The XBox Next will be another win for AMD as SemiAccurate has confirmation that the GPU portion of the console will be an AMD chip.  The supplier for the CPU portion is a little less clear.  SemiAccurate has it as an IBM PowerPC chip similar to the current generation which uses a Xenon processor.  The newer XBox360 S used a XCGPU which was a 45nm version of the Xenon processor and an AMD Xenos GPU on the same die along with eDRAM, all wrapped up into one small package.  It does make sense that Microsoft would go that route as it should make supporting the previous generation of games much easier than implementing a new architecture.  It is very unlikely to be Cell based, even though that architecture shares the same PowerPC roots.

[H]ard|OCP has a dissenting opinion, or at least rumour, pegging the new XBox as a complete win for AMD.   They suppose it is possible that Bulldozer might find its way into the new console along with the already known GPU core; a fully AMD designed APU.  This also makes quite a bit of sense as AMD will have no trouble pairing the GPU and CPU as they’ve had quite a bit of practice.  Plus, it gives them something to do with the Bulldozer chips.

Either way the new chip will be named after a lovely Islay Scotch.

"Yeah, basically, the chip is ‘done’, and first silicon likely went in to the oven in the last two weeks. If this is true, Microsoft should have silicon back in time to give the families of XBox systems engineers a miserable holiday season, their loved ones will be doing breakneck bring-up work on Xbox Next."

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