AMD Jaguar : the great hope for next-gen PC gaming?

[Arkaign]

In those charts, there's no Atom chips in the comparison. Comparing Brazos to Conroe based Pentium Dual Cores is not even a remotely fair comparison. When you compare an Atom powered, non-Ion, to an E-350 and 6310 IGP, its night and day.

This the article that paints a more complete picture, as its actually a Jaguar based CPU.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6974/amd-kabini-review/5

And even then, its not complete as the part in the Xbone/PS4 contains double the cores, is clocked higher, and boast Radeon 7790/7870 class GPUs on the same die. If I'm not mistaken, these GPUs also have compute capabilities as well, so theres the very likely possibility that they'll be handling some computational tasks.

Still, an i5 will easily trounce the Jaguar part in raw performance. There's no question on that. One of the big complaints against these new consoles is that they are using low-midrange CPUs and midrange GPUs, from 2012. I don't see these new devices enjoying a ten year life cycle like their predecessors. With die shrinks, I'd expect them to be excellent with performance per watt, but I'd bank on a refresh in 4-5 years.

For gaming development, they're still a big jump over the 360 and PS3 and will definitely jerk that minimal standard we've all be stuck at for years upward. We'll just quickly plateau again in a fairly short time frame.

Oh yeah, I think we're on the same page overall.

I totally and completely agree that Kabini/Jaguar/etc are far, far, FAR better than Atom. However, as you say, comparing poorly to a low-end dual-core from 2006 (!!!!) is not exactly a stellar track record for anything beyond the lowest standard out there for performance (ie; netbook-style bottom-bin). At least the GPU side, which matters most for gaming (particularly on a console with hopefully low OS overhead/etc) and RAM are much better imho even for their respective timeframes than the 360/PS3 were.

Speaking of that, it always puzzled me how skimpy they went on ram at the time. I guess going for cutting-edge GPUs of the era cost them so much that they had to cut back? I remember having 512MB in 2002ish timeframe. By 2005 I was in the 2GB territory (4x512MB with Athlon64 and P4C), and by 2006 I had moved to 2x2GB DDR2. I guess ram was pricier back then. I think the 256MB/256MB for PS3 and 512MB shared for 360 really held things back a lot, and of course the infamous loading times. 8GB should drastically improve that front.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Everyone who is so down on the 8 core apu in the next gen consoles should understand that one core on this apu is probably faster than all three threads on the Xbox 360.

The only huge mistake Sony and Microsoft made was not using ssd's in the next gen consoles. I would imagine that ssd's are fast enough to stream textures in real time and basically do away with loading screens.

 

[Cerb]

Everyone who is so down on the 8 core apu in the next gen consoles should understand that one core on this apu is probably faster than all three threads on the Xbox 360.

The only huge mistake Sony and Microsoft made was not using ssd's in the next gen consoles. I would imagine that ssd's are fast enough to stream textures in real time and basically do away with loading screens.

I somewhat agree, but unless they could get a 5-10yr guarantee on NAND pricing, I can understand not doing that, too. Single-platter HDDs aren't likely to get more expensive, except through inflation, while NAND is only slightly less volatile than other memory tech.

That said, a small SSD would be enough to buffer multitasking crap, and/or provide SRT-like benefits, and help keep memory needs for background apps down. I definitely think they want to do too much non-gaming, with these consoles, and when that sort of thing comes from the manufacturers, it usually results in consumer-screwing antics and egg on faces .

 

[Aikouka]

The only huge mistake Sony and Microsoft made was not using ssd's in the next gen consoles. I would imagine that ssd's are fast enough to stream textures in real time and basically do away with loading screens.

Well, at least with the PS4, you can just replace the hard drive. The new 840 EVOs aren't too price prohibitive, and if Anandtech's latest review is any indication, they're quite good!

 

[Acanthus]

Thats technically true of every console generation. At launch, there's nothing better out there. A year in, PC tech has leapfrogged the consoles. At the end of the console life cycle, the console is an archaic paperweight, running highly optimized software. With this generation, the consoles are launching with hardware thats significantly weaker than even a midrange gaming PC today.

That is my main concern, they are coming in slower than current PCs, which means bleeding edge hardware on PCs will be held back immediately by console ports, although we will get a leap forward from the current crap console ports.

 

[Carfax83]

That is my main concern, they are coming in slower than current PCs, which means bleeding edge hardware on PCs will be held back immediately by console ports, although we will get a leap forward from the current crap console ports.

