Analyst blames Xbox RRoD on MS-designed graphics chip

36 Comments by Kyle Orland Jun 11th 2008 1:30PM
Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360, Business

With Microsoft remaining officially mum on the reasons behind the wave of Xbox 360-killing red rings of death, owners and experts have speculated on causes ranging from cheap heat sinks to bad soldering to power surges. Now, Gartner Research Vice President and Chief Analyst Bryan Lewis thinks he's honed in on the real reason behind the system failures: cheap, Microsoft-designed graphics processors.

Speaking at the Design Automation Conference, Lewis said Microsoft tried to save a few million dollars by designing the Xbox 360's GPU in-house, rather than farming the design out to an experienced, approved application-specific integrated circuit vendor. Lewis chalked the high failure rate to Microsoft's inexperience designing such chips. "How many ASICs per year does Microsoft design? Not many.," Lewis said. "The ASIC vendor could have been able to design a graphics processor that dissipates much less power."

The irony is that Microsoft is widely believed to have gone to experienced ASIC-designer ATI for a redesigned Xbox 360 graphics chip in the middle of 2007. So, in addition to spending over a billion dollars on a warranty extension, Microsoft probably still ended up having to spend the few million dollars they were trying to avoid in the first place. Smooth move, ex-lax.

If true, that's pretty damned funny.

Somebody at MS has egg all over their face right now.

LOL the problem they tried to avoid with the GPU ended up being their main problem with the GPU , it's costliness.

I'm debating on whether I should write an article about this for the news section or not...

Um, No.

http://interviews.teamxbox.com/xbox/1458/The-Power-of-the-Xbox-360-GPU/p1/

"Did Microsoft know exactly what it wanted for its GPU or did they just set the goals and you proposed the architecture and technology?

Bob Feldstein: Microsoft set broad goals for the GPU. They were especially concerned with memory bandwidth and overall system performance. They wanted a machine that could take advantage of CPU multi-processing through multi-threading, plus a machine that would be conceptually simple to program while providing head room for developers to stay competitive over the console’s lifetime. Microsoft and ATI did the GPU architectural design, with MS determining the overall performance targets and ATI turning those targets into reality. The Unified Shaders and Intelligent Memory, for example, are direct results of our remarkable collaboration."

 

One of the primary reasons Microsoft went this route is so they would own the Intellectual Property and wouldn't be at Nvidia's mercy like they were with the original Xbox.  Apparantly the writer of this article is unaware of the legal battles that erupted between MS and Nvidia... 

kn said: Um, No. http://interviews.teamxbox.com/xbox/1458/The-Power-of-the-Xbox-360-GPU/p1/ "Did Microsoft know exactly what it wanted for its GPU or did they just set the goals and you proposed the architecture and technology? Bob Feldstein: Microsoft set broad goals for the GPU. They were especially concerned with memory bandwidth and overall system performance. They wanted a machine that could take advantage of CPU multi-processing through multi-threading, plus a machine that would be conceptually simple to program while providing head room for developers to stay competitive over the console’s lifetime. Microsoft and ATI did the GPU architectural design, with MS determining the overall performance targets and ATI turning those targets into reality. The Unified Shaders and Intelligent Memory, for example, are direct results of our remarkable collaboration."

 i'm so confused i don't know what to believe ;(.

The article above is an interview with Bob Feldstein, Vice President of Engineering, ATI Technologies, Inc. I don't think you can get much closer to the source. Microsoft's legal troubles with Nvidia are well documented and ultimately went to arbitration.

I can't find the article I read concerning the issue, but the Nvidia trouble was claimed to have caused MS so much grief that they moved up the timetable on the 360 in part because of that trouble. That's just rumor, of course.

As was brought up on Slashdot this isn't even remotely true ... Since the XBox 360 was announced it was known that ATI was developing the GPU.

Ummm, we already know that 90% of RRoD is the CPU not GPU.

This thread fails.

rocketpig said: If true, that's pretty damned funny. Someone that MS probably shitcanned a few years back has egg all over their face right now.

Edited for probable accuracy.