Rumor: 360 Successor's GPU and Release Date Detailed

[The Wooster]

Rumor: 360 Successor's GPU and Release Date Detailed

According to some sources, the next Xbox will ship in either October or November of next year and feature an AMD 6000-series GPU.

According to IGN, sources have confirmed that mass production of the Xbox 360 successor's graphics processor will begin by the end of 2012. Early reports claimed the system would be shipping with an AMD 7000-series GPU, but this latest report, from yet another anonymous source, claims it will use a 6000-series GPU instead. Specifically, one based on the Radeon HD 6670, which can currently be had for around $79.99.

While PC users may scoff at the relatively underpowered 6670, it is far more powerful than the GPU found in the Xbox 360; the ATI Xenos, which is roughly equivalent to Radeon X1900. IGN reckons the GPU will give the new Xbox six-times the graphical processing power of its predecessor, allowing it to outperform the upcoming Wii U by around 20%.

I'd take all this with a grain of salt, however. Microsoft has confirmed nothing yet and uncompromising analyst Michael Pachter has labeled rumours of an impending "Xbox 720" launch "silly."

"Microsoft is still selling a ton of Xbox 360s, and they won't replace the existing one until sales begin to slow," he said in November of last year. Microsoft sold a ton of 360s [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.337643-Xbox-360-Reaches-66-Million-Sold] over the holiday season.

Source: IGN [http://uk.ign.com/articles/2012/01/24/xbox-720-will-be-six-times-as-powerful-as-current-gen]




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[vrbtny]

To quote Jeremy Clarkson "POWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Seriously though, it's good to see at least a half-decent GPU lined up for the next 360. Radeon cards aren't my strongpoint, however, they just have such a screwed up numbering system.

Even more screwed up that Nvidia's, and that's saying something.

 

[vrbtny]

Funny thing: 'hardcore' gamers have been scoffing at the specs of the Wii U, and claiming that the next round of PS/Xbox consoles will wipe the floor with it. Whereas this article suggests the difference will be increased performance of around '20%'.

Which is far less than the difference in performance between the original PS2 (the weakest console of its generation) and the original Xbox (basically a gaming PC of the time sold with a controller attached). Yet the PS2 outsold the Xbox by a factor of about 10-1.

Just something interesting to think about. Of course, it could all be lies and rumours. But if not, the next generation is going to be very interesting indeed...

Was the PS2 weaker than the Gamecube? I thought the latter was less powerful, sure has seemed it. I've played 007 : Nightfire on both of them, pretty much side-by-side, and the PS2 one seems prettier.

 

[Waaghpowa]

Oh it's from IGN, probably not true. I heard that they were going to use ARM processors.

 

[Beryl77]

If this is true, then it's nice to hear that the consoles get finally a power boost. But it's a bit less than I had hoped. A year or two after the release, they would be outperformed again by the PCs.
But it would be better than the current situation.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Funny thing: 'hardcore' gamers have been scoffing at the specs of the Wii U, and claiming that the next round of PS/Xbox consoles will wipe the floor with it. Whereas this article suggests the difference will be increased performance of around '20%'.

Which is far less than the difference in performance between the original PS2 (the weakest console of its generation) and the original Xbox (basically a gaming PC of the time sold with a controller attached). Yet the PS2 outsold the Xbox by a factor of about 10-1.

Just something interesting to think about. Of course, it could all be lies and rumours. But if not, the next generation is going to be very interesting indeed...

Was the PS2 weaker than the Gamecube? I thought the latter was less powerful, sure has seemed it. I've played 007 : Nightfire on both of them, pretty much side-by-side, and the PS2 one seems prettier.

It really depends on which was the native system. For 1st-party titles, you could see the difference on the Gamecube. But for anything that was ported, it was fairly obvious downgrade.

Performance-wise, the two systems were not all that far apart.

PS2:
*299Mhz "Emotion Engine" processor
*32MB RAMBUS (very premium RAM for the time, I'll admit)

Gamecube:
*478 MHz "Gecko" processor
*47 MB total RAM (Graphical operating RAM: 27 MB, 3 of which was specialized for textures, the remaining RAM was dedicated to the DVD system and prebuffering)

Both systems operated in 64-bit though the Gamecube had far more specialized components for each bus (for better or worse) in which some operated in 32-bit.

