Xbox 360: Whats Inside?

System Specs:

• 3 PowerPC processors @ 3GHz each
• ATI graphics chip
• 256MB+ RAM
• DVD drive
• Optional 40 gb HDD

3 processors?

• Yes, Xbox 360 will have three processors, each running at a claimed 3GHz. Yes, we're talking 9GHz of total system juice. On top of that, each processor is capable of running two threads a piece, meaning that the console will be able to handle six instructions simultaneously. How difficult it will be to code for the system is unknown, though it seems quite obvious now that Microsoft's XNA project was made for a very specific purpose.

Who's supplying the hardware?

• IBM is supplying the main processors while ATI will supply the graphics chip.

Graphics chip...

• Xbox 360's GPU is based on ATI's next-generation graphics chip, putting it at least one generation beyond its current X800 card for PCs. That's about all that's known it at this point. Oh, and it will be very fast.

How much RAM will Xbox 360 have?

• The system will have at least 256MB of RAM, possibly 512MB. One theory currently floating around the ourcolony.net hubbub surrounds an image of a clock. The clock has its hands set to 5:00, or in other words, the little hand on 5 and the big hand on 12. Could this be pointing to 512MB of RAM rather than 5 o'clock? Time will tell.

What about video RAM?

• As is the case with the current Xbox, it's rumored that Xbox 360 will make use of a shared memory architecture. That means that the system's 256 or 512MB of RAM will be used for graphics and texture memory as well as things like sound, animation source and of course, the actual game code itself.While the majority of the graphics data will be housed in the shared system RAM, like textures and the like, the video framebuffer will use NEC's dedicated embedded DRAM technology. Long story short, by embedding the framebuffer RAM directly onto the graphics chip, Xbox 360 will be able to perform post-processing features much more quickly, like anti-aliasing and motion blur.