This is actually an interesting thought. This same argument was put forth by Intel when AMD and GF split, that it would go against AMD's x86 license agreement. I wouldn't be surprised if AMD has managed to find a way to sub-license it's x86 core designs or agreed to modify the design when for n process nodes down the road.
This is actually an interesting thought. This same argument was put forth by Intel when AMD and GF split, that it would go against AMD's x86 license agreement. I wouldn't be surprised if AMD has managed to find a way to sub-license it's x86 core designs or agreed to modify the design when for n process nodes down the road.
notty22
Diamond Member
- Jan 1, 2010
- 3,375
- 0
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Sorry it's comments like this that are pain-full. You expect some wizard has come in and designed and copyrighted some secret/awesome (magical) architecture that they are going to produce at what the newest manufacturing node as well ? The part does not exist.
Don't think so, AMD was first with x86-64 and, IIRC, M$ started calling it's 64 bit builds x86-64 and I think they still do. Intel's 64b instruction set was built off of AMD's and adds some extensions (since M$ had already accepted AMD's model), I'm pretty sure there is a cross licensing deal in place here.
Looks like AMD is moving forward with it's next gen products, many of which have taped out according the Xbitlabs: AMD_Already_Tests_Next_Gen_Low_Power_Kabini_Chip
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This comment... I am in awe. How about Xenos?
Now tell me, what is it that makes integrated GPUs perform worse than dedicated GPUs with similar specs? I'll give you a hint, the damn Xbox360 hardware implemented something that would pretty much make it a non-issue, Wii U does it too.
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Yes and Intel stumbled with their EM64T technology on their Pentiums for over a year. I remember back then when we were recommending the Athlon 64s in 2003 for future proofing. If you had one right now they actually run pretty well on current 64bit OS's considering their age.
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You're thinking about its performance in a PC, and they are designing consoles. They still get decent performance on the consoles with ancient hardware by PC gaming standards. That 23fps in Crysis 2 on high quality would pretty easily translate into 30fps (which will likely be their target) on high quality on a gaming console coming from an APU that only had to run games and not all the other overhead PC's have.
How many fps do you think a X1900 or 7800GT would get in Crysis 2 at 1080p? AMD's APU's will far outstrip the current console hardware. Also, the use of APU's could see them accelerating the console release cycle. Imagine new consoles every 3-5 years instead of 10. This is a great thing for games in general. I'm praying they use APU's straight off the shelf.
Embedded DRAM. If you can feed the APU, it's going to perform better than an equivalent dedicated part.
Recent console generations have come in under 10 years. Looking at release dates for the PlayStation, Sony has aimed for about 6 to 7 years between releases. Nintendo has been about 5 to 6 years, and Microsoft is a bit all over the map with the first Xbox in 2001, the 360 in 2005, and this next one going on 7 years.
I'm not sure if consumers could handle console cycles that were any shorter. They might revolt and just opt for a new smartphone instead. Developers might also revolt if the platform is radically different between generations.
Vesku
Diamond Member
- Aug 25, 2005
- 3,743
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I recall AMD getting more favorable licensing from Intel when they reached a settlement regarding Intel's anti-competitive actions from the Pentium 4 era.
Thing about APU's is that they would allow costs to be cut so much that they could sell new consoles under $300 at launch and make their money off software.
Blitzvogel
Platinum Member
- Oct 17, 2010
- 2,012
- 23
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Assuming the yields and performance met expectations and the trade offs were worth it, which at the moment means no crazy 2000 Stream Processor + 8 core APUs as of yet unless you want to risk ****** yields on already large and expensive dies.
Jaguar is already looking to be a very good starting block for a generally decent APU for a console, though I would expand the FPUs to 256 bit unless GPGPU becomes a cornerstone piece of programming for consoles.
IIRC the original Xbox was going to use an Athlon but they changed to the Pentium 3/Celeron last minute, which would seem to invalidate your point.
In any case, I don't think you're exactly an expert on the subject.
When the original xbox was released, AMD wasn't in imminent danger of ceasing to exist. That doesn't invalidate his point at all. They are free to resell chips. They aren't free to license the tech so that others can have their own x86 chips manufactured. The point is, relying on AMD for any console bets the farm on AMD not going under throughout the lifecycle of that console.
cmdrdredd
Lifer
- Dec 12, 2001
- 27,052
- 357
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It doesn't matter, there is no magic APU that can do full time 1080p with AA at high levels of detail (high-ultra equivelant on PC) with playable framerates. If it existed then surely you would find it available in a PC somewhere cause AMD sure as hell needs a magic shot in the arm.
I guarantee 100% that if they are using AMD they are not using an APU. If they were then AMD would have released the APU that can do 1080p gaming at high quality settings. They NEED the revenue and selling the design to Sony is not going to make them the money to recover from their consistent quarterly losses.
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The obvious profitability lessons learned, and therefore the most likely route for Ms and Sony, is the Xbox 720 and PS4 both having a variation of the same, now sufficiently capable 'semi-modified' APU, which, now that they have a near turn key single chip solution available, means Ms and Sony can piggyback on AMD's already existing research and development. Ths will not only slash Ms' and Sony's developments costs, it would also slash the developers and publishers costs as they could could port their games between the Xbox 720, PS4 and the PC at a fraction of the cost and manpower burden of current gen. More $$$ for all!!! A LOT more.
Nintendo, who made fantastic profits from the very start of the Wii, is apparently still living in the 1990's, or whoever it is that has the final say still is. All the Wii U will have going for it is some very tired and played out game IP.
