# xBox 360 PPC vs PowerMac PPC



## whitesaint (Nov 20, 2005)

How is it that the xBox 360 coming out tomorrow seems to have just as high performance, if not better performance than today's low/mid-range PowerMacs?  I know that Microsoft is losing money on the consoles and wants to make up for it with game sales, but geez $299-$399 for a triple-core PowerPC gaming console?  That seems like one helluva bargain compared to the $2000 Apple is asking for a dual-core PowerPC machine they have out today.  The most transistors the 2.5 Ghz dual core PowerPC has is 115 million.  But the new xbox's PowerPC has 165 million transistors!  Is Apple really ripping us off this bad?  Or is IBM giving Microsoft the benefit of the doubt when it comes to processor designs?  I'm not trying to sound like im bashing apple and loving microsoft cuz i feel quite the opposite.  I'm quite aware that the Mac OS X *might* make the price worth it, but take a look at the games and graphics for the xBox 360, i'm quite amazed.  Sorry I just need to vent.  But just looking at the statistics for Apple's Quad PowerMac and Microsoft's xBox 360...
Quad PowerMac - 76 Gigaflops - price $3,299
xBox 360 - 116 Gigaflops - price $299-$399
Am I the only one that sees a problem here?


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## MisterMe (Nov 20, 2005)

Oh, please. This has been talked to death.  

Once again for those who haven't been paying attention. The Cell processor used in the Xbox 360 is _not_ a candidate for a general-purpose computer--not from Apple, not from IBM, and not from anyone else. Please do some basic research on this topic. You might begin by searching this forum.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Nov 20, 2005)

Yeah, right.

First of all, you're comparing a box with no expansion capabilities to a highly-expandable desktop computer.  That right there makes your comparison moot -- you might as well be comparing your microwave to your stove in terms of video display capabilities.  Sheesh.

Second of all, as MisterMe said, the processor used in the XBox 360 is NOT a general-purpose desktop computer chip, but a highly specialized multimedia chip.  It would not be suitable in a desktop computer.

Third of all, the XBox 360 (and also the original XBox, the PS2 and the GameCube) are all _dedicated_ machines.  They do one thing (play games) and they do it well.  Computers, on the other hand, are built to handle a variety of tasks -- from multimedia to number crunching to games to video blah blah blah.  There's no comparison.

Microsoft also sells every XBox 360 at a loss.  They lose money every time a unit is sold.  Apple does not.  Every computer unit Apple sells turns a profit for them.

Just because two processors use a similar instruction set does not mean you can compare them.  The processor in the XBox 360 is not a G5 -- while similar to one, it is not one.

In addition, how many XBox 360s do you think Microsoft will sell vs. how many G5-based Macintosh computers Apple will sell?  You think more people will have a 360 or a Macintosh computer?  IBM is selling many more processors for the XBox 360 than they are for Macintosh computers, meaning Microsoft gets a bigger discount than Apple.

There is just absolutely no comparison.



			
				whitesaint said:
			
		

> Am I the only one that sees a problem here?


I certainly hope so!


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## dduck (Nov 21, 2005)

whitesaint said:
			
		

> Am I the only one that sees a problem here?



Well, back when the PS2 came out plenty of people bought into the hype about how fast it was, and talked about building a supercomputer from clusters of PS2's. I even seem to remember Sony and IBM fueling the hype with small stories about how we would probably see high-end workstations using the same chipset soon.

Sounds familiar?

Don't buy into the hype. The chips, software and architecture of consoles is usually only optimized for graphics, and perform badly at general purpose tasks.


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## smithy (Nov 21, 2005)

I wonder whether they will end up putting OS X on it. Wasn't it PearPC or something that installed OS X onto a xbox? Would be interesting to how it would run. 

Does the Xbox have RAM? If so how much, and if it doesn't just ignore this line of my post. Cause it would look rather embarrasing.


