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[AnThMaStA]

Will it be possible to use an Xbox 360 as a PC?

Obviously first you have to mod it, then load Windows on it, which could take a long time.

But would it be possible to part the system out to take the parts out such as taking the processors out, the RAM, and the Video Card and simply putting it into your computer?
Or is it built specifically for an Xbox 360?

[twistedsymphony]

Once the console has been modded we'll most likely be able to run linux on the Xbox360... (don't expect to run windows unless you're emulating windows with linux, then don't expect it to run well enough to use anything worthwhile)

As for using Xbox360 parts in your PC... not likely, I suppose you might be able to re-format your hard drive and use that (but who'd want a 20GB hard drive?). Aside from that you could use your controller on your PC... but that's about it.

MOST of the hardware is explicitly designed for the Xbox360 and isn't compatible with a PC.

[CattyKid]

I have never even heard of anyone attempting to part out an XBox, and that is just a celeron.  Well, the DVD drive and the HDD work, but that is pretty much it.

[Staple]

no this is not possible atleast not with the pc parts available now. and even if you could it would be more work then its worth.

[bucko]

Windows is closed source that is why it wont appear on 360 (unless through emulation) and the CPU is ppc so you *might* see macosx on it. Linux can be ported to any PC because it's open source and can be recompiled if he/she knows the hardware well enough for the right options in the linux kernel.

[munkle]

oops to late to edit, i meant to say that it wouldnt fit in pcs at the end of my post sorry  

[lostboyz]

i think you can do a little more than web browse with 512mb of RAM. shit i was doing some pretty extensive video editing with 256mb and 750 mhz

[Bogus8]

Pretty fucking sad when we think 512mb of ram and 3ghz is only enough to surf the web  

if this would be true I would think we need to get a handle on some out of control developers cause I remember not too long ago 128mb of ram was heaps at like 200-500mhz... Office applications haven't come that far along... gaming yeah.. but not all of it... you have a gaming machine... I think if you are looking to play games leave it as such... you want a Personal Computer then do that, but a PC isn't a gaming machine.

[anon123]

isnt it

QUOTE

Three symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each

- which would mean 3.2 * 3 = 9.6 ghz...that is about equal to the $892 (at newegg) x2 4800+ - which is 2 cores running at 2.4 ghz (but 2.4 ghz on amd is 4.8 ghz on intel, hence the 4800+ number, and 4.8*2 cores=9.6 ghz, same as the xbox.....)  The xbox 360 has 3 cores and the x2 has only 2, but the x2 has double the L2 cache....basically my point is the xbox360's processor can hold its own against the most expensive processors of today.  In terms of ram, 512 mb is actually quite a lot.  From a hardware standpoint, I think running linux and emulating windows might be doable.  Basically take how fast windows runs right now, and multiply the speed by 12 (I got the number 12 by taking 9.6 ghz and dividing by the current processor's speed of 800 mhz) to get the speed of what it would be like on the 360.  This is of course not even accounting for the fact that the 360 has 3 seperate cores each running its own processes individually and that it can run 6 hardware threads simultaneously, and that the ram is 8 times the size of the current xbox....

I think the hardware is powerful enough to support windows, even through emulation.  Running linux will probably be identical to running it on a pc, probably even better (pc depending, of course).  The big question is of course if it will be moddable or not.

[anon123]

I wasnt responding to the feasibility of gaming or anything, I was talking about using it to run windows.  Although I didn't just mention cores, I also said

QUOTE

and that the ram is 8 times the size of the current xbox

...there is still a ton of ram.  So in terms of using it as a gaming PC, the only real hurdle blocking it is video card memory.  I wonder if someone will develop a mod to solder on ram or use virtual ram for the video through the hard drive?  Even if they don't, we could still play starcraft like none other  

of course, for newer games....you DO have an xbox360.....i wonder if that can play new games any good?

[anon123]

actually no i did talk about the video ram

QUOTE

So in terms of using it as a gaming PC, the only real hurdle blocking it is video card memory. I wonder if someone will develop a mod to solder on ram or use virtual ram for the video through the hard drive? Even if they don't, we could still play starcraft like none other beerchug.gif

the video ram is important for gaming mainly - not so much for other tasks like web browsing, word processing, other tasks.  its not going to sink heavily into the 512mb of ram.....and i said that even if you DO want to take advantage of the gaming, maybe we can try to add ram in some other fashion like virtual ram, or even soldering on more video ram.  

then again, like i said before, the xbox360 will probably play games pretty well on its own, without some other OS on it.

[Carlo210]

Probably play games pretty well on its own?

[Bogus8]

What exactly else do you want to do... the man is text editing (word), surfing 10 websites, using an ftp client, running an ftp server, streaming music, ready to watch quicktime movies, instant messaging, other mundane task, and even got a small yet still pretty cool game.

What else do you want to do on a pc besides latest kick ass games??  I mean that's not what the majority of people with a pc do... most do pretty much less than what this guy is doing.

Oh, and he's running a bloated OS

[twistedsymphony]

The 360 has 10mb of embedded ram used only for specialized tasks (like AA). Any general graphics processing will make use of the shared 512MB not the 10MB

Lets assume for a moment that MS did infact release a version of XP or Vista that could run on the 360... That would take care of the processor side, I should HOPE that the same company that designed the hardware would be able to optimize their software to run on it.

As for the ram... 512MB (even shared) is plenty of GENERAL COMPUTING TASKS
Web Browsing
Instant Messaging
Media (music, videos, DVDs, etc)
Simple Photo or Sound Editing/Scanning/Printing
File sharing (P2P, FTP, etc)
Ripping and Burning

Yes you could even play quite a bit of games and even do Solid Modeling with that "little" amount of ram.
I ran 512MB on my old AMD 2600 XP with a 64MB GForce 2 with WinXP

I was able to run UT 2004 at a decent resolution, I was also able to run a slew of solid modeling applications such as Solidworks, Rhino3D, Cinema4D, etc.

Not only that I was able to run all of those things on my IBM T20 Laptop... a P3 733Mhz with 256MB ram and a S3 Savage 8MB video processor.... granted it didn't perform anywhere near comparable to a high-end Desktop but I still ran them, and comfortably.

But that's all assumption... Windows XP or Vista don't run on the 360 and probably never will... the argument is pointless and holds no factual information... it's all just speculation.

Heck Windows is not even optimized for multi core and even if it was open source I don't see anyone optimizing it in the near future... why even talk about running windows on the 360 it will never happen: PERIOD.

[Bogus8]