Anand: X-Box 360 internals

[Dr Mordrid]

http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2610

Dr. Mordrid

[Nowhere]

Don't tell me you're gonna buy/use it.

edit: and how on earth haven't you commented on the fact that SiS designed southbridge?

edit2: Start/Windows logo button on the remote frightens me.

[Dr Mordrid]

No, even though Erik would kill for one.

It was tough.

Me too.

Dr. Mordrid

[Sasq]

I still prefer the revolution.
But then again, I be in Nippon

[DGhost]

looks shiny. i'm not that impressed with the graphics i've seen so far though - the games look like very smooth/optimized PC games. the texture filtering was poor on CoD2 and I was not impressed with the normal mapping in it.

it is however very sharp. and very fluid. the display and digital connection no doubt helps that. the console-centric "shortcuts"/optimizations no doubt help the fluidity though.

[Jon P. Inghram]

I don't think the power "brick" is big enough, they should require you to build a small shack to properly house the power supply!

And the GPU and CPU share memory... that's wonderful.

[Nowhere]

...
And the GPU and CPU share memory... that's wonderful.

If it's fast enough, why not? And you don't need to duplicate things, right?

[DGhost]

I don't think the power "brick" is big enough, they should require you to build a small shack to properly house the power supply!

And the GPU and CPU share memory... that's wonderful.

saves it from killing the whole unit when the PSU goes tits up. this was an issue with the XBox's.

also... the GPU acts the memory controller. it has a 22.4GB/s link to the RAM, and the processor is slaved off of that with 2x 10.8GB/s links, one upstream and one downstream.

the major downside is that the processor only has 1MB of L2 cache to share between 3 RISC cores (each capable of "executing" two threads at a time). this, while saving a lot of transistors, would tend to make it very reliant on memory access times.

the upside - the GPU actually has the rasterizers and 10MB of eDRAM on a seperate die but on the same chip. the chip has 32GB/sec bandwidth to the main GPU and internally is capable of 256GB/sec. this actually cuts down it's reliance on the main system memory tremendously, and is the reason they claim that they can give you antialiasing for free.

[Marshmallowman]

How easily do you think would to add a HDD your self?

eg make a small adapter for the power, and maybe write an image from a legit drive on it if needed

[DGhost]

you would need a SATA drive, likely a 2.5" for power purposes (unless you are willing to do an externally powered drive)... i don't see the wiring being much more complex than that as it doesn't show any chips...

[schmosef]

I got a call from the EB where I'd placed my pre-order to tell me that I wouldn't receive my 360 on the first shipment and that I might have to wait as late as mid December to get one.

I was fine with that. I'd even expected not to get one on their first shipment. The guy on the phone was pretty upbeat and he attempted to sound confident and reassuring but I bet he'd had to deal with a lot of crying kids and frustrated parents that day.

What I told the guy on the phone was that they should have instructed their employees better because I'd asked about the possibility of this delay when I placed my pre-order and the two people in the store were adamant, to the point of cutting me off while I was speaking, that if I placed a pre-order I was guaranteed to get one on the 22nd. I remember asking what they meant by "guarantee" and they didn't have an answer. So I offered, "or I get my deposit back?" And they sheepishly replied, "yeah, I guess..."

Some "guarantee".

[schmosef]

btw, thanks for the post doc!

intersting read.

[Wombat]

How easily do you think would to add a HDD your self?

eg make a small adapter for the power, and maybe write an image from a legit drive on it if needed

Not if they customize the file to the drive. I'm, um, familiar with such a design.

[Jessterw]

I got a call from the EB where I'd placed my pre-order to tell me that I wouldn't receive my 360 on the first shipment and that I might have to wait as late as mid December to get one.

Apparently, and this may not be true across the board, many retailers are ignoring the order in which customers preordered the systems and instead offering them to customers who added varying amounts of accessories. I've read and heard first hand about this from several people, so I'd venture there is a good deal of truth to it.

Personally, I'm all for waiting a bit - give the system some time out in the wild and see how well it does.

[Tjalfe]

I got a call from the EB where I'd placed my pre-order to tell me that I wouldn't receive my 360 on the first shipment and that I might have to wait as late as mid December to get one.

I was fine with that. I'd even expected not to get one on their first shipment. The guy on the phone was pretty upbeat and he attempted to sound confident and reassuring but I bet he'd had to deal with a lot of crying kids and frustrated parents that day.

What I told the guy on the phone was that they should have instructed their employees better because I'd asked about the possibility of this delay when I placed my pre-order and the two people in the store were adamant, to the point of cutting me off while I was speaking, that if I placed a pre-order I was guaranteed to get one on the 22nd. I remember asking what they meant by "guarantee" and they didn't have an answer. So I offered, "or I get my deposit back?" And they sheepishly replied, "yeah, I guess..."

Some "guarantee".

Seems you were not the only one



(c) http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2005/20051111l.jpg