XboX 360 – specifications

Xbox 360 has the latest couple of days created a series of headlines just because of its design and accessories. Now new information has arrived, namely a complete list of the console’s specifications and details on Microsoft’s new Xbox Live! system. Xbox 360 will according to this information use a specially designad PowerPC processor from IBM with three cores at 3.2GHz each. The processor will use 1MB L2-cache and will be backed up by a graphic circuit from ATI with a GPU-frequency at 500MHz GPU and 10MB embedded DRAM. With this you should be able to to play games in HDTV-resolutions 720p and 1080i with a complete set of edge smoothning technologies. In the leaked specifications we find details on hardware and Microsoft’s online-service for Xbox 360.

 

Xbox 360 will as earlier information has revealed use a regular DVD-player, but support more or less all available formats such as MP3, JPEG etc. The console will according to this information be able to change appearance via a chageable front panel, something those who deosn’t appreciate the white deisgn will most likely welcome with arms wide open.

If we look at Microsoft’s Xbox Live-campaign there are two versions, one Silver and one Gold. The Silver doesn’t require any monthly payment but doesn’t offer the same features. Among others gaming via the Silver-service will be limited to weekends and perhaps only a limited amount of titles. Other than that Xbox Live! looks like becoming a big network with everything from downloading games to movie trailers, game demos and much more. A complete list over the leaked specifications can be found below;

Xbox Live! – For all users
– Avatar for gamer profile * #
– Motto for gamer profile * #
– Personalized look for Xbox System Guide * #
– Offline achievments * #
– Cumulative gamer score * #
– Location/language profile * #
– Custom playlist in every game * #
– Play music from portable devices * #
– View images from digital camera * #
– Strem media from Windows XP * #
– Interactive screen savers * #
– Track info for CDs * #

Silver Live! – Users gets this for free
– Access to MMOs (additional fees may apply) *
– Free Xbox Live weekends *
– Online achievements *
– Access to other players’ Gamer cards via Live *
– Reputation *
– Recent players list *
– Free and premium download game content *
– Free and premium downloadable movies, music, tv *
– Downloadable demos/trailers *
– Microtransactions *
– Communication with voice, video or text *

Gold Live! – Users gets this with their subscription
– Seamless transition to Xbox Live account from Xbox to Xbox 360
– Enahnced matchmaking using above
– Skill level matchmaking
– Gameplay style profile (casual, competitive, etc.)
– Multiplayer online gameplay

Xbox 360 hardware:
1. Support for DVD-video, DVD-Rom, DVD-R/RW, CD-DA, CD-Rom, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 cd, JPEG photo CD
2. All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing
3. Customizable face plates to change appearance
4. 3 USB 2.0 ports
5. Support for 4 wireless controllers
6. Detachable 20GB drive
7. Wi-Fi ready

Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU
– 3 symmetrical cores at 3.2 GHz each
– 2 hardware threads per core
– 1 VMX-128 vector unit per core
– 1 MB L2 cache

CPU Game Math Performance
– 9 billion dots per second

Custom ATI Graphics Processor
– 500 MNz
– 10 MB embedded DRAM
– 48-way parallel floating-point shader pipelines
– unified shader architecture

Memory
-512 MB GDDR3 RAM
– 700 MNz DDR

Memory Bandwidth
– 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
– 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
– 21.6 GB/s frontside bus

Audio
– Mulitchannel surround sond output
– Supports 48khz 16-bit audio
– 320 independent decompression channels
– 32 bit processing
– 256+ audio channels

We should perhaps point out that these are unofficial information and some of it looks a bit doubtful. Among other the size of the harddrive that in earlier reports stated a capacity at 40GB. Other than that things looks promising, but you should take this with a pinch of salt but we will hopefully be able to give you a final statement in few days.

Source: Engadget

For those of interested in the more technical aspects of Xbox 360 they’ve started a discussion at Beyond3D about this.