Digital Foundry: next-gen PlayStation and Xbox to use AMD's 8-core CPU and Radeon HD

[itsmydamnation]

Originally Posted by deltree86

So at least the upcoming generation of consoles will not support 4k resolutions. Because the hardware in rumors can't really support all that. I would imagine that in a closed system the level of optimization attained with multi threading will usher the same PC versions to actually improve when the developers re-apply their learning to the PC cases.

sort of , 360 is already 6 threads. its more about what the lowest common demoninator cpu target is, so far it seems to have been around 4 threads.

[Dresdenboy]

I'm discussing the future console specs with a coworker each week. He assumes 4K and stereoscopic 3D support. Full HD 3D would mean twice the 1080p graphics output and 4K would result in 4 times as much pixels to be drawn. But given the perceivable resolution at certain viewing distances it should be possible to avoid any AA then. An addin card/module solution might also work, possibly with a 20 or less nm GPU solution at the time when 4K becomes mainstream, which might be a few years away.


Regarding the economics of console HW vs PC:
The console makers might not only count on game license income, but also on future price drops of its main components after process improvements. Thats a benefit of nearly unchanged specs over a lifecycle.

[blackened23]

4K gaming is not realistic for upcoming hardware, that just will not happen.

[Maragark]

Originally Posted by 2is

Right and the 7800 is less powerful too.

Both of those GPUs are more powerful than their console alternatives, with the PS3 featuring a cut down 7800GTX and the Xbox360 using a cut down X1800.

[Lepton87]

Originally Posted by Maragark

Both of those GPUs are more powerful than their console alternatives, with the PS3 featuring a cut down 7800GTX and the Xbox360 using a cut down X1800.

You're wrong about Xbox360, Xenos is a completely reworked unified architecture, X1800 is still a non-unified architecture with dedicated pixel shaders and vertex shaders.

[2is]

Originally Posted by Maragark

Both of those GPUs are more powerful than their console alternatives, with the PS3 featuring a cut down 7800GTX and the Xbox360 using a cut down X1800.

You're wrong. Im not even talking about the PS3. Haven't you spread enough nonsense for a single lifetime?

[SickBeast]

It's disappointing that the new consoles aren't pushing the envelope they way the older ones typically have. Both the PS3 and Xbox 360 had very powerful GPUs. In the case of the Xbox 360, it had a next generation GPU that was significantly better than the PC equivalent, plus it had some kind of crazy GPU buffer memory that made it even faster.

[insertcarehere]

Originally Posted by Dresdenboy

He assumes 4K and stereoscopic 3D support. Full HD 3D would mean twice the 1080p graphics output and 4K would result in 4 times as much pixels to be drawn. But given the perceivable resolution at certain viewing distances it should be possible to avoid any AA then. An addin card/module solution might also work, possibly with a 20 or less nm GPU solution at the time when 4K becomes mainstream, which might be a few years away.

I can't see how an add-in card module can work very well in any way, even disregarding the fact that no interface will be able to provide even near the bandwith such a gpu needs, developers will still have to accomodate for people who don't have this add-in card

[VirtualLarry]

Originally Posted by SickBeast

It's disappointing that the new consoles aren't pushing the envelope they way the older ones typically have. Both the PS3 and Xbox 360 had very powerful GPUs.

Maybe MS and Sony looked at the bottom line financially, and saw that they lost money this last generation, and chalked that up to their high-cost (at the time) hardware?

Thus opting for something more affordable hardware-wise, and more cost-effective overall.

[SickBeast]

Originally Posted by VirtualLarry

Maybe MS and Sony looked at the bottom line financially, and saw that they lost money this last generation, and chalked that up to their high-cost (at the time) hardware?

Thus opting for something more affordable hardware-wise, and more cost-effective overall.

I think it was that combined with the fact that you only need so much power for 1080p resolution. It's still disappointing though from a gamer's perspective.

[Maragark]

Originally Posted by 2is

You're wrong. Im not even talking about the PS3. Haven't you spread enough nonsense for a single lifetime?

Nonsense like what? Like this? As for the consoles, that's what they're equivalent to.

Xenos:
Process Size: 90 nm
Transistors: 232 million
Die Size: 182 mm^2
Shading Units: 48
TMUs: 16
ROPs: 8
Compute Units: 3
Pixel Rate: 4.00 GPixel/s
Texture Rate: 8.00 GTexel/s
Floating-point performance: 48.00 GFLOPS
GPU Clock: 500 MHz
Memory Clock: 700 MHz, 1400 MHz effective
Memory Size: 512 MB
Memory Type: GDDR3
Memory Bus: 128 bit
Bandwidth: 22.4 GB/s

X1800 XT:
Process Size: 90 nm
Transistors: 321 million
Die Size: 288 mm^2
Pixel Shaders: 16
Vertex Shaders: 8
TMUs: 16
ROPs: 16
Pixel Rate: 9.60 GPixel/s
Vertex Rate: 9.60 GVertices/s
Texture Rate: 9.60 GTexel/s
GPU Clock: 600 MHz
Memory Clock: 700 MHz, 1400 MHz effective
Memory Size: 512 MB
Memory Type: GDDR3
Memory Bus: 256 bit
Bandwidth: 44.8 GB/s

The X1800 XT is clearly better than Xenos and was released a month before it.

[SickBeast]

Maragark you are wrong.

[2is]

Originally Posted by Maragark

Nonsense like what? Like this? As for the consoles, that's what they're equivalent to.

Nonsense like the vast majority of your posts here at Anandtech... Oh look, multiple people telling you you're wrong... Again. Shocker.

