Xbox 360 CPU vs other CPUs?
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The correct answer would be, it does not. It's a purpose-built processor that runs on IBM's PowerPC instruction set, comparing it to a x86 CPU would not make sense. If you must compare raw horsepower, it has 165 milion transistors, about half the first Core 2 Duo had.
Please keep in mind that comparing performance on different instruction sets is really absurd, it's like saying your eggbeater is better than your drill because it spins faster.
Please keep in mind that comparing performance on different instruction sets is really absurd, it's like saying your eggbeater is better than your drill because it spins faster.
Murissokah said:
The correct answer would be, it does not. It's a purpose-built processor that runs on IBM's PowerPC instruction set, comparing it to a x86 CPU would not make sense. If you must compare raw horsepower, it has 165 milion transistors, about half the first Core 2 Duo had.Thats about as many transistors as an atom I would guess.
jay_nar2012 said:
How about if it was given more instructions?That cannot be done. The instruction set is the building block on a CPU architecture. It is a set of operations that are chosen as basic operations. Once that is decided, the hardware is built to run these operations only. When you compile a program for a chosen instruction set, you are translating the program code into a series of basic intructions for which the processor has the hardware to execute. If you were to change the instruction set, your processor would no longer be compatible, you would have to write a new compiler and re-compile all programs for this new architecture.
jay_nar2012 said:
So you can't change instructions after the CPU is made basically as its part of the architecture..How about if it was given more instructions when it was designed?
Then it would have been yet another architecture, a PowerPC variant.
To picture the this, imagine one processor was built with basic operations in mind. It had the hardware to do simple add/subtract operations in one cycle. It understands add/subtract instructions. If you want to multiply, you have issue a lot of add instructions.
A second processor, built for more advanced math, has the hardware for add/subtract/multiply/divide. It takes more transistors to create this hardware, but it now can understand add/subtract/multiply/divide instructions. If you have to multiply, it can do it in one cycle.
So basically, a purpose-built processor has the potential to be a lot more efficient. On the other hand, a lot of improvements are already explored on current architectures, meaning you have to be really creative to gain efficiency.
To try and brings this back on topic, the Xenon CPU (x360) has 165 milion transistors, a Prescott family Pentium 4 had 125 milion, a Conroe Core 2 Duo had 290 milion. The Xenon has the advantage of being purpose-built, so it might be just as fast when runnig the software it was made to run. A direct comparison cannot be made since one cannot run the code compiled for the other.
jay_nar2012 said:
Hmmm, so its worse than a sempron?Aren't Xbox CPUs 3 core ARM CPUs or powerpc CPUs with hyperthreading?
they are IBM triple core CPUs (ive actually visited their plant) that run at 3.2ghz but hardly move much info per cycle so don't confuse them with something like the athlon II x3.
the GPU is basically the old ATI X1800 crossed with some early HD24xxx architecture.
jay_nar2012 said:
Why does nintendo use crappy hardware (There DSi can't even go on the nintendo website).Change of topic i know but why not talk about the consoles?
you are talking about a device at a $125 price point (DSI) or $200 price point (xbox). try building a gaming system at such low price points, you won't be getting the latest & greatest tech and it all needs to be efficient. you can't have a 500w PSU in an xbox/playstation. the good thing about consoles is they get extremely efficient game coding since they all use the same hardware.
The 360's CPU has the "raw" power of about a 2GHz Core 2 Duo or Athlon 64 X2 @ 2.4GHz. As for as the GPU the Xenos (Xbox 360 GPU) is not a reworked X1800, yes it shares the base R500 architecture but it's shaders are unified among a few other differences. The package also contains a 10MB eDRAM die with the ability to do Z-culling, AA, and a few other things that helps take the load off the GPU. Overall "raw" GPU power is about a GeForce 9600 GT.
jay_nar2012 said:
How about wii and PS3?The PS3 on the other hand is different. The Cell (PS3 CPU) is a floating point power house and also has the ability to do vertex operations to assist the GPU, overall performance is hard to judge but FP performance is good (better than 360) but general purpose performance is bad (worse than 360). As for as the GPU, it is a GeForce 7900 GTX (G71) with lower clocks and a chopped in half back-end (128-bit memory bus and 8 ROPS) but it also has a direct connection to Cell (to access system memory if need be) that has about the same bandwidth as the GPU memory bus (about 22GB/s) which can also be used to offload vertex calculations to the Cell.
jay_nar2012 said:
i'm trying to learn a little more about the consoles hardware and what its hardware compares too...The Wii however is basically an overclocked Gamecube with an additional 64MB of external GDDR3 RAM. The CPU is very similar to the G3 (PowerPC 750) which is used in older Power Macs, except it has about 40-50 additional SIMD instructions added. To be specific the CPU is based off the PowerPC 750CXe. The GPU is another matter. It is a DirectX 7 era/feature similar design and performs like a high-end GeForce 4 Ti just without the shaders but instead a TEV unit that can perform similar functions to shaders but not as good.
