Xbox 360 – under the hood

Xbox 360 is the very enticipated sequel to Microsoft’s gaming console Xbox and just as Playstation 3 Xbox 360 will be a quite powerful machine. So far we’ve mainly seen pictures of the exterior and some lists of specifications. No articles on the practic use of the console’s hardware so far, unti now that is. At Ars Technica they’ve published the first part of a aeries of articles covering the components of the Xbox 360.

The heart of the Xbox 360 is as you might know a processor from IBM that uses no less than three cores. Together with grpahic circuit from ATI it’s the foundatino to pretty much everything ni Microsoft’s new console. In Ars Technica’s article they guide you in depth through how IBM’s processor work with ATI’s graphic circuit and clearly show that these are both specially made solutions for a gaming console and not your everyday hardware. The article is quite deep and the technology threshold is quite high but with detailed images there is a lot of interesting information to gather even for the not so technical users.

it is quite clear that Microsoft has really thought through the choice of processor when they constructed the Xbox 360. The question is whether they will be able to challenge the Playstation 3 that at least on paper has the more powerful Cell-processor to handle its resources. That Microsoft wants to make use of all the power of Xenon (code name for the processor in Xbox 360) is pretty obvious.

:: Read the first article at Ars Technica