With Microsoft"s official announcement of the next-generation Xbox 360 console this week, ATI has decided to disclose some of the architectural details of the graphics processor that it created for the system. I had a brief but enlightening conversation with Bob Feldstein, Vice President of Engineering at ATI, who helped oversee the Xbox 360 GPU project. He spelled out some of the GPU"s details for me, and they"re definitely intriguing.
Feldstein said that ATI and Microsoft developed this chip together in the span of two years, and that they worked "from the ground up" to do a console product. He said that Microsoft was a very good partner with some good chip engineers who understood the problems of doing a non-PC system design. Also, because the part was custom created for a game console, it could be designed specifically for delivering a good gaming experience as part of the Xbox 360 system.