Microsoft Xbox 360 Specs: CPU, Graphics, Memory

Xbox 360 holds its own in the competitive game console market

Microsoft Xbox 360 Game Console With Kinect.
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Updated August 28, 2017

These are the official specs of the Xbox 360 directly from Microsoft before the system launched in November 2005. Some aspects of the hardware have changed in the decade since, such as the addition of an HDMI port, built-in Wi-Fi, support for 1080p, and two total redesigns of the system—the Slim system and later the "E"—but the core of the hardware hasn't changed much from this initial spec sheet.

It is pretty impressive how a system that was underpowered, to begin with compared to its competition (the PS3) is still alive and kicking and pumping out good-looking games even today.

Custom IBM Power-PC Based CPU

  • Three symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each
  • Two hardware threads per core; six hardware threads total
  • VMX-128 vector unit per core; three total
  • 128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread
  • 1MB L2 cache

CPU Game Math Performance

  • 9 billion dot product operations per second

Custom ATI Graphics Processor

  • 500 MHz processor
  • 10MB of embedded DRAM
  • 48-way parallel floating-point dynamically scheduled shader pipelines
  • Unified shader architecture

Polygon Performance

  • 500 million triangles per second

Pixel Fill Rate

  • 16 giga-samples per second fill rate using 4x MSAA

Shader Performance

  • 48 billion shader operations per second

Memory

  • 512MB of GDDR3 RAM
  • 700 MHz of DDR
  • Unified memory architecture

Memory Bandwidth

  • 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
  • 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
  • 21.6 GB/s front-side bus

Overall System Floating-Point Performance

  • 1 teraflop

Storage

  • Detachable and upgradeable 20GB hard drive 
  • 12x dual-layer DVD-ROM
  • Memory Unit support starting at 64MB

I/O

  • Support for up to four wireless game controllers
  • Three USB 2.0 ports
  • Two memory unit slots

    Optimized for Online

    • Instant, out-of-the-box access to Xbox Live features with broadband service, including Xbox Live for downloadable content, gamer profile for digital identity, and voice chat to talk to friends while playing games, watching movies or listening to music
    • Built-in Ethernet port
    • Wi-Fi ready: 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g
    • Video camera ready

    Digital Media Support

    • Support for DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 CD, JPEG Photo CD
    • Ability to stream media from portable music devices, digital cameras and Windows XP-based PCs
    • Ability to rip music to the Xbox 360 hard drive
    • Custom playlists in every game
    • Built-in Media Center Extender for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
    • Interactive, full-screen 3-D visualizers

    High-Definition Game Support

    • All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing
    • Standard-definition and high-definition video output supported

    Audio

    • Multichannel surround sound output
    • Supports 48 kHz 16-bit audio
    • 320 independent decompression channels
    • 32-bit audio processing
    • Over 256 audio channels

    System Orientation

    • Stands vertically or horizontally

    Customizable Face Plates

    • Interchangeable to personalize the console