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The real reasons Microsoft and Sony chose AMD for consoles [F]

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Charles Kozierok said:
Yes, actually, I post on a wide range of subjects, as anyone can see by looking at my posting history. galego is a one-dimensional AMD cheerleader, as anyone can see by looking at his posting history.
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Thank you for not missing the opportunity to post another personal attack against me... whereas ignoring facts said to you in this thread.

Just as how Charles meta commentary is inappropriate, so is yours. You need to report posts, not attack other posters in kind
-ViRGE
 
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MisterMac said:
Wether or not - Intel could design a SOC with beefed up graphics and some pentium\celeron 3rd class binned chip is irrelevant.
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Getting a custom SOC that fits your requirements is anything except irrelevant. Intel inability to provide a custom SOC was one of the reasons why it is outside of the console market.
 
I wonder who benefited from the fact that they are being used by both companies.

I mean imagine Sony came to them first and asked for an APU for their console, and AMD quotes a certain rate.

Then Microsoft comes and asks for an APU for their console, AMD quotes them the same rate, and Microsoft says hey hey we hear you already have an APU you're making for Sony, all we need is that with some tweaks, give us a lower rate

Or is it just AMD that gets to profit by having reduced development cost by developing both chips

I assume they probably aren't allowed to share technological developments contracted by a different company, but I would think someone must be benefiting from a little economy of scale on the R&D side
 
Those are interesting questions yottabit. I suspect over the course of these console product cycles we will learn more details about the respective contracts. From AMD's perspective, this to me is a win win for them because they get to monetize their R&D over an extended period and in large volumes as well.

And whatever experience gained from making the console APUs they will use for future products. Also AMD will benefit from the gaming ecosystem spilling over onto the PC side. Smart business, something AMD has lacked over the years.
 
SiliconWars said:
I don't really see any Intel bashing from Galego? He reports facts and stays away from personal attacks. Sure he's an AMD zealot but there are FAR worse on the Intel side here and I don't see you giving them the kind of comments you give Galego.
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Can I use this as a sig?
 
Surprised anyone could think Intel would be a full SoC option. Hard to imagine the cost and TDP of a chip with Intel graphics at a 7870 or even 7790 level of performance.
 
You guy shouldn't really be worrying about this. You should be worrying why Sony and Microsoft are both using DirectX 11.2. There is some weird stuff going on in the backrooms.
 
NostaSeronx said:
You guy shouldn't really be worrying about this. You should be worrying why Sony and Microsoft are both using DirectX 11.2. There is some weird stuff going on in the backrooms.
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Eh? I don't see anything game-changing in DX11.2. I mean, I see support for "Rage" style mega textures, but nothing else of interest.
 
SiliconWars said:
The threat AMD poses to Intel is far more than just bottom line. It's about the expertise they carry and their ability to empower other competitors, especially in graphics where Intel is weak. Server expertise is obviously another arena that the ARM guys are interested in - I can see AMD being used as a foothold here.

Both of these are very dangerous areas for Intel.
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Can you define how AMD may "empower other competitiors?", if AMD enters the ARM business with chips, it will be in direct competition with the other ARM vendors (Qcom...etc). Afaik, no one else other than AMD has been advertising those buzzwords HSA, hUMA, or even mentioning such things are present in their chips.
 
NostaSeronx said:
You guy shouldn't really be worrying about this. You should be worrying why Sony and Microsoft are both using DirectX 11.2. There is some weird stuff going on in the backrooms.
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Probably has to do with time to market for Sony. Its been speculated that Xbox one had been in develop for awhile and that Sony decided very recently to that it wanted to do a new console. What we saw at E3 as far as the state of game development seemed to confirm that.

I was just thinking how odd it is that both consoles are using pretty much the same silicon. I wonder if the customers agreed to it?
 
NostaSeronx said:
Microsoft gets money from both the Playstation 4 and the Xbox One sales. Sorry, if I didn't make that as CLEAR as possible.
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Last I heard, DX11.2 is available in windows 8.1? I'm not quite sure what you're getting at. You seemed to suggest that it will have strong implications on PC gaming, to which I don't agree. Or maybe you had something else in mind. I don't know.
 
blackened23 said:
Last I heard, DX11.2 is available in windows 8.1? I'm not quite sure what you're getting at. You seemed to suggest that it will have strong implications on PC gaming, to which I don't agree. Or maybe you had something else in mind. I don't know.
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I think the point was that if Microsoft and the console makers conspired to make Dx 11.2 critical to the gaming experience it would basically force PC gamers to upgrade to Win 8, even though most are still using Win 7.

