The Next Xbox: Always Online, No Second-hand Games, 50GB Blu-ray Discs and New Kinect
AMD Rolls Out Dual-core Athlon II X2 280 Processor
The Next Xbox: Always Online, No Second-hand Games, 50GB Blu-ray Discs and New Kinect
The EDGE revealed some new information of Microsoft's next console.
According to the site, the Xbox360's successor will require an Internet connection in order to function, ruling out a second-hand game market for the platform. A new iteration of Xbox Live will be an integral part of Microsoft’s next console, while improved Kinect hardware will also ship alongside the unit.
Sources with first-hand experience of Microsoft’s next generation console have told EDGE that although the next Xbox will be absolutely committed to online functionality, games will still be made available to purchase in physical form. Next Xbox games will be manufactured on 50GB-capacity Blu-ray discs, Microsoft having conceded defeat to Sony following its ill-fated backing of the HD-DVD format. It is believed that games purchased on disc will ship with activation codes, and will have no value beyond the initial user.
The source has also confirmed that the next Xbox’s recently rumoured specs are entirely accurate. That means an AMD eight-core x64 1.6GHz CPU, a D3D11.x 800MHz graphics solution and 8GB of DDR3 RAM. As of now, the console’s hard drive capacity is said to be undecided, but Microsoft’s extended commitment to online delivery suggests that it will be the largest unit it has put inside a console to date.
Unlike Nintendo, Microsoft is continuing to invest heavily in motion-control interfaces, and a new, more reliably responsive Kinect will also ship alongside the next Xbox. Meanwhile, Sony’s next-generation console camera system is said to have a similar set of features, and is expected to be discussed at the company’s PlayStation event on February 20.
Source: EDGE
AMD Rolls Out Dual-core Athlon II X2 280 Processor
AMD continues to extend its budget CPU line-up. Today they released Athlon II X2 280 processor, based on 45nm K10.5 "Regor" microarchitecture.
The novelty boasts two x86-64, 2MB L2 cache and DDR2/DDR3 dual-channel memory controller, SSE3 and SSE4A are supported. The nominal clock rate reaches 3.6 GHz. The bandwidth of its HyperTransport 3.0 is 4,0 GT/s. The TDP is estimated at 65W.
You can get this budget AMD dual-core for $50. Of course, the new processor will be covered in our reviews.
Source: iXBT
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