Xbox 720 is another iPhone 4S!!

[OldNewNewOld]

How come people say that the WiiU will be barely stronger than the xbox 360, while the WiiU GPU is stronger than this one which is supposed to be 6 times stronger than the xbox360?

Only the weakest R770 card is weaker than the 6670. Any other is much stronger.

(Massive amount of sniping)
Yeah cool thanks

I mean it won't be right now of course (I'm a student so I have no money ^_^) but I guess if I save up for a bit I could afford one.

I posted this in the thread on that Alienware PC/console thing...

i3 2120 http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115077
BioStar H61 mATX mobo http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138332
Patriot Signature 8gb 1600mhz RAM http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220570
XFX Double D 6790 1gb GPU http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150534
Hitachi 750GB 7200rpm HDD http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145532
Apevia Small Form Factor Case with 420W PSU http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811144161
Samsung BluRay drive http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151222
Windows 7 64 bit http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116986

Total: $725.92 CDN

There's places to save money here, and it's a small form factor case so that it can "fit under the TV".

Wouldn't the Motherboard and the RAM memory be incompatible?
The motherboard supports 1066/1333 MHz memory while the RAM you linked is 1600 Mhz.
I ask because I'm not really good with hardware and I sure need to get a new PC soon. It's outdated and too old to be upgraded.

 

[Joshimodo]

Um, midrange tech from several months ago can still do anti-aliased 1080p. What's the problem here?

Not universally. Most recent mid-high end titles (BF3, Skyrim etc.) won't even hit 40+FPS on that when on high settings.

My 5870 is significantly better, and that's getting on in hardware age. They would be better off using either a better 6-series or 5-series.

You forget that consoles do miraculous things with their hardware due to specialization. Don't forget that Skyrim is running on mid-upper range specs from 2005...

Skyrim is very well optimised and not really that visually special (in regards to fidelity - It's a triumph of design). Plus, it's running on 720, not 1080, and has no AA/ASF on consoles, and seems to be at less than 60FPS.

 

[Jimbo1212]

I think the current X box looks fine so whatever.

Really?
People said that about Doom, then Halo, and Halo 4...when you could be having this (actual in game footage):

Now tell me what gamer does not want that OR better?

Um, midrange tech from several months ago can still do anti-aliased 1080p. What's the problem here?

Not universally. Most recent mid-high end titles (BF3, Skyrim etc.) won't even hit 40+FPS on that when on high settings.

My 5870 is significantly better, and that's getting on in hardware age. They would be better off using either a better 6-series or 5-series.

You forget that consoles do miraculous things with their hardware due to specialization. Don't forget that Skyrim is running on mid-upper range specs from 2005...

To any PC gamer who has a average to good rig, Skyrim looks horrible. If I play something like MoH on Ultra, then go to Skyrim, I just want to be sick at the horrible graphics. It is cleaer that it is on very old and weak hardware.

 

[Zeh Don]

I love seeing the elitists attempting to compare PC Specs. to Console Specs. as some kind of barrometer for the graphical and calculatory power of the machine. To give you an idea of what "6 Times More Powerful" means, let's take a look at the current Xbox 360 Specs.
(as provided here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_hardware)

The Xbox 360's CPU:

The XCPU, named Xenon at Microsoft and "Waternoose" at IBM, is a custom triple-core 64-bit PowerPC-based design by IBM. The CPU emphasizes high floating point performance through multiple FPU and SIMD vector processing units in each core. It has a theoretical peak performance of 115.2 gigaFLOPS and is capable of 9.6 billion dot products per second. Each core of the CPU is simultaneous multithreading capable and clocked at 3.2 GHz.

Have a nice i7 - featuring 8 Cores - in your machine? The Xbox 360 has 3 cores, and it's only now - seven years later - starting to reach the barriers of what it can do.

The Xbox 360's GPU:

...the Xbox 360 had a chip designed by ATI called Xenos. The chip was developed under the name "C1" and "R500" was often used to refer to it.[2] The GPU package contains two separate silicon dies, each built on a 90 nm process with a clock speed of 500 MHz; the GPU proper, manufactured by TSMC and a 10 MB eDRAM daughter-die, manufactured by NEC. Thanks to the daughter die, the Xenos can do 4× FSAA, z-buffering, and alpha blending with no appreciable performance penalty on the GPU...

This GPU has a clock speed less than half of a "Mid Range" PC Card in today's market, and has been handling all modern released since 2005. Crysis 2, Skyrim, The Witcher 2 - this card was so well designed that they're still finding new and interesting things to do with it.

