Xbox 720 is Coming. November 2013

Overheal

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/01/24/xbox-720-will-be-six-times-as-powerful-as-current-gen

The next Xbox will ship to retailers in late October or early November of next year with six times the processing power of the Xbox 360, sources close to the project have told IGN.

Following initial reports from tech blogs Fudzilla and SemiAccurate, our sources have confirmed that mass production of the system's GPU will indeed begin by the end of 2012 but will not, however, be based on AMD's 7000 series Southern Islands GPU. Instead, the processor will be derived from the 6000 series, which was introduced last year. More specifically, it will be akin to the Radeon HD 6670, which offers support for DirectX11, multidisplay output, 3D and 1080p HD output. The chip currently has a market price of upwards of $79.99.

In real terms, the Xbox 720's raw graphics processing power is expected to be six times that of the Xbox 360 and will yield 20-percent greater performance than Nintendo's forthcoming console, the Wii U.

Developers are likely to receive development kits based on the system's final configuration in August. Projected pricing for the console was not provided.

Reported from inside sources and carried by IGN I'd say this information is Legit. It's supposed to be 6 times as powerful - no sh*t. The specification for the 360 is ancient by hardware standards. Good for them.

Speculate on it's price? I'm going with upward of $600.

Either way it's a welcome relief for PC gamers: Developers will finally get their fascination with DX9 over with.

hidinginthebush

Sounds savage! I'm starting to think about making the switch to PC gaming, but think I'll hold out until these come out and see how they compare to similarily-priced desktops. Can't wait to see what sort of games will be out on these!

Garseys

i think the RRP will be competitive enough... I'm gonna go with about 400 on release.

Shakeyspears

Apparently, they are going to have a DVR built into the system for recording tv or even gameplay. I'm going to start saving now....

Stev_o

hidinginthebush wrote: »

Sounds savage! I'm starting to think about making the switch to PC gaming, but think I'll hold out until these come out and see how they compare to similarily-priced desktops. Can't wait to see what sort of games will be out on these!

Call of Honour: Modern Battlefield White Ops, with Strike at Nuke Village in Space with roaming Zombies DLC sold separately.

maximoose

I really hope it isn't ACTUALLY called Xbox 720.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Overheal wrote: »

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/01/24/xbox-720-will-be-six-times-as-powerful-as-current-gen



Reported from inside sources and carried by IGN I'd say this information is Legit. It's supposed to be 6 times as powerful - no sh*t. The specification for the 360 is ancient by hardware standards. Good for them.

Speculate on it's price? I'm going with upward of $600.

Either way it's a welcome relief for PC gamers: Developers will finally get their fascination with DX9 over with.

600 dollars?
I guess we can put the "console game is so much cheaper than pc gaming" to rest for a couple of years then

Overheal

Shakeyspears wrote: »

Apparently, they are going to have a DVR built into the system for recording tv or even gameplay. I'm going to start saving now....

Maybe. The functionality is installed into Windows 7 as a footnote. All you need is the TV input and Windows Media Center handles the rest.

Overheal

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

600 dollars?
I guess we can put the "console game is so much cheaper than pc gaming" to rest for a couple of years then

Spitballing. If it followed the same release as the 360 and account for inflation the system would be $450 and the core unit would be $350.

I'd actually prefer they made the systems more expensive so they did more, but the hell do I know.

Another thing to consider is the cost of HDD media right now.

ShadowHearth

600$ for ati 6670.... ouch...


okay, so it will be 6 times more powerfull then xbox 360, but its still going to be laughable compared to PC standarts.

this is very rough way to compare:

this is the current GPU in new PC compared to 6670

http://www.hwcompare.com/10684/geforce-gtx-570-vs-radeon-hd-6670-oem/

not this is GPU that is in my 5+ year old machine. GPU was updated for 170eu last summer

http://www.hwcompare.com/10709/radeon-hd-6670-oem-vs-radeon-hd-6870/


now i dont want to start a PC vs console war, i just want to show a non pc crowd and people who dont know much about PC components what does it mean. they say it will be 6 times more powerful then xbox, but in reality its still very old technology.

