| JEMC said: Yes, the latest rumors say that the nextbox will use an 8 core CPU. Fine. If you look back you'll see that I find it odd to change the 8 core Intel chip they were using for and AMD one because of the difference in performance: you can get a lot more from the Intel chip running slower than from an AMD one. And using less power! And another thing. Modern GPUs use a lot more power than the CPUs. If they are mad enough to go with a 100W CPU, what kind of GPU will they use?Remember that the important thing here is balance: getting a combo CPU-GPU where neither becomes a bottleneck for the other. |
I think people forget that MS/Sony started designing their next consoles years ago. Intel makes its own chips, and never did any customizing (or "whoring out"). So the path for MS was either continue with PPC or go AMD, for Sony it was either continue with Cell or go AMD. Now comes the fact that around that time, AMD started to appraise their "NextGenCPUsThatBlowIntelOutOfTheWater" technology. And AMD needed/needs customers to survive, unlike Intel. They currently survive by keeping prices as low as possible. In hindsight, seeing the rumoured CPUs, it is clear that both MS and Sony joined the AMD bandwagon years ago. Probably aiming at quad-core CPUs but since the "..." chips turned out to be duds, they now plan with 8core AMD CPUs (which are/will be way, way, way cheaper than Intel parts).
As for the GPU, I think you are wrong here. An AMD 7770 GPU (80 Watts) has about 3 times the shader count (640, 160*4 vs 240, 48*5) as the Xbox chip and runs at twice the clock, so it is around 6 times faster than what XBox360/PS3 have. That is more than enough power for 1080p/60Hz. Add a refresh and toss out all the PC stuff consoles don't need and you have a powerful GPU that runs less than 60 Watts.
AMD 8core architecture is actually ideally suited for stuff like Kinect2, so expect to see 1 (2cores) or even 2 (4cores if camera resolution is very high) groups reserved to Kinect2. Of course, not using Kinect2, hence freeing all cores, will give the XBoxNext enourmous power.