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## rcarring (Nov 21, 2005)

Pear PC... this is/was an emulator to let users run OSX on an x86 PC. 

I ran early versions (Summer 04) and it took 6 hours to install 10.2.8 and had all the athletic agility of a snail with two bags of heavy shopping. Even the developers of Pear said it ran at 10% the speed of your basic G4.

I must admit it was the direct cause of me going out and buying a Pismo so I could run OSX on a Mac =)


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## mdnky (Nov 21, 2005)

dduck said:
			
		

> Well, back when the PS2 came out plenty of people bought into the hype about how fast it was, and talked about building a supercomputer from clusters of PS2's.



They've actually built a "super computer" from a cluster of PS2s.

http://arrakis.ncsa.uiuc.edu/ps2/cluster.php


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## fryke (Nov 21, 2005)

If you're really that angry, buy an xbox 360 instead of the PowerMac.  ... No, forget about that smiley... Take that seriously instead: It's not simply "what's in it", it's all about what you can actually _do_ with each machine. There's a completely different marketing strategy. Apple sells you the machine and gives you software for free with it (Mac OS X, iLife etc.). Whereas with the 360 they _push_ the machine down in price in order to sell you software.


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## Mikuro (Nov 21, 2005)

Xbox 360 doesn't use the Cell architecture. That's the PS3. The Xbox 360's design is actually closer to the desktop G5 in philosophy....but further in implementation. ::ha:: 



			
				whitesaint said:
			
		

> Quad PowerMac - 76 Gigaflops - price $3,299
> xBox 360 - 116 Gigaflops - price $299-$399


These are not comparable numbers. In desktop PCs and supercomputers, gigaflops represent _general-purpose_ floating-point operations. In consoles, it is all specialized. Futhermore, in consoles they typically measure the processing power of the graphics card (which usually makes up for most of the power of the system), which is _highly_ specialized. Even though graphics cards are present in desktop machines, they are not counted in general performance measurements, because they're just not relevant.

Specialized devices will always be faster at what they do than desktop computers. DVD players could decode MPEG2 video years before your average desktop PC had that kind of power. That didn't mean that the DVD players were more powerful; they were just better at what they did.

Lots of PC/Mac people have this same crisis every time a new console comes out.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Nov 21, 2005)

smithy said:
			
		

> Does the Xbox have RAM? If so how much, and if it doesn't just ignore this line of my post. Cause it would look rather embarrasing.


EVERY computer has RAM.  XBox 360 has 512MB of it.


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## dduck (Nov 21, 2005)

mdnky said:
			
		

> They've actually built a "super computer" from a cluster of PS2s.
> 
> http://arrakis.ncsa.uiuc.edu/ps2/cluster.php



Well sure it can be done, but it is hardly common, you don't see them show up in the top 500 list, and the PS2 is a bitch to program if you want anything near the theoretical peak from it. 

It is a common marketing stunt. Next we shall see at least one of the console makers claim that they can't export it to some countries as it is technically a supercomputer. Again.


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## symphonix (Nov 21, 2005)

There's really no need to get all   ... IBM have produced a number of customised versions of the PowerPC architecture in the last couple of years, including the processor for the XBox 360, the Nintendo Revolution, and the Playstation 3. All of them are designed specific to the task in hand.

The processor used in the XBox 360 is based on the G4 but heavily modified. Yes, it is dual-core, but each core is only a tiny subset of what you get on a full-scale G4 processor. Much of the RISC (Altivec) instruction set, the pipelines and caches, and mathematical systems have all been changed to optimise the processor for console use. It'll probably never be public knowledge how these systems have been changed since the version of the PPC used by the 360 is proprietary of Microsoft, and they won't share any more info than is needed to the developers, for obvious reasons.