yes, they will use the power on console more efficient, but still it wont beat current gaming gpus on pc. we are talking about almost 1.5 years untill release and there will even faster GPUs out and current ones will be even cheaper. what will happen 1-2 years in to console cycle?

i had hopes that next gen consoles will bring it more to PC level of performance so the gap would be smaller, unfortunately they are doing same thing they did with xbox 360. . it will mean that i will be sticking with my good old pc gaming for way longer then expected.

now please dont understand it as some attack VS consoles! i am not making fanboism war! just trying to show bigger picture! and yes, PCs have their own dissatvantages too bla bla bla!

McGrath5

My general feeling towards the rumoured next gen consoles is very meh.
This will probably force Sony into releasing the next generation of Playstation console earlier then they would like too. meh.

marco_polo

A current mid range ($100) graphics card seems a slightly odd choice, considering the XBox360 launched with the equivelant of an ultra high end card (~ $400+ ATI X1900XT)?

ShadowHearth

marco_polo wrote: »

A current mid range ($100) graphics card seems a slightly odd choice, considering the XBox360 launched with the equivelant of an ultra high end card (~ $400+ ATI X1900XT)?

good, i am not the only one so.

the choice of GPU makes me wonder... i could even go as far as saying: its trolling...

aperture_nuig

If this is true, I honestly don't see why it means Sony have to rush out the ps4? How does the purported 720 gpu compare with the PS3's current hardware?

cloud493

Looks to be impressive hardware. But I've never really gelled with the xbox, so it won't be for me I don't think this will pressure Sony, sure they'll have learnt their lesson after the disaster of the PS3 launch, I think they'll take their time. PS3 still has a lot of power to squeeze.

Harps

A bit odd all right, never had a good enough PC to play modern games but if this thing is going to be a couple of years behind PC's on release and cost nearly as much then there's not much incentive to buy one. It'd be far smarter to pay slightly more for a PC and get a machine that can do far more

At least it'll finally push forward better graphics and engines which have been pretty much stagnant for the past 5 years

Shiminay

It's not fair to compare that video card in a PC to how it'll perform on an XBox. The console will have streamlined specific drivers written for it and should squeeze way more performance out of it than a PC would. Even now, with very old tech, the graphics on the 360 are far from bad.

An "older" card like this should help keep the price down too.

They just need to make sure the thing is quiet and cool - the noise and RROD of the older 360's were far from acceptable.

ShadowHearth

cloud493 wrote: »

Looks to be impressive hardware. But I've never really gelled with the xbox, so it won't be for me I don't think this will pressure Sony, sure they'll have learnt their lesson after the disaster of the PS3 launch, I think they'll take their time. PS3 still has a lot of power to squeeze.

well problem is, that hardware does not look impresive, it looks really horrible.

the only thing that makes it look great: "6 times faster then old xbox 360" which in real world means **** all, unless you show numbers and can prove it.

old xbox was built around 7800 and if you make a card 6x7800, then it will be a beast and not 6670 mid range GPU that is not even recomended to play games on...

Retr0gamer

That GPU is very underpowered if it is true. I'm really in no rush for the next generation of hardware though although I believe hardware gets killed off far too quickly.

Sony got stung with the Cell CPU last time around so you can be pretty sure that when the PS4 comes along it too will be based on off the shelf PC parts.

marco_polo

Shiminay wrote: »

It's not fair to compare that video card in a PC to how it'll perform on an XBox. The console will have streamlined specific drivers written for it and should squeeze way more performance out of it than a PC would. Even now, with very old tech, the graphics on the 360 are far from bad.

An "older" card like this should help keep the price down too.

They just need to make sure the thing is quiet and cool - the noise and RROD of the older 360's were far from acceptable.

All of that is absolutely true but starting from a much lower relative hardware baseline I just don't see how it could have anything remotely approaching the longevity of the current incarnation.

