The Processing Power Behind the Xbox 360

The Xbox 360 from Microsoft is one of the leadingthe three cores functioning like a separate processor.
games consoles on the market competing with theThis multi-core solution allows for a combination of
PlayStation 3 from Sony and Nintendo's Wii. It hasincredible computing power coupled with efficient
been a hugely successful product for the companyenergy consumption. The work load is spilt between
and in this article we take a look at the processingthe various processors so if the console does not
power behind the machine.need all the available power, one or two of the free
The heart of any games console can be splitcores can be shut down with a huge benefit to
between two vital components, the CPU or centralpower consumption and therefore the amount of
processing unit and the GPU, the graphics processingheat generated. If just one super-powerful processor
unit. Here we look at the CPU.has been used instead of a multi-core solution then
The CPU at the heart of the Xbox 360 is a PowerPCthis power reducing mode would not be available.
based unit with three cores, each running at 3.2GHz.To add to the Xbox 360's number crunching abilities,
The chip is based on the same architecture as usedeach core of the CPU is capable of processing two
in the Cell Processor that powers the PS3 consoleoperations at the same time. This allows the console
and was developed for Microsoft by IBM, who alsoto actually process six operations simultaneously
worked on the Cell Processor. Called Xenon bygiving it a theoretical peak performance of 115.2
Microsoft, the processor contains 165-milliongigaflops, with a maximum graphical throughput of 9.6
transistors and 1MB of level 2 cache, with each ofbillion dot products per second.