How the Xbox 360 affects PC gamers

What's this about having to have an amazing telly to use the new machine? Anyone got any ideas as to what connections it will be using A/V wise?

 

I for one would like to see a nice DVI connection but I think I will be disappointed.

 

As long as it supports S-Video and Optical then i'll be happy

 

I would guess that it will take a long time to use the full capabilities of both the CPU and GPU in the Xbox 360, and we're not going to see early games with much better graphics than what can be seen on the PC right now. By the time the Xbox 360 games start to use the consoles capabilities, we're likely to see quad cores from AMD and Intel - yes they're due in 2006 AFAIK, and unified shader architectures from both ATI and NVIDIA on the desktop are likely to appear as Longhorn rolls out.

G70 and R520 are the stop gap until Longhorn. Also, don't forget that the pipelines are unified, if the new GPU's roll up with 32 pixel pipelines and 8 vertex shaders, the difference in 'total' number of pipelines is not that massive IMHO. I'm not sure that this round of consoles will put an end to PC gaming as we know it, as there are plenty of things happening in the PC world that will keep things ticking over nicely.

Think of Xbox as a teaser for what is coming to the PC over the next couple of years. That's the way that I see consoles. I'm excited about this generation consoles, but I still believe that there will be a PC market running along side it for a good while yet.

 

This is going to end the modding scene because it has many things that Modded boxes have now

 

To further add to this with some more technical overviews of R500...

I believe that the memory is on a 128-bit memory interface, running at 700MHz DDR (1400MHz effective), as that's more efficient than running at 350MHz DDR (700MHz effective) on a wider bus. Also, there'd be no point in using GDDR3 if it was running at only 350MHz.

Also, comparing pipelines in Xbox 360 to what we currently have in PC-based video cards is like comparing apples to oranges. I know we do that in our video card reviews, but this is slightly different in that retrospect. We are talking about unified shaders and specialised shaders here.

Some interesting tidbits here:

• R500 has roughly twice the shader operation power per cycle compared to R420
• and R500 also has about half the aliased (0xFSAA) fill rate power per cycle of R420.

The R420 has 96 ALU's in total. Each pixel shader has 5 ALUs: two vector, two scalar and one texture ALU per pipeline. Each vertex shader has two ALU's: one vector and one scalar.

The R500 has 48 unified ALU's that are each capable of 1 vector and 1 scalar op per cycle. In that sense the R500 could work similarly to a dual core - it's capable of multiple operations per cycle. That's where the 48 billion shader ops per second come from.

I was starting to wonder, as 48 x 500MHz does not equal 48 billion shader ops per sec. However, it's almost certain that the other 24 billion shader ops will be instruction duplicates of each other, so you can't actually achieve 48 billion shader ops without doing both vector and scalar ops simultaneously. This isn't the case in PC graphics, which is why comparing R500 to a current GPU is not quite as easy as it sounds.

 

No offence meant, but wtf are you on about?

<A88>

 

Thanks, bigz... Reality checks are always helpful. I still wonder if this beast can do all it's supposed to, though.

And seriously, Dinh, wtf? I'm with alex, not sure I understand.

 

I'd like to see how this thing multitasks before I start calling it a PC killer. The problem with consoles is that their architectures are generally geared towards single task performance, ie. gaming. So even if this is capable of streaming mp3s, surfing the web and playing video, can it do them simultaneously? Assuming its three cores can take out-of-order instructions it seems conceivable. The PS3 (or whatever the hell they're going to call it) was hyped up like this a few months ago with buzz words like "cell processors." Come to find out (and there's an excellent article over at Anandtech) this technology is only useful in specific situations, desktop computing not being among them. Now I don't know who would want to watch Terminator 3 in HD and play Katamari Damacy at the same time, but I have a feeling that would tax the system. I can think of a few people, inluding myself, who might want to stream their mp3s while playing a video game.

