Have the new Xbox specs been leaked?

Multiple websites are releasing what is reportedly the leaks specs of the Next Xbox 360, code named Durango. Already in the longest console-cycle in the history of gaming, many are expecting an announcement from Microsoft in the coming months to outline their next system. With seven years passed since the Xbox 360 released gamers are eager to see what type of power the console brings and what differences we will see.

 

Below is a rundown of the current Xbox 360:

Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU	Three symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each
	Two hardware threads per core; six hardware threads total
	VMX-128 vector unit per core; three total
	128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread
	1 MB L2 cache
CPU Game Math Performance	9.6 billion dot product operations per second
Custom ATI Graphics Processor	10 MB of embedded DRAM
	48-way parallel floating-point dynamically scheduled shader pipelines
	Unified shader architecture
Polygon Performance	500 million triangles per second
Pixel Fill Rate	16 gigasamples per second fill rate using 4x MSAA
Shader Performance	48 billion shader operations per second
Memory	512 MB of 700 MHz GDDR3 RAM
	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
Overall System Floating-Point Performance	1 teraflop
Storage	Detachable and upgradeable 20-GB hard drive
	12x dual-layer DVD-ROM
	Memory Unit support starting at 64 MB
I/O	Support for up to four wireless game controllers
	Three USB 2.0 ports
	Two memory unit slots
Optimized for Online	Instant, out-of-the-box access to Xbox Live features with broadband service, including Xbox Live Marketplace for downloadable content, gamer profile for digital identity, and voice chat to talk to friends while playing games, watching movies, or listening to music
	Built-in Ethernet port
	Wi-Fi ready: 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g
	Video camera–ready
Digital Media Support	Support for DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 CD, JPEG Photo CD
	Ability to stream media from portable music devices, digital cameras, and Windows XP-based PCs
	Ability to rip music to the Xbox 360 Hard Drive
	Custom playlists in every game
	Built-in Media Center Extender for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
	Interactive, full-screen 3-D visualizers
High-Definition Game Support	All games supported at 16:9, 720p, 1080i and 1080p, with anti-aliasing
	Standard-definition and high-definition video output supported
Audio	Multi-channel surround sound output
	Supports 48KHz 16-bit audio
	320 independent decompression channels
	32-bit audio processing
	Over 256 audio channels
Physical Specs	Height: 83 mm
	Width: 309 mm
	Depth: 258 mm
	Weight: 7.7 lbs.
System Orientation	Stands vertically or horizontally
Customizable Faceplates	Interchangeable to personalize the console

 

Compare that to the leaked information made available today at VGLeaks.com:

Central Processing Unit:

x64 Architecture

Eight CPU cores running at 1.6GHz

Each CPU thread has its own 32 KB L1 instruction cache and 32 KB L1 data cache

Each module of four CPU cores has a 2 MB L2 cache resulting in a total of 4 MB of L2 cache

each core has one fully independent hardware thread with no shared execution resources

each hardware thread can issue two instructions per clock

Graphics Core:

custom D3D11.1 class 800-MHz graphics processor

12 shader cores providing a total of 768 threads

Each thread can perform one scalar multiplication and addition operation (MADD) per clock cycle

At peak performance, the GPU can effectively issue 1.2 trillion floating-point operations per second

High-fidelity Natural User Interface (NUI) sensor is always present

Storage and Memory:

8GB of DDR3 RAM (68GB/s bandwidth)

32MB of fast embedded SRAM (ESRAM) (102GB/s)

From the GPU’s perspective the bandwidths of system memory and ESRAM are parallel providing combined peak bandwidth of 170GB/sec.

Hard drive is always present

50GB 6x Blu-ray drive

Networking:

Gigabit Ethernet

WiFi and WiFi Direct

Hardware Accelerators:

Move engines

Image, video, and audio codecs

Kinect multichannel echo cancellation (MEC) hardware

Cryptography engines for encryption and decryption, and hashing

It’s worth noting that key changes have been made. The Kinect will no longer have the option of running on a USB drive, instead having a dedicated proprietary port that should remove the issues some users have had. The suggested Kinect changes that have been reported would suggest a better piece of hardware and probably more power consumption. The most notable change is of course, the CPU and GPU. Games will be hard-pressed to start looking better in the next generation. Instead, players can expect to see better AI, more characters on-screen at once, and faster character scripting.

Will this next generation finally give developers the tools to create living, breathing worlds that adapt to players? If this leaked information proves true, then probably.