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05-14-2005, 02:39 PM
Gamespot.com: Microsoft will pair the IBM processor with an advanced 500MHz ATI graphics chip. The ATI chip will have "48-way parallel floating-point dynamically-scheduled shader pipelines." Today's PC desktop video cards max out at 16 pipelines, but the technologies aren't quite the same. The new ATI graphics chip will be based on a new unified shader model that processes vertex and pixels through the same multipurpose pipelines. Current PC video cards have pipelines dedicated to pixel processing or vertex processing. ATI's current top-of-the-line Radeon X850 XT PE graphics chip, for example, has 16-pixel pipelines and 6-vertex pipelines. We don't know how these new hybrid pipelines will perform compared to the older, dedicated pipeline designs, but with 48 of 'em, we're betting that the next-gen ATI chip will live up to expectations.
This advanced technology has allowed Microsoft to substantially raise the bar on visual requirements for Xbox 360 games. Next-generation games must support at least 720p HDTV resolution, 5.1 multichannel sound, and full 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio (no letterboxing). Games must also have at least 2x antialiasing to improve image quality. According to Microsoft's Peter Moore, "Jaggies need to be a thing of the past," and there's no doubt the Xbox 360 hardware will be powerful enough to make them so. The graphics chip will also have 10MB of superfast embedded DRAM, which is just large enough to fit in an HD resolution frame buffer with antialiasing.
The Xbox 360 will have 512MB of system memory, which is shared between the CPU and the GPU. However, the graphics will take up much of the space since the HD video requirements mean developers will have to use larger high-resolution textures to give games extra detail. The extra memory also allows for larger game levels for improved gameplay. Sound will be 5.1 out of the box, but since the all the audio is done in software, the Xbox 360 can easily support additional sound channels if games wanted to move up to 6.1 or 7.1-channel output.
PSI Next: In order to design the most powerful processor possible with current technology, Sony formed a partnership with electronics giant Toshiba and supercomputer expert IBM. Together, the companies have assigned a team 300 engineers and are spending (an estimated) $500 Million to develop a new type of processor which has been nick-named the Cell. The processor is actually a collection of smaller processors. Software packets, called “cells”, are then sent to each of the smaller processors in order to give instructions on what tasks to perform. When implemented optimally, the processor will be able to calculate up to 1 trillion floating point calculations per second, which as you would imagine, is better than any standard computer processor.
The PlayStation 3 is not the only application that will use the Cell, however. Sony and Toshiba plan to make use of the chip in many common electronics, including household appliances. This combined with the possibility of shared computing could result other PlayStation 3’s, or even your toaster providing extra computing power to your PlayStation 3 through a broadband connection. The chip has been designed in such a way to provide opportunities for such innovation.
Playstation 3 System Specifications:
PE (Processing Element) Features and General Specifications
8 Identical Attached Processing Unit (APU): ??? bits, Single Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD)
Clock Frequency: 4GHz
Integer Unit: 4 X Integer Units: 32 billion operations per second (32 GFLOPS).
4 X Floating Point Units: 32 billion floating point operations per second (32 GFLOPS)
Multimedia extended instructions: unKnown
Register Capacity: 128 times 128 bits
TLB: unknown
Instruction Cache: unknown
Data Cache: unknown
Scratch Pad RAM: unknown
Local Memory / Storage or (LS) per APU: 128 kilobytes SRAM
Main Memory: Main Memory: 64-bit XDR-RAM at 6.4GHz.
Memory Bandwidth: (dual-channel = 102.4 GB/s)
DMA: 1 channel per APU
Direct Memory to APU Access: 1,024 bits wide per channel. (8 Channels)
LS to Register: 128bits
Registers to Floating Point or Integer Units: 384 bits per channel
Floating Point or Integer Units to Register: 128 bits per channel
Geometry:
Perspective Transformation: unknown
Lighting: unknown
Fog: unknown
Curved Surface Generation (Bezier): unknown
Image Processing Unit: unknown
Image Processing Performance: unknown
Gate Width: 0.10 micron
VDD Voltage: unknown
Power Consumption: unknown
Metal Layers: unknown
Total Transistors: unknown
Silicon Process Technology: Silicon on Insulator (SOI)
Die Size: unknown
Package: unknown
Graphics Subsystem - Features and General Specifications:
Core: unknown
Clock Frequency: unknown
No. of Pixel Engines: unknown
Embedded DRAM: unknown
Total Memory Bandwidth: unknown
Combined Internal Data Bus Bandwidth: unKnown
Read: unknown
Write: unknown
Texture: unknown
Display Color Depth: unknown
Z Buffering: unknown
Rendering Functions: unknown
Rendering Performance
Pixel Fill Rate: 16 G/Sec
Particle Drawing Rate: unknown
Polygon Drawing Rate: unknown
Sprite Drawing Rate: unknown
Display Output
NTSC/PAL
Digital TV (DTV)
VESA (maximum 1280 x 1024 pixels)
High Defenition TV (HDTV)
Max Resolution: ~2560 x 1920
Silicon Process Technology: unknown
Total Number of Transistors: unknown
Die Size: unknown
Package Type: unknown
Disc Device
CD-ROM and DVD-ROM
CD-ROM unKnown speed
DVD-ROM unKnown speed
Can play DVD movies
Time to make some choices here. I'm assuming Playstation 3 will be more powerful than the Xbox 360. However we don't know enough about the Nintendo Revolution to make a conclusion on which console will come out on top. If anyone has seen the alleged Revolution clip, Sony and Microsoft will be in a battle with Nintendo if the clip is indeed real.