Also, Gabe does not determine success of gaming PC's. Are you really clueless enough to think Gabe, the guy behind the largest digital distribution service on PC is impartial and has no motive to push one platform over the other? Nevermind, stupid question based on your post history.

[MightyMalus]

For sure 4K gaming is out of the question, but 4K video? Different story.

This generation will concentrate on full 1080p type resolutions.

[Maragark]

Originally Posted by SickBeast

Maragark you are wrong.

How am I wrong? Simply because you say so? I posted the specs for Xenos and the X1800 XT and the specs for the X1800 XT are clearly better.

[sontin]

The specs of the X1800XT are not better at all.
Xenos has 48 Vec4+1 unified shaders, r520 only 16 vec4+1 ps and 8 vec4 vs.

Xenos has twice the shaders but up to 3x the ps and 6x the vs performance.

[Maragark]

Originally Posted by 2is

Nonsense like the vast majority of your posts here at Anandtech... Oh look, multiple people telling you you're wrong... Again. Shocker.

Just because a couple of people disagree with a post, that doesn't make it nonsense. Since I made those comments, Tom's have done an SFF gaming build guide and Gabe has been speaking about the PC in a console form factor in the living room. It's pretty obvious SFF PCs are becoming more common and pretty soon they'll be the norm. You'd have to be completely devoid of common sense and real life experience to think that a cheaper, smaller, better performing and more functional SFF PC would not compete with a console in taking a poor persons cash.

Originally Posted by 2is

Also, Gabe does not determine success of gaming PC's. Are you really clueless enough to think Gabe, the guy behind the largest digital distribution service on PC is impartial and has no motive to push one platform over the other? Nevermind, stupid question based on your post history.

Are you really so delusional as to think that SFF PCs, with the backing of Valve, have zero chance of success?

It's pretty funny seeing you bring this back up simply because you can't refute the fact that the X1800 XT is better than Xenos, as shown by the specs I posted.

[Skurge]

You guys can't be serious.

Xenos faster than R520?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/1719/7

[Maragark]

Originally Posted by sontin

The specs of the X1800XT are not better at all.
Xenos has 48 Vec4+1 unified shaders, r520 only 16 vec4+1 ps and 8 vec4 vs.

Xenos has twice the shaders but up to 3x the ps and 6x the vs performance.

The specs for the the X1800 XT are clearly better. Yes the Xenos, has more shaders and uses a unified architecture but that's the only thing about it that is better.

The X1800 XT has:

89 million more transistors,
2x the ROPs,
more than 2x pixel fill rate,
greater texture fill rate,
higher gpu clock,
2x memory bus width,
2x memory bandwidth.

But yeah, nevermind all that, Xenos uses unified shaders, therefore it must be better.

[zebrax2]

Originally Posted by Skurge

You guys can't be serious.

Xenos faster than R520?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/1719/7

Performance of this hardware is a very difficult aspect to assess without testing the system. The potential is there for some nice gains over the current high end desktop part, but it is very difficult to know how easily software engineers will be able to functionally use the hardware before they fully understand it and have programmed for it for a while.

[Maragark]

Originally Posted by zebrax2

At the time of that article, the top-end ATI card was the X850 XT.

[Lepton87]

I think Xenos is more comparable to R580 then it is to R520, don't forget that it has a big Edram(for the time) which allows AA at much reduced performance impact. Anyway, it's a discussion that people had 7 years ago

[Gideon]

Originally Posted by Lepton87

I think Xenos is more comparable to R580 then it is to R520, don't forget that it has a big Edram(for the time) which allows AA at much reduced performance impact. Anyway, it's a discussion that people had 7 years ago

Xenos could actally be considerably faster in heavily shader-bound games than R520 (X1800), however R580 (X1900) should have been faster across the board (with the exception of some corner-case scenarios like being extremely vertex-bound).

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/454..._X1900_XT.html

Anyway, these guys who are whining, why we don't have the highest end GPUs in the consoles are missing a very important point:

1) The top of the line cards of the time, X1800 and X1900, have a TDP between 100 - 135 W.
2) Radeon 7970 Ghz edition has a TDP of 300 W.

You can't fit such a beast into a console chassis ! The First iteration of Xbox 360 was considered quite bulky and noisy for a console, despite having a GPU with 3x smaller power draw, than the current high-end!

Even vanilla 7950 with its 200W TDP is too much. A Radeon 7850 (130 W TDP), or something with a similar power draw, is about the maximum Microsoft could comfortably fit into the chassis, without resorting to expensive cooling measures.

So yeah, Microsoft did undershot with it's GPU compared to Xbox 360 at its time, but it didn't do it nearly as much as many claim. Tahiti is simply too big a chip to be used in a console, even the upper end Pitcairns are iffy!

[Enigmoid]

I think when making this comparison its more relevent to compare xenos to the best card at the start of manufacturing as compared to the best card at approximate date of release.

You really cant expect them to be able to put a card in that was released months after they started manufacturing.

[2is]

Originally Posted by Maragark

Just because a couple of people disagree with a post, that doesn't make it nonsense.

Same tired excuse. If it makes you feel better, that's not the only reason

Are you really so delusional as to think that SFF PCs, with the backing of Valve, have zero chance of success?

It's pretty funny seeing you bring this back up simply because you can't refute the fact that the X1800 XT is better than Xenos, as shown by the specs I posted.

Are you so delusional to think people outside of enthusiasts know who gabe even is? The "backing" of valve? What does that even mean? Are they subsidizing the cost? Are they giving them away? Or is this "backing" Consist of a guy sitting in a chair.... Talking? Kind of like what you're doing?

And bring what back up? I'm pretty sure anything that was rehashed was your doing. How can anything you say be taken seriously when you can't even keep up with the BS that comes out of your own mouth?