I guess what I'm trying to say is let's wait and see before we get all moist in the nether regions.

Please note I am not suggesting that the power PC based processors in the Xbox 360 operate in the same way the cell processors of the next-gen PS will. Perhaps someone could inform me if they operate the same way conventional desktop processors do.

 

If you want the PVR functions, you'll still need a Media Centre PC, as MrHaz states that the
XBox 360 includes "Media Center Extender" ie. a frontend client (playback only) for MCE.

 

The R420 does not have 96 ALUs. The usual counting method is 2 (1 full + 1 mini) in each pixel pipeline (the texture unit is not counted) + 1 in each vertex pipeline: 2* 16 + 6 = 38 ALUs of which 16 are the less capable minis.

From Beyond3D:

Pixel Pipeline
Vertex Pipeline

 

If this is how it works, then it is 48 billion instructions per second. Normal counting would reckon each vector instruction as 4 operations. Giving (4 + 1) * 48 * 500Mhz = 120 billion operations per second. Not like Microsoft to miss an oppertunity to blow its own trumpet.

 

This is really amazing, I can't wait to see Nintendo and Sony's answers to this amazing feat. I mean, to make a triple-core 3.2ghz processor and a 512mb graphics card with wireless controllers and a pretty box for under $800USD is insane. Dual-core processors cost nearly that much alone, and the 512mb cards that we have available for pc are ~$400 alone. I wonder if it will be possible to snag the card and the CPU out of a 360 and mod it for your pc. Meh, there will probably be plenty that will try this whilst voiding their 360 warranty and ruining their $6000 workstation.

-Rob

 

I'm sure this thing will do everything it say on the tin, and then more with add-ons.

Slip a Xandros partition on there and I am sure it will rock. As for it being a threat to PC Gaming...probably not.

It is always amazing however that the programmers manage to squeeze such great performance out of modest hardware. Considering the massive jump in processor/gpu power I am sure we can all expect something special.

I still prefer the SONY option though, game titles are always better imo.

my 2 cents

Have a nice weekend

 

It isn't a 512MB card: the GPU shares that with all the other parts of the system. Whereas on a discrete graphics card it has exclusive access to all its memory, and at a higher speed (leaving aside the EDRAM).

Though I agree on the price.

 

Part of the reason console can extract such great performance out of modest hardware is the necessary resolution. A TV only runs at less than 640x480, and HDTV only brings it up to like 1080 x something something.

Not NEARLY as complicated as when we all cram 2048 onto a 19' monitor. Yet somehow, noone seems to miss the resolution on TV.... hmmmm....

 

1080 is 1920 x 1080.

 

Yeah... This sort of is the end of the do-everything PC, isn't it? We're going to see more and more of a move towards less expensive, use-oriented PCs. A car PC, to manage radio signals, maps, GPS, and whatnot, a media center PC to play DVDs, record shows of cable, and whatnot, and a lot more light-weight web console PCs. And, of course, the really powerful Xbox 360 (Or maybe the Xbox 720) for gaming. Although, I will miss gaming with my mouse and keyboard...

 

that is exactly the problem. companies make only minor changes to computer parts to make a lot of money. Intel or AMD could make a 10ghz processor, but they wont, because they can make money off a 3.8ghz, 4ghz, 4.2ghz, etc. now microsoft has done done the opposite basicly, and jumped ahead big time. this may have a silver lining for computers, and make PC tech advance quicker, and keep costs low, so people wont abandon the PC as a gaming platform and get 360s for gaming. plus, microsoft must be loosing a massive amount of money on 360s, they are worth way more than 300 pounds or euros or whatever.

 

actually, they can't.

well, they can, but they can't.

intel have an ALU running at 10GHz. but they can't build the rest of the chip fast enough.

i don't think intel and AMD have chips nearly as fast as we all imagine in the works. i'm guessing maybe ~1GHz faster than what's on the market, but remember, speed doesn't matter...