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

[ShintaiDK]

So compared to a desktop GPU, how does the PS4 GPU compare?

A tiny tad faster than a HD7850. 1.76Tflops vs 1.84Tflops.

 

[Face2Face]

Close to a HD7850.

Not bad at all. This is a good thing for PC Gamers I would think, since all consoles will be on x86 platforms.

This will mean badly console coded ports could be a thing of the past?

 

[ShintaiDK]

This will mean badly console coded ports could be a thing of the past?

I strongly doubt for the PS4. It still uses different OS, different APIs.

Xbox Next however might improve. Since Xbox uses a Windows version and a DirectX type. So with x86 hardware in the next Xbox, then porting should be super easy. But that still doesnt exclude the human factor.

 

[Face2Face]

I strongly doubt. Still uses different OS, different APIs.

🙁

 

[inf64]

So compared to a desktop GPU, how does the PS4 GPU compare?

It should be between 7850 and 7870 performance wise.

 

[ShintaiDK]

It should be between 7850 and 7870 performance wise.

HD7850 1.76Tflops.
PS4 1.84Tflops.
HD7870 2.56Tflops.

 

[inf64]

Exactly what I said 🙂.

 

[Lonbjerg]

Exactly what I said 🙂.

I think he means it's WAY closer to the 7850 than the 7870...

 

[inf64]

Well I didn't say it would be closer to 7870 ,did I? It also has some special dedicated HW on-die which discrete cards don't have. It also has the advantage of special game optimization and coding to the metal which no discrete cards today have(just look how well ancient HW like PS3/xbox360 run BF3,GTA V etc.). When you count in all those extra stuff ,PS4's GPU will be better utilized in console game titles than discrete 7850/7870 would be in Windows version of the game(OS overhead,driver overhead,porting of the game etc.). It's just not easy to make such a comparison looking at the theoretical Flops only 😉

 

[ShintaiDK]

Lets just call it a HD7850 since its within 5% of it. And its far far away from a HD7870.

 

[krumme]

How do those specs look 5 and 10 years ahead? Thats the key problem. Specially CPU wise.

People have been cursing the Xbox360 and PS3 for years, simply because their specs and lifetime destroys a lot of games.

Well then theese news is exactly what you need. As this product makes healty profit from day one, contraire to the ps3, i can promise you, that is the best argument for a quick refresh. The PS3 was just plain bad here, and therefore it took years to pay for the investment. The adoptation of x86 in combination with CGN will also more cost effectively lead to quicker replacement.

And by all means, when they can program for it - what we must assume - , 8c on highspeed memory is plenty of cpu power, and even loads of FPU power.

Engineering heavy organisations always tend to select the most fancy solutions with hardly any tangible consumer benefit, for once we see some economic sense.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Well then theese news is exactly what you need. As this product makes healty profit from day one, contraire to the ps3, i can promise you, that is the best argument for a quick refresh. The PS3 was just plain bad here, and therefore it took years to pay for the investment. The adoptation of x86 in combination with CGN will also more cost effectively lead to quicker replacement.

And by all means, when they can program for it - what we must assume - , 8c on highspeed memory is plenty of cpu power, and even loads of FPU power.

Engineering heavy organisations always tend to select the most fancy solutions with hardly any tangible consumer benefit, for once we see some economic sense.

So its good for the console makers you mean? Plus we wont get any consoles faster. It will be milked till there is no more milk. Plenty of CPU power? That was fun 😀

It got a mainstream segment GPU and an essential segment CPU. The only positive thing in the console is the amount of memory.

This is what will set the bar for gaming the next 5-10 years.

 

[Lonbjerg]

Well then theese news is exactly what you need. As this product makes healty profit from day one, contraire to the ps3, i can promise you, that is the best argument for a quick refresh. The PS3 was just plain bad here, and therefore it took years to pay for the investment. The adoptation of x86 in combination with CGN will also more cost effectively lead to quicker replacement.

And by all means, when they can program for it - what we must assume - , 8c on highspeed memory is plenty of cpu power, and even loads of FPU power.

Engineering heavy organisations always tend to select the most fancy solutions with hardly any tangible consumer benefit, for once we see some economic sense.

So that is why Carmack, EPIC and Crytek all state that the closed, long loop of console hardware is inferior to the PC?

You just witnessed the stagnation being set for the next 5-6-7 years...

 

[IlllI]

my two first impressions about jaguar are:

A. they wont have to build some huge, gigantic console. remember how big the original ps3 was? this time it'll be small, cool, efficient (hopefully) 😛

B. they'll probably be able to reduce the price pretty quickly. i'm going to say the price will go down faster than with the ps3.

 

[Fx1]

You are forgetting that the PS3 couldnt handle 1080p when it launched.

