Rumor: MS to Make 'Huge' Xbox 720 Announcement at CES

[spookyman]

Will it have the infamous RRoD?

I had 2 Xbox 360's they did that to me.

 

[zak_mckraken]

It can't run Crysis... because it won't be backward compatible. Or will it? I don't care, I juste wanted to be part of that 4-years old joke.

 

[deathengine]

The sad part is my current gen PC I just upgraded will still outperform and be well ahead of this when it releases. But hey if your 12 this is great news. Oh and my specs are:

2700K @ 5ghz
16Gb DDR3 1600
2 GTX 580s 3Gb versions in SLI
2560 x 1600 Resolution (that blows away 1080p boys) IPS Panel
XFI Fatality surround
Yamaha Receiver 7.1 Surround with the pc Z906 digital out surround speakers in the room

Whats sad is your machine is overkill for just about anything out there. And $$. But NICE

 

[upgrade_1977]

Ok... If anyone remembers, The last article on the xbox 720 said the graphics would be equal to the movie "Avatar".... I don't see how that is possible running such meager specs. From the specs listed, it appears to be exactly twice what the xbox 360 is. Keeping in mind that if they are using crossfire or some ver. there of, then scaling isn't going to be 100% in all games. I am a PC fanboy, and i'll say that if they are "truly" equal to Avatar, ill eat my words and buy one.

IMO, it'll be outdated by the time it hits the market, but console players will probably snatch it up in record numbers anyways.

RUMOR: I heard, it will have built in AI, so that it will tell you when it red rings.

 

[Guest]

I want to kill whoever coined this "XBOX 720" name. It makes no sense and it would be completely insane for them to call it that. You cant just double a number in the name of a product and it becomes a sequel. If that was the case we wouldn't be using PS3's today we would be using PS4's and talking about the new PS8.

 

[Vladislaus]

[citation][nom]soldier37[/nom]The sad part is my current gen PC I just upgraded will still outperform and be well ahead of this when it releases. But hey if your 12 this is great news. Oh and my specs are:2700K @ 5ghz16Gb DDR3 16002 GTX 580s 3Gb versions in SLI2560 x 1600 Resolution (that blows away 1080p boys) IPS PanelXFI Fatality surroundYamaha Receiver 7.1 Surround with the pc Z906 digital out surround speakers in the room[/citation]
Please you don't have to state your system specs because everyone knows it because you're always stating them.

Also I ask you when the price of this console is revealed how many times was you computer more expensive?

 

[noblerabbit]

a Monster FAIL for not naming it XBOX 1080. it must be a patent, or MS is dumber than bricks.

 

[mcd023]

[citation][nom]soldier37[/nom]The sad part is my current gen PC I just upgraded will still outperform and be well ahead of this when it releases. But hey if your 12 this is great news. Oh and my specs are:2700K @ 5ghz16Gb DDR3 16002 GTX 580s 3Gb versions in SLI2560 x 1600 Resolution (that blows away 1080p boys) IPS PanelXFI Fatality surroundYamaha Receiver 7.1 Surround with the pc Z906 digital out surround speakers in the room[/citation]

mine won't! of course, I don't get to play often, so I have Athlon II X3 @3.7GHz and 5770 that can't really be overclocked much. budget rig, obv. haha. I will once again be behind the consoles.

 

[nao1120]

[citation][nom]blubbey[/nom]Could the GPU be something like a 4870x2? That's possibly what... 2-3x the power of the 360's graphics. RAM, not a surprise here. Probably 1600MHz since it's so cheap (on the scale they're getting it probably $10 per stick assuming they're using a single 2gb stick). Hexa-core CPU, possibly 32nm, maybe even 22? Due to the amount of cores and the probability games will be 'optimised' for all the cores, perhaps it runs 2.4-3.2GHz to save power and reduce heat? Can't imagine anymore than that. Nice to see the upgrade but ffs, it took long enough. Like 7/8 years?You sir are a total derp. Why would they do that? They'd make no money unless they price it at like £750/$1000 or something ridiculous. Learn about the basics of business.[/citation]

Awesome... LOL

 

[Guest]

soldier37 :

The sad part is my current gen PC I just upgraded will still outperform and be well ahead of this "when it releases. But hey if your 12 this is great news. Oh and my specs are:2700K @ 5ghz16Gb DDR3 16002 GTX 580s 3Gb versions in SLI2560 x 1600 Resolution (that blows away 1080p boys) IPS PanelXFI Fatality surroundYamaha Receiver 7.1 Surround with the pc Z906 digital out surround speakers in the room"

Trying to compensate for something? haha

 

[brett1042002]

[citation][nom]soldier37[/nom]The sad part is my current gen PC I just upgraded will still outperform and be well ahead of this when it releases. But hey if your 12 this is great news. Oh and my specs are:2700K @ 5ghz16Gb DDR3 16002 GTX 580s 3Gb versions in SLI2560 x 1600 Resolution (that blows away 1080p boys) IPS PanelXFI Fatality surroundYamaha Receiver 7.1 Surround with the pc Z906 digital out surround speakers in the room[/citation]

And not a single %&#! was given that day...

