| endimion said:
2000% agreed..... i don't see why those people think it's that crazy.... we are talking about a console that is not gonna release for at least 17 month and supposed to hold the line until 2020... 16 core is anything but irrealist or too much.... 600 bucks if it's with 2 wireless pads kinect 2.0 and a game or 2 or xbl gold or some MS points it might be prohibitive for some people but that's why they had an arcade version... it is still not overpriced... then again when i bought my box i took a sport bundle.. with 2 pads starter kit xbl the big hdd and 5 games.... so multiple sku might be the way they go again... remember also that the 720 will have to handle 3d at 1080p minimum, touch, movement tracking and voice rec.... plus all the apps from windows 8.... we might be able to use skype fb and other media while gaming... bottom line 16 core for a consol that will go until the end of the decade... is not over kill by any means... cell phones are about to get quad core by default.... |
I wouldnt say crazy, but unless the architecture is very simple, 16 cores just doesnt seem likely. There just isnt anything in the pipeline right now. In 2005, the ground work for multicore processors was laid. Right now, the reason that you don't see more cores is because you reach an inflection point where performance goes down after 6 cores in most applications, simply because scheduling becomes so complicated. Also, the notion that it will be 4GHz is just false. 4GHz doesn't make much sense, the heat dissipation, parasitic capacitence, and syncronization errors are just too much to really be useful without super agressive cooling. Having built and maintained a hexacore liquid cooled system for scientific research I can tell you that it is not the best option for a consumer product.
If this thing has 16 cores in its CPU, it won't be a x86 or similar architecture, you would be looking at probably custom designed cores to do different tasks, some for kinect, some to buffer video, some for operating system, etc. I honestly think the new Xbox comes with a streamlined consumer level 6 or 4 core chip with the real juice in the GPU, these days GPUs are where you get your performance anyway. Whoever announced this probably also came up with the "Wii U sucks" and "PS4 is 7 gameboy pockets taped together" rumors, don't give it too much credit.
