Wunderchu Posted June 29, 2005 Share Posted June 29, 2005 (edited) A few months ago I discovered that a customer at my store works at ATI. Needless to say over the last few months I've asked him how things were going on the Xbox 360 front. He wasn't able to say much in terms of specifics prior to the official unvieling of the system but since then he's been able to give me some interesting tidbits. Today's was very intriguing... Today when he came in I asked him if they were still busy on the 360 chip or whether they were basically done, having handed off the final design. He said they are still working very hard and in fact there were still some final specification decisions being made. How so, I ask? Now I am not hugely knowledgable about chip design and manufacturing so forgive my layman's translation of what he told me. Apparently the yield on chip production is much higher than they had expected, and consequently they have the option to make a decision about the spec to shoot for. Now I was under the impression that when they manufature the big "wafer" (I hope that's the right term) of chips that basically some percentage worked properly and some percentage did not and was thus junk. But he explained that in fact that it's more the case that a certain percentage of chips will work at the intended clock speed but that some of the others will work, but at a lower clock speed. These "slower" chips can still be used. They can be sold as slower, less expensive graphics card. Of course in the case of a console only those chips that meet the minimum specification can be used and the rest are useless for the consoles. But apparently the yield is so much higher than they expected they basically can shoot for a higher clock speed and still achieve the yield they planned for. So instead of 500 Mhz (forgive me if I've gotten the units wrong...I am a layman here) they can possibly aim for 600 Mhz and still get the same yield they were shooting for originally. Alternatively, they could stick at the originally planned clock speed and simply have a higher percentage of useful chips and thus lower the cost per unit. Clearly, either result is beneficial to Microsoft. The question is: which will MS choose? Faster chips or lower cost pre chip? Anyway, just thought I'd pass that on. It would appear that things are going well on the ATI front. [source: http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=356848 ] Edited June 29, 2005 by Wunderchu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerry Posted June 29, 2005 Share Posted June 29, 2005 BTW, what the HELL didn't he ask about the Revolution? :ninja: 586138637[/snapback] Brimm didnt knew that ATI is also working on Revolution's GPU or else he would devised a nice little story around that too. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boygasm Posted June 29, 2005 Share Posted June 29, 2005 Thanks. I guess that's good to know? If they chose the lower cost pre-chip, will the console be cheaper? BTW, what the HELL didn't he ask about the Revolution? :ninja: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meshuggah Posted June 29, 2005 Share Posted June 29, 2005 NIIICE, if the price is already set at 299, i would assume MS would make the thing even faster so it can compete even better with the ps3... but then again, they could always keep the current clock speed, and then dramatically lower the price of the xbox 360 when the ps3 comes out... Well this is a definite good thing for MS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spartan_X Posted June 29, 2005 Share Posted June 29, 2005 knowing MS tactics they'll shout out for a lower speed at a better price to attract more customers to the platform, 100mhz is good but financially the more customers the more attractive the idea for MS... ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wunderchu Posted July 12, 2005 Author Share Posted July 12, 2005 NIIICE, if the price is already set at 299, i would assume MS would make the thing even faster so it can compete even better with the ps3...but then again, they could always keep the current clock speed, and then dramatically lower the price of the xbox 360 when the ps3 comes out... Well this is a definite good thing for MS 586138665[/snapback] I agree Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laughing-Man Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 Clearly, either result is beneficial to Microsoft. The question is: which will MS choose? Faster chips or lower cost pre chip?Anyway, just thought I'd pass that on. It would appear that things are going well on the ATI front. [source: http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=356848 ] 586137122[/snapback] If this story is even true why do you things are going well on the ATI front? They are supposedly five or less months till release and they don't have a final graphics chip design hammered down? I think it would be nice for developers to have some final systems to perform QA testing on to see what the game is going to actually run like on a final system. Simulations or emulations on test bed/development systems are nice and all for development, but for QA purposes it would be nice to have the actual system the consumer is going to play on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerry Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 If this story is even true why do you things are going well on the ATI front? They are supposedly five or less months till release and they don't have a final graphics chip design hammered down? I think it would be nice for developers to have some final systems to perform QA testing on to see what the game is going to actually run like on a final system. Simulations or emulations on test bed/development systems are nice and all for development, but for QA purposes it would be nice to have the actual system the consumer is going to play on. 586200609[/snapback] Come on .. dont tell me you believed this story. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laughing-Man Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 (edited) Come on .. dont tell me you believed this story. :D 586200713[/snapback] Yes because these reliable anonymous sources that post on random forums are always trustworthy.... Edited July 12, 2005 by jmole Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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