ShadowHearth

right so far i checked few benchmarks and this is just an rough look:

they want squize out the power out of 6670 to be as high as gtx590*

*xbox360 gpu ( rumored to be around nvidia 7800 ) x 6 will bring it up to gtx590

no matter what freaking drivers you will make you cant make mid range 6670 to perform like dual gpu high end current gen card...

Stevo105

Services like OnLive.com will be the death of the Consoles. No physical media to worry about or losing business to trade-ins or out of date hardware in 6 months.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0gA8MUMQak&feature=player_embedded

EDIT: its in its early stages right now. But by the time the next PS/XBOX is release more services like this will be available. But if you can afford 400-600 euro get a PC which has 1000's of free games and AAA game titles for under 20 euro... User created MODS...the list goes on.

gizmo

aperture_nuig wrote: »

If this is true, I honestly don't see why it means Sony have to rush out the ps4? How does the purported 720 gpu compare with the PS3's current hardware?

Given that the current 360 GPU outperforms the PS3 one, I'd imagine the 720 version will compare quite well.

With regards the proposed GPU, well it's not as bad as it's made out to be for a number of reason:

1) Well the basic point, it's not finalised at all yet. Given the changes that took place in the 360 dev kits from when they were first sent out to studios to when they were released I'd say there'll be some considerable changes to come.

2) If the 720 GPU design is anything like the 360 GPU design then it will not, under any circumstances, be a straight comparison between the desktop and console parts. Not only did the Xenos chip, despite its relation to AMD's R520 family, feature functionality not seen until the later DX10 desktop parts arrvied but the presence of the eDRAM on the chip completely changed the preformance profile of the part when compared to said desktop equivalents.

3) What will the Xbox 720 actually be targetting resolution wise? It'll be 1080p, not some of the higher resolutions currently sported by many PCs. If the console can pull off 1080p @ 60fps with various full screen effects such as AA and Anisotropic filtering at a general graphics quality that is somewhere around the X6 mark of the current gen then I think we'd be onto a winner.

Retr0gamer

I'd put money on games still running at 720p and 30 FPS. The trade off of performance to visuals is too great.

VinLieger

I wish people would stop calling it the Xbox 720 and just call it the next xbox, since its pretty much guaranteed they wont be calling it that since its simply a stupid naming convention that they need to not lock themselves into

wes

This is all rumour right now, but I can't imagine they will stick with that GPU, if we are looking at a lateish 2013 rlease. We may see something similar to what happened with the 360.

ShadowHearth

Stevo105 wrote: »

Services like OnLive.com will be the death of the Consoles. No physical media to worry about or losing business to trade-ins or out of date hardware in 6 months.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0gA8MUMQak&feature=player_embedded

EDIT: its in its early stages right now. But by the time the next PS/XBOX is release more services like this will be available. But if you can afford 400-600 euro get a PC which has 1000's of free games and AAA game titles for under 20 euro... User created MODS...the list goes on.

just as you said that i went and tried it out myself for ****s and giggles.

its deffenetly not for irish boradband. i got 10mbit stable connection and it was impossible to play bioshock. input lag was very bad. i had play on very low resolution which made everything look very very bad.

i am impressed by technology, but i really dont think it will make consoles and gaming pcs go away in near future.

on the bright side: i got a perfect platform to demo games i want to buy. 30 min trial can be abused as ****.

Myrddin

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'd put money on games still running at 720p and 30 FPS. The trade off of performance to visuals is too great.

I'd be very surprised at that. 1080p @ 60 should be the baseline of next gen hardware. I'd echo some of the above & say it won't be a direct comparison between pc & console parts. At any rate, why have it overpowered? All that'll do is generate excess heat...& the jump in visuals isn't nearly as great as we've seen with previous generational jumps.

If the specs allow it to run next gen software, at 1080p & 60fps...anything else is a waste. MS know what they're at, the PS3 was so overcomplicated, it took years for devs to get to grips. This way, the next Xbox could hit the ground running

gizmo

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'd put money on games still running at 720p and 30 FPS. The trade off of performance to visuals is too great.

In that case it would (or at least should ) be a trade off between 1080p@30 versus 1080p@60 depending on the complexity of the game/scene/graphics. The only thing I can see holding that up are the rather depressing figures I saw awhile back for the number of people running the current generation consoles on not only SD TVs but SD 4:3 TVs.