But hey - you have a 1 GB Card, right? 2GB Card? Well, you probably also have higher than 8GB of DDR3 RAM as well, running on your 64-Bit OS, right? More than enough fast writeable memory for your machine to do anything! Well...

The Xbox 360's RAM:

...The console features 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM clocked at 700 MHz with an effective transmission rate of 1.4 GHz on a 128-bit bus. The memory is shared by the CPU and the GPU via the unified memory architecture. This memory is produced by either Samsung or Qimonda...

The Xbox 360 has less than 1/20th of your available memory made by the lowest bidder - it has 512mb of shared DDR3 RAM for everything.

Now, let's take a quick look at the games industry today.
Take your biggest, prettiest title. In terms of raw demanding power, The Witcher 2 and the original Crysis are probably at the top of their game. Your machine probably runs them around 60fps mark with small loading times thanks to it's fast memory, assuming V-Sync and max settings of course. Everything else is generally designed for consoles first, making your expensive hardware essentially worthless.

Scaling what the Xbox 360 can do right now, compared to what the next one can do based off what we know, you'll need to upgrade your current High End PC hardware to something along the lines of 4 times more powerful to run the first generation Xbox 720 games.
EPIC designed and built a 6gb Video RAM system, running the absolute bleeding edge hardware for their demonstration of the next version of the Unreal Engine, as an example of where the technology will be for the next gen.
That system cost them over US$10,000.00 to build. The Xbox 720 will cost you less than the original Xbox 360 - US$400.00 at launch - and will run that tech demo at close to 60FPS based off it's currently known architecture.

Good luck.

 

[Popeman]

I think the current X box looks fine so whatever.

Really?
People said that about Doom, then Halo, and Halo 4...when you could be having this (actual in game footage):

Now tell me what gamer does not want that OR better?

I simply don't care. Great you are driving the industry I just can't find myself to care. My favorite games of all time are less graphically demanding then half life 2.

 

[boag]

The next Xbox coming out Fall 2013 will utilize a midrange GPU released several months ago (AMD 6670).

Begs the serious question of why the 6670 over a 6850 based chipset?

The 6850's cheap, being phased out of retail production and can even survive being used with passive cooling. But would deliver a massive extra chunk of power, even using a down volted version in the style of mobile chips.

Weird to make a brand new console with a budget-end GPU from the get go. It'll be heavily outdated within 12 months.

Then again, there are no signs of a DX12 coming with Windows 8, so at least it won't be as bad as the 360 landing with DX9 just as DX10 strikes. Never know, might even be able run ARMA/2, which would be quite something to see on Xbox Live.

But anything you buy today will be heavily outdated in the next 12 months, I understand the constant need and want for the most high end gear possible. But this is a console, not a PC.

I would be glad if they just put in more RAM this time.

 

[Cronq]

I love seeing the elitists attempting to compare PC Specs. to Console Specs. as some kind of barrometer for the graphical and calculatory power of the machine. To give you an idea of what "6 Times More Powerful" means, let's take a look at the current Xbox 360 Specs.
(as provided here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_hardware)

The Xbox 360's CPU:

The XCPU, named Xenon at Microsoft and "Waternoose" at IBM, is a custom triple-core 64-bit PowerPC-based design by IBM. The CPU emphasizes high floating point performance through multiple FPU and SIMD vector processing units in each core. It has a theoretical peak performance of 115.2 gigaFLOPS and is capable of 9.6 billion dot products per second. Each core of the CPU is simultaneous multithreading capable and clocked at 3.2 GHz.

Have a nice i7 - featuring 8 Cores - in your machine? The Xbox 360 has 3 cores, and it's only now - seven years later - starting to reach the barriers of what it can do.

The Xbox 360's GPU:

...the Xbox 360 had a chip designed by ATI called Xenos. The chip was developed under the name "C1" and "R500" was often used to refer to it.[2] The GPU package contains two separate silicon dies, each built on a 90 nm process with a clock speed of 500 MHz; the GPU proper, manufactured by TSMC and a 10 MB eDRAM daughter-die, manufactured by NEC. Thanks to the daughter die, the Xenos can do 4× FSAA, z-buffering, and alpha blending with no appreciable performance penalty on the GPU...

This GPU has a clock speed less than half of a "Mid Range" PC Card in today's market, and has been handling all modern released since 2005. Crysis 2, Skyrim, The Witcher 2 - this card was so well designed that they're still finding new and interesting things to do with it.

