xBox 360 PPC vs PowerMac PPC

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@$$.
 
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.
 
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.
Click to expand...

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
 
Xbox has 512 RAM yes, but the PS3 has 256....running at the same speed as the processor! (FYI thats like 3.2 Ghz)
 
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
 
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
Click to expand...
As predicted by gerbick: Thank you for your prompt correction. I'll just ignore those other posts from people who were even quicker.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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. :rolleyes:
 
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 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...
 
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.
Click to expand...

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. :D
 
Lt Major Burns said:
aren't microsoft a software company, primarily? :p
Click to expand...

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

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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