http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/df-hardware-orbis-unmasked-what-to-expect-from-next-gen-console

So for those unfamiliar, Digital Foundry is Eurogamer's game tech side. There have been a lot of rumors about Orbis and Durango so far, but Digital Foundry is about as rock solid a source as you can find in game journalism. They aren't a rumor site. So if they say these are the specs for the systems then chances are these are the specs for the systems.

The article is pretty revealing but the most interesting part for me was the fact that Microsoft will be using nearly half its RAM and a quarter of its CPU power to run the Durango's OS and built in Apps at all times. That's a huge chunk of power and really proves to me that Microsoft is making an Entertainment Hub not a Game Console. That's not a bad thing per say, but 3 GB's of RAM is a huge amount to give up. If that were used in the actual games we'd be seeing some amazing looking games. Also cutting 2 cores off of an already mediocre CPU means that the CPU power is going to be really limited. Still, the system will probably be about 10x as powerful as the 360. Meanwhile the Orbis has the advantage of much faster RAM and the fact that it is only using one core at most from its CPU for OS/App stuff. If you add in the physics compute cores DF mentioned and the system should be a good 15x more powerful than the PS3 which was already a fair bit more powerful than the 360. Also, they didn't mention this in the article but the Durango is supposed to be using a 6970 not a 7970. That's a pretty large downgrade as well. So overall conclusion is that the Orbis is going to be significantly more powerful than the Durango. But the question then, is if Sony can keep the price down.

As a final note, I understand the desire to use high efficiency laptop parts in a console, but part of me still wishes we were seeing some desktop based Intel/Nvidia parts instead of laptop AMD parts. Yea the console would cost twice as much and be twice as big, but damn would games look good on it.

Man, when the PS4 and Durango are getting examined like the next iPhone i just do not give a flying fuck anymore. Its all going to be about services.

These console specs make me feel good about my pc purchase. I had begun to worry that the new console cycle would WRECK my pc (not that they'd be better, but that they'd usher in way, way more intense games).

@ChinaDontCare: Have you never lived through a console generation shift before? This will be talked about non-stop for the rest of the year and probably into next year as well. Personally I think it is interesting. But to each his own.

Pretty sure the same thing was posted on Reddit a few days ago (with more info on the Durango).

Patrick actually linked to this on his latest Worth Reading. I should give this a thorough read rather than just skimming it.

Just a comparison of graphics cards, if we are going by the assumption of 7970M for Orbis and 6970M for Durango.

@ChinaDontCare said:

Man, when the PS4 and Durango are getting examined like the next iPhone i just do not give a flying fuck anymore. Its all going to be about services.

Exactly. Specs are fine and dandy but I am way more interested to see the services they are going to offer, and more so; games. I am fully expecting MS to keep keep digging into it's deep pockets and trying to lore 3rd party devs with boats of cash and to Sony to keep doing it's own thing with the many 1st party studios they own and from their 2nd party developers.

I feel Sony are in much better position in terms of services because of the Pay-2-Play model MS have adopted. Also I am interested to see how their recent acquisition of Gaikai will come into play.

To sum it up: We'l see real soon.

This is interesting stuff. If this is all correct, we're looking at a pretty huge step up from this generation of consoles.

I'm getting more curious about Orbis and Durango every day.

DF didn't source any of this though - they just collected the current rumours in to one article - so they totally print rumour, albeit rumours that are likely more accurate than most. The authour pretty much quotes some neogaf posts verbatim.

Actually if you were to read the over long (70+ pages) neogaf thread then posters who have proved to have some industry links in the past have already suggested some of the details - e.g. MS reserving 3gb of ram and 2 cores for OS - are either out of date or wrong.

One thing that seems to be true is that with both consoles using very similar hardware and x86 - 3rd parties are going to find ports much easier. First party is going to be a big deciding factor on which to buy.

@BeachThunder said:

Just a comparison of graphics cards, if we are going by the assumption of 7970M for Orbis and 6970M for Durango.

Everyone needs to keep in mind that even though they are on par with higher end mobile GPU's, these things are built from the ground up for playing games. There isn't any overhead from Windows and there are faster interconnects between GPU, RAM, and CPU. The great thing about all of this though is that the architecture is such that it will make it a lot easier to port games to PC which means better ports in the long run.

@Enigma777 said:

Pretty sure the same thing was posted on Reddit a few days ago (with more info on the Durango).

Yeah, that's where I saw this first. Seems to be the first stop of a lot of news on the internet these days.

I couldn't find any mention of whether or not the Xbox was using a 6970, 6970M or a 7970M. The gulf between a 7970M and a 6970M is fairly large, but a desktop variant 6970 vs 7970M gives a huge advantage to the 6970.

@TheManiacsGnome: No way it's a desktop variant. You do realize how prohibitive the costs of those internals would be if it was close to a desktop video card

I was hoping they would go bigger on the graphics card front.

I feel a bit better about going ahead with a living room desktop gaming pc with a 690 in it now.

@Colourful_Hippie: Certainly not more than a cut down Radeon X1900, or whatever variant of the Geforce 79XX that RSX is based off. It's not like video cards are much more expensive now than they were 7 years ago, unless you're heading into the ultra high end dual GPU danger zone.

Unless Microsoft is going in a very different direction, not just with how the box is used but in the segments they are targeting with games, I just can't see them shooting themselves in the foot with a mobile variant that's based off an even older desktop variant. It's also a case of AMD churning out the 7970M already, wouldn't it be more cost effective to go that route instead?