But hey - you have a 1 GB Card, right? 2GB Card? Well, you probably also have higher than 8GB of DDR3 RAM as well, running on your 64-Bit OS, right? More than enough fast writeable memory for your machine to do anything! Well...

The Xbox 360's RAM:

...The console features 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM clocked at 700 MHz with an effective transmission rate of 1.4 GHz on a 128-bit bus. The memory is shared by the CPU and the GPU via the unified memory architecture. This memory is produced by either Samsung or Qimonda...

The Xbox 360 has less than 1/20th of your available memory made by the lowest bidder - it has 512mb of shared DDR3 RAM for everything.

Now, let's take a quick look at the games industry today.
Take your biggest, prettiest title. In terms of raw demanding power, The Witcher 2 and the original Crysis are probably at the top of their game. Your machine probably runs them around 60fps mark with small loading times thanks to it's fast memory, assuming V-Sync and max settings of course. Everything else is generally designed for consoles first, making your expensive hardware essentially worthless.

Scaling what the Xbox 360 can do right now, compared to what the next one can do based off what we know, you'll need to upgrade your current High End PC hardware to something along the lines of 4 times more powerful to run the first generation Xbox 720 games.
EPIC designed and built a 6gb Video RAM system, running the absolute bleeding edge hardware for their demonstration of the next version of the Unreal Engine, as an example of where the technology will be for the next gen.
That system cost them over US$10,000.00 to build. The Xbox 720 will cost you less than the original Xbox 360 - US$400.00 at launch - and will run that tech demo at close to 60FPS based off it's currently known architecture.

Good luck.

You're so right. The PC crowd will be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars just so they can keep up with the superior technology and specialization of an econo-box gaming machine.....built from PC parts.

Here is why you are absolutely and utterly wrong: Xbox 360 was significantly more powerful (when compared to PC's)back when it was announced, and PC's were well past performing it before the thing released. By the time 2014 rolls around, and people are just opening up their Xmas Xbox 720's, the PC crowd will be opening their Haswell/Maxwell platform PC's and laptops. Consoles will be back in the position of being utterly destroyed in performance and visuals over consoles.

But at least you have your friendly $300 price point and motion controllers.

 

[Jimbo1212]

I think the current X box looks fine so whatever.

Really?
People said that about Doom, then Halo, and Halo 4...when you could be having this (actual in game footage):

Now tell me what gamer does not want that OR better?

I simply don't care. Great you are driving the industry I just can't find myself to care. My favorite games of all time are less graphically demanding then half life 2.

Well I think you need to ask yourself then why are you playing those games. I have a feeling nostalgia might crop up in your answer.

 

[LilithSlave]

The HD 6670 is not a bad card by any means. It can play pretty much all the modern PC games. Well, it is slightly inferior to even the HD 4870, which is two generations before it. Which is a bit disappointing because I hear the HD 4870 is what will be in the Wii U. But it's still not a bad card by any means. But it would be hilarious if the Nintendo console released early this gen. was more powerful than the XBOX released a couple years down the road.

But what were you expecting, anyway? Do you want the next console gen. to be $599 US dollars? People play console games for the affordability, and more importantly, the nice exclusives. I have yet to see any REAL Namco games on the PC. And we may see the first if Dark Souls makes it to the PC.

 

[RamirezDoEverything]

This makes me sad, I can't afford new shit, I'll be in college when this comes out.

Looks like it's skyrim on 360 over and over and over.

 

[LilithSlave]

I don't know if I even want to look at that video.

All I see is everything I hate about the gaming industry today.

- Guns
- Gritty dudes with beards and muscles
- Dark and dreary atmosphere

Things like this are why I hate graphics and don't have that much energy to pick up and become good at Blender. Because nobody in this country would want to hire me to make CG outside of drawing the most hyper realistic looking fecal matter. Call me when they're using it to make glorious rainbows and cute little bunnies.

This is more eye-candy than those hyper-realistic musclemen those poor CG teams are hired to create.

CAN YOUR HYPER-REALISTIC GRAPHICS COMPETE WITH MY BUNNY? CAN IT?

 

[Zeh Don]

You're so right. The PC crowd will be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars just so they can keep up with the superior technology and specialization of an econo-box gaming machine.....built from PC parts....

This is why you fail to grasp anything and why you're making a fool of yourself: my PC has to run everything while my 360 only has to run games.
There is no bloated OS, background tasks, Digitial Distribution services, DRM, driver issues, or whatever other bullshit publishers and developers deem necessary to straddle the PC Platform with (we're running AAA games in browsers now?).
The Xbox 360 hardware stretched further than comparable PC hardware by a solid seven years fucking years. This is why the industry shifted to the consoles - there's more money to be made, less fucking around in terms of making it, and you don't have to accommodate that kid who didn't upgrade their machine last year. You just make your game and sell it.

