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

[shady28]

People are amazing here.

Really, the PS3 had a top line PC GPU in it when it was released?

You think the Xbox 720 is going to have twice the memory bandwidth of top of the line PC GPU's?

Blubber and nonsense.

Gen 8 version of the 7660D used in the A10-5800K is far, far more likely.

In fact, I think a tweaked A10-5800K for both the 720 and the PS4 is the most likely true answer.

 

[2is]

People are amazing here.

Really, the PS3 had a top line PC GPU in it when it was released?

You think the Xbox 720 is going to have twice the memory bandwidth of top of the line PC GPU's?

Blubber and nonsense.

Gen 8 version of the 7660D used in the A10-5800K is far, far more likely.

In fact, I think a tweaked A10-5800K for both the 720 and the PS4 is the most likely true answer.

The PS3 GPU wasn't as good as what PCs had, but its CPU could easily rival what PCs were using. 360 GPU could easily rival PC GPUs at the time. Overall, they were not underpowered compared to modern gaming PCs. PS4 /720 on the other hand is far behind what's currently available for PC both in terms of CPU and GPU.

 

[Lonbjerg]

The PS3 GPU wasn't as good as what PCs had, but its CPU could easily rival what PCs were using. 360 GPU could easily rival PC GPUs at the time. Overall, they were not underpowered compared to modern gaming PCs. PS4 /720 on the other hand is far behind what's currently available for PC both in terms of CPU and GPU.

*chough*

http://gprime.net/board/showthread.php?t=5989

Read it....then post again

 

[Atreidin]

I think the idea that Cell and Xenon are good designs is one of those falsehoods that is repeated over and over again until people believe it and just accept it as fact.

 

[A5]

People are amazing here.

Really, the PS3 had a top line PC GPU in it when it was released?

You think the Xbox 720 is going to have twice the memory bandwidth of top of the line PC GPU's?

Blubber and nonsense.

Gen 8 version of the 7660D used in the A10-5800K is far, far more likely.

In fact, I think a tweaked A10-5800K for both the 720 and the PS4 is the most likely true answer.

That doesn't really line up with any of the rumors, so I really doubt it is just an A10 chip. 8-core Jaguar seems dubious, but using a mobile-class GPU doesn't seem that unlikely to me.

 

[inf64]

AMD calls the cores (for both next gen consoles) semi-custom APUs. SO it is some sort of APU,probably Steamroller based since this makes the most sense(from both pure perf. and perf./watt/mm^2 POV). It aligns perfectly with SR based APU release time-frame and makes sense when you look at the slight delay AMD made for desktop roadmap(they pushed Kaveri to late 2013,probably due to "ability" of GloFo to make enough 28nm parts for both consoles and AMD's mobile/desktop/server business).
The die is probably having 4 SR modules with no L3 and customized GCN based iGPU. The part could possibly support edram off die memory .

 

[2is]

*chough*

http://gprime.net/board/showthread.php?t=5989

Read it....then post again

All I saw there was someone saying they preferred a P4 because its easier to code for. They talked about some of the drawbacks with Cell but never saw them explicitly say it was less powerful. Most likely because it wasnt. Nothing enlightening there so ill stick with my post.

 

[NTMBK]

All I saw there was someone saying they preferred a P4 because its easier to code for. They talked about some of the drawbacks with Cell but never saw them explicitly say it was less powerful. Most likely because it wasnt. Nothing enlightening there so ill stick with my post.

You missed all the stuff about how the Cell was crippled by its slow PPE? How a dual issue, in order processor (see also: Atom) just didn't hack it? How the majority of algorithms just weren't well suited to be run on the SPEs?

 

[inf64]

It's true that both Xenon and Cell were poor choices and lacked cpu grunt. But the choice was made based on cost and time to market I guess and it made sense. It did cripple the PC gaming industry since they had to sacrifice a lot of features for console games and many of those games were just bad ports for x86 architecture.

Let's hope that by choosing x86 as a platform of choice this time, console games will actually be helping PC gaming industry. Easier to port,easier to target better performance (what runs good on semi custom APU will run even better on higher end x86 amd or intel core with higher end GPU ).

 

[NTMBK]

It's true that both Xenon and Cell were poor choices and lacked cpu grunt. But the choice was made based on cost and time to market I guess and it made sense.

"Time to market"?! They were both custom chips- in the Cell's case built entirely from the ground up, for Xenon piggy-backing/leaching on the PowerPC core for Cell and customising that further. These took literally years of planning to make, and were made specifically for those consoles (for 360 only in Xenon, partly for PS3 in Cell and partly for other applications). Those terrible choices were not made for time to market reasons!

 

[inf64]

A rather large dual core Athlon 64 die or Pentium 4 die with ~100W power draw would probably cost more than either cell or xenon. They probably miscalculated the ROI on both of these in order designs but initially they probably thought they did a right call there. It turns out these consoles *can* run even BF3 (a rather demanding title) so optimization plays a crucial role.

 

[Red Hawk]

People are amazing here.

Really, the PS3 had a top line PC GPU in it when it was released?

You think the Xbox 720 is going to have twice the memory bandwidth of top of the line PC GPU's?

Blubber and nonsense.

Gen 8 version of the 7660D used in the A10-5800K is far, far more likely.

In fact, I think a tweaked A10-5800K for both the 720 and the PS4 is the most likely true answer.

