http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2368176,00.asp

Only thing I understand from this article is that the new 360's power consumption.  "The other change that was made to the architecture was an emphasis on power consumption, critical to eliminating all but a single heat sink and fan, shifting the SOc to a single chip, and quieting the Xbox 360 down to a reasonable noise level. "

everything else is Greek to me.

But the new model integrates the CPU cores and GPU cores on the same chip, much like new processors like the Intel Core i3 and i5, and the upcoming Fusion APUs from rival AMD.

The latest chip is fabricated on a 45-nm process, designed by Microsoft, but fabricated via IBM and its partners, explained Rune Jensen, an engineering manager at Microsoft. Jensen and his IBM counterpart, Bob Drehmel, made the presentation at the Hot Chips conference here.

Perhaps the largest change to the architecture, besides the integration, was the elimination of the front-side bus. Instead, the new chip uses what the designer called a front-side bus replacement bus that maintains compatibility. I/O chips and physical-layer interfaces (PHYs) also had to be removed, Drehmel said.

It's a cost saving measure and it reduces power consumption. Good all round.

The "front side replacement bus" is really not an innovation. It's like, if they had a high-speed connection between CPU and GPU that would increase performance quite a bit - and that's bad, because the X360 has to perform the same as all previous 360s. So they add latency (lag) to the system by simulating the data going off the CPU and back on to the GPU like it used to.

In the desktop (AMD's Fusion and Intel's Clarkdale) processors they just put a fast interconnect in because obviously they want more performance. And that will increase performance compared to two seperate chips, as long as the connection to GPU memory is as good as GDDRx was.

Up next in this conference is AMD's new architectures (Bulldozer and Bobcat). Bobcat looks very very impressive (a chip that's netbook cost and size and power consumption but performs like a desktop dual-core and has graphics as good as low-end discrete).

yeah no one really cares about Intel's solutions.... their GPU sucks nuts... I'm excited to see what AMD does they're most likely going to provide the GPU(maybe CPU that would be sweet) on the next Xbox

I would be surprised if IBM has anything to do with the PS4.  So AMD might be doing their chipset as well. 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123069467545545011.html

People always talk about MS throwing cash at 3rd parties to give exclusivity or become multi-platform.  Or how MS paid for the same game being made for the PS3.   I guess Microsoft saved enough money from Sony paying for their CPU research to afford such things.  

I wonder if Microsoft can steal Sony's PS4 tech and have it in the Next Xbox a year earlier?  I doubt Sony will be suckered twice in a row though.

It doesnt matter though, these CPUs that have GPUs on them are very cheap to produce, and their primary function is to serve everyday needs.

Hopefully, AMDs next line of CPUs are succesful and they can continue to research into GPGPUs.

It's not a legal issue...?

The only thing I know about this new chip is they had to slow it down.

No issues with the law. Only market segmentation issues. It would be like the DSi: all games would use the basic level of performance, but newer games could have more features when running on the new Xbox.

MS own the actual CPU and GPU designs for the console specifically so they can redesign them how they want.

OK, I see what you mean.

I don't see any issues, because Nintendo did it with the DSi (improved the CPU speed, added RAM, added a camera) and there weren't any lawsuits.

Removing the Other OS was a problem because it was an advertised feature and people had already bought the product in part due to that. But adding features to later models, though not neccessarily a good idea for business, surely can't be illegal. People who bought the older Xboxes (and in my example DSs) got exactly what was advertised and what they paid for.