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Xbox 360 Architecture: Lennard Streat Samuel Echefu

The document discusses the architecture of the Xbox 360, including its hardware components like the Xenon CPU and ATI Xenos GPU. The Xenon is a 3-core PowerPC CPU running at 3.2GHz with vector processing units. The ATI GPU runs at 500MHz and features a unified shader architecture. It also compares the Xbox 360's performance against competing consoles like the PS3, noting the Xbox 360 CPU's easier development and the GPU's unified shaders and 512MB of fast GDDR3 memory.

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Marcos Silva
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86 views23 pages

Xbox 360 Architecture: Lennard Streat Samuel Echefu

The document discusses the architecture of the Xbox 360, including its hardware components like the Xenon CPU and ATI Xenos GPU. The Xenon is a 3-core PowerPC CPU running at 3.2GHz with vector processing units. The ATI GPU runs at 500MHz and features a unified shader architecture. It also compares the Xbox 360's performance against competing consoles like the PS3, noting the Xbox 360 CPU's easier development and the GPU's unified shaders and 512MB of fast GDDR3 memory.

Uploaded by

Marcos Silva
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Xbox 360 Architecture

Lennard Streat
Samuel Echefu
Overview
Introduction
Hardware Overview
CPU Architecture
GPU Architecture
Comparison Against Competing Technologies
Implications of Technology
Introduction
Robust architecture
Xenon microprocessor
ATI Xenos GPU
Traditional multi-core design paradigm
Time and cost effective design
Overview
Introduction
Hardware Overview
CPU Architecture
GPU Architecture
Performance Analysis
Against Competing Technologies
Implications of Technology
Hardware Overview
Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU - 3 symmetrical cores (3.2GHz)
- 2 hardware threads per core
- 1 VMX-128 vector unit per core
- L1 split cache (32kB/32kB)
- L2 1024 kB unified cache
Custom ATI GPU - 500MHz
- 10MB embedded DRAM
- 48-way parallel FP shader pipelines
- Unified shader architecture
Memory - 512MB GDDR3 RAM
- 700 MHz DDR
- Unified memory architecture
Memory Bandwidth - 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
- 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
- 21.6 GB/s front-side bus
I/O - 3 USB 2.0 ports
- Wireless support
Mathematical performance - 1 TFLOP (floating point performance)
- 48 billion shader operations per second
- 500 million triangles per second
- 9 billion dot product operations per second
- 16 gigasamples per second fill rate using 4x MSAA
Storage - Detachable and upgradeable hard drive
- 12X dual-layer DVD-ROM
Overview
Introduction
Hardware Overview
CPU Architecture
GPU Architecture
Comparison Against Competing Technologies
Implications of Technology
CPU Architecture ~ Overview
Title: Xenon/ XGPU/ Waternoose
Designer: International Business Machines (IBM)
Instruction Set Architecture: Power Architecture (PowerPC-Based)
Cores: 3 Physical Cores 3.2GHz
Pipeline Specification: In-order execution
Cache Configuration: L1 cache (32kB/32kB), L2 Cache (1024kB)
Manufacturer: Globalfoundries
Technology: 90nm(Xenon), 65nm(Opus), 45nm(Valhalla)
Vector Unit: VMX-128 (3x), 128 VMX-128 registers/thread
Structure of PowerPC CPU core
Wide execution
SMT-capable clocked at 3.2GHz
Five execution pipes(branch, load/store,
fixed point, floating point, VMX)
microcode capabilities
CPU Pipeline
Two-issue, in-order execution
SIMD: 2x VMX128 units
In-order execution
Unified VMX and FPU
LSU linked to L1 Data Cache
Instructions fetched into unified
L2 Cache
Cache Architecture
32kB L1 Cache 2-Way
32kB L1 Cache 4-Way
Unified L2 Cache (~1MB)
51.2 GB/s L2 BW
Lockable by GPU
Half CPU speed
256 bit bus
21.6 GB/s FSB
PowerPC ISA
RISC ISA created in 1991 (Apple-IBM-Motorola)
Popular in embedded applications
Based upon IBM POWER architecture
Big Endian
64-bit specification (backwards compatible)
Requires deeper pipelines
Overview
Introduction
Hardware Overview
CPU Architecture
GPU Architecture
Comparison Against Competing Technologies
Implications of Technology
GPU Architecture ~ Overview
Xenos ATI Custom R520
ATI (Acquired by AMD)
Clocked @500Mhz
Unified Shader Core
48 Unified Shader Pipelines (for Vertex and pixel shading)
16 Filtered & 16 Unfiltered Texture samples per clock
Embedded with EDRAM
Offers Anti-aliasing
GPU Structure
2 Silicon ICs
GPU
Daughter Dye
Bandwidth saving
CPU-GPU link
Anti-Aliasing
Aliasing
Daughter Dye
Self-processing memory controller
Unified Shader Architecture
Shaders
Pixel Shaders
Vertex Shaders
Unified Shader Architecture (Cont.)
Unified Shader Pipeline
Combining two different dedicated pipelines
Increased Performance
Texture Sampler
Overview
Introduction
Hardware Overview
CPU Architecture
GPU Architecture
Comparison Against Competing Technologies
Implications of Technology
CPU Performance Comparison
Xbox 360 CPU
3x 3.3Ghz Cores
Easier to develop for
Multi Platform Games advantage
PS3 CPU
1x 3.2Ghz PPE
7x 3.2Ghz SPE
Developers : full core utilization
Graphics Processing
GPU Performance Comparison
Xbox360 GPU
Unified Shader Architecture
48 Unified Pipelines
Memory: 512MB 700Mhz GDDR3
PS3 GPU
Dedicated Shader core
24 pixel pipelines
8 vertex pipelines
Transition to Unified Architecture
Memory: 256MB 700Mhz GDDR3
256MB 3.2Ghz XDR Ram
Overview
Introduction
Hardware Overview
CPU Architecture
GPU Architecture
Performance Comparison Against Competing Technologies
Implications of Technology
XBOX RUL3Z
Sources
How Xbox 360 Works -Robert Valdez
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/xbox-three-sixty.htm
Inside Microsoft's Xbox 360 -Anand Shimpi, Kristopher Kubicki & Tuan Nguyen
http://www.anandtech.com/show/1864/inside-microsoft-s-xbox-360
Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PS3 - A hardware Discussion -Anand Shimpi & Derek Wilson
http://www.anandtech.com/show/1719
Details of ATI's Xbox 360 GPU Unveiled - Scott Wasson
http://techreport.com/review/8342/details-of-ati-xbox-360-gpu-unveiled
Xbox 360 System Overview
http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/4/2
Microsoft CPU resources
http://arstechnica.com/features/2005/06/xbox360-2/
http://xbox.about.com/od/xbox2/a/xbox360specs.htm

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