Douche.

 

[nottheking]

[citation][nom]gamerk316[/nom]Not shocked at the 2GB RAM; doesn't make sense for consoles to have any more. I do find dual-GPU's interesting though, and wonder how much poor scaling will affect the long-term viability of the console...[/citation]
I'll chalk it up to a neophyte rumor, IMO. Plenty of newbies who think that "if a dual-core CPU is good, a dual-core GPU should be great!" Further muddling it is the fact that PowerVR makes a multi-core GPU; but performance-wise said GPU (the SGXMP 543) is inferior. (it's multi-core simply for ease of design and adaptation between hundreds of different phone designs)

My bets are that, given that we can be assured at least, say, 50 million units eventually produced, (with at least 20 million on the initial fabrication process) there's no need to worry about scalability here, and the engineers will focus on a single, monolithic GPU that will last best. Of course, it still won't match the best ones out today, which does mean it'll be woefully obsolete a few years after release.

[citation][nom]billybobser[/nom]The Xbox720 is so bad, that when you see it, you turn around twice and walk away.[/citation]
You'd have to MOONwalk to get away from an Xbox if you turned 360 (or 720) degrees.

[citation][nom]pliskin1[/nom]Still too early, an announcement maybe but I doubt anything will hit shelves for 2-3 years.[/citation]
Well, historically consoles have shown up on shelves about 2-3 years (yes, that exact range) from when the first credible, widely-circulated information gets spread. Since we're just starting to see the first information about the 720... Bets are that it'll come out in time for Holidays 2013, but likely not much sooner than that.

[citation][nom]molo9000[/nom]Has any gaming console in history ever used an x86 processor?[/citation]
Um, yes. Ever heard of the original "Xbox?" (Camikazi pointed this out as well)

[citation][nom]Chef_Boyardee[/nom]...were basically getting outgunned for a fraction of the cost.[/citation]
Tip: you should've tried, y'know, raising the settings.

[citation][nom]supertrek32[/nom]The RAM strikes me as a bit low, though you can never really be sure with the massive amounts of console optimization.[/citation]
Also read as "simply stripping out most of the texture resolution and other content."

[citation][nom]blubbey[/nom]Could the GPU be something like a 4870x2? That's possibly what... 2-3x the power of the 360's graphics. RAM, not a surprise here. Probably 1600MHz since it's so cheap (on the scale they're getting it probably $10 per stick assuming they're using a single 2gb stick)[/citation]
Try closer to 10x the power of the 360's graphics. The Xbox 360 most closely matches, of AMD's PC lineup, the 3650 or 2600XT; those roughly match it for memory bandwidth, texture and pixel throughput, which usually bottlenecks their vastly higher shader throughput. And yes, if you ACTUALLY tweak the settings to match the things they "silently" disabled/turn down on the 360, they do yield comparable visual results. And the 4870x2 is approximately 10 times as potent as the 3650 across the board.

As for RAM, remember that they're not buying DIMMs, so it's both cheaper, as well as the fact that they're not limited to what RAM speeds are available for them. Case-in-point: look to video cards, where DDR3 has replaced more-expensive (and hotter-running) GDDR3 for lower-end cards. Typically, it's clocked up to 1800 MHz, though it could quite conceivably be found at 2 GHz or even above.

