ATI Rep Talks XBox360 GPU Specs >

	2006/05/26 13:58:32: Posted by DM
	Here is an article for you tech heads out there. Mr. Huddy from ATI talks a bit about their new GPU, the r600, stating it will be the fastest DX9 GPU around. He then goes on to talk a bit about unified shaders and other tech-savvy stuff on the Xbox360. Check it out, it is pretty interesting. >Link
	Labeled With  xbox360 microsoft Comments [14] | Rate this article: -- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10  | Avg. rating of 9.0

Hah. "x600"... is a two year old card. The R600 based cards on the other hand...

shrug, makes my games look good. don't know about yours :)

nm, i see what you mean now. silly me.

1) He -barely- discusses Xbox 360.

2) I just can't believe (ya know, Moore's Law and everything) that the Xbox 360 graphically is going to be able to go toe-to-toe with the PS3 a year from now.

Bill Nye: 360 gpu is better then anyother so dont really matter how old it is buddy

Actually, it is a typo. It is a R600 core.

A year from now the 360 will not only go toe to toe with the ps3 it'll outdo the ps3 in the graphics department. You guys understand what he said? Devs that aren't using the 360 gpu as a unified shader gpu and instead configure it as a standard gpu are losing 20-25% of the 360 gpu's true power.

Hardly any developers are truly taking advantage of it yet not even gears of war, mass effect, lost planet or anything else we are seeing. The 360 gpu as good as the games look its potential is barely showing.

Don't get confused the 360 gpu massacres not only an x600, but the best the pc has to offer currently. Show me one gpu currently that can have 48 shader units dedicated to vertex shader processing? Show me a gpu that can even match the 256GB/s framebuffer bandwidth. Show me one gpu that can achieve a 16 gigasamples per second fill rate with 4X MSAA and sustain it.

The message of that article is even though there are developers that configure the 360 gpu as a standard gpu as opposed to the unified shader gpu it really is (probably because they need time to understand the gpu) their games still look and perform amazingly

There are NO 360 titles currently that are even taking advantage of the unified shader capababilities of the 360 which means in a pixel heavy game 20- 25% of the performance is lost. Hell look at awesome mass effect and gears of war look and the ue3 engine doesn't support 2 of the 360's biggest features and yet can still look and perform as well as they are. The ps3 is amazing, but it should be noted the 360 matches it easily and has yet to see its potential fully realized.

optaviusx you should work in marketing if you don't already

The 360 gpu is basically an early r600 gpu. It actually has the same number of shader units as the r600 does, but ati and Microsoft had them disabled to bring down cost and make them easier to manufacture. You know how the cell originally has 8 spe, but 1 is disabled? Well the 360 gpu originally has 64 unified shader pipelines and 16 are disabled.

Had Microsoft decided to make the 360 gpu use all 64 of those unified shader pipelines the 360 MOST DEFINETLY wouldn't have been released november 2005 it would've likely been released sometimes before E3 and the ps3 would've been in alot more trouble in the graphics department had xenos had access to all 64 unified pipes. Even the 10MB of edram was toned down on the 360 it has more memory bandwidth and more memory on it.

Yea I understand kidkit how it can come off as favoring the 360 at times (which I don't I have no problem pointing out the ps3's advantages which i've done on many occassions) but what I said up there is a fact and the ps3 graphically cannot outperform the 360, but that isn't what its about its about the games.

The ps3 gpu has 24 pixel pipes 8 vertex pipes. When it comes to a part in a game where its vertex heavy the 360 gpu performance wise is 6 times faster than the ps3 (no exaggeration it really is 6 times faster in vertex heavy situations)

Its just a simple fact of nature that a unified architecture is superior to a standard gpu why else is BOTH nvidia and ati building their new gpus using a unified design? That alone should be a red flag that the 360 gpu has a huge 1 up on the ps3's rsx.

A unified shader isn't a minor upgrade either it was very revolutionary back when nvidia introduced the vertex shader, a move to a unified shader is just as revolutionary. As even the most powerful pc gpus can ONLY dedicate 8 pipelines to vertex processing whereas the 360 can dedicated 48 pipes to vertex.

Basically just pay attention to 360 titles late 2007 early 2008 by then people should be building engines specifically for xenos. I believe John Carmack already has a brand new graphics engine up and running on the 360.

He should work in marketing?

He invented marketing!

But,fair is fair,the man makes a point.

'bn': Think before talking, please. Then you would realize that I was in no way talking about the 360 GPU when I said 'x600'. DM made a typo where he meant to write R600, 'buddy'.

How the game comes together on the screen has alot more to do than pixel shader thingys. Thosed pixel shaders units are gonna help them move 10 million units by the time ps3 and Wii launch. ditto for JDM.

i meant ...are NOT gonna...

Oh of course graphics aren't what its all about and it alone wont sell 10 million before the ps3 is out. Its great games that will determine how well the 360 or ps3 does in the long run. Games are the reason why the ps2 mopped the floor with the competition last gen not graphical muscle.

The 360 as of now is shockingly (even to my surprise) definetly on track to move 10 million units possibly more before the ps3 is out. Peter Moore is even guaranteeing way more than 10 million are sold before dec 31st of this year.

Now I understand that both sony and microsoft have told their fair share of tall tales, but if we've been noticing Microsoft has been trying their best to talk about only the things they can deliver on so much to the point where they refused to show fancy videos E3 2005 when they easily could've to match sony's showing.

Microsoft as of late has been coming through on many promises including their promises to the improvement of live and their dedication to bring 360 owners to go out of their way for us such as securing GTA 4 on the 360 which was huge. Plus bill gates doesn't normally come on stage and make a "10 million before the comp is out declaration" I just believe they'll pull it off is all. Time will tell though.

Worth of mention.. the 360 has 512MB of GDDR that is at a total speed of 1.4GHZ the ps3 has 256MB of GDDR ram at 700MHZ, but also has 256MB of XDR ram clocked at what? 3.2GHZ!!! The memory bandwidth on the XDR isn't too impressive, but the speed for the memory is incredible. That should be a huge performance plus for the ps3 in numerous occassions with such awesome memory speed. I'm interested in seeing second and third gen ps3 titles to see how the XDR comes into play in a game that is getting more bang for the buck out of the ps3. I'm more than just a little interested in the ps3 which is why I'll likely end up buying one.

OMG wall of text! My eyes...

Now im not 100% sure on anything Im about to say, but isn't the PS3 seriously bottlenecked by its lack of memorry bandwith. The last i heard was that the xbox360 has about 250+ ghz of mem bandwith while the ps3 has under 75, or so? So wont the take away from the speedy memory if it can't communicate with the SPE's as quickly ?