft unveiled its Franken-processor at the Hot Chips conference in the US yesterday and it will be bundled in the slim black Xbox 360.
According to Venture Beat, the Vole's engineers wanted to shrink the size of the Xbox 360 board and reduce the number of chips in the hardware. This meant fewer fans and heatsinks, which reduced the size of the power supply unit and brought power consumption down.
Microsoft worked with Big Blue to devise the system-on-a-chip (SoC), which has 372 million transistors and runs much cooler than IBM and AMD's first Xbox chip. That was responsibly for many consoles overheating and getting the infamous Red Ring of Death.
IBM went from a 90nm fab process to 65nm in 2007 and managed to get down to 45nm for the CPU/GPU combo. Aside from the manufacturing process, the hybrid is the same as the one IBM built for Microsoft in 2007. It still has a three-core 3.2GHz processor with a 500MHz graphics core. This time though they are all built into the same chip.
Dubbed project "Vejle", the chip uses only a single fan that doesn't need to run at more than 55 per cent capacity. It also uses 60 per cent less power than the 2007 model and has a separate 10MB memory chip.
That will please a lot of Xbox fanbois who got their fingers burnt on older Xboxes. But it will please the Vole more because it shouldn't have to set aside a huge wedge of cash to replace failed Xboxes. µ
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"Microsoft worked with Big Blue to devise the system-on-a-chip (SoC), which has 372 million transistors and runs much cooler than IBM and AMD's first Xbox chip. That was responsibly for many consoles overheating and getting the infamous Red Ring of Death."
Don't be an idiot. The chips were not responsible for overheating.
INADEQUATE FSCKING COOLING was responsible for overheating of the chips.
Also, it's not particularly pretty English - don't you think?
I really enjoy watching the game consoles imporve over the manufacturing process. Saving of electricity and improving the life span of the hardware is a super plus. Makes me wonder why they don't just improve hardware for the next couple of Generations. More power and in a stable upgrade path, similar leap or hopefully more as GC is to Wii. We will be happy with the backward compat at least. With the PC market slowing by the developers jumping on the console bandwagon and the DRM damaging the actual big names on the PC... what will happen to the progression of hardware development?
What will the next console be like? What kind of SoC will it be running and when. I wonder if the 360/ps3 is getting long in the tooth yet.
It's an impressive SoC all in all - a tri-core, six-thread 3.2GHz PowerPC (albeit not very powerful per clock, compare to Atom clock for clock rather than Core i7!), and a quite-powerful 240 SP ATI GPU (R600), and other northbridge functions.
However, is it really a SoC when all the I/O is in another chip still? Then again, Ontario and Llano won't be SoCs by the same measure.
It's also a cost advantage over the PS3, because it's unlikely NVIDIA will ever allow RSX to be integrated on the same die as Cell, so they'll remain separate chips.
I wonder how fast this SoC, and the PS3's current Cell, could be made to run given the newer processes and power consumption headroom?