[CSt031] Graphics and Console Hardware and Real-time Rendering

5th Lecture :: The XBOX 360 Architecture Dr. Michael Manzke [email protected]

Trinity College Dublin

Dr. Michael Manzke :: CS7031 ::

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A First Look at the XBOX 360 Architecture So far we covered general CPU and simple cache organisations. We have not yet considered advanced optimisation. This part of the course is about graphics and console hardware. In this lecture we look at the first console hardware. This will help us to identify aspects or computer architecture that we need to investigate further. You will use the Xbox 360 intensively for your shader programing in the second part. A good appreciation of the underlying architecture should help you with this. Dr. Michael Manzke :: CS7031 ::

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The XBOX System Architecture Paper

The following slides are based on Andrews’ and Backer’s "XBOX 360 System Architecture" paper [AB06]. Figures on these slides are take from the paper. A link to the paper, that can only be accessed by students in college, will be made available on the course’s web page. [AB06] Jeff Andrews and Nick Baker. Xbox 360 system architecture. IEEE Micro, 26(2):25–37, 2006.

Dr. Michael Manzke :: CS7031 ::

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System Overview

The live cycle of game consoles is approximately 5 years. Consequently we see greater advances than we would expect in desktop or server architectures. The figure on the next slide shows a top-level system diagram (Figure on Slide 10). We can clearly idenfy the main components in this top-level system diagram: CPU Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) Memory I/O Dr. Michael Manzke :: CS7031 ::

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Top-level System Diagram

Dr. Michael Manzke :: CS7031 ::

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Design Objectives

The architecture should provide a balanced hardware for the software pipe. Rendering Animation Physics AI Console design must meet the the power requirements. The design choices include: Number of CPU cores. Number of GPU shaders CPU L2 size Bus bandwidths Memory size

Dr. Michael Manzke :: CS7031 ::

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Design Features

The CPU has three cores that share: A 8-way set-associative L2 cache. The L2 cache has 1MB and is clocked at 3.2 GHz Each of the three cores hold four-way single-instruction, multiple data (SIMD) vector units. These components are optimised for graphics and game workloads. The front-side bus (FSB) operates at 10.8 GB/s for reads and writes. With 16 logical pins in each direction. The FSB and L2 design allows the GPU to directly access the L2 cache. The system’s I/O chip provides: Xbox media audio XMA decoder. on-the-fly decoding of compressed audio streams. NAND flash controller System management controller (SMC) Dr. Michael Manzke :: CS7031 ::

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The Graphics Processing Unit and Main Memory

The GPU has: 48 parallel, unified shaders. 10 MB embedded DRAM EDRAM Operats at 256 GB/s For hight bandwidth to frame buffer and z-buffer. The Main Memory has: 512 MB unified memory Is a 700-MHz graphics douple-data-rate-3 (GDDR3) memory. 22.4 GB/s memory bandwidth

Dr. Michael Manzke :: CS7031 ::

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The CPU Component

PowerPC instruction set architecture VMX SIMD vector instruction set (VMX128) Customized for graphics workloads. Shared L2 cache Fine-graind, dynamic allocation of cache lines between the six threads CPU core has two-per-cycle, in-order instruction issuance. Two hardware threads per core.

Dr. Michael Manzke :: CS7031 ::

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CPU Chip Diagram

Dr. Michael Manzke :: CS7031 ::

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CPU Cached Data Streaming

The figure on the next slide is from the XBOX 360 System Architecture Paper (Figure on Slide 12).

Dr. Michael Manzke :: CS7031 ::

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CPU Cached Data Streaming Diagram

Dr. Michael Manzke :: CS7031 ::

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A :: X360BlockDiagram04 (IBM)

The figure on the next slide is from the XBOX 360 System Architecture Paper (Figure on Slide 14).

Dr. Michael Manzke :: CS7031 ::

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The CPU Die Photo (IBM)

Dr. Michael Manzke :: CS7031 ::

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The GPU Design

The figure on the next slide is from the XBOX 360 System Architecture Paper (Figure on Slide 16).

Dr. Michael Manzke :: CS7031 ::

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GPU Block Diagram (ATI)

Dr. Michael Manzke :: CS7031 ::

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The GPU Die The figure on the next slide is from the XBOX 360 System Architecture Paper (Figure on Slide 18).

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The GPU Die Photo

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The ERAM Die The figure on the next slide is from the XBOX 360 System Architecture Paper (Figure on Slide 20).

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The ERAM Die Photo

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XNA Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

The figure on the next slide is from the XBOX 360 System Architecture Paper (Figure on Slide 22).

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XNA Studio (IDE) Screen Shot

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