The had a top of the line chip, yes. 7900 series. The PS3 came out right at the cusp of the 8800 series' release, but the 7900 was the best that the PS3 had available for development. It's essentially like putting a Radeon HD 7900 series GPU or a Geforce GTX 680 in upcoming consoles -- they're likely to be a little obsolete by the time the consoles would come out, but that doesn't change the fact that they are the best GPU the consoles can work with.

 

[Piroko]

I don't think that future consoles actually need 7900 class GPUs that much. Take away AA through some fixed function magic, perhaps bolster up tesselation some more and you could get away with a 7800 class GPU and still put out impressive graphics at 1080p60. Even a 7770 @ 1080p30 wouldn't be terrible if the most demanding stuff is offloaded.

 

[magomago]

People are amazing here.

Really, the PS3 had a top line PC GPU in it when it was released?

You think the Xbox 720 is going to have twice the memory bandwidth of top of the line PC GPU's?

Blubber and nonsense.

Gen 8 version of the 7660D used in the A10-5800K is far, far more likely.

In fact, I think a tweaked A10-5800K for both the 720 and the PS4 is the most likely true answer.

IIRC, it had a derivative of a 7900. Just after the announcement of the PS3 with all its glorious detail, the 8800gt was released.
Putting market saturation in perspective, most people had nowhere near an 7900 at that point. By 'most people', i'm talking about the ten of millions of consumers that purchase consoles. Things like igpu/apu barely existed, and Intel Integrated Graphics wasn't adequate for ANY hardware accelerated gaming PERIOD.
The release of the consoles, for most everyone, did usher in an era of vastly improved graphics.

This is unlike what MIGHT happen this time around.


And just FYi - I'm sure most would be thrilled if you had a 7870 in there...but that isn't anywhere near what is being floated

 

[2is]

You missed all the stuff about how the Cell was crippled by its slow PPE? How a dual issue, in order processor (see also: Atom) just didn't hack it? How the majority of algorithms just weren't well suited to be run on the SPEs?

Nope, didn't miss it. None of that says it's less powerful than a P4. It's just telling you what the "cons" are of that particular CPU. Every CPU has things it isn't terribly good at and things it excels at. If I did miss the part where it explicitly says it's not as powerful as a P4, then please show me that part. I can provide links showcasing everything that Bull Dozer isn't that well optimized to handle, that doesn't mean it's less powerful than a Athlon XP. Likewise, I can also provide you information telling you what CELL was extremely good at, that doesn't mean it's more powerful than an i7.

No matter how you want to classify it's performance, there's no doubt that PS3 and 360 were a whole lot closer to their PC counterparts than PS4 and 720 are going to be. How close is up for debate but that really isn't the debate here, nor should it be because despite several years passing, I doubt one side is going to convince the other unless we can provide undeniable proof, which clearly neither of us can do.

 

[shady28]

From his link re Xbox 360 performance vs PCs:

Right now, from what we've heard, the real-world performance of the Xenon CPU is about twice that of the 733MHz processor in the first Xbox. Considering that this CPU is supposed to power the Xbox 360 for the next 4 - 5 years, it's nothing short of disappointing. To put it in perspective, floating point multiplies are apparently 1/3 as fast on Xenon as on a Pentium 4.

Also :

From technet.microsoft.com/en-us/query/ee415832

Decoding of xWMA voices imposes a fixed CPU load of approximately 2 percent per voice on Xbox 360, and a small variable load on Windows (approximately 0.35 percent per voice on a 3GHz Prescott CPU).

 

[2is]

360 is the console that had a GPU rivaling PCs, not a CPU. PS3s strengths were the opposite. Its no accident that F@H created a client that took advantage of CELL that only recently got decommissioned, and it took a good while before anything short of GPU folding on a PC performed as well.

 

[lainse]

Given that this is a x86 core is it possible that the “GPU-like "Compute" module” in the ops article are SPE's like those found in the cell processor.
it wold help with backward compatibility and can be used to of load some physics and is a known quantity for game programers

 

[2is]

Something tells me these consoles will not have backwards compatibility for current gen games. Can't say I blame them tbh.

 

[NTMBK]

Something tells me these consoles will not have backwards compatibility for current gen games. Can't say I blame them tbh.

This. Why have backwards compatibility, when you can sell "Remastered UltraHD" versions of the same game in 5 years' time for an easy profit?

 

[inf64]

Something is going on in Sony land
https://us.playstation.com/meeting2013/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=d-3GMHIgR-U

 

[Blitzvogel]

"Time to market"?! They were both custom chips- in the Cell's case built entirely from the ground up, for Xenon piggy-backing/leaching on the PowerPC core for Cell and customising that further. These took literally years of planning to make, and were made specifically for those consoles (for 360 only in Xenon, partly for PS3 in Cell and partly for other applications). Those terrible choices were not made for time to market reasons!

I have to disagree about the Xenon part. Other than lacking out of order processing and a larger L2 cache, it was well suited for the next generation of gaming for it's time. Very high GFLOPS combined with decent general performance gave it the legs to stand in this generation where high fidelity sound, physics, and animation are prerequisite. You can thank each of the VMX units on each core for that. The x86 computing industry would need quad cores before we saw that GFLOPS performance succeeded.

 

[ChronoReverse]

The GFLOPs performance was high on the Cell not Xenon. Not that it really matters since integer and branching performance is more useful.

 

[busydude]

Something is going on in Sony land
https://us.playstation.com/meeting2013/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=d-3GMHIgR-U

WSJ confirmed that Sony is going to announce a new gaming console later this month.

 

[inf64]

Yep they decided to beat MS with the announcement.