 

[bobmus]

I have this very same graphics card in my PC, which is just a market DELL with the graphics card installed by me for Skyrim. This would therefore leave me with an easy comparison of graphics on an Xbox and PC game - which would come out looking nicer I wonder?

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Seriously though, it's good to see at least a half-decent GPU lined up for the next 360. Radeon cards aren't my strongpoint, however, they just have such a screwed up numbering system.

Even more screwed up that Nvidia's, and that's saying something.

wait...

what?

more screwed up that nvidia .....?

i'm either incredibly smart or beyond retarded, nvidia's is definitely 10x more confusing to the untrained eye, my friend who i have been "tutoring" in pc building/gaming, still has no idea what is what with nvidia while he is already looking into radeon's hd 7000 series

OT: I much rather would've had them use the 7000 series...but still 6670 isn't horrible, definitely shouldn't boosted up though, that 79.99 value is only going to get cheaper come soon, which is what i'm assuming xbox is banking on heavily to make for cheap and sell for a tidy profit.

 

[gigastar]

And so the Eighth Generation is nigh, gather your standards and pick a side, the flamewars are coming.

 

[sneakypenguin]

Ouch, hopefully its a bit better than 6670 cause that card doesn't exactly set the world on fire..... I was kind of hoping the next gen would be a decent jump.

 

[ph0b0s123]

Good either a DirectX 11 or 11.1 GPU (not a big difference as most 11.1 features don't require new hardware over 11). The power does not matter so much from a PC gaming perspective as long as it supports the latest API's. That means that PC games will not have to always be on old versions of DirectX. That is until DirectX 12 comes out, whenever that is. This is good as when the current Xbox launched it was it was just after the Directx 10 launch, so straight away it was behind.

This will mean PC ports will push PC's better even if more powerful, as all the hard work has been done by programming to the latest API with features like tessellation, etc. For the PC versions you just turn up the amount each feature is used. Good stuff.

 

[ph0b0s123]

Oh it's from IGN, probably not true. I heard that they were going to use ARM processors.

They are talking GPU above not CPU. For CPU it looks pretty certain it will be another PowerPC CPU, but obviously one with a more recent architecture, speed profile and extra cores.

 

[ph0b0s123]

Ouch, hopefully its a bit better than 6670 cause that card doesn't exactly set the world on fire..... I was kind of hoping the next gen would be a decent jump.

It is a jump, it is a GPU from a Radeon 6670 card vs a GPU from a Radeon X1900/X1950 (current Xbox). That's a four to five generation jump. If that is not good enough for you, I don't know what is. I don't know if they could get more current with current high-end PC GPU's without heat issues for the form factor they want.

 

[Vordi]

I must admit this isn't the best of signs but it's early days yet.
Now if someone said this might be the last generation of consoles then it would slightly more worrying.
Better go out with a bang than a whimper.

http://www.gamefront.com/paradox-boss-the-next-console-generation-will-probably-be-the-last/

Oh dear.

 

[ph0b0s123]

Funny thing: 'hardcore' gamers have been scoffing at the specs of the Wii U, and claiming that the next round of PS/Xbox consoles will wipe the floor with it. Whereas this article suggests the difference will be increased performance of around '20%'.

Which is far less than the difference in performance between the original PS2 (the weakest console of its generation) and the original Xbox (basically a gaming PC of the time sold with a controller attached). Yet the PS2 outsold the Xbox by a factor of about 10-1.

Just something interesting to think about. Of course, it could all be lies and rumours. But if not, the next generation is going to be very interesting indeed...

It is not only the power but the hardware features supported. The WII U is only DirectX 10, whereas the next rumored XBox will be DirectX 11. So the WII U will not support hardware tessellation, etc. Also the features brought about by directX 11 actually make just using that code path more efficient even if not extra features are used. Battlefield bad compnay 2 was 10 - 20% faster on Directx 11 GPU's, than DirecxtX 10 ones of the same power, just due to using that code path.