Here is why you are absolutely and utterly wrong: [words]

Basically everything you said was wrong. Not only was it poorly informed and thus incorrect, it was poorly worded and made little to no sense. You're grasping at concepts you clearly fail to comprehend.

Firstly: games are made for consoles. So, you're expensive PC hardware is used... to run console ports. Or MMOs, where the graphical presentation is the equivalent to an iPhone game. Or Facebook games, but I don't think you're that far down the food chain, so I'll leave it there. The biggest games of the year were all console games, champ.

Secondly: due to the fact that developers get more out of a console in terms of sheer performance and performance value, the comparable PC hardware required to run console titles is around the 400-600% mark. So, if your current PC hardware is twice as powerful in terms of performance as the Xbox 360 (you get 60FPS in Battlefield 3 at Max settings, 60 FPS in Skyrim at max settings, etc.) you'll need to upgrade your current PC hardware to around four times it's current power to even run the next generation of games that the consoles usher in.

But at least you have your friendly $300 price point and motion controllers.

AU$600.00 once every seven years. Grants me access to every major game released, exactly as it was designed and intended.
AU$3,000.00 once every year (AU$21,000.00 every seven years). Grants me access to... the same games. And driver issues, hardware compatibility issues, online only DRMs, etc.

By listing Motion Controls, you're showing your bias. If you think consoles are for the "weaker gamers" ask yourself: what games are you currently playing?

My Quad Core, 4gb DDR2 and ATI Radeon 5770 1gb system is able to run every game on the market on max settings, no questions asked. It's three years old - save for the card. Skyrim, LOTRO, Deus Ex: HR, Terraria, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Quake Live - handles everything and anything without a problem.

My Xbox 360 runs everything else I care to play - Dark Souls, Super Street Fighter IV, Halo Reach, Mass Effect 1/2, Gears of War, Alan Wake, XBLA titles, etc.

What's the problem, elitist? Worried your 1337 Rig won't get you the "cred" you deserve once we're playing games on a new console?
Hahaha, honestly man. Take a step back and look at your bullshit.

 

[Jimbo1212]

I don't know if I even want to look at that video.

All I see is everything I hate about the gaming industry today.

- Guns
- Gritty dudes with beards and muscles
- Dark and dreary atmosphere

Things like this are why I hate graphics and don't have that much energy to pick up and become good at Blender. Call me when they're using it to make glorious rainbows and cute little bunnies.

*facepalm*

Just watch it for the technical marvel, and anyway, as I said, it is the next Unreal Engine so what do you expect?
Also, who wants flamboyant colouring besides little girls? Clearly not the main market which is 14-26 year old guys.

 

[Olas]

Meh. There's a reason they're waiting so long to introduce this gen of consoles.

 

[Popeman]

I think the current X box looks fine so whatever.

Really?
People said that about Doom, then Halo, and Halo 4...when you could be having this (actual in game footage):

Now tell me what gamer does not want that OR better?

I simply don't care. Great you are driving the industry I just can't find myself to care. My favorite games of all time are less graphically demanding then half life 2.

Well I think you need to ask yourself then why are you playing those games. I have a feeling nostalgia might crop up in your answer.

No I just have more fun. Why is that so hard to believe? My favorite games are older games. Big deal. Hell my favorite game of this year didn't use half of what a PS3 could do graphically.

Edit. Wow I just noticed I use way to many periods.

 

[The Great Purtabo]

Perhaps if people had shown a little restraint instead of bellowing out new console generation before the current one had hit 4 years, the developers would not have been in such a rush to get new hardware, and thus have to pick from what is still in essence last generation parts.

sorry, four years? have you been living in the year 2010? it's been six years since the 360 launched; the technology has grown exponentially, if we just keep waiting for tomorrow tomorrow, we'll be stuck in the past

 

[LilithSlave]

Also, who wants flamboyant colouring besides little girls? Clearly not the main market which is 14-26 year old guys.

Everyone who bought Super Mario Galaxy. Which is over 8 million. And Mario Kart Wii sold several times as much as Skyrim.

Super Mario Galaxy sold about 1 million more copies more than Skyrim has. And Mario Kart Wii sold over 4 times the amount. And Skyrim is one of the best selling games of all time.

And sorry, I could really just care less about graphics for the sake of graphics.

