Microsoft to Choose Intel, for X-Box

Microsoft announced it has decided to use Intel chips, rather than rival AMD's, for its "X-Box" game console.

The X-Box will use "Intel Pentium III processor technology with Streaming SIMD Extensions" acording to a press release. As well as "More than three times the graphics performance of the newest-generation game consoles will be offered. Co-developed with experts at NVIDIA, the custom-designed graphics chip will deliver more than 200 million polygons per second."

The X-Box, which is still in prototype and should not be on the market until fall of 2001, will use an intel processor running at 600 megahertz (as compared to Nintendo64's 93.75Mhz.)

X-Box Specifications

-DirectX API

-Intel Pentium III processor technology with Streaming SIMD Extensions.

-Custom 3-D NVIDIA graphics processor

-64 MB of RAM (unified memory architecture)

-Custom 3-D audio processor

-8GB hard drive

-4X DVD drive with movie playback

-Four game controller ports

-Expansion port

-Proprietary A/V connector

-100 MBps Ethernet

Key Performance Measures

-Micropolygons/particles per second: 300 million

-Transformed and lit polygons per second: 150 million

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