I think developers have wised up to the fact that you have to port from the TOP DOWN, and not bottom up. Which means, they start with the PC as the lead platform, and then scale down for the consoles.

Ubisoft is doing this with Watch Dogs, and so are many other developers with the next gen games. And because the next gen consoles have far more memory than the last gen, high end PCs won't be held back like they were in the last gen.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

I think developers have wised up to the fact that you have to port from the TOP DOWN, and not bottom up. Which means, they start with the PC as the lead platform, and then scale down for the consoles.

Ubisoft is doing this with Watch Dogs, and so are many other developers with the next gen games. And because the next gen consoles have far more memory than the last gen, high end PCs won't be held back like they were in the last gen.

For the first few years anyways...

I do think that Sony and Microsoft using off the shelf semi custom parts could see the console cycle being shortened from 10 years to 5 years. I excpect these APU's to gain steam and really improve over the next few years.

 

[Cerb]

Once the dev tools are a bit more mature, they should not be porting at all, instead developing on all supported platforms simultaneously, from the beginning.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Well, at least with the PS4, you can just replace the hard drive. The new 840 EVOs aren't too price prohibitive, and if Anandtech's latest review is any indication, they're quite good!

We can replace the HD, but that still won't change the way games are developed because of all the consoles that don't have SSD's in them.

If SSD's were the norm developers could do some really interesting streaming straight off the disk. No load times, no texture pop in, huge worlds that constantly stream into the engine. I don't think normal HDD's have the speed to perform these tasks.

 

[Acanthus]

Once the dev tools are a bit more mature, they should not be porting at all, instead developing on all supported platforms simultaneously, from the beginning.

That is definitely where the Unreal Engine is headed in the future. It is already like that today as long as you don't customize things too much.

 

[Cerb]

That is definitely where the Unreal Engine is headed in the future. It is already like that today as long as you don't customize things too much.

Let them customize. The problem with ports is the porting--IE, taking a complete game for a PS3, and making it an x86/Windows game. The games will use 99.9% the same media assets, scripts, etc.. There's really no reason they can't effectively work on all platforms the game will be released on, from the time development begins. If they're going to make PC and console versions, they should all do it like Larian, Bethesda, and CDPR (just off the top of my head--I'm sure there are others that do it well, too).

 

[Mombasa69]

I think developers have wised up to the fact that you have to port from the TOP DOWN, and not bottom up. Which means, they start with the PC as the lead platform, and then scale down for the consoles.

Ubisoft is doing this with Watch Dogs, and so are many other developers with the next gen games. And because the next gen consoles have far more memory than the last gen, high end PCs won't be held back like they were in the last gen.

PC Gaming have less than 15% of the market share, I really don't think developers give a flying toss about PC gamers. We'll just have make do with whatever they port out.

 

[imaheadcase]

Lets focus on Game Engines to get more advanced. Till that day comes keep wishing for a faster CPU/GPU.

Now-a-days you don't find a game engine that offers best of everything like you used to, they are normally just good at one type of game/thing vs jack-of-trades.

 

[Carfax83]

PC Gaming have less than 15% of the market share, I really don't think developers give a flying toss about PC gamers. We'll just have make do with whatever they port out.

EA financials show growing PC game revenue that surpass consoles

The PC may have a smaller market share, but the profit margin is higher. I think the PC may make a nice comeback this time simply due to the fact that the PS4 and the Xbox One are both x86 PCs themselves and the baseline will be much higher for development.

 

[Spjut]

Except from exclusives, we probably won't see anything really "next-gen" until the studios drop support for the PS3/360. Most initial games will probably just be simple ports of the PC versions

There has been alot of complaining about the DX11 overhead on the PC, I do think PC gamers really underestimate the potential of the PS4. The current PC APIs don't even expose all the features that are supported by the hardware.
Crysis 3 on the 360 obviously doesn't stack up to the PC version on even lowest(which would be terrible for the PC considering it requires at least a HD 5770) but it's damn impressive for that old hardware

Low-end and midrange PC users will probably need to upgrade once the next-gen consoles start getting pushed.

