The website VGleaks has posted more information about Microsoft's upcoming next generation console, the successor of the Xbox 360. The new Xbox, online often referred to as the Xbox 720 but officially referred to as Durango, will likely feature an octa-core x64 CPU that's running on 1,6 Ghz, 8 GB of RAM and a DirextX 11.1 compatible GPU. Both the CPU and GPU are likely manufactured by AMD. The website has posted the full specifications of the new console including a block diagram of the hardware platform. It's unclear how VGleaks obtained the information but the specifications match rumors that are floating around the web for the last couple of months.
The new CPU with eight cores is based on the x86 instruction set which means it seems to be based on normal desktop CPUs in contrary to the Xbox 360 is which using a custom PowerPC CPU design of IBM with three cores. Every core in the Durango octa-core setup has a clock speed of 1,6 Ghz and for every four cores there's 4 MB of level 2 cache. The GPU is described as 'DirectX 11 .1class' with a clock speed of 800 Mhz and probably 768 shader cores. Which design is used for the GPU is unclear but earlier rumors said that it's likely based on the AMD HD7000 or HD8000 series. With 768 cores we can at least say it's not an existing AMD GPU. The HD7770 has 640 shader cores and the HD7850 has 1024.
Both the CPU and GPU have access to 8 GB of RAM through the north-bridge with a bandwidth of 68 GBps. For the CPU an extra of 32 MB of super fast embedded SRAM should be available with a bandwidth of 102 GBps.
Every model should get a build-in hard-disk and the games will be sold on 50 GB Blu-ray discs for which the Durango has a 6 speed Blu-ray drive. The console should also support hardware acceleration for display of images, video and cryptography.
When it comes to input and output the Durango has at least one USB 3.0 port, a Kinect input, Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI 1.4 and S/PDIF. It's expected that the new Xbox will be launched this year and its introduction is said to be in the next couple of months. Also Sony should soon introduce a new version of the Playstation.