IBM has allways and will always be putting the best of their PPC technology into the IBM Power series servers, with the lessons learnt from that trickling down to each of the other PPC projects. Each of the teams for Nintendo, Microsoft and Cell projects are extremely secretive and seperate, even by IBM standards.     I can't really say any more than that, even if I did have any real info, but I an assure you that there is no favouritism toward any one of these companies and that the people working on the PPC processors are always giving it their all to ensure that they're as competitive, cost-effective and powerful as possible.

I sorry to rant, I just felt that all the   was doing the hundreds of people who work on PPC a disservice.


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## whitesaint (Nov 21, 2005)

As already said, Cell is used in the PS3, and Sony made an announcement a while back that Mac OS X would be able to run on the Cell with little to no modification.  I realize that the xBox 360 is targeted for gamers, but aside from that, the next xbox plays dvds, video, music, streaming, and will eventually do high def (if it doesn't already).

I would say the processor in the next xbox is pretty much a triple-core G5.  The processor is a 64 bit PowerPC with three cores based on the design of the 970.  I'm not sure but i would expect the amount of xbox's microsoft sells and the number of powermacs apple sell would probably be about the same, and I actually believe that microsoft will sell more xbox's that powermacs.  The CPU in the new xbox is a dedicated microprocessor just like the original xbox.  When I said 165 Gigaflops for the xbox 360, i wasn't including the graphics processor.  The xbox 360 has a dedicated ATI graphics chip as well.  If I were including both the PowerPC and the ATI GPU, performance would theoretically be 1 Teraflop!  So the xbox 360 is not as "specialized" as you guys are saying, it can do many things a PC can do, probably better.

I understand there are plenty of things Mac OS X can do better, but xBox 360 is almost up there with it.  and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before a group of hackers install OSX on an xBox 360.


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## HateEternal (Nov 21, 2005)

Did you read what everyone else said? The Xbox hardware is SPECIALIZED. Notice how someone pointed out it only has 512MB of RAM? That isn't a whole lot in todays desktop computer world. I wouldn't even recommend running OS X on that much RAM but the XBox will be fine because it doesn't have to deal with everything that a real computer does. Take the PS2 for example, technologywise that thing is sooo outdated. I still can't figure out how they get massive games like GTA to run on that thing. It has like a 300mhz processor and 32mb of RAM. Would GTA ever run on a computer like that... god, it wasn't event that amazing on my athlon 1800xp machine with 512mb of ram and a GF2.


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## whitesaint (Nov 21, 2005)

I have 512 MB for muh eMac and it runs great.  I'm sure later on the xbox will be able to upgrade the ram, like right now the xBox 360 has a removable hard drive.  It's really not as specialized as you're making it out to be, it has just about all the same components our Macs have, and faster.  True, the PS2 does have a 300 Mhz processor but it is probably faster than some of our computers.  Just because it is 300 Mhz doesn't mean it is slow.  The 300 Mhz processor the PS2 uses, "Emotion Engine", processes data in 128 bit chunks, so technically it is very fast, if you want to put it like that, the 300 Mhz processor should be equal to a 1200 Mhz G3 or G4 depending on how you look at it.  None of our graphics cards run faster than 400 or 500 Mhz, does that make them slow? No, they just process data in very large chunks at a time, which makes up for clockspeed, the same argument we use to use for the G4 against the P4 back in the day because the G4 could process data in larger chunks than the P4 could despite it's slower clockspeed which made up for performance.


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## gerbick (Nov 21, 2005)

MisterMe said:
			
		

> Once again for those who haven't been paying attention. The Cell processor used in the Xbox 360 is _not_ a candidate for a general-purpose computer--not from Apple, not from IBM, and not from anyone else. Please do some basic research on this topic. You might begin by searching this forum.


Please do some basic research yourself.  Cell is from IBM, Toshiba and Sony.  Not IBM and Microsoft... that's the Xenon processor.

Hit up http://www.arstechnica.com and search.  You'll find out the differences real quick.


