Informed Information on consoles hardware:
XboX:
CPU: Intel Pentium III 700MHz
Video: nVidia Geforce3MX
Ram: 64MB SDRAM
GameCube:
CPU: RISC PowerPC 450MHz
Video: ATi Flipper
Ram: 64MB SDRAM
PS2:
CPU: MIPS 400MHz
Video: Emotion Engine
Ram: 32Mb SDRAM
Comparision of hardware:
As you look at this you may say that the XboX has the best hardware bit thats not technically true because they are not directly comparable.
1. The XboX is run on a rather low speed x86 Processor.
2. The GC is running a RISC Processor which in terms of clock speed can do almost everything quicker than the Pentium III. (EG. The most up to date Mac runs on a 800MHz RISC PowerPC and it can beat the Pentium IV at 2.0GHz in video editing and other programs)
3. The PS2 may have the least ram but it can store more information in its bus than any of the other CPU's so it has no need so it can access the information quicker.
4. The GC and XboX are about on par with each other on the Video Card front.
5. The emotion engine is very complecated and there is not alot of information on it but is slightly above spec (in trems of MIFLOPS) of both the GC's and XboX's Video BUT there is not a game out there that can push the Video to its max it is a very watsed part of the system it usually is used.
6. The XboX has probably got the Most easy to program GPU (Graphical Processing Unit) it has vertex and pixel shaders and good anti-aliasing which come into play alot as the max resolution that all of these consoles play at is 800x600 because that is the best resolution that a TV operates at.
Hope that was a interesting read for all you Hardware PhReAkS, but i bet it made no sense to most of ya!
Just thought I would back up some of the things that people have said and not just say that one is better than the other.
BrunO