1080p is easy now even with Far Cry 3. An optimised 7970M can easily handle Far Cry 3 @ 1080p on very or Ultra with FXAA

 

[Madpacket]

It's all about the 8GB of GDDR5 memory. With that amount of RAM running at GDDR5 speeds you're going to see new game types not currently possible on existing consoles or even I suspect today's PC's. Of course these will be games by exclusive Sony developers where the multiplat games cater to the lowest common denominator and probably not be that much different.

my 2 cents

 

[Ventanni]

PS4 hardware specs is probably one of the best things to happen for PC gaming. Not only does it set a new bar for gamer designers to shoot for, but it does so by:

1) Standardizes the instruction sets between console and PC. I know this isn't a huge deal for coding games like it used to be, but it might offer parity between app development between the Windows 8 and Playstation platforms (meaning you'll likely have access to the same apps on both platforms).

2) Provides 8 real, genuine, complete cores (unlike Cell), encouraging developers to further multithread their games by providing a solid foundation to work with.

3) Greatly raises the bar with graphical horsepower and available memory. X-Box 720 should do the same too.

Heck, I'd say just having 8gb of RAM is a big enough deal for PC gaming. I absolutely hate playing games where the size of levels and whatnot are heavily restricted due to RAM limitations on the console side.

 

[MrPickins]

My guess is that Sony and MS want a lot of cores so they can dedicate a few to OS and background tasks and still leave several for developers. The best way to do this and maintain their target TDP is to go with Jaguar.

 

[Olikan]

My guess is that Sony and MS want a lot of cores so they can dedicate a few to OS and background tasks and still leave several for developers. The best way to do this and maintain their target TDP is to go with Jaguar.

i still think that 1 piledriver module + 4 jaguar cores is the best...

2 big fat cores, for game and rendering
4 jaguar for OS, audio and etc...

similar to the ARM approach

 

[Dresdenboy]

My guess is that Sony and MS want a lot of cores so they can dedicate a few to OS and background tasks and still leave several for developers. The best way to do this and maintain their target TDP is to go with Jaguar.

With a smart OS scheduler there is no need for such core pinning. Also I wouldn't consider a system with an OS and background tasks (virus scanners in a closed environment?) needing multiple 1.x GHz cores efficient. 😉

 

[Phynaz]

Lets just call it a HD7850 since its within 5% of it. And its far far away from a HD7870.

But it will perform much closer to the 7870. TFlops don't tell the whole story.

 

[Dresdenboy]

How does PPC core look today,6+ years after it debuted in consoles in the form of Cell and Xenon? It looks badly but still runs games like BF3 and upcoming GTA V with no problems. And Cell and Xenon are really dog slow chips btw (IPC and sustained real code throughput wise). 8C Jaguar,even at ~1.6Ghz is a monster compared to POS that Cell and Xenon are.

The problem is not the amount of CPU+GPU compute performance available in a console, but the efficient use of those vast ressources available in mid and high end PCs.

In the 80s I've coded ASM on the C64* and am still amazed, which audiovisual effects have been created on that limited, but fixed (nearly) and well studied hardware.

*) for younger readers: 8 bit CPU@0.001 GHz with 0.00006 GB RAM

 

[blckgrffn]

But it will perform much closer to the 7870. TFlops don't tell the whole story.

Exactly. Like how big the onboard cache is. Could be huge.

 

[NTMBK]

I had better performance GPU wise in my PC when the PS3 launched...sorry bubba...the same will happen with PS4....history repeating itself

I wonder if Anand needs to make another pulled article? ^^

In terms of pure FLOPS, bandwidth, or whatever? Sure. But take that same PC and ask it to run modern games, and see how well it does. Reckon that PC could run the Witcher 2 as well as a 360? I doubt it. Because the code for the fixed platform is carefully tuned and optimised. Bubba.

 

[lopri]

Pre and post christmas sale graphs IMHO arent ideal to show trends. And then with 1 year to go for next gen of consoles I would not buy one now too but just wait. Nothing to do with a demise.

Originally Posted by lopri
Can't believe people are discussing Starcraft 2 on consoles. Does anyone play Starcraft II with a joystick? (and to be totally frank, why on earth play 4v4s.. it's a cheese/hack-fest as you know. I've never played anything other than 1v1s)

You will not see Starcraft 2 on PS/XBox. RTS games will remain on PCs for the foreseeable future.

I think it was pretty obvious I meant on what requirements the game has, eg. dual-core with high IPC. As extreme example for something which would suck on a 8 core Jaguar cpu. Fact remains that a lot of stuff can not be multi-threaded so the need for at least 1 fat core seems to be there...

And I think it was pretty obvious I meant that RTS games are not suited for multi-threading, thus will not be coming to consoles for quite a while. (if at all, the upcoming SC2 expansion looks like a mess and RTS as a whole hasn't seen many AAA titles)

Importance of single-thread performance has diminished on PCs, too, (which I lament in some sense) thanks to AMD/Intel's initiatives back in 2005 and the law of physics making the progress more and more difficult. Look around - there bazillion i3/i5/i7 chips with impossible-to-remember model names. They all "turbo" to 3.3~3.8 GHz. There is little difference between i3 and i7 when it comes to single-thread performance. What differentiates them are number of cores and Hyperthreading.