From CVG-
Yet another next-gen Xbox rumour has reared its head this morning, claiming Microsoft's next console's set to boast a monster 16-core CPU.
The latest issue of Xbox World reports that codename 'Durango' devkits were sent to developers last month, shortly after meetings were held in London.
The Durango kits don't resemble the final hardware in appearance, says XBW (the original Xbox 360 devkits were PowerPCs in standard PC cases), but the hardware inside is representative of the machine you can expect to see released in late 2013.
XBW's sources suggest Durango's devkit is powered by a state of the art 16-core IBM Power PC CPU with a graphics processor on par with AMD's Radeon HD 7000-series graphics cards, as was rumoured earlier.
The 16-core processor in particular would be a surprising addition, as it's future tech even for high-end PCs. AMD launched the world's first 16-core processor for the business market in November last year.
XBW explains: "It's a ridiculous amount of power for a games machine - too much power, even. But remember, Kinect 2 could chew up four whole cores tracking multiple players right down to their fingertips, so it'll need a lot of power."
Despite Sony and MS both denying they'll show next-gen tech at E3 in June, XBW's sources claim many developers are working towards an LA debut for their next-generation software, "whether Microsoft and Sony are ready or not".
It's going to be an interesting few months, that's for sure!
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16-core? No way. That'd be far too expensive IMO, and I don't think they'll be going down that route again. At least, I hope not, anyway...but it sorta supports what we've been hearing from previous sources. They know more than we do, after all...what do you think?
(I surely can't be the only one who hopes that these rumours go away sooner rather than later...)
