New Xbox With Six-Core CPU and “Dual-GPU” From AMD (Rumor Analysis)

[KBG29]

Rainbird said:

KBG29 said:

As far as out of touch is concerned, I see that completely. However, I say what I say because, I see that to having a console launch today at $300 like so many want means doing absolutely nothing for the consumer. A $300 new console right now equals, out of date processing power, transfer rates, and storage tech on day one. It means a system that has developers hitting walls, and drudgingly pushing out the same tiered mechanics year after year, because the tech gives them no where to go. All a $300 console does is put big sales numbers up early in the cycle, and line the pockets of the console manufactures with cash. For the rest of the industry it is a trail of red ink, and a door slammed shut in the face of Intel, amd, IBM, and nvidia.

 

You're assuming that outdated processing power is a disadvantage though. And certainly, in terms of pushing graphic fidelity and spectacle, the more processing power the better, but neither of these are in any way essential to gaming. I personally don't see a great need to really push graphical boundaries at the moment. The current HD consoles are quite capable when it comes to animations, lighting, etc., and I don't personally see reason to push graphical boundaries much. If the next generation consoles can play current gen games at 720p with 4xMSAA, 60 FPS and no screen tearing, I'll be more than happy.

Gameplay is much less bounded by processing power, and I don't see how $2000 worth of PC hardware can provide a significantly enough difference in gameplay to give merit to the investment. Certainly, investing in something like Kinect or the Wii U is going to make a much greater difference in gameplay.

I strongly agree with you in the fact that processing power does not directly relate to better gameplay. There is a plentiful list of games from years past that prove it. I would rather play FFVII or X over XII or XIII. I find more pleasure out of Mario from 64 back than I do GC forward. Great gameplay comes with great design, that can be done on any system, as long as you have the right genre.

Right now we are just at the point where graphics in games like Gears of War 3 or Uncharted 3 are plenty good. Throw in some higher res textures/1080p/60fps and you have something down right jaw dropping. The problem is, these kinds of graphics are only possible on games that are very tightly scripted. Games like Boarderlands or Fallout take a massive nose dive. Interaction, animation, physics, textures, lighting, and gameplay are all many times worse, and the games run at worse frame rate, with more texture pop in and screen tear. Should next gen consoles just be a $300 step up the issue will still persist in open world games. If the next gen can incorperate SSD's in all systems, 12x or greater blu-ray or derivative, a current mid range ATI or nvidia gpu, a good 4 or 6 core proccessor, and at least 6GB of RAM (although more is welcome). Then games like GeoW and Unchated reach a level were the devs are limited to imagination, time, and man power more than hardware. Games like BL and FO would blow the formers current gen showings out of the water, and do it at 1080p/60fps.

Really these specs are good:

CPU : IBM Power 710 

- Architecture : IBM POWER7 

- Cores : 6 Core 

- Clockspeed : 3.72 GHz 

GPU : Custom AMD Radeon HD Graphics 

- Configuration : Single Die Dual Core 

- Clockspeed : 750MHz 

- Daughter Die : Renesas Electronics 100MB eDRAM 

RAM : 2GB 512-Bit GDDR5 256GB/s (Unified Memory Architecture) 

The only thing I want added to this is 4GB more RAM minimum, 12x or greater BR-drive, and a SSD.

If we could get that in a box next year for $500 or just wait tell, 2013 and have it for $400 that would be great. If we end up with:

CPU : IBM Power 710 

- Architecture : IBM POWER6

- Cores : 4 Core 

- Clockspeed : 3.4 GHz 

GPU : Custom AMD Radeon HD Graphics 

- Configuration : Single Core 

- Clockspeed : 750MHz 

- Daughter Die : Renesas Electronics 64MB eDRAM 

RAM : 2GB 512-Bit GDDR5 256GB/s (Unified Memory Architecture) 

at a price of $300 next year, we should be disgusted. PC will move to 64bit games as a norm during next gen and instead of just being behind on hardware within the same gen consoles will be weak hardware and a gen behind.