With the impending release of the new Microsoft XBox, the company's first foray into the gaming console industry, a lot of eyes are on the software giant to see if it is able to replicate the success of the wildly popular Windows operating system.

The gaming console is relying on PC manufacturing partners to cooperate in the production of a system that closely mimics a PC. Microsoft plans to incorporate all the tools available in its Windows operating system to offer state of the art graphics, using a Intel Pentium III 600 MHz processor and an equally impressive NVidia NV15 graphics card, Microsoft has managed to already double the specs boasted by it's rivals Nintendo's upcoming gameCube and Sony's already popular Playstation 2.

XBox is currently configured with the following parameters:

X-Box specifications:

600 Mhz Intel Pentium III CPU
64 MB Unified 200mhz DDR memory (6.4 GB/s bandwidth)
8 GB Hard drive
4x DVD drive
8 MB memory card
10/100 Ethernet (modem downgrade optional)
Proprietary A/V connector
4 controller ports using proprietary USB connections

GPU specifications

300 Mhz NV25 NVIDIA core
4.8 gigapixels per second fill rate
4.8 gigapixels per second with 4 textures per polygon
4 texels per pipeline
300 million polygons per second peak
100+ million polygons per second sustained (lit and textured)
8:1 texture compression support
Full Screen Anti-Aliasing
Micro polygon support
1920x1080 max resolution
DVD and HDTV Support

Audio

64 channels
3D Audio
Midi/DLS2
AC3 decoding

Operating System

Windows 2000 Kernal
DirectX 8 API

A Brief comparison between the 3 major gaming consoles available:

-	XBOX	Sony PlayStation 2	Nintendo GameCube
CPU	733 MHz	294.912 MHz	405MHz Power PC
Graphics Processor	250Mhz custom-designed chip, developed by Microsoft and nVidia	147.456MHz	202.5 MHz Custom chip "Flipper"
Total Memory	64MB	32MB	43MB
Memory Bandwidth	6.4GB/sec	3.2 GB/sec	3.2GB/sec
Polygon Performance	125 M/sec	66 M/sec	6-12 M/sec
Simultaneous Textures	4	1	N/A
Pixel Fill Rate - No texture	4.0 G/Sec	2.4 G/Sec	N/A
Pixel Fill Rate - 1 Texture	4.0 G/Sec	1.2 G/Sec	N/A
Pixel Fill Rate - 2 Textures	4.0 G/Sec	0.6 G/Sec	N/A
Compressed Textures	Yes (6:1)	No	ST3C compressed textures (6:1)
Storage Medium	2-5x DVD, 10GB Hard disk, 8MB Memory card	4x DVD, 8MB Memory card	Propriety 1.5GB disc, Digicard - ½ Megabyte
I/O	Game controller x4 Ethernet (10/100)	Game controller x2 USB 1394 PCMCIA	Game contoller x4 High-speed serial port x2 High-speed parallel port
Audio Channels	256	48	64
3D Audio Support in Hardware	Yes (64 3D channels)	No	N/A
MIDI+DLS Support	Yes	Yes	N/A
Hardware audio filtering and EQ	Yes	No	N/A
Broadband enabled	Yes	Future Upgrade	Optional
DVD Movie Playback	Remote control accessory required	Yes	No
HDTV Movie support	Yes	Yes	No
HDTV Game support	Yes	No	N/A
Maximum resolution	1920x1080	1280X1024	N/A
Maximum resolution (2 x 32bpp frame buffers + Z)	1920x1080	640x480	N/A
US Launch Date	Fall 2001	October 2000	October 2001