The seems to be an increasing frequency of new rumours, reports and leaks, that seems to suggest that an official launch date of the Xbox 720 is not too far away. For example a website called pc-tablet says it could even be launched as early as April the 26th and they also claim that they could be partnering with EA who are a major games developer. This would certainly give Microsoft leverage within the gaming arena.
The new Xbox 720 is expected to get a major upgrade, rumours indicate that the consoles 7000 series graphics card that is made by AMD will get a major revision, which is based on its 28nm Graphics Core Next (GCN) Southern Islands tech.
According to unnamed sources on the VG247 website that the graphics set up in the Xbox 720 is going to be “like two PCs taped together” which if that’s true will produce a better overall gaming experience.
The sources go on to say that the two GPUs in the Xbox 720 “aren’t structured as they are in a normal dual PC set-up,” with each chip working separately to draw different items simultaneously. This hardware configuration if true should also help further increase the overall performance of the hardware.
The enhanced graphic capabilities provided by the new graphics chip should be able to elevate the new Xbox to the level of the rumoured specs of the Sony PS4 which is also expected to contain AMD Southern Islands graphics as well as an AMD x86 CPU processor. However there are some other rumours on the VG247 website that suggest that the new Xbox will be slightly less powerful than the rumoured Ps4, but to compensate for this more ram will be used.
But there is an interesting fact that needs to be noted, if you compare gaming consoles with the most advanced gaming pc’s they appear to be underwhelming and slightly out of date amd pc’s.
There are more rumours that suggest that Microsoft are planning something more ground breaking. These rumours come from a website called computerandvideogames that suggest that the new Xbox 720 is likely to come packed with a 16-core CPU, which would certainly add some much needed muscle to the maybe-possibly underpowered graphics card that is rumoured to be coming with this gaming device.
The new Xbox is also expected to come with blue ray and is likely to also come packed with dvr features.
If most of these rumours turn out to be true then we will be in for an super gaming and multimedia device that will have many more uses than just simply gaming.