This is just a summary as the Wii/GC architecture is much more in-depth.
esrever said:
well they are all pretty weak by todays standards but given the hardware, the 360 should provide better performance if you just make a game from scratch with no optimizations.You are correct. The 360 is capable of better performance without optimizations due to it's easier to work with architecture.
jay_nar2012 said:
Microsoft should of upgraded a little when they made the slim..Upgrade it and then what, games made for the slim to take advantage of that extra power couldn't be played on the older systems? There's a reason they never upgrade the power/ram/etc on consoles, because it would leave people with older consoles out in the dust. They get more hard drive space and that's about it, and that comes with the price of hard drives coming down.
getochkn said:
Upgrade it and then what, games made for the slim to take advantage of that extra power couldn't be played on the older systems? There's a reason they never upgrade the power/ram/etc on consoles, because it would leave people with older consoles out in the dust. They get more hard drive space and that's about it, and that comes with the price of hard drives coming down.+1
Gekko (GC CPU): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/GEKK...
Broadway (Wii CPU): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Broa...
Xenon (Xbox 360 CPU): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/KL_M...
Cell Broadband Engine (PS3 CPU): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Ps3-...
Xenos (Xbox 360 GPU): http://cfile7.uf.tistory.com/image/1568B32C4AD6894318B2...
RSX (PS3 GPU): http://img.diytrade.com/cdimg/1281427/21337420/0/133187...
Flipper (GC GPU): http://www.happytrees.org/main-images/chip-v2/ic-photo-...(Flipper_A)--(Gamecube-GPU).jpg
Hollywood (Wii GPU): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Holl...
Broadway (Wii CPU): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Broa...
Xenon (Xbox 360 CPU): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/KL_M...
Cell Broadband Engine (PS3 CPU): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Ps3-...
Xenos (Xbox 360 GPU): http://cfile7.uf.tistory.com/image/1568B32C4AD6894318B2...
RSX (PS3 GPU): http://img.diytrade.com/cdimg/1281427/21337420/0/133187...
Flipper (GC GPU): http://www.happytrees.org/main-images/chip-v2/ic-photo-...(Flipper_A)--(Gamecube-GPU).jpg
Hollywood (Wii GPU): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Holl...
getochkn said:
Yes they're old by today's standards and they were released 7 years ago, so comparing to today's standards is sort of stupid.When they were released, Core2 weren't even out yet. AMD64 just hit the market.
AMD64 hit the market in 2003 with the Opteron 64, however the full specification was finished in August 2000.
nsouter853
August 24, 2012 12:50:54 AM
Compared to a modern gaming desktop, the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 have pretty weak hardware. This is why you see games companies lowering the graphics settings and resolution for the Xbox360/PS3 versions of games, and why PC games have better graphics. In fact, it is true that although you may have a 720p/1080p "capable" Xbox360/PS3 and cable and TV, you will rarely be actually playing with those resolutions, due to the limitations of the hardware.
This is not to say the two consoles are obsolete. They have certain advantages such as co-op (playing with 2-4 screens with your buddies) and price (they are cheap compared to a gaming PC).
This is not to say the two consoles are obsolete. They have certain advantages such as co-op (playing with 2-4 screens with your buddies) and price (they are cheap compared to a gaming PC).
Smeg45
August 24, 2012 1:32:57 AM
Its true that quite a few phones and tablets are faster than consoles. Don't forget though that consoles are designed primarily around games. They don't need to run a fat OS and assorted utilities. All that being said, console tech is 200% obsolete and holding back gaming period. You can see the effects of the llack of memory and grunt that show up in console games - checkpoints, tiny linear boxy levels, low res textures, low draw distance, overuse of blur to hide lack of AA, etc.
thepeanutguy
August 24, 2012 3:06:54 AM
esrever said:
basically 360>ps3>>>>>wiiHow did you arrive at that conclusion ? An optimized PS3 game will look and perform much better than an optimized 360 game.
E.g: Halo 3 runs at an abysmal native resolution of 640p; looks alright.
Gran Turismo 5 runs at native 1080p and looks great.
Obviously, the average video game that was developed on the PC will look ever so slightly better on the Xbox, compared to the PS3.
thepeanutguy said:
How did you arrive at that conclusion ? An optimized PS3 game will look and perform much better than an optimized 360 game.E.g: Halo 3 runs at an abysmal native resolution of 640p; looks alright.
Gran Turismo 5 runs at native 1080p and looks great.
Obviously, the average video game that was developed on the PC will look ever so slightly better on the Xbox, compared to the PS3.
Halo 3 is a 5 year old game. Grand turismo 5 has been in production for 10 years. How are they even comparable games? Halo 3 had a specialized lighting engine on top of the game which made each frame to be rendered 2x thus requiring more power. The gpu and CPU inside the xbox 360 is more capable than the ones inside the ps3. Not only that but the memory architecture inside the xbox is far superior than the ps3. The EDRAM inside the 360 gpu allows the 360 to actually have AA. Look at how grand theft auto 4 on 360 and ps3. PS3 ran at 640p with no AA and lowered textures while the 360 ran at 720p with higher textures and 2x AA.