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## MisterMe (Nov 21, 2005)

gerbick said:
			
		

> Please do some basic research yourself.  Cell is from IBM, Toshiba and Sony.  Not IBM and Microsoft... that's the Xenon processor.
> 
> Hit up http://www.arstechnica.com and search.  You'll find out the differences real quick.


Thanks for your prompt correction. I'll just ignore those other posts from people who were even quicker.


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## fryke (Nov 21, 2005)

Okay. So let's say the X-Box 360 isn't as specialised as some of us say it is. Let's say it's a fairly basic PC with quite a good G5 processor variant. Where's the problem?
If the problem is that the x-box does all you want and is cheap: Get one. Or two. Or twelve and do what you usually do with your supercomputer clusters.
If the problem however is that "Apple charges too much for PowerMacs", then I'd say the x-box just _IS_ the wrong thing to compare to. At least for me: Totally. I do graphics design and am a story writer. For both things, the x-box is highly inadequate. Nothing to compare, really.
If the problem is that IBM charges Apple too much for the PowerPC processors and doesn't develop the chips that Apple _needs_ (and not at the right prices), then Apple has already _solved_ the problem by moving on to intel processors.

So again: What exactly is the problem - and wasn't it answered already in this thread?


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## gerbick (Nov 21, 2005)

MisterMe said:
			
		

> Thanks for your prompt correction. I'll just ignore those other posts from people who were even quicker.


You're quite welcome.  You never changed your original post, so I thought you needed an echo, echo...


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## gerbick (Nov 21, 2005)

fryke said:
			
		

> Okay. So let's say the X-Box 360 isn't as specialised as some of us say it is. Let's say it's a fairly basic PC with quite a good G5 processor variant. Where's the problem?
> If the problem is that the x-box does all you want and is cheap: Get one. Or two. Or twelve and do what you usually do with your supercomputer clusters.
> If the problem however is that "Apple charges too much for PowerMacs", then I'd say the x-box just _IS_ the wrong thing to compare to. At least for me: Totally. I do graphics design and am a story writer. For both things, the x-box is highly inadequate. Nothing to compare, really.
> If the problem is that IBM charges Apple too much for the PowerPC processors and doesn't develop the chips that Apple _needs_ (and not at the right prices), then Apple has already _solved_ the problem by moving on to intel processors.
> ...


Hey... just like people hacked the original XBOX to be a media center... perhaps they'll do it to this one too.

As far as the "Apple charges too much for PowerMacs" argument... (Edited: Read board rules about importing other forums' threads...) I just don't get it.

I mean... the original NES in Japan could go online, but it didn't mean I'd use an Office product on it anytime soon.  Nor would it replace my then computer.  As stated countless times in this thread... it's a single purpose CPU - for games - that's *based* off of the PowerPC general purpose CPU instruction set.

If I get a XBOX360, it'll be for a video game.  A fun one.  Not because I think it'll replace a dual-core G5 at 1/8th the price or so.


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## whitesaint (Nov 21, 2005)

Okay, the xBox does not do graphic editing and story writing, but the things it does do, DVDs, Music, Games, HD, it should be a good value for anyone wanting to do just those things.  Besides isn't Microsoft trying to place the xBox 360 as a "digital hub"?  It's just that those are some of the most common tasks performed by users for entertainment purposes so It looks like a good digital hub to me.   But for someone who wants to do more, does such a high increase in price justify that and the expandibility?  I guess it does.  Like I said earlier, it's only a matter of time before Linux and OSX work on the xBox 360. sorry for being a jack@$$.


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## gerbick (Nov 21, 2005)

I don't think anybody called you a jackass.  It's just that you're comparing a bowie knife - a single blade knife - to a swiss army knife - multiple blades and utensils... or respectively, a XBOX360 to a PowerMac.

As far as it being a digital hub, you're right.  It's *part* of one... it'll allow the PSP and a Windows Media PC enabled machine to connect to it, and stream content from it or to it.  But it's not going to replace a PowerMac/PC.

Not unless there's some great hacks coming for it... which I seriously can't wait for anyway.