At one point I would not have expected such an underhanded trick from MS, but considering all the restrictions they tried to put on the XBone before they relented somewhat due to the public outcry, I would not put anything past them.

Personally I dont expect Dx 11.2 to be that critical, but it is something of a concern.
 
MS has always required the latest version of windows for the latest version of DX. Windows 8.1 is required for DX 11.2, we already know this. They're in the business of selling software, and they did the same thing with the previous 4-5 versions of Windows. That being said, I don't really see DX 11.2 as a major upgrade. I can't see a lot of games using mega texturing, it simply isn't needed at all with how much VRAM the next gen systems have. And as far as I can tell, mega texturing is the only true unique feature of 11.2.

I really think that most games will stick to DX11 features for the most part.
 
Vesku said:
Surprised anyone could think Intel would be a full SoC option. Hard to imagine the cost and TDP of a chip with Intel graphics at a 7870 or even 7790 level of performance.
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Why? Dual core GT3 Haswell is on a much smaller die than Trinity/Richland. If paired with Crystalwell It also beats the best Trinity solutions and probably uses less power doing so; not sure about Richland but it should be competitive. So if AMD can scale up to console level within an acceptable SoC size is it so certain that Intel couldn't? There's the difference between VLIW4 and GCN, as well as the difference between using Piledriver and Jaguar cores, but those wouldn't necessarily make the entire thing impossible. Cost-wise they probably could sell it for a competitive price, but wouldn't. I don't buy the argument that Intel is paying dramatically more money to manufacture the die because of a more advanced node, not when you balance that against a separate foundry taking margins.

Of course it could be that there are simply limiters that prevent Gen 7 from scaling higher than it currently does, we don't really know.
 
Exophase said:
Cost-wise they probably could sell it for a competitive price, but wouldn't. I don't buy the argument that Intel is paying dramatically more money to manufacture the die because of a more advanced node, not when you balance that against a separate foundry taking margins.
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Sure thing... They would rather have their fabs idling or manufacture for competition rather than deliver thousands after thousands of console chips...

Ohh.. and Iris pro is slower than geforce gt640 (yep! the card with GDDR3), while being fabbed on lower node and still taking more die space (around 60% of 350mm2 vs 118mm2)
 
ShintaiDK said:
They are so idle that 3 450mm ready fabs are being build. (F42, D1X-M1, D1X-M2.) 🙄
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While Intel stock price is low reflecting the risk involved in the transistion. If Intel had jaguar and gcn they would have loved to use their old 32nm getting it paid well and securing x86 precense instead of using it for usb 3.0.


Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
 
So yes. Intel could possible assemble an unexperienced 300 man team to stack 100-120 eu on top of each other. Back it up by a neat little 256MB edram, add 4 non ht haswell cores and use their most valuable 22nm process node to manufacture it.

They just choose not to do it.

I think that was a sensible decision, but probably not the most difficult one.
 
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blackened23 said:
MS has always required the latest version of windows for the latest version of DX.
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Win98 supports DX9 up to the Dec 06 update and Win2K supports all expect the last update Aug 10 update. Until DX10 Windows (except for NT) had always gotten the latest version until support ended.
 
I have a couple of questions after reading this utterly odd thread.

Are there people in here who actually believe that Intel could not, had they been inclined to, design a competitive "APU" or the like for this coming gen of consoles?

I can see galego, Anandthenman, SiliconWars actually stating this as if they are believing what they're typing. Utterly odd.

We are talking Intel here.

Next question: Does anyone have any data showing any bids Intel or Nvidia has made to be the SoC's for these consoles? In other words, did they even bid or try, or care? Did they bid but were just too expensive? Were margins too low? Did they even bother?

That data would be precious, but I don't know where to find it. Maybe some traders or investors could shed some light.

Once more, the meta commentary on other posters is neither desired nor appreciated. Please refrain from posting it in the future.
-ViRGE
 
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