Regarding the cost of the actual GPU by the way, according to the iSuppli teardown of the 360 back in 2005, the Xenos part accounted for $141 out of the overal $341 cost per console. So I'd regard the $600 price tag guessed by some users to be way off the mark based on any info we have at the moment.

Twilightning

It looks like the "upgrade every 2 minutes" **** consoleplayers like to use as a negative point against PC gaming is out the window with this startling revelation. I think I'll be good with my 6970 until 2020 at the rate consoles are evolving.

JustAddWater

marco_polo wrote: »

A current mid range ($100) graphics card seems a slightly odd choice, considering the XBox360 launched with the equivelant of an ultra high end card (~ $400+ ATI X1900XT)?

And a sheeeeeeet load of RROD ... I would imagine they dont want a repeat of this and want a tried and tested video card that does what they want it to

They don't need a video card that can make your breakfast and travel faster than a concorde.... It's too much to power and would only be a repeat of 360 Launch consoles

Stevo105

ShadowHearth wrote: »

on the bright side: i got a perfect platform to demo games i want to buy. 30 min trial can be abused as ****.

Yes this is best use of it for the moment. great way to tial games without installing before you buy. I wonder what it's like with UPC 100meg?

Myrddin

JustAddWater wrote: »

And a sheeeeeeet load of RROD ... I would imagine they dont want a repeat of this and want a tried and tested video card that does what they want it to

They don't need a video card that can make your breakfast and travel faster than a concorde.... It's too much to power and would only be a repeat of 360 Launch consoles

The RROD, & PS3's YLOD, are generally caused by piss poor quality lead free solder at the factory. Sure it saves the planet, and all the logistics of shipping broken consoles around, repairing, replacing & more shipping doesn't count

Liam O

Twilightning wrote: »

It looks like the "upgrade every 2 minutes" **** consoleplayers like to use as a negative point against PC gaming is out the window with this startling revelation. I think I'll be good with my 6970 until 2020 at the rate consoles are evolving.

hardly call a new console a startling revelation, especially since we know very little about it now...

o1s1n

EnterNow wrote: »

The RROD, & PS3's YLOD, are generally caused by piss poor quality lead free solder at the factory. Sure it saves the planet, and all the logistics of shipping broken consoles around, repairing, replacing & more shipping doesn't count

Lead solder? Are you mental?!

What if a child decides to ask for a screwdriver set for Christmas so they can open up their console and eat the solder? You really have to think of these things you know. Children love to eat solder.

I also think it should come wrapped in cotton wool so they don't snag themselves on any sharp edges.

rashers10

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'd put money on games still running at 720p and 30 FPS. The trade off of performance to visuals is too great.

I'd be really disappointed with that. I really want 60fps to become standard.
Then all games can feel as smooth as CoD and Forza!

marco_polo

EnterNow wrote: »

I'd be very surprised at that. 1080p @ 60 should be the baseline of next gen hardware. I'd echo some of the above & say it won't be a direct comparison between pc & console parts. At any rate, why have it overpowered? All that'll do is generate excess heat...& the jump in visuals isn't nearly as great as we've seen with previous generational jumps.

If the specs allow it to run next gen software, at 1080p & 60fps...anything else is a waste. MS know what they're at, the PS3 was so overcomplicated, it took years for devs to get to grips. This way, the next Xbox could hit the ground running

I wonder does the more economically conservative starting point perhaps hint that MS are hedging their bets on the medium/long term future of the dedicated gaming console (ie There may not be a console generation as we know it after this one, and so are not looking beyond getting 4-5 years out of this). Certainly their expansion plans for Xbox Live to other platforms wouldn't be completely incompatible with this train of thought.

gizmo

marco_polo wrote: »

I wonder does the more economically conservative starting point perhaps hint that MS are hedging their bets on the medium/long term future of the dedicated gaming console (ie There may not be a console generation as we know it after this one, and so are not looking beyond getting 4-5 years out of this). Certainly their expansion plans for Xbox Live to other platforms wouldn't be completely incompatible with this train of thought.