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## jarinteractive (Nov 21, 2005)

MisterMe said:
			
		

> Once again for those who haven't been paying attention. The Cell processor used in the Xbox 360 is _not_ a candidate for a general-purpose computer--not from Apple, not from IBM, and not from anyone else.



The Xbox 360 doesn not use the Cell processor.  It uses a PowerPC processor similar to the G5.  Of course the system is tuned for gaming performance as everyone else is saying...  It is the PS3 that will be using the Cell processor.

-JARinteractive


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## gerbick (Nov 21, 2005)

Watch it... he might point out there were some other earlier entries about correcting just that


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## Stridder44 (Nov 21, 2005)

Xbox has 512 RAM yes, but the PS3 has 256....running at the same speed as the processor! (FYI thats like 3.2 Ghz)


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## Stridder44 (Nov 21, 2005)

For sh!t$....

_Product name: PlayStation 3

Logo: PLAYSTATION(R)3

CPU

Cell Processor
PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz
1 VMX vector unit per core
512KB L2 cache
7 x SPE @3.2GHz
7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs
7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE
* 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy
total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS

GPU
RSX @550MHz
1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance
Full HD (up to 1080p) x 2 channels
Multi-way programmable parallel floating point shader pipelines

Sound
Dolby 5.1ch, DTS, LPCM, etc. (Cell- base processing)

Memory
256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz 256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz

System Bandwidth
Main RAM 25.6GB/s
VRAM 22.4GB/s
RSX 20GB/s (write) + 15GB/s (read) 
SB< 2.5GB/s (write) + 2.5GB/s (read)

System Floating Point Performance
2 TFLOPS

Storage
Detachable 2.5" HDD slot x 1

I/O
USB Front x 4, Rear x 2 (USB2.0) 
Memory Stick standard/Duo, PRO x 1
SD standard/mini x 1
CompactFlash (Type I, II) x 1

Communication
Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T) x 3 (input x 1 + output x 2) 
Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 b/g
Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR)

Controller
Bluetooth (up to 7) 
USB 2.0 (wired) 
Wi-Fi (PSP) 
Network (over IP) 

AV Output
Screen size: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
HDMI: HDMI out x 2
Analog: AV MULTI OUT x 1
Digital audio: DIGITAL OUT (OPTICAL) x 1

Disc Media
CD PlayStation CD-ROM, PlayStation 2 CD-ROM, CD-DA, CD-DA (ROM), CD-R, CD-RW, SACD, SACD Hybrid (CD layer), SACD HD, DualDisc, DualDisc (audio side), DualDisc (DVD side) 
DVD: PlayStation 2 DVD-ROM, PlayStation 3 DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW
Blu-ray Disc: PlayStation 3 BD-ROM, BD-Video, BD-ROM, BD-R, BD-RE
_


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## MisterMe (Nov 21, 2005)

jarinteractive said:
			
		

> The Xbox 360 doesn not use the Cell processor.  It uses a PowerPC processor similar to the G5.  Of course the system is tuned for gaming performance as everyone else is saying...  It is the PS3 that will be using the Cell processor.
> 
> -JARinteractive


As predicted by *gerbick*: Thank you for your prompt correction. I'll just ignore those other posts from people who were even quicker.


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## whitesaint (Nov 21, 2005)

It doesn't surprise me that the PS3 is about twice as fast as the 360.  IMO the "SPE's" can almost be considered "velocity engines" or vector processing units that crunch data at a phenomenal rate just like the G4 and G5's velocity engines do.  I mean I remember years and years ago when IBM/Sony/Toshiba were coming out with a revolutionary prcoessor called the mysterious Cell, based on PowerPC of course, and it seems to have lived up to the hype.  But yea, if anything, screw Microsoft, I'd rather buy a PS3 if I had enough money. The PS3 specifications look more impressive even though it's gonna be shipped slightly later than the xBox 360.  But while we're on the subject of other consoles, if anything I would go for the Nintendo Revolution just for the controller which is just so amazing.  Nintendo used a PowerPC in the the GameCube (cube sounds familiar), so maybe they are ahead of their time.  They revolutionized the Gaming Industry 20 years ago, so why cant they do it again?