Under this scenario Ms and Sony would broadly split the gaming market with Nintendo coming in a distant third, say 40/40/20. If that. And steadily decreasing. It's really a matter of when, not if, for Nintendo.
This time around it's going to be about hardware profit MUCH sooner than later, having a working 'gentlemans agreement' to split the market and slashing costs to the bone.
Then there's the looming 20nm shrink in 2014. And AMD's plan to migrate it's graphics tools to the cpu side giving it's APUs a 30% shrink.
Which is to say Ms and Sony can reach for a bit more processing power than they otherwise might have.
Nintendo, who made fantastic profits from the very start of the Wii, is apparently still living in the 1990's, or whoever it is that has the final say still is. All the Wii U will have going for it is some very tired and played out game IP.
Under this scenario Ms and Sony would broadly split the gaming market with Nintendo coming in a distant third, say 40/40/20. If that. And steadily decreasing. It's really a matter of when, not if, for Nintendo.
This time around it's going to be about hardware profit MUCH sooner than later, having a working 'gentlemans agreement' to split the market and slashing costs to the bone.
Then there's the looming 20nm shrink in 2014. And AMD's plan to migrate it's graphics tools to the cpu side giving it's APUs a 30% shrink.
Which is to say Ms and Sony can reach for a bit more processing power than they otherwise might have.
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ShintaiDK
Lifer
- Apr 22, 2012
- 20,378
- 145
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You should read up again. Specially before trying to make any kind of conlcusion about anyone.
What you obviously missed was the point that MS burned their fingers depending on 3rd party supplies that they couldnt control. We are talking about that MS/Sony cant get x86 without buying from VIA/AMD/Intel. Unlike their current CPUs and GPUs that MS/Sony controls everything with.
I am also sure MS picked Intel for the same reason as most others. AMD couldnt be trusted to supply.
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Once again, how a GPU performs in a console is far better than how it performs in PC games.
it's going to be so delicious when you have to eat those words
they will both be apus, jaguar cores with sea island gpu CU's. but i have not heard if there will be discrete cards or not.
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This is not about how the GPU integrated physically. We don't even care about it, because we have a logical view of the hardware. And at this point Intel didn't even provide any useful solution for the problem of data copies. AMD did with zero-copy.
Intel just let the iGPU to write to and read from the LLC, but this is not a good solution. If a program activate this feature than every thread on the iGPU can write 32 kB of data to anywhere without any direct control. There is a huge risk that the iGPU will thrash the whole LLC.
This is not a problem because only these companies want to sell x86 CPUs.
Why not? AMD64 is a separate ISA with a compatibility mode that provide backward compatibility with x86 applications. You can disable this function or simply cut out from the hardware, and thats all.
Intel provided a perpetual x86 license to AMD, and AMD did the same to Intel with AMD64. This agreement can only be broken up with the cross-license. When this happens then AMD lose x86, and Intel lose AMD64.
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For GPU technology that is fine, for CPU tech I think Phil's Bait Shop on the outskirts of Redmond roflstomps AMD in terms of quality CPU R&D. IBM and MIPS have owned the console market for a long time for very good reasons.
How is this, in any way comprehensible, a benefit for Sony? MS I guess you could argue using insanely crap hardware will at least assure them of DX's advantage over OGL, but for Sony the cost of porting to the other platforms is a non factor. No Sony games are going to come out for the 720, and no MS first parts games are going to come out for the PS4.
If Sony and MS use an AMD APU Nintendo will obliterate them in a violent fashion. It won't be remotely close. If Nintendo has a console that can handle all of the ports, has a larger installed base due to launching first, and has Nintendo first party exclusives then MS and Sony are dead in the console space. They stand no chance.
Hardware profits don't matter. If they aren't taking huge losses on hardware, licensing will make them semi loads of cash.
No, it won't, not even in the realm of it. It may have a *slight* performance advantage, but it would be so small that the mass of console gamers would laugh, call it a piece of sh!t and not buy it. Recent AMD APUs still lose to a 8800GT, they aren't even a generation ahead of what Sony and MS have in the six seven year old consoles. Console gamers expect order of magnitude performance jumps between generations, they are going to laugh at ~15%.
If Sony and MS really wanted to go stupid cheap, they could just use high end ARM SoCs saving them a lot of money over the expensive, hot a huge APUs, eliminating the worries of AMD imploding to the point of failure and giving them more options at moving their code base around(Win8 is banking on ARM success already).
maybe IBM sells their desgin to AMD and AMD creates an APU with "IBM cores"?
I admit sounds a little too expensive in terms of R&D to be true but who knows? Hints given clearly point out that "custom APUs" design wins have been made.
I admit sounds a little too expensive in terms of R&D to be true but who knows? Hints given clearly point out that "custom APUs" design wins have been made.
ShintaiDK
Lifer
- Apr 22, 2012
- 20,378
- 145
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You dont need to do it that way. Consoles already fused the 2 together. MS and Sony just needs to buy the GPU(AMD) and the CPU(IBM). Same way with SoCs for that matter.
If the new PS and Xbox get AMD APUs, than I'm pretty sure that this decision is driven by the system integration. As I said before it's a logical evolutionary leap to share fully coherent memory and unified address space between the CPU and the iGPU. An AMD64 CPU and a GCN iGPU will use the same 64b pointers. If you replace the AMD64 CPU, with an IBM/ARM core, than you lost all the advantage what you get with the integration of a GCN-based iGPU.
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