Almost every multiplatform game looks worse on the ps3. The ps3 exclusives also look worse than the 360 exclusives. There is really nothing to it. PS3's hardware is weaker on paper. The CPU can't effectively be coded for and the gpu is weaker than the 360's. It has no on die ram so there is never anti aliasing. It can't use as high quality textures as the 360. Overall it is the hardware inferior console.
getochkn said:
Upgrade it and then what, games made for the slim to take advantage of that extra power couldn't be played on the older systems? There's a reason they never upgrade the power/ram/etc on consoles, because it would leave people with older consoles out in the dust. They get more hard drive space and that's about it, and that comes with the price of hard drives coming down.I was thinking do what Apple did with their 3rd gen ipods, make 2 xboxs with upgrades and make 1 with old config if that makes sense.
They could make the games run on the new config and old config by disabling certein graphical setting when put in a older console automatically.
Just an idea but what ever.
italiasian
August 24, 2012 8:50:05 AM
thepeanutguy said:
How did you arrive at that conclusion ? An optimized PS3 game will look and perform much better than an optimized 360 game.E.g: Halo 3 runs at an abysmal native resolution of 640p; looks alright.
Gran Turismo 5 runs at native 1080p and looks great.
Obviously, the average video game that was developed on the PC will look ever so slightly better on the Xbox, compared to the PS3.
The ps3 renders the game at 720p but upscale it to 1080i, The xbox is the same.
It's in this list here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_instructions_per_s...
That lists Integer throughput but the Xenon CPU was designed to have significant floating point throughput to help with game logic and physics calculations. The Xenon CPU is capable of about 90 gigaflops, which is just below the 2600k and slightly above the 8150
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_instructions_per_s...
That lists Integer throughput but the Xenon CPU was designed to have significant floating point throughput to help with game logic and physics calculations. The Xenon CPU is capable of about 90 gigaflops, which is just below the 2600k and slightly above the 8150
italiasian
August 24, 2012 9:49:48 AM
jay_nar2012 said:
Is that good or bad?The advantage that console CPUs have over desktop CPUs is that they can get rid of the parts of the CPU that aren't used and replace them with components that are useful to the design of the console.
X86 CPUs are basically just 30 years of incremental updates. While the architecture was separated into high level X86 instructions and low level microcode a long time ago there's still a lot of useless baggage which is just taking up space for no other reason than to ensure that voicemail programs from 1984 will still run on an Ivybridge processor.
The floating point througput on the Xenon processor was very impressive for 2005 and is still good by today's standards. The Integer performance leaves a lot to be desired though. Ultimately the Xenon was a well designed CPU that's still decent 8 years after its debut and I fully expect that Microsoft will employ something similar for the 360's successor.
Pinhedd said:
The advantage that console CPUs have over desktop CPUs is that they can get rid of the parts of the CPU that aren't used and replace them with components that are useful to the design of the console.X86 CPUs are basically just 30 years of incremental updates. While the architecture was separated into high level X86 instructions and low level microcode a long time ago there's still a lot of useless baggage which is just taking up space for no other reason than to ensure that voicemail programs from 1984 will still run on an Ivybridge processor.
The floating point througput on the Xenon processor was very impressive for 2005 and is still good by today's standards. The Integer performance leaves a lot to be desired though. Ultimately the Xenon was a well designed CPU that's still decent 8 years after its debut and I fully expect that Microsoft will employ something similar for the 360's successor.
How about the PS3 and Wii CPU, they any good?
jay_nar2012 said:
How about the PS3 and Wii CPU, they any good?An interesting thing to note about the Wii, 360 and PS3 is that they all employ processors based on the PowerPC architecture. Each implementation is different but the core design is similar
The Wii is simliar to a very scaled down single core 360 processor without the heavy floating point additions (simliar to SSE on x86 CPUs). It's nothing special but it's also cheap and low power, which is what the Wii aimed for.
The PS3's Cell processor is especially interesting because it actually contains two different types of processors. It has a single core processor called the PPE which runs two threads at once (similar to Hyperthreading) and a number of coprocessors called SPEs.
The PPE is based on the PowerPC architecture but is not intended to perform general execution tasks. Instead it acts as a controller and scheduler for the SPEs which are supposed to perform the brunt of the workload. It's worth noting that the Xenon processor for the 360 contains 3 modified PPEs.
The SPEs are individual RISC processors that are interconnected but do not share resources. The PPE is responsible for loading programs and data into the SPEs and configuring the interconnects. The theory behind the construction is that the output of one SPE could act as the input to another SPE. This effectively forms a high-level pipeline architecture.
Since each SPE is basically nothing more than a digital signal processor they swap branch predition and out of order execution for extra execution capacity. This means that code has to be optimized by the compiler because there's little to no hardware optimization.
The floating point throughput on the Cell is very high but it's not as easy to use. Double precision floating point throughput is atrocious but that's not used in games very much
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