I'm very eager to see a comparison between BF4 on console and PC. It'll be interesting to see how the initial console optimization stacks up to a polished DX11.1 path, both running on GCN hardware

 

[Acanthus]

Except from exclusives, we probably won't see anything really "next-gen" until the studios drop support for the PS3/360. Most initial games will probably just be simple ports of the PC versions

There has been alot of complaining about the DX11 overhead on the PC, I do think PC gamers really underestimate the potential of the PS4. The current PC APIs don't even expose all the features that are supported by the hardware.
Crysis 3 on the 360 obviously doesn't stack up to the PC version on even lowest(which would be terrible for the PC considering it requires at least a HD 5770) but it's damn impressive for that old hardware

Low-end and midrange PC users will probably need to upgrade once the next-gen consoles start getting pushed.

I'm very eager to see a comparison between BF4 on console and PC. It'll be interesting to see how the initial console optimization stacks up to a polished DX11.1 path, both running on GCN hardware

Well one immediate thing we should see is high res textures and more texture variety, as well as higher geometry counts. Those will be selling points on the new consoles that will easily float over to PC ports too.

 

[futurefields]

less noticeable pop in on open world games hopefully

 

[Stringjam]

That is definitely where the Unreal Engine is headed in the future. It is already like that today as long as you don't customize things too much.

You can develop in CryEngine3 on PC and simultaneously view the XBox and PS3 versions real-time.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDmSizKvpH4

 

[Enigmoid]

Well IMO its not such a good thing if my 2500k is way stronger than these console cpu's but it never gets utilized properly by games because they are optimized for 8 weak cores.

Devs will probably recode to make sense for pc (just serialize as most CPUs don't have 8 cores).

Also, poor AMD. There's still people that see their APUs as netbook CPUs on the same level as the anemic Intel Atom's.

Its basically a 2013 netbook.

Honestly the CPU performance is so bad that i'm expecting tablets in two years to outperform it.

What 4 cores at 3GHz? Not AMD's, that's for sure. If they were lucky, that would be 60-80W, and it would make the whole chip far bigger, adding a great deal to the cost. Based on notebook Jaguars, theirs are probably not using more than 25W, and maybe not even that, looking just at CPU+cache.

Probably not. Piledriver on 32 nm doesn't look that bad compared to kabini (and yes 10-5750m runs at nearly 3 ghz + gpu not anywhere close to 60 watts). (Though those are modules and scale not quite as good).

4 core kabini at 1.5 ghz gets 1.5 on cinebench, trinity a10-5750m gets 2.3 points.

 

[boxleitnerb]

Both consoles reserve 2 cores for the OS. So only 6 cores for games. So I doubt that magic is going to happen in terms of multicore optimizations.

 

[poohbear]

PC Gaming have less than 15% of the market share, I really don't think developers give a flying toss about PC gamers. We'll just have make do with whatever they port out.

Lol thats not true anymore. If u looked @ EAs financial results last week, PC sales were huge. Here:

http://techreport.com/news/25136/ea-financials-show-growing-pc-game-revenue

 

[Cerb]

Probably not. Piledriver on 32 nm doesn't look that bad compared to kabini (and yes 10-5750m runs at nearly 3 ghz + gpu not anywhere close to 60 watts). (Though those are modules and scale not quite as good).

They aren't at 3GHz mobile, precisely due to just the problem of power. 2.5 is as high as they go, with 4MB cache and 4 ALUs. The desktop ones around 3GHz are rated 65W (save for the 8300), and going up from there, they can barely keep them under 100W. The power v. speed relationship is far from linear, and their knee for the 32nm FX seems to be around 2.5GHz. Using such a CPU would waste space, in comparison, and either use much more power, or be clocked such that it would offer little in the way of potential gain.

 

[BladeVenom]

Honestly the CPU performance is so bad that i'm expecting tablets in two years to outperform it.

Look on the bright side. In two years you'll be able to play console games on your tablet.

 

[Zeze]

These hardcore analysis threads like these make me think that we're overanalyzing it.

Graphics have come a LONG way and fast in the last 2 decades. It's not stale by any means. If anything, it's the focus on graphics and not on gameplay that makes games stale.

Taking a step outside, graphics will continue to get better regardless of cores or console compatibility- due to the sheer brute force of technological progression.

I'm not worried.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Microsoft and Sony are actually solving a huge problem using x86 chips for these consoles which is the huge amounts of money it takes to create games these days. Being able to easily port games across platforms is going to save a was of cash throughout this console generation. Now if they are smart they will release console exclusive games on the PC as well for the added revenue.