Nvidia announced today that they will be providing Microsoft with the XBOXs Media Communications Processor (MCP). The MCP does the XBOXs high-end multimedia processing for broadband connectivity, communications, and audio capabilities. In a quote from NVIDIAs president and CEO “The XBOX MCP, also called MCPX, is the first product in a new category of media and communication processors that will power the 21st century broadband digital appliances”.

Deep inside the MCPX is a pair of high performance multimedia DSPs, executing up to 4 billion operations per second. This is equivalent to the multimedia processing power of a high performance Pentium III. The object of all of this horsepower is to give theater-quality sound and 2D sound while connected to a digital broadband internet for networked games. With NVIDIA producing the 3D GPU, and now the MCP, NVIDIA feels this will make the XBOX a major leap in video game performance.