Well there's still the rumour that they're going the two SKU path again but this time by developing a full blown console as well as a cheaper set top box version to consider. Who knows at this stage really.

Gunmonkey

Anyone got info on what processor the "Next Box" will use? Best i could find were unconfirmed reports from here: CVG

Reportedly codenamed 'Oban', the processor is said to be a System-on-a-Chip (SoC) - a 32nm processor that incorporates a PowerPC CPU and an ATI Southern Islands GPU - basically a modified version of the 7000 series GPUs.

Kind of makes sense as Intel have been touting these single chip CPU/GPU's for a while now and would help alleviate the airflow problem of 2 seperate chips in a small form box of a console. So if this above pieces of info are true, could potentially have a 2 GPU console (one 7000 series and one 6600 series). Also, the OP's article make mention of architecture or the setup of the mainboard or anything....nope, just its a 6600 chip. Any mention if there would be one or two or three inside the "Next Box"?? Economically it also makes sense (use 2 cheaper chips than 1 expensive one and have the inbuilt drivers divvy up the workload).

So, if a 6600 is x6 the power of a 360, what could a 6600 in SLI with a 7000 produce?



All speculation on my part though, could just be a single 6600 to aim for a cheaper price point.

Twilightning

rashers10 wrote: »

I'd be really disappointed with that. I really want 60fps to become standard.
Then all games can feel as smooth as CoD and Forza!

60FPS pretty much is the standard, it's just not for consoles.

Retr0gamer

hmm thinking about it 60fps might become a standard because if they are pushing 3D TVs games will have to run at a minimum of 60 FPS to be playable.

TerrorFirmer

Considering it's aiming for a late 2013 release, the GPU seems strange - it's fairly low end at the moment, let alone 18 or whatever months away. Relative to the time it came out, the 360 had a high end GPU on launch....

A bit concerned about that really.

deathrider

Honestly, I couldn't give a rat's arse about the specs on this or how well it'll look against PC specs. If it's got some good games that I'll enjoy playing, I'm in!

gizmo

Retr0gamer wrote: »

hmm thinking about it 60fps might become a standard because if they are pushing 3D TVs games will have to run at a minimum of 60 FPS to be playable.

Or they could just half the horizontal res and upscale it when doing 3D. Wouldn't be the first time. :pac:

Magill

ShadowHearth wrote: »

600$ for ati 6670.... ouch...


okay, so it will be 6 times more powerfull then xbox 360, but its still going to be laughable compared to PC standarts.

this is very rough way to compare:

this is the current GPU in new PC compared to 6670

http://www.hwcompare.com/10684/geforce-gtx-570-vs-radeon-hd-6670-oem/

not this is GPU that is in my 5+ year old machine. GPU was updated for 170eu last summer

http://www.hwcompare.com/10709/radeon-hd-6670-oem-vs-radeon-hd-6870/


now i dont want to start a PC vs console war, i just want to show a non pc crowd and people who dont know much about PC components what does it mean. they say it will be 6 times more powerful then xbox, but in reality its still very old technology.

yes, they will use the power on console more efficient, but still it wont beat current gaming gpus on pc. we are talking about almost 1.5 years untill release and there will even faster GPUs out and current ones will be even cheaper. what will happen 1-2 years in to console cycle?

i had hopes that next gen consoles will bring it more to PC level of performance so the gap would be smaller, unfortunately they are doing same thing they did with xbox 360. . it will mean that i will be sticking with my good old pc gaming for way longer then expected.

now please dont understand it as some attack VS consoles! i am not making fanboism war! just trying to show bigger picture! and yes, PCs have their own dissatvantages too bla bla bla!

6 times what a xbox360 can do is pretty impressive for a console tbh... they're only just maxing the damn thing out now fs ! Just look at some of the games available for the 360 and say that they aren't impressive looking games (Gears of war / Red Dead or even sonys UC3) consoles up to now haven't had to support resource heavy OS's and other background applications so they've always been able to push out much more performance out of their components than a PC.

