G
Guest
when reports came out in early 2004 about the Xbox2 CPU having three PowerPC
cores, each capable of two threads (6 threads total) running at over 3
GHz, people here said that just could not or would not happen. well, it is
apparently happening.
the only weakness I can see (as a non-tech person) is the small 1 MB of L2
cache, shared between all 3 cores.
the whole CPU is 165 million transistors. compared to Xbox's Intel CPU
which is 20 to 25 million, and PS2's CPU which is ~13 million.
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6124293/p-3.html
quote:
___________________________________________
Avoiding Bottlenecks
"As we've seen on the PC side, it's very important to make sure the CPU and
GPU are well matched to make sure the system functions at maximum
efficiency. If you pair an underpowered CPU with a powerful GPU, the CPU
will bottleneck system performance, and all that extra GPU power will go to
waste. Microsoft decided early on to go with a multicore CPU design after
deciding that a superfast single-core CPU wouldn't be a viable option, since
the processor would be difficult to shrink down when the time would come to
reduce costs. This shift from single-core to multicore processing is
happening right now in the desktop market, as Intel and AMD are just
starting to ship dual-core processors this year.
The Xbox 360 will have a custom-designed IBM processor that has three
processing cores, each capable of handling two threads, or two separate
applications. Six total threads provides a lot of processing power, but it
adds to the software complexity, because you now have to manage resources
between all the processes. Microsoft has a lot of experience with
multithreaded applications, and the company is confident that developing on
the processor won't be a problem. It might take developers a while to figure
out the most efficient way to use all the threads, but the large number of
threads will give programmers a lot of flexibility. The 165-million
transistor chip will run at 3.2GHz, and it'll have a vacuum-sealed,
water-cooled heat sink to handle heat dissipation."
______________________________________________
cores, each capable of two threads (6 threads total) running at over 3
GHz, people here said that just could not or would not happen. well, it is
apparently happening.
the only weakness I can see (as a non-tech person) is the small 1 MB of L2
cache, shared between all 3 cores.
the whole CPU is 165 million transistors. compared to Xbox's Intel CPU
which is 20 to 25 million, and PS2's CPU which is ~13 million.
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6124293/p-3.html
quote:
___________________________________________
Avoiding Bottlenecks
"As we've seen on the PC side, it's very important to make sure the CPU and
GPU are well matched to make sure the system functions at maximum
efficiency. If you pair an underpowered CPU with a powerful GPU, the CPU
will bottleneck system performance, and all that extra GPU power will go to
waste. Microsoft decided early on to go with a multicore CPU design after
deciding that a superfast single-core CPU wouldn't be a viable option, since
the processor would be difficult to shrink down when the time would come to
reduce costs. This shift from single-core to multicore processing is
happening right now in the desktop market, as Intel and AMD are just
starting to ship dual-core processors this year.
The Xbox 360 will have a custom-designed IBM processor that has three
processing cores, each capable of handling two threads, or two separate
applications. Six total threads provides a lot of processing power, but it
adds to the software complexity, because you now have to manage resources
between all the processes. Microsoft has a lot of experience with
multithreaded applications, and the company is confident that developing on
the processor won't be a problem. It might take developers a while to figure
out the most efficient way to use all the threads, but the large number of
threads will give programmers a lot of flexibility. The 165-million
transistor chip will run at 3.2GHz, and it'll have a vacuum-sealed,
water-cooled heat sink to handle heat dissipation."
______________________________________________