Next gen Xbox running only at 1.6GHz?

So i got some moron yelling at me on youtube that 1.6GHz will be enough to run all the programs and games that will be thrown at the next gen xbox. Well its 8 core but still, am i stupid for thinking that 1.6GHz is waaaaay too slow for all the games that will be coming out over the next few years? he tried throwing this equastion at me, i have a feeling its bull crap but i dont know, i wanna know if its real, its ((# of Core x GHz)/size of CPU in NM) so in the case of the Xbox, it scored a .4 ..... which would put it very very close in ranking to low end i5 processors, do you think thats accurate? i wanna know if that equasion is real.

well, i dont know a lot about the next gen xbox, but atm games can only really utilise 4 cores, so for now it wont really be enough. however, the fact that it will be an 8 core will mean that people are gonna start making games optimised for 8 cores. also there is an issue with heat, but it will be cooled enough no matter what they do. anyway, theres also the "weight" of the operating system. i dont know about the xbox, but if it has a very "light weight" operating system, then it might be good enough. in regards to that equation, i have no clue.

 

hope this helps,

tom

The equation is completely inaccurate. I used to use something similar when I was first getting into computer building, but it's really a noob way of looking at things. If you take the number of cores and multiply it by the clock speed then you get...you know what, it's not valid and doesn't make any sense. What the average guy is trying to do with an equation like this is say there are 8 core all operating at 1.6ghz in this case, which is much, much better than a single core at 1.6ghz (obviously). They multiply them together to get the "true ghz performance," but that's not how CPUs work at all. I don't know where the mentality of dividing by the nanometer architecture came from though.

CPUs can only assign a certain number of cores to any given task. In order to assign all 8 cores to a single task, that program has to be written in a way that it will request the use of all 8 cores. If it can do that, then it will run extremely well simply because you have the workload split among 8 different cores rather than having it all concentrated in one or two. Right now most games only take advantage of 2-4 cores, but that may change since the new consoles are going to be sporting CPUs with many more cores than before.

CPUs are a lot more dependent on other factors rather than just clock speed and number of cores though. The performance is mostly to do with the architecture of the CPU and how everything is actually structured. Higher clock speeds will make it faster, but they're not the end all, be all of CPU performance. The same goes for number of cores.

Consoles have always used wimpy specs compared to desktop computers, but consoles don't have to manage as high of a workload as consoles do anyway. Computers have many different processes running the background, while consoles are dedicated toward gaming and web applications like Netflix. Consoles are specifically designed to play games, so they may not need the same crazy, high end specs that a PC might. At the same time, PCs are always going to have an advantage because you can potentially put better parts in them that will run games better. The argument in this last paragraph is pretty general too, and there's probably a much better explaination of all of it somewhere out there. If I had it my way, the new consoles coming out would all have the latest and greatest hardware, but they never do, and I'm not sure if it's totally necessary anyway for a dedicated game box.

Not to mention that the GPU is going to have a much larger impact on games than the CPU will.

if you have the money for it, the 8350 will preform better than the 4300 for sure, and if games are better optimised for that many cores then it will pay off for sure

low overhead, compact kernel and limited i/o means games will be chewing on 90%+ of the hardware with 7 cores for relief processing and a customized radeon chipset for graphics.

Judging by the similarities in the current gen consoles, we can assume that the Xbox "720" and PS4 will be quite similar. And since we know some details about the PS4 and its capibilities I can imagine the Xbox will run at above 1.6 ghz.

good explanation. totally agree

This might have changed but I read that while the new Xbox will have 8 cores, not all of them will be used for games. Some will be dedicated to Kinect, the system and so on, leaving less cores for the actual game. If that's true, I'm not expecting too many games optimized for 8 core CPU's.

1.6GHz does sound a little low and yet, somehow, it wouldn't surprise me if it's true.

IMO, get a current generation 8350 if youre going to get 1. Theyre cheap and can be clocked hard. Win/win.