Rumor: Xbox 720 to Have 'Ridiculously Powerful' 16-Core CPU

By Jane McEntegart
published

Hot damn!

Microsoft has been pretty adamant that it won't be bringing the Xbox 720 to E3 2012 but the gossip and rumors about the console rage on regardless. Today's outlandish rumor comes courtesy of Xbox World, which is reporting that the new Xbox will have a 16-core CPU.

The report says that Durango developer kits were sent out last month and while they don't resemble the finished product as far as appearance is concerned, the guts of these kits is representative of the console that is expected next year. We had already heard that the new Xbox 720, codenamed Durango, would pack something along the lines of AMD's Radeon 7000-series in terms of graphics, and XBW is reporting the same, along with a 16-core IBM Power PC CPU.

"It's a ridiculous amount of power for a games machine - too much power, even," the reports states. "But remember, Kinect 2 could chew up four whole cores tracking multiple players right down to their fingertips, so it'll need a lot of power."

As usual, Microsoft hasn't commented on the rumors, preferring instead to stay quiet and let these reports stew away. Still, on the off chance they do comment, we'll be sure to keep you posted.

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Jane McEntegart
199 Comments Comment from the forums
  • SinisterSalad
    A little late for April Fools, isn't it?
    Reply
  • kawininjazx
    I doubt it will be 16 cores, unless it's 16 low clock speed low powered cores. These consoles need to launch for $399 or less in my opinion, so I don't see how you can put a $300 processor in them.
    Reply
  • Shin-san
    I wonder if the end product will have 16 cores. They need to be able to get it under 75W. Also, this is a dev kit, so it may have higher specs or extra cores to handle debugging
    Reply
  • bjaminnyc
    kawininjazxI doubt it will be 16 cores, unless it's 16 low clock speed low powered cores. These consoles need to launch for $399 or less in my opinion, so I don't see how you can put a $300 processor in them.
    I imagine when you buy blocks of 500,000 units the price goes down substantially, if they actually buy them from IBM rather than just buying licencing rights to the chip design. I would think the volume of chips MS would require for the Xbox would double the annual output of what IBM makes for their servers.
    Reply
  • waxdart
    @kawininjazx - They don't make money on the console they make a big loss. Over time they'll get costs down and then make a small profit on each one if they are lucky. The real money comes from the game software and accessory profits. But with this next generation of hardware, there will be a huge amount of online services to really rake in the cash. Sure they don't want to make too much of a loss; but if they are planning this for 10 years, a $300 processor gives it the life span to go the distance.
    Reply
  • molo9000
    The PS3 technically had 8 cores, so 16 cores isn't that outlandish.
    Reply
  • stingstang
    Just reading this article for a good lol.
    Mission accomplished.
    Reply
  • leo2kp
    Anyone else immediately think about playing Skyrim on this?
    Reply
  • neuromancer2701
    molo9000 just about to say that. Current x86 processors have 8 as well. Why these consoles use PowerPC baffle me especially Microsoft(all of the x86 experience they have but the first xbox for hacked like crazy because of the off the shelve processor).
    Reply
  • freggo
    "too much power"

    Seriously; you reporters and writers have to stop using this expression when talking about computers.
    There is no such thing as too much power,speed, memory etc. Programmers will find a way to use any amount of processing power given to them !
    Reply