I dont know the 6970M leaves a bad taste in my mouth and makes me a ridiculously sad panda.

@Rowr: You're in the mindset of comparing these things to PC's (as if these machines are just like PC's) which is wrong. They don't have the overhead that comes with PC's and are streamlined machines made for running games. It's not like they are going to throw a 660 in there, these machines are supposed to be mass produced and sold at a reasonable price.

@Sooty: Those GPU's have already been shown to run games like Battlefield 3 and Crysis 2 just fine at 1080p and these were on laptops. Games will be pushed further and still stay at 1080p because developers are making these games just for that specific hardware.

EDIT: Now it looks like I'm a crazy person talking to nobody. Thanks for deleting the comment.

@Raven10 said:

That's not a bad thing per say, but 3 GB's of RAM is a huge amount to give up. If that were used in the actual games we'd be seeing some amazing looking games.

RAM won't carry your system past the limitations of the graphics card.

If they were culling the video card's RAM, then that would be another story.

@Colourful_Hippie said:

@Sooty: Those GPU's have already been shown to run games like Battlefield 3 and Crysis 2 just fine at 1080p and these were on laptops. Games will be pushed further and still stay at 1080p because developers are making these games just for that specific hardware.

EDIT: Now it looks like I'm a crazy person talking to nobody. Thanks for deleting the comment.

What I meant was, developers will make games at 720P still just so they can pack in more eye candy.

It doesn't really bother me either, sitting back 6+ feet away from a TV makes the difference between 720P and 1080P rather hard to spot unless you are in the 60"+ range.

@Sooty: That's highly unlikely. This hardware will be more than capable to run that stuff in native 1080p. What will happen, like with previous generations, is that instead of going for a 60 frame standard they will go for 30 but with more visual flair.

@BeachThunder: what is that list even testing?

some of the placings there are questionable.

and like @Colourful_Hippie: said.

consoles get a lot more mileage out of their components than regular pc's do.

They can run strange low resolutions without anyone complaining as well, which further extends their lifespan.

@Raven10 said:

That's not a bad thing per say...

It's per se.

That is all.

Interesting.

@Sooty said:

@Raven10 said:

That's not a bad thing per say, but 3 GB's of RAM is a huge amount to give up. If that were used in the actual games we'd be seeing some amazing looking games.

RAM won't carry your system past the limitations of the graphics card.

If they were culling the video card's RAM, then that would be another story.

Consoles don't tend to have dedicated graphics RAM. Sony made that mistake this generation and I doubt they would care to repeat it. They would have 8 GB total, shared between CPU and GPU. Remember chances are both processors will be on the same chip. So there is no graphics card with graphics RAM per say. Those 3 GB could definitely be used for GPU based tasks.

@Colourful_Hippie said:

@Rowr: You're in the mindset of comparing these things to PC's (as if these machines are just like PC's) which is wrong. They don't have the overhead that comes with PC's and are streamlined machines made for running games. It's not like they are going to throw a 660 in there, these machines are supposed to be mass produced and sold at a reasonable price.

No no, i understand that it will be much leaner and efficient, I guess i just have an expectation from previous console cycles that they would be choosing a little bit higher up the ladder. I understand they are mass produced - which is why they should be able to be sold at a reasonable price.

I can't remember at the start of any console cycle when i was able to own something much beefier pc wise, I've been looking at a pc build lately, and with a 690 in it with the option to throw another one in later my 2500 - 3000 grand (aus prices) build should absolutely shit it in, as far as the price tag if i wasn't picking the best of everything not to mention starting from scratch (things i won't need to reinvest in for quite some time like case and powersupply etc account for about a grand). I could shave another five hundred off by opting for a single 680 and probably still be pretty comfortable. Sure it won't be as efficient, but the raw power ought to make up for that for at least a few years, depending on how the games are ported. If i trimmed it right down i could have the equivalent of one of these consoles for 1000-1500 8 months early.

My ps3 gets love for its original downloadable titles and plus, while the xbox has been turned on (and then turned off in disgust) twice in a year. Granted i didn't have the disposable income either in the past, but still. I guess the long console cycle is largely to blame, really my laptop has picked up from the ps3 and xbox over the last few years for AAA games just for the fact i can play them in 1080 with anti aliasing, i hdmi it out like a console to the tv, or i can take it on the road. Demonstrating that these cards run bf3 and crysis on medium at 1080p is a complete joke to me when my two year old laptop runs them higher, so I already own a next gen console and have for the last two years?

I know i'm going to end up probably picking up one or both of these consoles eventually (more because i'm an enthusiast of the whole industry than any practical reasons), it's going to be a way tougher sell for them though given that through steam i can have the best of both worlds. I'm not sure what sony and microsoft have that they can sell to me aside from exclusives, and exclusives seem to be dead for the most part.

It also doesn't help that what i spend on steam for games would be roughly 50-70 percent more if i bought the same games digitally (or retail) through either ms or sonys stores - and my investment in games is surely the biggest cost i will have overall at the end of the day. But again some of this is to blame of the region (Australia).

Microsoft are obviously moving towards some type of home entertainment media service. As far as that is concerned - i don't need it. Sony can bring the hardware but damn have they struggled the last five years with compelling content and just keeping up with the trends. (and pricing as far as AUS is concerned, i mean 1000 dollars for the console for the first year? 100 dollars for a "new" dualshock two or three years after launch?)