Xbox 720 Spec Leaks – What if The GPU Rumours Are True?

Xbox 720 rumours have been spreading like a bad rash, and the current favourite is that the Xbox 720’s GPU is due to be derived from, or close to an AMD Radeon 6670.

If true, this would make the Xbox 720’s GPU is around six times more powerful than the Xbox 360 chip, which is a small advance when compared to the leap between other consoles of past generations.

While this chip is capable of 1080p HD visuals, DirectX11 compatibility and 3D imagery, that’s about the gist of it. It’s impossible to tell if there is truth to the rumour, but we’ve decided to speculate what this could mean for Xbox 720 if this is indeed Microsoft’s GPU of choice.

Performance Vs Price

In an age where Nintendo was forcibly shunted into cutting the high asking price of 3DS following pressure from woeful sales figures, Microsoft could use the cost-effective AMD Radeon 6700 GPU to cut manufacturing costs, thereby making Xbox 720 a cheaper console.

When a console houses sophisticated components under the hood, the retail price tends to skyrocket, meaning that the manufacturer typically has to sell it at a loss for the first few years. If the Xbox 720 GPU rumour is true, Microsoft could cut a significant wedge of this loss.

Lately it seems that Microsoft has recently attempted to tap into the mindset of the cash-poor gamers – the bustling families, the elderly and the very young – by pushing Kinect and a slew of casual games.

How do you appease these people? Simple, you sell the console at a price they can afford, and the AMD Radeon 6700 GPU would allow Microsof to sell Xbox 720 at a reasonable price that more gamers could afford.

It’s common to see some onlookers entering the “Screw those guys, I’m a hardcore gamer, casual gamers suck” mindset, but the reality is that this ‘casual’ market is both massive and incredibly lucrative, not to mention keeping many developers in business.

Times are tough, and both game developers and console manufacturers are - in the end – businesses that need money to survive, so it would make more sense for Microsoft to use a cheaper GPU chip in Xbox 720, then modify it to increase its potential significantly, while keeping costs low.

The GPU

Although the actual manufacturer and type of Xbox 720 GPU is unconfirmed, sources are currently claiming that Microsoft is resting on the AMD Radeon 6700, or a close relative to this chip. 

So what does that actually mean in terms of performance? Well, this particular GPU is only six times more powerful than the Xbox 360 GPU, and in the grand scheme of console cycles, that is a piddling advance. 

For example, the original Xbox GPU chip was capable of processing 30 million polygons per second, while the Xbox 360 AMD Xenos chip can process 500 million – which makes Xenos roughly 17 times more powerful - but even that wasn’t a massive leap.

Unnamed sources who have apparently leaked this information also suggest that this places the supposed Xbox 720 GPU slightly ahead of the AMD Radeon HD GPU found in Nintendo’s WIi U. That’s a big leap between Wii and Wii U, but between Xbox 360 and Xbox 720, there’s little to get excited about in terms of raw figures.

It could be argued that Microsoft will modify the Xbox 720’s GPU to allow for greater performance – as is often the case when companies develop new consoles – but the fact remains that this GPU is already dated, and will become obsolete quickly.

Why would Microsoft do this? Well again, the company would save a lot of money, and gamers would potentially have a new console that is more affordable than most. 

Developers can surprise you

At the end of 2011 we published an article that compared images of similar scenes from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim to see just how far game development had advanced between each game released. 

Now, what’s interesting about this comparison is that both games are running on the same console, the Xbox 360. It’s proof that game developers don’t simply start making titles on a new piece of hardware and push it to its utmost limit from day one. This process takes time, and in some cases, many years. 

If the rumour about the AMD Radeon 6700 is true then, although the leap in GPU power between Xbox 360 and Xbox 720 would be small, developers would still eventually find ways to squeeze more and more out of the tech available to them. 

But on the other hand, this choice of GPU could ultimately restrict developers, much in the same way some Wii games suffered from a clear lack of technical clout. Such a decision could leave Xbox 720 owners feeling short-changed as a result.

Either way, it’s amazing to see how far game development has come on Xbox 360 – and let’s face it, the lifespan of Microsoft’s console is a blip of the entire games industry since it began – so you never know, developers could end up producing incredible things on the AMD Radeon 6700 GPU. It could go either way if rumours are true.

Could It Be?

Now that we’ve covered some of the key points of this supposed leak from a hardware perspective, what could Microsoft’s supposed choice of GPU mean for the games you want to play?

Well for one, you’re looking at an Xbox 720 that is – as we’ve speculated – six times more powerful than Xbox 360, which is slightly more powerful than Wii U. This could mean that for the first time in ages, both Nintendo and Microsoft formats could enjoy like-for-like third party releases.

The supposed GPU supports 3D gaming, so following on from Crysis 2 and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, we could also see a rise in 3D gaming from studios developing on Microsoft’s format.

DirectX11 and 1080p HD support are both indictors that we’ll start seeing games that match some elements of high spec PC games such as Battlefield 3 and Crysis, even if the GPU in question still falls short of cutting edge PC components. 

Just don't go expecting every game on Xbox 720 to look like Battlefield 3 running at top spec, however. If this rumour is on the money, Microsoft’s choice of GPU will widen the canyon of difference between formats further. But than again,  stunning visuals alone don’t make a brilliant game.

All too readily, gamers demand better visuals as if it is the only thing that really matters in a game. The disparity between Battlefield 3 on PCs and consoles was proof of this, with many gamers getting upset that their console version looked worse by comparison.

But come on, even if they did look worse, the console versions of Battlefield 3 still looked incredible for the tech they were running on. But perhaps the rapidly advancing realm of PC tech is skewing the perspective of gamers slightly, giving rise to the notion that visuals alone are king?

Your move, developers

Games are great for a number or reasons. It’s not just about the visuals and even if the alleged Xbox 720’s GPU is only six times more powerful than Xbox 360, the real excitement should be in how developers use this power.

Again this all goes back to the Skyrim example. You wouldn’t have dreamed that Xbox 360 games could look much better than Oblivion back in 2006, but years later Skyrim came along and wowed us all. 

Sometimes it pays to give studios the benefit of the doubt, because these talented and highly capable groups of people can work wonders given the tech at hand, and even with six times more GPU power to play with in Xbox 720, those wonders will be worth waiting for. 

But in the face of a rapidly advancing PC market, consoles will always fall behind in terms of raw technically prowess. This is simply the nature of the industry, and a weak Xbox 720 GPU could underline this disparity further. 

Even if this GPU choice makes the Xbox 720 cheaper for the consumer, will the dip in power put you off buying the console in the first instance? For many, this could be a tough decision.

More Xbox 720 Articles

• Xbox 720 In 2012: Why We Need A New Console Generation
• E3 2012 Confirmed, Rumoured & Denied Games & Announcements
• Next-Gen Xbox 720 Dev Kits In Production - Report