Anybody see that remake of FF7 for PS3?  Looks absolutely AMAZING.


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## Stridder44 (Nov 21, 2005)

whitesaint said:
			
		

> Anybody see that remake of FF7 for PS3?  Looks absolutely AMAZING.



....WHAT?! 


...oh sweet Jesus yes...


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## Captain Code (Nov 21, 2005)

The PPC chip used in the 360 has (from what I remember)no out of order execution and I believe no or little branch pediction.  Those 2 things make it really bad for general purpose programs, but games don't need that and neither does DVD decoding or playing music.


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## HateEternal (Nov 23, 2005)

ahhhhhh good ole' Microsoft
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/23/138200&tid=128&tid=211&tid=10


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Nov 23, 2005)

D'oh!  And I was gonna get one, too!

Looks like I'll be waiting to see how the PS3 fares now to make a final decision.  It's the online gaming that's got me hooked -- one of the reasons I chose the original XBox over the PS2.  PS2 just can't compete with XBox in terms of online play.


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## nixgeek (Nov 23, 2005)

My cousin bought it and has told me that he hasn't had these issues.  He also made a point that the PS2 and the original XBOX also suffered from the same issues.  I have to agree with him on this, but this does put a damper on me wanting to purchase one soon.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Nov 23, 2005)

Well, if it's only as prevalent on the 360 as it is on the original XBox, I'll get one -- my XBox is a 1st generation unit, so I would expect it to have the most bugs of any XBox release... it's only frozen on me about 3 times in its life.

Damn Microsoft to Hades, but boy do they make a mean gaming machine.


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## HateEternal (Nov 23, 2005)

I have to say, I was always an XBox hater... mainly because it came from Microsoft but also the type of people that had them... most of them pissed me off. The only redeming quality for the XBox 1 was the fact that you could h4ck the sh@# out of it and get it to do almost anything. One of my roommates got one last year and we had a blast messing with it. The best part was that the most play it ever got was from people playing emulated games on it.

Anyways, the more I have read about this thing the more cool it sounds. It seems like MS did a great job making this thing really flexible. The online content  (marketplace) sounds really neat. It is compatible with all sorts of USB storage devices including iPod!!! It's got all sorts of media stuff built in, they didn't try and screw you like they did the last time around when you had to buy the stupid controller to play DVDs.

The only thing that looks really lame is the crappy 20GB hd that costs like 100 bucks. You can get 250 GB SATA drives for that much.

Haha... I'm never going to get one though. I don't even use my gaming machine...


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## nixgeek (Nov 24, 2005)

ElDiabloConCaca said:
			
		

> Well, if it's only as prevalent on the 360 as it is on the original XBox, I'll get one -- my XBox is a 1st generation unit, so I would expect it to have the most bugs of any XBox release... it's only frozen on me about 3 times in its life.
> 
> Damn Microsoft to Hades, but boy do they make a mean gaming machine.



I've always liked Microsoft's hardware (mouse, keyboard, gaming systems, etc).  Good quality stuff.

Too bad their software isn't of the same quality.


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## Lt Major Burns (Nov 24, 2005)

aren't microsoft a software company, primarily?


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## nixgeek (Nov 24, 2005)

Lt Major Burns said:
			
		

> aren't microsoft a software company, primarily?



Sadly yes....oh well, whoever is making their hardware (while clutching his red stapler) is doing a bang up job.


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## fuzz (Nov 24, 2005)

yes, microsoft has an product design division ... i met one of the senior designers there b4.