[citation][nom]Silmarunya[/nom]Is it me or does the theory posted above about the 720 having some sort of Bulldozer CPU sound a little odd? The PS3, Nintendo Wii and Wii U and especially the Xbox 360 all use some sort of RISC CPU. Moving back to x86 seems an odd move, especially considering RISC made huge leaps forward in recent years (thanks to the succes of IBM PowerPC, Fujitisi SPARC and especially ARM).Don't forget consoles are strongly TDP-bound: they need to run cool and quiet and that's impossible with Bulldozer. And for a low-ish yet high performance CPU, just about any RISC architecture is better than x86.Then there's the 2GB of RAM: that's very little. If the aim is to keep costs down, there are better targets than something as cheap as RAM. Dual GPU: possible. It would certainly keep costs down compared to a single high performance part and it might lead to more evenly divided heat output, making cooling easier. On the other hand, it would dramatically increase power consumption (and overall waste heat) and practically difficult in a space constrained device like a console.In other words, I doubt this post is to be taken seriously.[/citation]
I'm judging that the comments regarding "AMD CPU" are from people mis-reading "AMD GPU." After all, AMD owned ATi, and they didn't when the Xbox 360 was first designed. RISC CPUs have been there all along, as well; before PowerPC, there was the original MIPS, which featured in the Playstation, Nintendo64, PS2, and as late as the PSP.

As for the GPU, the opposite would happen with costs: the extra hassle of having another package on the motherboard is a piece of cost that won't go away. (at least until both dies were integrated into one package) Cost savings would MOSTLY at first come from economy of scale, by simply ordering twice as many. But since the console will remain constant throughout its life, that doesn't make much sense: even if the 720 is a flop Microsoft can still expect that they'll have used at least, say, 50 million GPUs, which is a staggering figure for a single part.

Lastly, 2GB of RAM is actually a reasonable expectation; the last generation has, during development, the PS3 and 360 deciding between 256MB and 512MB. fast-forward approximately 6 years to now, which means 3 Moore's Law generations, or x8 the density, which gives us 2048MB and 4096MB. Granted, given that this thing will more likely come out in 2013 than 2012, (Consoles don't come out and blindside you; you usually got 2 years' notice) so 2GB is definitely scraping the low-end. Of course, they may decide that with the resolution capped to 1920x1080, they might not have to invest so heavily into memory for textures.

 

[CaedenV]

[citation][nom]spookyman[/nom]Will it have the infamous RRoD? I had 2 Xbox 360's they did that to me.[/citation]
They fixed that in the newer versions by removing the red light. lol

I highly dobut they would have duel GPUs just from a business stand point. Less parts means easier software coding, less things to go wrong, less complexity of the overall system. Besides, does this mean they would introduce microstuttering to the console?
For the CPU it will likely be either a new PowerPC, or something more like the PS3 chip. No way they are going to go to the expense of x86 again.

 

[youjimbo]

soldier37 11/17/2011 9:33 PM
Hide
--1+
The sad part is my current gen PC I just upgraded will still outperform and be well ahead of this when it releases. But hey if your 12 this is great news. Oh and my specs are:

2700K @ 5ghz
16Gb DDR3 1600
2 GTX 580s 3Gb versions in SLI
2560 x 1600 Resolution (that blows away 1080p boys) IPS Panel
XFI Fatality surround
Yamaha Receiver 7.1 Surround with the pc Z906 digital out surround speakers in the room

Really nice computer! Not very impressive sound system. I play on a 1080p projector and until 4k2k projectors are released on mass market I don't care about anything above 1080p. I also sit 4,5m from my cloth, so I don't see any pixels on my image.
Instead of going for resolution I would prefer massive increase in number of polygons, better lighting, better shadows, better animation, better AI and that kind of stuff.

I am one of those who prefers convenience (i.e. avoid messing with upgrading PCs, managing unstable OS and that kind of crap) and think it's about time a new console hit the market. The Xbox is 6 years old and historically we should have had the replacement out now. Kinect and Move delayed the next set of consoles by a year most likely. That and the financial crisis in 2008.

Everyone should remember that if you have a PC with the same specs as a console you won't get even close to the same results due to console HW being fixed and therefore games get optimized to use 100% of the HW capability. PCs don't even get close due to the required support for different specs, minor tweaks and so on. Just look at games such as Gears of War 3. There's no way we've seen anything like that on PCs with Xbox specs. Battlefield 3 and Crysis 2 may be dumbed down on the consoles but they look much much better than anything ever released on PC with similar specs.

2Gb does sound low though. I would expect next generation of consoles to use 4Gb of shared RAM. Would like to see 8Gb though for some really nice textures and some space for AI and physics calculations.

RISC is the way to go for consoles.

I would also expect something from the 7xxx range from AMD. The target HW should most likely be based on 6990 or maybe 6970 as that should be what the next Xbox should target. Having that type of GPU will mean that when the games are fully optimized and tweaked we will see performance capable of matching PC HW 2-3 years away. I.e. well enough for a next generation of consoles.