 

[Supernova1138]

Ouch, hopefully its a bit better than 6670 cause that card doesn't exactly set the world on fire..... I was kind of hoping the next gen would be a decent jump.

It is a jump, it is a GPU from a Radeon 6670 card vs a GPU from a Radeon X1900/X1950 (current Xbox). That's a four to five generation jump. If that is not good enough for you, I don't know what is. I don't know if they could get more current with current high-end PC GPU's without heat issues for the form factor they want.

It is a huge generational jump but the difference is the XBox360's GPU was high end when it came out. The 6670 is an entry level gaming card, barely qualifying as midrange. While it is an improvement over the 360, it will choke if you try to use DX11 features like Tessellation on it. Once again games will be forced to run at 720p or lower in order to deliver playable framerates. Even with code optimization, there is only so much you can squeeze out of that GPU. If this is true, I won't need to upgrade my graphics card for a very long time, as my single Radeon HD 6870 vastly outstrips the 6670's capabilities. Frankly, the 6870 should be the minimal baseline for a console upgrade. It can easily run most current titles at 1080p and deliver 60FPS. That allows for much more breathing space for future games, rather than the 6670 which is already considered a fairly weak gaming card today, it will be even weaker by 2013 standards.

 

[Frostbite3789]

To quote Jeremy Clarkson "POWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Seriously though, it's good to see at least a half-decent GPU lined up for the next 360. Radeon cards aren't my strongpoint, however, they just have such a screwed up numbering system.

Even more screwed up that Nvidia's, and that's saying something.

The 6670 is the low end gaming card for the AMD 6000 series.

Couple that with the 7000 series was already released now.

 

[Baresark]

Funny thing: 'hardcore' gamers have been scoffing at the specs of the Wii U, and claiming that the next round of PS/Xbox consoles will wipe the floor with it. Whereas this article suggests the difference will be increased performance of around '20%'.

Which is far less than the difference in performance between the original PS2 (the weakest console of its generation) and the original Xbox (basically a gaming PC of the time sold with a controller attached). Yet the PS2 outsold the Xbox by a factor of about 10-1.

Just something interesting to think about. Of course, it could all be lies and rumours. But if not, the next generation is going to be very interesting indeed...

It is not only the power but the hardware features supported. The WII U is only DirectX 10, whereas the next rumored XBox will be DirectX 11. So the WII U will not support hardware tessellation, etc. Also the features brought about by directX 11 actually make just using that code path more efficient even if not extra features are used. Battlefield bad compnay 2 was 10 - 20% faster on Directx 11 GPU's, than DirecxtX 10 ones of the same power, just due to using that code path.

Lot of funny comments on this thread.... It's stupid to compare the WiiU to anything, since no one knows what is actually in it. They built a system they believe will be comparable to the WiiU in power, but nothing is known for sure. Also, this is just a rumor anyway. Everyone is speculating on something we definitely don't know and things that "MAY" be true. No one has stated the WiiU is going to use DX10 at all. Or if they did, it was not a reliable source since Nintendo has literally released zero information regarding this component or the graphical capabilities of it. Nor would it make any sense for them to release something that didn't support DX11 since the cards that support it are now common place and inexpensive. And there is no reason a company would choose to use a card that only supports DX10 since it was complete shit.

I mean no insult and I love speculating as much as the next guy, but you should not speak so matter of fact about something that is completely unknown.

Edit: You can buy the first generation DX11 cards for $45. Just as an example of how inexpensive these cards are.

 

[Wolfram23]

I have this very same graphics card in my PC, which is just a market DELL with the graphics card installed by me for Skyrim. This would therefore leave me with an easy comparison of graphics on an Xbox and PC game - which would come out looking nicer I wonder?

Well, they'd be pretty similar. Consoles though generally allow lower level access to the hardware, so it can get tweaked for more performance compared to a PC running through DirectX. In that case, the console could have better graphics. However, it would also greatly be affected by TV/monitor and also if they still go with 720p vs 1080p, in which case I'd generally take slightly lower settings for higher resolution.