Computer Magazine/Systems/XBOX 360 - eMyTextBooks

Computer Magazine/Systems/XBOX 360

The XBOX 360 is Microsoft's next console. See also Computer Magazine/Systems/XBOX 360/Games.

Hardware specifications

The official specifications are available from the official Xbox website (http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/factsheet.htm).

Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU "Xenon"

• The Intel x86 processor of the Xbox has been replaced by a custom IBM-designed processor based on the PowerPC architecture.
• Three symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz
• Two hardware threads per core; six total
• VMX-128 vector unit per core; three total
• 128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread
• 1MB L2 cache (Lockable by Graphics Processor)

Custom ATI R500 Based GPU "Xenos"

• 337 Million transistors total
• 500 MHz parent GPU (90nm process, 232 Million Transistors)
• 10 MB daughter eDRAM Framebuffer (90nm process, 105 Million Transistors)
  • eDRAM has internal logic for Color, Alpha Blend, ZStencil and MSAA.
• 48-way parallel floating-point dynamically-scheduled shader pipelines (ALU's for Vertex or Pixel Shader processing)
• Unified shader architecture (This means that the pipelines are shared between pixel pipelines and vertex shaders; for example, 42 pixel pipelines : 6 vertex shaders.)
• 16 Filtered & 16 Unfiltered Texture samples per clock

• Polygon Performance: 500 million triangles per second
• Pixel Fill Rate: 16 gigasamples per second fillrate using 4X MSAA
• Shader Performance: 48 billion shader operations per second (96 billion shader operations per second theoretical maximum)
• Dot product operations: 9 billion per second (Microsoft figure)

Memory

• 512 MB 700MHz GDDR-3 RAM (unified memory architecture)

System Bandwidth

• 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
• 256 GB/s eDRAM internal logic to internal memory bandwidth
• 32 GB/s GPU to eDRAM bandwidth (2GHz x 64bit Bus)
• 21.6 GB/s frontside bus (Aggregated 10.8GB/s upstream and downstream)
• 1 GB/s southbridge bandwidth (Aggregated 500MB/s upstream and downstream)

Overall System Floating-Point Performance

• 1 FLOPS (TFLOPS)

Audio

• Multichannel surround sound output
• Supports 48khz 16-bit audio
• 320 independent decompression channels
• 32 bit processing
• 256+ audio channels

Controller

The Xbox 360 has the ability to support four wireless controllers. Additionally it can support three wired controllers through the use of its USB ports (two in front, one in back). The wired controller cords are nine feet in length and are breakaway similar to those used with the Xbox.

The controller for the Xbox 360 is a similar yet improved version of the Type-S gamepad for the original Xbox. The Xbox 360 controller adds the new feature of the Xbox guide button, which has the appearance of the Xbox 360 emblem and is surrounded by a ring of light. Pressing the Xbox guide button will bring the Xbox 360 out of sleep mode or instantly bring up the "Xbox Guide". The ring of light lights up to designate what controller "port" the gamepad is currently using and which console (if more than one) the controller is connected to. The black and white buttons have been redesigned as shoulder buttons, now refered to as bumper buttons, located above the left and right triggers. The rear of the controller has been redesigned to include a new port where the player can connect a headset. The new port replaces the two non-standard USB connectors on the front of the Xbox controller.

Xbox Guide

The Xbox Guide is a tabbed interface that contains several features such as:

• Xbox Live
• Marketplace
• Favorites List
• Custom Playlists
• Friends Lists
• and more

Physical Dimensions and Weight

• The Xbox 360 weights 7.7 pounds or 3.5 kg
• 30.9cm wide x 8.3cm high x 25.8cm deep
• 12.15" wide x 3.27" high x 10.15" deep

Miscellaneous

• Support for WMVHD DVD Video, Standard DVD-video, DVD-Rom, DVD-R/RW, CD-DA, CD-Rom, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 CD, JPEG photo CD
• Media Center Extender capability
• All games support a 16:9 aspect ratio, and 720p and 1080i video modes
• Standard-definition and high-definition video output supported
• At least 4x Anti-Aliasing will be enabled at all times
• Customizable face plates to change appearance
• 3 USB 2.0 ports
• Support for 4 wireless controllers
• Detachable 20GB hard drive
• Wi-Fi ready (802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g), using an Xbox 360-specific or third-party wireless bridge accessory. Xbox 360 consoles will automatically detect and link with other Xbox 360 consoles within range.