This advanced technology has allowed Microsoft to substantially raise the bar on visual requirements for Xbox 360 games. Next-generation games must support at least 720p HDTV resolution, 5.1 multichannel sound, and full 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio (no letterboxing). Games must also have at least 2x antialiasing to improve image quality. According to Microsoft's Peter Moore, "Jaggies need to be a thing of the past," and there's no doubt the Xbox 360 hardware will be powerful enough to make them so. The graphics chip will also have 10MB of superfast embedded DRAM, which is just large enough to fit in an HD resolution frame buffer with antialiasing.
The Xbox 360 will have 512MB of system memory, which is shared between the CPU and the GPU. However, the graphics will take up much of the space since the HD video requirements mean developers will have to use larger high-resolution textures to give games extra detail. The extra memory also allows for larger game levels for improved gameplay. Sound will be 5.1 out of the box, but since the all the audio is done in software, the Xbox 360 can easily support additional sound channels if games wanted to move up to 6.1 or 7.1-channel output.
PSI Next: In order to design the most powerful processor possible with current technology, Sony formed a partnership with electronics giant Toshiba and supercomputer expert IBM. Together, the companies have assigned a team 300 engineers and are spending (an estimated) $500 Million to develop a new type of processor which has been nick-named the Cell. The processor is actually a collection of smaller processors. Software packets, called “cells”, are then sent to each of the smaller processors in order to give instructions on what tasks to perform. When implemented optimally, the processor will be able to calculate up to 1 trillion floating point calculations per second, which as you would imagine, is better than any standard computer processor.
The PlayStation 3 is not the only application that will use the Cell, however. Sony and Toshiba plan to make use of the chip in many common electronics, including household appliances. This combined with the possibility of shared computing could result other PlayStation 3’s, or even your toaster providing extra computing power to your PlayStation 3 through a broadband connection. The chip has been designed in such a way to provide opportunities for such innovation.
Playstation 3 System Specifications:
PE (Processing Element) Features and General Specifications
8 Identical Attached Processing Unit (APU): ??? bits, Single Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD)
Clock Frequency: 4GHz
Integer Unit: 4 X Integer Units: 32 billion operations per second (32 GFLOPS).
4 X Floating Point Units: 32 billion floating point operations per second (32 GFLOPS)
Multimedia extended instructions: unKnown
Register Capacity: 128 times 128 bits
TLB: unknown
Instruction Cache: unknown
Data Cache: unknown
Scratch Pad RAM: unknown
Local Memory / Storage or (LS) per APU: 128 kilobytes SRAM
Main Memory: Main Memory: 64-bit XDR-RAM at 6.4GHz.
Memory Bandwidth: (dual-channel = 102.4 GB/s)
DMA: 1 channel per APU
Direct Memory to APU Access: 1,024 bits wide per channel. (8 Channels)
LS to Register: 128bits
Registers to Floating Point or Integer Units: 384 bits per channel
Floating Point or Integer Units to Register: 128 bits per channel
Geometry:
Perspective Transformation: unknown
Lighting: unknown
Fog: unknown
Curved Surface Generation (Bezier): unknown
Image Processing Unit: unknown
Image Processing Performance: unknown
Gate Width: 0.10 micron
VDD Voltage: unknown
Power Consumption: unknown
Metal Layers: unknown
Total Transistors: unknown
Silicon Process Technology: Silicon on Insulator (SOI)
Die Size: unknown
Package: unknown
Graphics Subsystem - Features and General Specifications:
Core: unknown
Clock Frequency: unknown
No. of Pixel Engines: unknown
Embedded DRAM: unknown
Total Memory Bandwidth: unknown
Combined Internal Data Bus Bandwidth: unKnown
Read: unknown
Write: unknown
Texture: unknown
Display Color Depth: unknown
Z Buffering: unknown
Rendering Functions: unknown
Rendering Performance
Pixel Fill Rate: 16 G/Sec
Particle Drawing Rate: unknown
Polygon Drawing Rate: unknown
Sprite Drawing Rate: unknown
Display Output
NTSC/PAL
Digital TV (DTV)
VESA (maximum 1280 x 1024 pixels)
High Defenition TV (HDTV)
Max Resolution: ~2560 x 1920
Silicon Process Technology: unknown
Total Number of Transistors: unknown
Die Size: unknown
Package Type: unknown
Disc Device
CD-ROM and DVD-ROM
CD-ROM unKnown speed
DVD-ROM unKnown speed
Can play DVD movies
Time to make some choices here. I'm assuming Playstation 3 will be more powerful than the Xbox 360. However we don't know enough about the Nintendo Revolution to make a conclusion on which console will come out on top. If anyone has seen the alleged Revolution clip, Sony and Microsoft will be in a battle with Nintendo if the clip is indeed real.