Power Behind The Xbox360

Posted by Nick Niesen on October 29th, 2010

Although Microsoft's Xbox was able to sell millions and millions of units worldwide, it was still considerably outsold by its competitor, Sony's PlayStation. In this day, wherein another revolution in video and gaming technology is at hand, the Xbox360 is more promising than ever.

What difference does the Xbox360 hold against its predecessor? Well, just like all gaming consoles, it is basically a computer that is designed to run video game programs. The difference is that they focus specifically on this function alone.

So how does the latest model from Microsoft differ from any other gaming console. As was mentioned earlier, the Xbox360 is a computer designed for playing video games. But aside from this, it was also designed to perform as a complete stand-alone entertainment system. To break it down, this new console can allow users to connect via a network, it can copy, stream, and download all sorts of media. This would, of course include in its arsenal, the ability to download and play HD movies, audio, as well as digital photos and games.

Now, since we know that all gaming consoles are simply computers designed for playing video games, let us take a look at the heart of all computers ? the CPU. Just the same, video game consoles have a processor that would, of course, 'process' all the information being fed into the system. You could think of it as similar to a car's engine ? it is the one that powers every function of the whole system. The latest innovation in the Xbox360 is that, they ?modified the engine? to be able to deliver optimum performance for players.

Traditionally, CPUs process information via a single path. The more technical term for this is a thread. Now what the latest edition of the Xbox is bragging about is that under its hood, is a processor, or a core, that is able to process two threads simultaneously. This means that all the information that is being fed into it, is processed more effectively and efficiently because the ?brain? is ?multi-tasking?. Meaning, information about sound could be processed via one path, the other for the video graphics, etc. If you've ever noticed, past video games would either pause a bit or stutter occasionally. This is because the system is being bombarded by too much information, and it takes time for their 'brains' to be able to cope with the demands.

In addition to this, Microsoft has incorporated with this technology, a multi-core system that allows them to integrate more than one processor into a single chip. This is by far the latest innovation by hardware manufacturers ? and yes, Microsoft has included it in their new Xbox game console. Having the ability to perform multiple tasks at the same time, it allows the game developers to come with strategies on how to maximize the potential of the machine, to deliver optimum performance.

This is the heart of why the Xbox has evolved to become even more powerful. There are a lot of other features about the new Xbox360 that definitely boosts its performance. But the heart of all of this, is of course the core that runs everything in it.