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## Viro (Nov 24, 2005)

Captain Code said:
			
		

> The PPC chip used in the 360 has (from what I remember)no out of order execution and I believe *no or little branch pediction*.  Those 2 things make it really bad for general purpose programs, but *games don't need that* and neither does DVD decoding or playing music.



Honestly? What about physics? And the rest of the Game AI? Most of these are finite state machines, and unless I'm mistaken, they are branch intensive.  Like most of game AI is. Witness the poor performance the Pentium 4 has compared to the Athlon 64 in chess games. That's due to the branch prediction penalty that is much higher on the Pentium 4, due to it's longer pipeline. 

The lack of a branch predictor on the Xbox 360 will be a real downer, if true. So much for more physically realistic and intelligent games. Bring on the eye candy, I say.


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## Oscar Castillo (Nov 24, 2005)

nixgeek said:
			
		

> I've always liked Microsoft's hardware (mouse, keyboard, gaming systems, etc).  Good quality stuff.
> 
> Too bad their software isn't of the same quality.



Looks like early adopters are already having troubles . The new Illegible Screen Of Death.


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## Lt Major Burns (Nov 25, 2005)

there a wonderful comment on there.  third one down.  brilliant.


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## whitesaint (Nov 25, 2005)

The core system doesn't have a graphics card?!  Is that really true?


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## Lt Major Burns (Nov 25, 2005)

no.  that's stupid.  the only difference is wifi pads and a harddrive.

every computer with a screen has a graphics chip. some are better than others, but to display visuals, it needs a graphics chip.  the 360 has a particularly good ATi one.


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## Oscar Castillo (Nov 25, 2005)

I'll definitely get one if one is available my way. Although I'm not huge on gaming, the prospect of hacks for the rev 1 hardware will probably be much higher than subsequent releases.
I would of thought the system would of come with more RAM, like 1GB instead of 512.


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## Cain (Nov 29, 2005)

To take this full circle... I think that the 360 could make a decent powermac repacement... Here's the very technical XBOX-360 PPC CPU core breakdown (some of which is in mandrin).. http://www.ccw.com.cn/notebook/pczx/sy/htm2005/20051028_16OMI.htm

You can add memory to the motherboard, and probably soon a decent SATA hard drive... I think the www.free60.org project is doing a good job, working out all this, and I think we should OS-X/Xbox-360 capability in a few months. (thats my main intention)


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## Johndoemanny34362 (Nov 29, 2005)

Lt Major Burns said:
			
		

> no.  that's stupid.  the only difference is wifi pads and a harddrive.
> 
> every computer with a screen has a graphics chip. some are better than others, but to display visuals, it needs a graphics chip.  the 360 has a particularly good ATi one.



Wow if it were directly to the noob 3rd poster i would say you owned him. What a noob, all forms of display need a video chip, even watches and digital clocks.


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## ex2bot (Nov 29, 2005)

By the way, and slightly off topic, why don't they call the company MegaHard, instead of Microsoft? Seems somehow inadequate, and stuff.

BTW Mister Me, The Xbox 360 doesn't use the Cell processor. It uses a PowerPC processor similar to the G5. The Cell processor is in the Atari 2600.

And Power Macs ARE overpriced. Way. Like, why can't we get the base model for $1500? Why $2000!!!? for the base model. I mean, they're real pretty, and funky, but ~$500 more than a comparable machine? Don't get me started.


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## MacFreak (Dec 1, 2005)

Overpriced? Nah.. Because the PowerMacs included many features of softwares, hardwares, and plenty room for upgrades than what 360 have! PowerMacs can last longer than 360..


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## fryke (Dec 2, 2005)

Well, so does a good nail, but it costs a few cents only.  Ah, all this comparing of apples and lemons makes me tired...


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## JohnnyV (Dec 2, 2005)

As for the 360s crashing, it seems to be related to the power supply overheating.  Couple of guys found that by hanging it up they can eliminate the crashes.  Wait for a recall on the powersupplies after xmas (when the bad press won't affect sales too much)


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