R Read - "Our semi-custom APUs" = Xbox 720 + PS4?

Page 10 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

VulgarDisplay

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2009
6,193
2
76
With regards to APU memory bandwidth, couldn't MS use GDDR5 for an APU instead of DDR3 if that's the case?

I'm also curious as to whether or not it will have turbo clocks, which could be quite an interesting feature in a console.

I doubt they would have turbo clocks because they will not want performance to be that unpredictable. Someone who has a hot house will get worse performance? Highly doubt that.
 

nonameo

Diamond Member
Mar 13, 2006
5,949
3
76
The only console ever to use x86 was the original xbox (and that wasn't chosen due to technical or cost merits either, but more due to time to market convenience).

The FM Towns Marty used an AMD 386 CPU :p
 

Haserath

Senior member
Sep 12, 2010
793
1
81
Yeah, I would imagine they would have some type of RAM on the CPU die to give the GPU's the bandwidth they need. Honestly, I could care less if the new consoles are weak because I could see it driving developers back to the PC in droves.

Weaker consoles=Cheaper consoles=More sales=More developers
 

Bobisuruncle54

Senior member
Oct 19, 2011
333
0
0
I doubt they would have turbo clocks because they will not want performance to be that unpredictable. Someone who has a hot house will get worse performance? Highly doubt that.

That's a good point, but with 28nm chips and a decent cooling solution it could easily be done to a useful but not potentially hardware damaging degree.

Weaker consoles=Cheaper consoles=More sales=More developers

Consoles are already being used for TV and films more than they are for games, so a console without a significant leap in fidelity and capability while costing more than the current generation will only make consumers shrug and stick to what they have.

The difference between the current gen and the next has to have that "wow" factor, otherwise consumers simply will not buy. IMO the reveal of the Samaritan Demo, Star Wars 1313 and Watch Dogs have all been tests to gauge consumer reaction.
 
Last edited:

NTMBK

Lifer
Nov 14, 2011
10,239
5,023
136
With regards to APU memory bandwidth, couldn't MS use GDDR5 for an APU instead of DDR3 if that's the case?

I'm also curious as to whether or not it will have turbo clocks, which could be quite an interesting feature in a console.

Potentially, or maybe DDR4. It's going to be the next big standard on the PC side, so prices will only drop over the console cycle.
 

BenSkywalker

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
9,140
67
91
Of course they benefit from having a similar development environment, it is not a direct benefit mind but it is there. Some games are very poor on PS3, take GTA4 and Red Dead Redemption as an example, that sort of difference can affect sales and perception of the console. If the hardware and development environment is similar then 3rd party games are going to perform roughly equally on both consoles.

Not seeing any benefit whatsoever. Go on to any console neutral forum, they will agree that the PS3 is the more powerful hardware despite some ports not being ideal. In any realistic sense the differences you brought up are fairly minor, I have GTA4 and RDR on the PS3, my son has them for the 360, not a very big difference between them.

My thinking is that a semi custom APU could probably blow most people here away in terms of power.

I would wager very heavily against that. If anyone launches next gen with an APU they are dead out of the gate. There is no reason to upgrade from a PS3 at least without a major increase in graphics power. We can do all the other media tasks already(a 360 with a BRD would have a comparable situation).
 

Bobisuruncle54

Senior member
Oct 19, 2011
333
0
0
Not seeing any benefit whatsoever. Go on to any console neutral forum, they will agree that the PS3 is the more powerful hardware despite some ports not being ideal. In any realistic sense the differences you brought up are fairly minor, I have GTA4 and RDR on the PS3, my son has them for the 360, not a very big difference between them.

More powerful in terms of its theoretical peak output, but in reality most games perform better on the 360. That is a fact that has now been observed many times and it is a trend that can be seen across developers. Crysis 2, GTA 4, Sleeping Dogs are just three examples that immediately come to mind.

How powerful the PS3 is becomes irrelevant if it cannot be tapped practically.
 

PrincessFrosty

Platinum Member
Feb 13, 2008
2,301
68
91
www.frostyhacks.blogspot.com
If true then it should help ensure good default performance in PC game titles during that generation of consoles, especially so in direct ports.

Having said that, the more compatible the systems the more locked together they are, in the short run that might give benefits to the PC users, but long run it's going to be another disaster...in 3-4 years time when PC hardware is approaching an order of magnitude faster we'll still be seeing games written for old console hardware.

The low frequency of updates for the consoles is going to kill the high frequency of the PC platform which generates so much of the innovation and progress made in gaming.

PC gamers are proving to be frustratingly short sighted about this, another round of "consolized" games is probably going to end gaming for me as serious hobby, and take away with it all of the cash I would normally dump into PC hardware.
 
Last edited:

Midwayman

Diamond Member
Jan 28, 2000
5,723
325
126
PC gamers are proving to be frustratingly short sighted about this, another round of "consolized" games is probably going to end gaming for me as serious hobby, and take away with it all of the cash I would normally dump into PC hardware.

Its not the gamers. Its the game devs. It doesn't make financial sense to develop exclusively for PC since there simply aren't enough people compared to consoles. While they can add higher detail to PC versions there are unfortunately going to be compromises in UI designed for a joystick.