I wouldn't be surprised at all on a dual GPU based system. That way developers can choose to do full stereoscopic with one GPU working per "channel" or use Crossfire type setups for really high load games.
Same reason behind using shared RAM. Then developers can choose how to use the RAM. Really huge textures, or long depth of field or really advanced AI system, Provide possibilities to balance games.

It's probably VERY likely that save games will be cloud based in order to skip on HDD. I.e. we'll most likely see an Xbox 720 Arcade with no HDD again and lower price point. With cloud based games saves the lack of HDD isn't as big of an issue.

 

[youjimbo]

Wow, long post =P

 

[youjimbo]

Wow, long post =P

 

[nottheking]

And since I neglected to insert my own speculation, I roughly maintain what I'd predicted even years ago for the specs, just SLIGHTLY upgraded given that I expected the consoles to be out by now, rather than looking at 2012-2013:

* 4-6 core IBM PowerPC-based processor, @4 GHz. Modest improvement over the 360, but lower on-launch power consumption.
* 2-4GB RAM, possibly DDR3, but more likely more advanced GDDR5 or XDR. Chip prices come down in time: motherboard costs do not. Hence, consoles ALWAYS have narrow memory interfaces: nothing beyond 128-bit. To compensate, high-speed memory is used; this trend started with the Nintendo64's use of 500 MHz RDRAM when most PCs had their RAM at 50-66 MHz. Running an effective 4+ GHz clock speed could help mitigate the narrow interface.
* AMD-Radeon-derrived GPU, with between 400-1024 stream processors, 32 TMUs, 16 ROPs, clocked to 600-800 MHz. The TMU count MIGHT be overkill; the ROPs are not underkill, given that 1080p is the highest it'll be rendering. The truncated size might not make it easier for misinformed console fans to proclaim that it rocks more expensive PCs, but it'll keep costs down, and be plenty enough for the limited resolutions a console will be doing.

Of course there's still some open questions about the REST of the console:

* Optical Drive - Will Microsoft stick with DVD, or will they cough up the fees to get Blu-Ray? Chances are the 360 won't try to play Blu-Ray movies, so perhaps the extra capacity isn't enough to really merit the high licensing costs involved... To Sony, no less. A possible alternative: Microsoft might see about resurrecting HD-DVD on the cheap: I'm sure the IP could be gotten for a song, and would give them their 40GB+ game discs, without having to have factories seriously modify anything, to boot.
* Wireless - Not really so much an open question; the thing will have it. What MIGHT be a question is precisely in what form; 802.11a/b/g is given, but n is the question... If Microsoft feels that streaming 1080p video would really be commonplace in the machine's future, they'd likely spring for it.
* Hard Drive - Normally this wouldn't have been a question, except the Thailand floods have jacked all the prices... And the shock to the market will still be there long after the waters have receded, given that it appears they've ruined 25% of the world's HDD factories. Given the volatility to the market introduced here, Microsoft likely scrapped any consideration of an internal drive like the PS3 or original Xbox, and we'll see a repeat of the 360's slap-on HDD. Also, for those starting to get curious, DON'T expect an SSD; the benefit would be insignificant, and would also cost way too much.
* Backwards Compatability - This largely comes down to the CPU involved. If the 720 uses an extension of the PowerPC stuff used in the 360, then naturally hardware BC can be assumed, much like how the Wii can run GameCube games natively by virtue of using a CPU that was evolved from the GC's. If the 720 uses a DIFFERENT CPU, well... Then it's an open question. Software emulators will likely be present, but could be even spottier than what the 360 saw during its early days. (And the 360 STILL doesn't have a profile to run Arx Fatalis)

 

[hetneo]

[citation][nom]blubbey[/nom]Nice to see the upgrade but ffs, it took long enough. Like 7/8 years?[/citation]
6 years, since November of 2005.

 

[HMRkingpin]

[citation][nom]Camikazi[/nom]Original Xbox used a Pentium III CPU so yes at least one console has used x86.[/citation]

Shit, you could run windows on a modded original xbox. I don't know if you could on a 360. Original xbox was more pc than console.

 

[Guest]

I'm going to speculate wildly here that they're going to try to make it scalable to the next gen HDtv's coming out (Super Hi-Vision) that feature a resolution of 7680x4320. If they don't, Sony will wait and they will. If 360 is left on 1080 when all of consumer electronics starts making a bump to 3D 1080p or 4320p, it'll be a clearer win for Sony this time. They should be careful about jumping early for once. Sony could also potentially get in with 3D optical media, meaning 100GB+ blu-rays.

I can say this for sure tho, twin GPUs most likely means 3D support out of the box (makes stereoscopic rendering a heckuva lot easier...)