"Xbox 2011" - predicting the NEXT generation Xbox

"AirRaid" wrote in message
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After Xbox 360: Microsoft's next console
How fast? How much memory? We take educated guesses

James Morris
15 Nov 2007 17:13 GMT

It's almost two years to the day since Microsoft launched the Xbox
360. So you would expect its successor to be well on its way towards
fruition. But Microsoft has dropped only a few subtle hints about what
form it could take, and hasn't provided any details.

The most significant statement so far has been about timeframe.
Supposedly, the next generation Xbox will arrive next decade, possibly
2011 or 2012.



No way will it be 2012. MAYBE 2011 but I predict it will be late 2010. Of
course this all depends what Sony and Nintendo do. I don't think anyone
wants to launch significantly later than the competition. That has been part
of the Sony disaster. They won't do it again.



Microsoft wants as long as possible to recoup the $1.26 billion it
spent developing the Xbox 360.

With such a long wait ahead, we've taken it upon ourselves to jump in
the Tech.co.uk time machine and dialled in 2011, to give you a sneak
peek of what you should expect from the next Xbox. Some have already
named the 360's successor as the 'Xbox 720'. But we shall be referring
to it as the 'Xbox 2011', to commemorate its likely year of arrival.

Putting the clocks back

To start off, let's take a look at how the Xbox 360 leapt ahead of its
predecessor, and what that could mean for the Xbox 2011. The CPU clock
speed quadrupled between the Xbox and Xbox 360, so that might imply
that the 2011 CPU would be running at 12GHz.

But Intel is claiming its 32nm Sandy Bridge architecture will arrive
at 4GHz in 2010, and clock speeds for the top desktop CPUs have
remained steady at around 3GHz since the tail end of 2003. So we can't
see a console processor hitting 12GHz, even in 2011. The core clock
would well be a fairly minor leap forward - it could be running at
just 5GHz.

Core blimey!

One thing the Xbox 2011 CPU will have, however, is processing cores -
lots of them. The Xbox had one core, and the 360 has three. Looking at
current trends, we predict there will be at least eight processing
cores in the next version, possibly as many as 16 - and there could
even be up to 32. After all, desktop PC chips with eight cores are due
at the end of 2008 in the shape of Intel's Nehalem architecture.

Something similar is likely to happen to the graphics acceleration. It
is rumoured that AMD/ATI's forthcoming R700 architecture will offer up
to eight GPU cores for the highest-end products, and that's due in
2008. Intel's Larabee graphics project also aims to be many-cored.

On the other hand, the Xbox 360's graphics run at only twice the
clockspeed of the original Xbox's. So we could be seeing consoles in
2011 with lots of little graphics cores, perhaps as many as 64. But
each one might only be running at a speed of 2GHz or even less.

All of these cores could well be part of one single chip, too. Both
Intel and AMD are planning to integrate graphics onto their CPUs
around the beginning of 2009. By 2011 this idea could be well
established. There's even some talk of Microsoft designing its own
chips, although there are very few details of this.

RAMming it home

Where today's premium PCs are sporting 2GB of memory, with 512MB more
lined up on the graphics card, the Xbox360 only has 512MB shared
across both CPU and GPU. A console needs to be much more affordable
for the mass market.

Since we expect the console's operating system to be a 64-bit
environment, memory in excess of 4GB would be perfectly feasible. But
we suspect the amount of RAM will remain well behind desktop PCs, for
cost reasons - maybe just 8GB?


The Xbox 2011 will probably continue with a shared memory
architecture, particularly if the processing chip incorporates both
CPU and GPU cores. So it will use GDDR graphics memory instead of
desktop PC's DDR. GDDR benefits from a much more frequent update cycle
than DDR - it's already on its fifth generation, where DDR is only on
its third.
Power to the virtual people

The Xbox 360 has 115.2 GFLOPS floating point performance, 100 times
the original Xbox, and can process 500 million polygons a second -
five times its predecessor. With its plethora of cores, the Xbox 2011
could have 100 times more GLOPS again - maybe 10 TFLOPs, not far off
supercomputer status. Its multiple graphics cores will allow it to
process and texture many millions of polygons a second.

So what will all this processing power actually be doing? Obviously,
graphics will become still closer to cinematic photorealism ( Project
Gotham Racing 8 will be indistinguishable from TV race coverage; Call
of Duty 8 will be shocking). But multiple cores will enable lots of
other cool new capabilities too.


There is already talk of a camera with the ability to sense motion,
and maybe voice activation. So you will be able to control your game
character using gestures, and converse with NPCs using your own voice,
giving commands or engaging in realistic dialogue.

This is just the start. Hardware physics processing is already finding
its way onto the PC, either using a dedicated chip or borrowed GPU
power. This will play a big part in future console games.

But the extra CPUs could also be called upon for more complex AI tasks
- something the Halo series has become famous for. So Xbox 2011 games
are likely to offer much more realistic NPC behaviour. The next
console generation will be both a very good virtual companion, and a
much more dangerous enemy.

Disc jockeys

Something that could be very different in 2011 is the mode of game
delivery. Online game purchasing (like Valve's Steam) is still in its
infancy, and current next-gen consoles are sticking primarily with
discs for games. PlayStation 3 uses Blu-ray, and you can get an HD DVD
drive for the Xbox 360, so these options are likely to remain on their
successors, if only for backwards compatibility.

But the chances are that the next consoles will be very much network-
connected devices, something Microsoft has pioneered with Xbox LIVE.

So the Xbox 2011 will more than likely come with a big hard disk - or
even gigabytes of Flash storage - and your games will download
straight onto this. It'll destroy the second-hand trade-in market, of
course. But maybe we'll all be selling our electronic license keys on
eBay instead!

Our prediction for the next Xbox is...

So here's the bottom line for the Xbox in 2011, based on current
trends and what we know is happening over the next few years. Check
back here in 2011 to see if we were right!

* CPU/GPU - Integrated chip with 16 x 5GHz processor cores, 32 x 2GHz
graphics cores
* Memory - 8GB GDDR8
* Media - Dual-format HD-DVD/Blu-ray drive for backwards compatibility
and movies
* Storage - 4TB hard disk for online game (and movie) delivery
* Built-in camera - for gesture-based control
* Built-in microphone - for voice-recognised control

http://www.tech.co.uk/home-entertain...s-next-console