If you don't want any more consolized game titles you might as well pack up your toys now.
 

f1sherman

Platinum Member
Apr 5, 2011
2,243
1
0
PS4 Killzone: Shadow Fall

image_killzone_shadow_fall-21469-2660_0010.jpg


image_killzone_shadow_fall-21469-2660_0001.jpg


image_killzone_shadow_fall-21469-2660_0002.jpg


http://www.gamersyde.com/news_ps4_killzone_shadow_fall_unveiled-13810_en.html
 

Ajay

Lifer
Jan 8, 2001
15,456
7,862
136
Low FPS, low textures, blurry, in need of AA and AF....and a lot of other things:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TptSxiFRAM

Yes, except I think they are using some AA (2x?). I assume this video is from late alpha/early beta . The Devs and artists are playing with a new toy, so I'm not surprised at the lower quality and lack of detail. FPS will be optimized, there's probably a bunch of debug code in the version we saw. If they get it right, could be a nice looking game. 8 GB of GDDR5 is pretty good, IMO, assuming it's at 5 GHz+ and has a wide bus (256b ?). Consoles are pretty lean, so there's allot more performance that can be uncorked than from the same hardware in a PC.

This game: http://youtu.be/EzAyvqWwGCs (Drive Club) looks very interesting conceptually. Looks like a winner, if the execution is right. Not a bad start for PS4.
 
Last edited:

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
126
We havent exactly seen any Xbox360 game run better on AMD GPUs than nVidia. Or the other way around with PS3.

Plus I doubt that statement got anything to do with PS4 or Xbox720. Those consoles are also still too far out in the future.

Those consoles are launching by end of this year. The CPU inside PS4 is a custom APU with ~ HD7850 and 8 Jaguar cores. He is obviously talking about the consoles.

Low FPS, low textures, blurry, in need of AA and AF....and a lot of other things:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TptSxiFRAM

That's the first number of games. Wait until 4-5 years into PS4's life before you judge the console's potential. Let's see a $500 PC produce the level of graphics of PS4 in 2-3 years from now. Heck I bet any $ that a $500 PC will not be able to play games like Witcher 3 and beyond at the same visuals as the PS4. $500 PC automatically means a weak i3 (useless for games like Crysis 3) or a low-end FX4300 and some weak GPU like HD7870. On the PC that won't last 2 years once next gen console games arrive.
 
Last edited:

kami

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
17,627
5
81
Low FPS, low textures, blurry, in need of AA and AF....and a lot of other things:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TptSxiFRAM

Not sure if serious...


That's the first number of games. Wait until 4-5 years into PS4's life before you judge the console's potential. Let's see a $500 PC produce the level of graphics of PS4 in 2-3 years from now. Heck I bet any $ that a $500 PC will not be able to play games like Witcher 3 and beyond at the same visuals as the PS4. $500 PC automatically means a weak i3 (useless for games like Crysis 3) or a low-end FX4300 and some weak GPU like HD7870. On the PC that won't last 2 years once next gen console games arrive.

$500 PC? More like a $1000+ PC. I think launch games on PS4 will look as good as a current mid-range gaming PC. We can't look at the GPU in the PS4 and think that it equals the same GPU in a PC. I know that you know this, but its something a lot of PC gamers get confused with. They don't realize that PC games don't have "direct access to the GPU metal" as they call it and have other overheads that consoles don't.

It would be like trying to run Uncharted 3 on a Windows PC featuring a Geforce 7800 with 256MB VRAM and 256MB system ram from back in 2005/2006 (comparable GPU power to the PS3). Good luck with that.
 

cplusplus

Member
Apr 28, 2005
91
0
0
Not sure if serious...




$500 PC? More like a $1000+ PC. I think launch games on PS4 will look as good as a current mid-range gaming PC. We can't look at the GPU in the PS4 and think that it equals the same GPU in a PC. I know that you know this, but its something a lot of PC gamers get confused with. They don't realize that PC games don't have "direct access to the GPU metal" as they call it and have other overheads that consoles don't.

It would be like trying to run Uncharted 3 on a Windows PC featuring a Geforce 7800 with 256MB VRAM and 256MB system ram from back in 2005/2006 (comparable GPU power to the PS3). Good luck with that.

It seems like, from everything I've read, the difference between using DirectX on Windows and the "to the metal" coding of things like libgcm on Playstation (and the Xbox equivalent) is similar to the difference between writing code to do the same thing in Assembly and Java. Sure, they'll both end up with the same result, it's just that one is going to get there a lot faster and more efficiently than the other.
 
Last edited:

alexruiz

Platinum Member
Sep 21, 2001
2,836
556
126
Let's see a $500 PC produce the level of graphics of PS4 in 2-3 years from now... $500 PC automatically means a weak i3 (useless for games like Crysis 3) or a low-end FX4300 and some weak GPU like HD7870. On the PC that won't last 2 years once next gen console games arrive.

I think you mean HD7770 ;)
 

Dark Shroud

Golden Member
Mar 26, 2010
1,576
1
0
I'm just glad Sony went with 8GB of ram, GDR5 no less. I was praying they would and constantly had people telling me it wasn't going to happen.

This is good for AMD, Sony, & the gaming industry in general.

New engines coded properly to make use CPU multi-threading and more than 4GB of ram.