Next Xbox GPU based on £50 Radeon HD 6670 card - report
6x more powerful than 360, 20% better than Wii U.
Update: Digital Foundry editor Richard Leadbetter has offered his thoughts on Microsoft possibly opting for a Radeon HD 6670-like GPU in the next Xbox.
"If the GPU story is true, it suggests that Microsoft is placing price-point ahead of performance," Leadbetter said.
"By PC standards, the Radeon HD 6670 is an unremarkable, entry-level enthusiast product aimed more towards the home cinema PC audience. It struggles to run Battlefield 3 at 20 frames-per-second on high settings at 1080p, and could maybe hit 30FPS in Crysis 2 at the same resolution."
"In a closed box environment with custom modifications and a dedicated development platform to support it, the chip could achieve much greater things (360 dev kits initially shipped with unremarkable X800 graphics cards, before getting X1800/X1900 upgrades). But it would be a curious choice for a platform holder looking to sustain another lengthy console lifecycle."
Original story: The graphics card (GPU) inside the next Xbox will be "akin to" the £50 Radeon HD 6670, a new report has suggested.
IGN heard from "sources close to the project" that the GPU will provide performance six times greater than Xbox 360, and 20 per cent greater than Wii U.
A Radeon HD 6670 card supports DirectX 11, multi-display output, 3D and 1080p.
Development kits matching the final system configuration of the next Xbox will be sent out in August 2012, apparently. And mass production of the Radeon HD 6670-based GPU should begin by the end of 2012.
The new console itself will ship to shops in late October or early November 2013, IGN wrote.
The release date and dev kit dates we've heard before. However, this is the most specific a report has been about the graphics card inside the next Xbox.
We heard late last year that Microsoft planned two versions of its next Xbox. Both will bundle Kinect, although one machine will be a cheap, "pared down" set-top box; the other a "more fully featured", typical new console for hardcore gamers.
Will this Radeon HD 6670-like GPU be fitted inside both models?