Yeah, i wouldn't be expecting real time rendering or anything but its more than enough for the next generation of games.

Most interesting thing for me in that description is the multiple outputs... wonder if thats for MP games ? Would be awesome being able to play a shooter/racer/co-op game with a mate on 2 tv's with one xbox.

Icyseanfitz

6 times the power of 6 year old hardware :eek: simply Amazing.... the 360 will be like 8 years old by November 2013 ffs, how is 6 times the power of the 360 anyway powerful, im really hoping this is bs as i want pc gaming to make a bigger graphical jump (which will only happen when the consoles do unfortunately)

ShadowHearth

Magill wrote: »

6 times what a xbox360 can do is pretty impressive for a console tbh... they're only just maxing the damn thing out now fs ! Just look at some of the games available for the 360 and say that they aren't impressive looking games (Gears of war / Red Dead or even sonys UC3) consoles up to now haven't had to support resource heavy OS's and other background applications so they've always been able to push out much more performance out of their components than a PC.

Yeah, i wouldn't be expecting real time rendering or anything but its more than enough for the next generation of games.

Most interesting thing for me in that description is the multiple outputs... wonder if thats for MP games ? Would be awesome being able to play a shooter/racer/co-op game with a mate on 2 tv's with one xbox.

sorry m8, but even latest games that came out now multiplatform look like **** on consoles compared to PC. Its not that i want to bite in to consoles gamers ( i can bet someone will run in here and accuse me of it), its just true.

i have bough several games on both platforms: PC and Xbox. crysis 2, mw3, BF3, dead space 1, bioshock etc. pc wins on visuals hands down and xbox cant even come near it ( i said visuals, i dont compare gameplay or games, again, not a strike at console gamers )

its limitation of hardware, no mater how you look at it. that gpu is really bad. they used high end gpu when xbox 360 launched and look at it now. in this new xbox they will use a gpu below mid range by todays standart. something is not right.

in the end of the day as mentioned above: if it will have good games, then hardware wont matter much.

Kinski

Cue a slew of rumours that the PS4 will be roughly 8,000,000x more powerful than the Xbox 720.

Though if this really will only be 20% more powerful than the Wii U, and if Sony really are still looking at a 10ry lifespan for the PS3, then Nintendo's decision not to go all out with super-powered hardware will start looking a lot less short-sighted than I first thought.

Anyway, when has the most powerful console ever been the most successful one?

amacachi

Kinski wrote: »

Though if this really will only be 20% more powerful than the Wii U, and if Sony really are still looking at a 10ry lifespan for the PS3, then Nintendo's decision not to go all out with super-powered hardware will start looking a lot less short-sighted than I first thought.

The whole 10 year lifespan thing is such a red herring because it will include overlap with the PS4. It's out 6 years, if it was announced for the end of next year there's only a 2 year overlap.

Magill

ShadowHearth wrote: »

sorry m8, but even latest games that came out now multiplatform look like **** on consoles compared to PC. Its not that i want to bite in to consoles gamers ( i can bet someone will run in here and accuse me of it), its just true.

i have bough several games on both platforms: PC and Xbox. crysis 2, mw3, BF3, dead space 1, bioshock etc. pc wins on visuals hands down and xbox cant even come near it ( i said visuals, i dont compare gameplay or games, again, not a strike at console gamers )

its limitation of hardware, no mater how you look at it. that gpu is really bad. they used high end gpu when xbox 360 launched and look at it now. in this new xbox they will use a gpu below mid range by todays standart. something is not right.

in the end of the day as mentioned above: if it will have good games, then hardware wont matter much.

Meh, I really don't think the difference is as big as people let on (I've been on a steam spending spree so i defo have games to compare). MW3 particularly looks identical (I've been switching between PC and the PS3 version, which is the weaker of the consoles with that game). BF3 looks much nicer, but certainly doesn't blow it out of the water, meh, maybe im just not that impressed with visuals anymore. I play CSS at 800x600 fs !

KillianS

According to thehiddentech it will cost the same as the Xbox 360.