 

[Cronq]

You're so right. The PC crowd will be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars just so they can keep up with the superior technology and specialization of an econo-box gaming machine.....built from PC parts....

This is why you fail to grasp anything and why you're making a fool of yourself: my PC has to run everything while my 360 only has to run games.
There is no bloated OS, background tasks, Digitial Distribution services, DRM, driver issues, or whatever other bullshit publishers and developers deem necessary to straddle the PC Platform with (we're running AAA games in browsers now?).
The Xbox 360 hardware stretched further than comparable PC hardware by a solid seven years fucking years. This is why the industry shifted to the consoles - there's more money to be made, less fucking around in terms of making it, and you don't have to accommodate that kid who didn't upgrade their machine last year. You just make your game and sell it.

Here is why you are absolutely and utterly wrong: [words]

Basically everything you said was wrong. Not only was it poorly informed and thus incorrect, it was poorly worded and made little to no sense. You're grasping at concepts you clearly fail to comprehend.

Firstly: games are made for consoles. So, you're expensive PC hardware is used... to run console ports. Or MMOs, where the graphical presentation is the equivalent to an iPhone game. Or Facebook games, but I don't think you're that far down the food chain, so I'll leave it there. The biggest games of the year were all console games, champ.

Secondly: due to the fact that developers get more out of a console in terms of sheer performance and performance value, the comparable PC hardware required to run console titles is around the 400-600% mark. So, if your current PC hardware is twice as powerful in terms of performance as the Xbox 360 (you get 60FPS in Battlefield 3 at Max settings, 60 FPS in Skyrim at max settings, etc.) you'll need to upgrade your current PC hardware to around four times it's current power to even run the next generation of games that the consoles usher in.

But at least you have your friendly $300 price point and motion controllers.

AU$600.00 once every seven years. Grants me access to every major game released, exactly as it was designed and intended.
AU$3,000.00 once every year (AU$21,000.00 every seven years). Grants me access to... the same games. And driver issues, hardware compatibility issues, online only DRMs, etc.

By listing Motion Controls, you're showing your bias. If you think consoles are for the "weaker gamers" ask yourself: what games are you currently playing?

My Quad Core, 4gb DDR2 and ATI Radeon 5770 1gb system is able to run every game on the market on max settings, no questions asked. It's three years old - save for the card. Skyrim, LOTRO, Deus Ex: HR, Terraria, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Quake Live - handles everything and anything without a problem.

My Xbox 360 runs everything else I care to play - Dark Souls, Super Street Fighter IV, Halo Reach, Mass Effect 1/2, Gears of War, Alan Wake, XBLA titles, etc.

What's the problem, elitist? Worried your 1337 Rig won't get you the "cred" you deserve once we're playing games on a new console?
Hahaha, honestly man. Take a step back and look at your bullshit.

The only bullshit in this thread is your failed acceptance of reality. It is impossible for any piece of stale hardware to outperform a platform which is in a constant and unending development cycle. Like you said, this performance advantage won't matter too much as we are all stuck playing mostly the same games; but for some of us the extra amount of details, resolution, framerate, and visual effects is enough to win our extra $$.

You can go ahead and dismiss the truth that PC's will be able to outperform the next generation of consoles upon their release, but don't call this reality bullshit.

 

[Keith Reedy]

snip

The only bullshit in this thread is your failed acceptance of reality. It is impossible for any piece of stale hardware to outperform a platform which is in a constant and unending development cycle. Like you said, this performance advantage won't matter too much as we are all stuck playing mostly the same games; but for some of us the extra amount of details, resolution, framerate, and visual effects is enough to win our extra $$.

You can go ahead and dismiss the truth that PC's will be able to outperform the next generation
of consoles upon their release, but don't call this reality bullshit.

He didn't say the console outperformed the pc just that the consoles do more with what they have than a pc of same spec, being optimized for gamin. You should brag a little less and be sad a little more. The new consoles will mostly dictate what the pc gets being cheaper and easier to program for. Simply put enjoy playing those ports you paid a thousand or more dollars, extra bugs and all.

 

[A Satanic Panda]

Also, Kotaku is reporting the system will have a built-in anti-used games measure. I think this is a fairly obvious prediction but a lot of people are blind to it. All Microsoft has to do is include a 3G chip and the Xbox will be able to connect to sattelite networks to register DRM, that's what Amazon does with some kindles, there is no such thing as offline mode.

Microsoft, don't think I won't wrap may Xbox in lead. Seriously though if that is the case and (strict) DRMs are made, I won't buy one.