I take no credit for the following article,I'm merely attempting to spread this knowledge to educate future buyers of the "xbox one"
All credit to Sebastian Anthony form extremetech.com


Xbox One: Hardware and software specs detailed and analyzed
By Sebastian Anthony on May 23, 2013 at 1:10 pm39 Comments

Share This Article

1
inShare
After eight long years, we have finally met the Xbox 360s successor: The Xbox One. While console makers never give away all of their secrets, we have cobbled together enough data from the official unveil, Q&A panels with various Microsoft execs, and statements issued by Microsoft that we now have a good idea of the software and hardware inside the Xbox One. Read on for details of the Xbox Ones hardware, software, and some analysis of the Xbox Ones pre-owned games controversy.

The Xbox Ones hardware specs

The Xbox One is powered by an 8-core x86 AMD CPU (almost certainly based on AMDs Kabini), and a GPU thats very similar to the Radeon 7790. Theres 8GB of DDR3 RAM (shared between the CPU and GPU), 32MB of very fast SRAM on the graphics die, and a total of 200GB of memory bandwidth (more on that later). Theres also some new silicon in Kinect 2.0, which will come with the Xbox One as standard, which weve covered in a separate story. Rounding out the hardware, theres a Blu-ray drive, 500GB hard drive, 802.11n WiFi (with WiFi Direct), HDMI in and out, Gigabit Ethernet (yay!), and USB 3.0. Therell be three 802.11n radios, so that the console can connect to your gamepads (WiFi Direct), mobile devices, and home network without added latency.


Xbox One hardware diagram. Note the ports on the back.
So far, so good but, when you take a closer look, its clear that theres still a lot of unanswered questions. Before the unveil yesterday, it was widely believed that the Xbox Ones SoC would feature eight AMD Jaguar cores just like the PS4. The problem is, Jaguar (and its accompanying GCN GPUs) are 28nm parts and yet, according to some journalists who got an exclusive peek at the Xbox One, Microsoft says the SoC is based on a 40nm process. Its entirely possible that AMD somehow backported its 28nm parts to 40nm, but owing to the significant differences between the processes this wouldve been a very costly and time consuming task. Its worth noting that we dont have confirmation that the PS4 uses a 28nm chip, either. (Updated: The latest information seems to be that Microsoft got it wrong, and that it is in fact a 28nm SoC, just like Kabini.)

When it comes to the memory bandwidth, the Xbox One has 68GB/sec of main memory (8GB DDR3) bandwidth, 102GB/sec of bandwidth to the embedded SRAM (32MB), with the last 30GB/sec probably between the CPU and GPU, or perhaps between the CPU and peripherals (gamepads, Kinect, cable TV). This is a much more complicated setup than the PS4, which just has 176GB/sec of unified main memory (8GB GDDR5) bandwidth, usable by both the GPU and CPU. The real-world difference will probably be minor though I would say that the PS4 probably has the edge, as developers dont need to pay special heed to the Xbox Ones fast-but-small SRAM.

For a more detailed breakdown of the Xbox Ones hardware, well have to wait until the console has been released and reverse engineered by enterprising hackers and crackers or, if were lucky, Microsoft might release more information at E3.



The Xbox Ones software: Apps, games, and pre-owned games controversy

Perhaps for the first time in console history, the Xbox One unveil, and the Q&A panels that followed, focused more on the software than the hardware. Almost the entirety of the unveil showcased how first-party apps (Skype, NFL, Internet Explorer) will interact with your games, movies, and TV channels.

When it comes to games, the only real features that Microsoft discussed were Smart Match and Game DVR. Game DVR keeps a rolling record of your recent gameplay (so you dont have to remember to press record!), and allows you to share it with your friends via social networks. Smart Match is a new matchmaking system, which presumably developers can tap into, instead of creating their own matchmaking system.



And then theres the pre-owned games controversy. With the Xbox One, all games are fully installed to an internal, unremovable hard drive. The plus side is that you dont need to hunt for the game disc whenever you want to play a game but, on the negative side, Microsoft says youll have to pay a fee to install a game a second time, on another console. Unfortunately, Microsoft hasnt been very clear about how big this fee will actually be; some reports suggest that that the fee will be as large as the games original price.

This, as you have probably guessed, is intended to cripple the pre-owned games market. While there have been a few official Microsoft statements over the last few days, the latest is this: While there have been many potential scenarios discussed, today we have only confirmed that we designed Xbox One to enable our customers to trade-in and resell games at retail. Beyond that, we have not confirmed any specific scenarios.

Three operating systems in one

According to Microsoft, the Xbox One runs three different operating systems. Theres a core operating system thats based on Microsofts Hyper-V hypervisor technology, which boots up when you turn the console on. This hypervisor then boots up two further operating systems: Xbox OS, which runs the games, and an OS thats based on Windows 8, which runs the apps (Skype, TV, etc.)

The Xbox OS and Windows-based OS run side-by-side, on hardware thats virtualized by the hypervisor. Both OSes are permanently switched on and constantly rendering their video output, to enable instant switching/snapping between games and apps/TV. The Xbox OS is rebooted whenever you load a game, but the Windows-based OS is persistent until you turn the console off. It isnt clear how the hardware resources are split between the two virtualized OSes, but hopefully the Xbox OS (games) gets most of the RAM and GPU time.



This is a very interesting and potentially very powerful setup. I actually speculated about the Xbox One running Windows 8 way back in July 2011. At the time, I theorized that Microsoft would develop a single OS (Windows 8) and interface (Metro) that unifies every form factor, from desktop, to tablet, to smartphone, to console. While I was only half right, its clear from the various demos, photos, and videos that the Xbox One will look and feel like a Windows 8 device. The grid-like Metro design language is there, snapping is there, the fonts are the same. While well probably have to wait until the Build developer conference to find out more, it is also very likely that apps developed for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 will run on the Xbox One with minimal modification.

With the switch from a PowerPC CPU in the Xbox 360 to x86 in the Xbox One, it might also simplify the development and porting of games between Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, and Xbox One. We have almost no details on the Xbox Ones gaming OS, but its possible that its also been rejigged to share more of the Windows 8 kernel.



In short, the unification between all form factors is virtually complete. In theory, this is very exciting for Microsoft, consumers, and developers. In practice, Microsoft now needs to get off its ass and shift a ton of devices so that consumers and developers can actually take advantage of this utopian unified interface and ecosystem.

Now read: Xbox One vs. PS4 vs. PC: How the hardware specs compare