XBOX ONE 500GB

The Xbox One features an 8-core CPU, 8GB of system memory, and a 500GB hard drive, Microsoft’s Marc Whitten announced today. The console uses a single system-on-a-chip (SoC) using a 40 nanometer process combining the GPU, CPU, memory, and more onto a single chip.

For comparison, the Xbox 360 is powered by an IBM PowerPC tri-core processor running at 3.2 GHz and an ATI Xenos GPU running at 500 MHz. Those two discrete chips were originally built using a 90 nanometer process.

Other Xbox One specs include:

• USB 3.0
• 802.11n wireless with Wi-Fi Direct
• Blu-ray
• HDMI in/out

“Variable power states” ensure a “practically silent” operation, Whitten said. The console is engineered to last “well into the future,” an obvious reference to the company’s engineering struggles with the Xbox 360, typified by the so-called Red Ring of Death.

“A new 500-GB hard drive was designed in-house, likewise a custom-built Blu-ray-capable optical drive. A single 40-nanometer chip contains both the CPU and GPU rather than the two dedicated 90-nm chips needed in the 360,” . “In fact, a custom SOC (system on a chip) module made by AMD contains the CPU/GPU chip, the memory, the controller logic, the DRAM, and the audio processors, and connects directly to the heat sink via a phase-change interface material.”

“AMD is very excited to be working with Microsoft on their next-generation Xbox One,” Saeid Moshkelani from AMD’s Semi-Custom Business Unit said in a press release. “The Microsoft Xbox One leverages a single-chip, semi-custom AMD APU, with custom components co-developed with Microsoft designed to enable unique attributes of the system Microsoft is bringing to market.”