Microsoft’s Xbox 720 – which could hit shelves in 2013 – is expected to boast impressive graphics horsepower that puts the current-gen 360 and Nintendo’s upcoming Wii U console to shame.
According to IGN, the Xbox 720’s raw graphics processing power will hit six times that of the Xbox 360 and should yield 20 percent greater performance than Nintendo’s next-gen Wii U.
In contrast to SemiAccurate, IGN claims the Xbox Next will not feature AMD’s ATI GCN/HD7000/Southern Islands GPU, but rather, a processor “derived” from the 6000 series.
“More specifically, it will be akin to the Radeon HD 6670, which offers support for DirectX11, multidisplay output, 3D and 1080p HD output,” wrote IGN’s Scott Lowe. “[That] chip currently has a market price of upwards of $79.99.”
As TG Daily previously reported, Microsoft recently kicked off initial production of its Power PC CPU Oban chip which is slated to power the next-gen Xbox (720/Next) game console.
SemiAccurate‘s Charlie Demerjian estimates that the first Oban batch will make the silicon for the initial run of dev kits, with plenty left to spare. Even so, there is likely to be several revs of Oban before silicon is finalized for retail consoles.
“Sources are still saying to expect silicon production for retail consoles to start late this year, and that guidance won’t change until the first round of volume parts is analyzed late in the quarter.
“Production for end user consoles isn’t going to start until late 2012, so don’t expect the XBox Next/720 before spring 2013. One thing you can say for sure now is that the console is real now, and the momentum is really picking up,” added Demerjian.
The Xbox 360 – which launched way back in 2005 – is powered by a 3.2 GHz PowerPC Tri-Core Xenon, 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM clocked at 700 MHz, along with a 500 MHz ATI Xenos (graphics). Microsoft has sold 66 million Xbox 360 consoles worldwide as of January 9, 2012.
