Xbox One has a 40nm APU? [UPDATE: Probably not]

[sm625]

2.8B Pitcairn
1.2B 8 Core bulldozer.

1B everything else.

Where are you getting pitcairn from? That sounds more like PS4 specs. At any rate it is odd that Microsoft would trade shaders for SRAM at a rate of about 12 shaders per megabyte.

 

[NTMBK]

Anand's writeup also states 28nm...

I'll gladly take Anand's word over Wired- he knows what he's talking about. :thumbsup:

 

[(sic)Klown12]

Interesting looking packaging on the chip. Anyone know what the purpose of the metal bit around the die is? To make the heatsink sit better, perhaps?

Looks like an elaborate shim. Maybe I'm mistaken, but it looks like they're not using a heatspreader(which usually cover the whole package) so it'll help protect the die during assembly of the cooling system. Going without a heatspreader should help with cooling and hopefully help prevent another RROD fiasco.

 

[meloz]

To me, the most -dare I say only- interesting part about the xbox coverage on Anandtech is this tidbit:

Jaguar is the foundation of AMD’s Kabini and Temash APUs, where it will ship first. I’ll have a deeper architectural look at Jaguar later this week.

 

[dma0991]

Interesting looking packaging on the chip. Anyone know what the purpose of the metal bit around the die is? To make the heatsink sit better, perhaps?

To spread the heatsink clamping force around the die instead of focusing all the force on the die itself. Similar concept.

 

[Smartazz]

I for one was unimpressed by the presentation. Hopefully the use of DDR3 isn't catastrophic.

 

[ShintaiDK]

The presentation was basically TV, TV, TV and TV. I think they know gaming is not gonna happen for much longer on consoles.

 

[Concillian]

The presentation was basically TV, TV, TV and TV. I think they know gaming is not gonna happen for much longer on consoles.

Yeah, well you can get TV, TV, and TV in eighteen other devices that do it cheaper and are much less "nickel and dime"-ey.

The people I've discussed this with are not seeing this as a step in the right direction.... We'll see, I guess.

 

[Montosaurous]

The presentation was basically TV, TV, TV and TV. I think they know gaming is not gonna happen for much longer on consoles.

At least when the console industry dies Microsoft won't have lost it's biggest money maker.

 

[beginner99]

Yeah, well you can get TV, TV, and TV in eighteen other devices that do it cheaper and are much less "nickel and dime"-ey.

The people I've discussed this with are not seeing this as a step in the right direction.... We'll see, I guess.

agree. I already have enough stuff cluttering around my tv. Starting with the set top box form the tv provider to the receiver and the media player. New console could probably replace the later but that one is tiny and hence no real space savings.

Missed last console gen. Do the wireless controllers require line-of sight so the console can be stashed away?

 

[insertcarehere]

Yes it really uses a lot of transistors. 32MB of eSRAM would use a minimum of (32 * 1024 * 1024 * 8 * 6) = 1.61b transistors.

Just curious, but what are the advantages of using esram instead of just using edram like for the Xbox 360? It will probably take a lot less amount of transistors just putting edram in there and therefore lowering costs.

 

[Exophase]

Just curious, but what are the advantages of using esram instead of just using edram like for the Xbox 360? It will probably take a lot less amount of transistors just putting edram in there and therefore lowering costs.

People are very fixated on the transistor count numbers but they don't dictate costs alone, different designs allow for different transistor density. SRAM tends to be the densest, can be a lot denser than typical logic. 32MB eSRAM on TSMC 28nm is big but not necessarily gigantic (could be ~50mm^2 or even smaller) and its cost will not be nearly as high as its transistor count represents.

Why MS is bragging transistor counts at all is a mystery to me, they must think big numbers will impress people.. looks like it's actually having the opposite effect, now people think it'll be big and expensive..

eDRAM can still be substantially denser than eSRAM on a similar node - I think something like 3x in current times. However, there are a lot of disadvantages too:

- Not everyone offers it and the ones offering modern iterations of it seem to be dwindling more and more. AFAIK TSMC doesn't offer it at 28nm right now, according to a chart I've seen anyway. This is a problem today but poses an even bigger potential risk for years down the road. While being able to benefit from shrinking eSRAM is pretty much a given. And if you can only get it a node behind then you lose a lot of density advantage you would have gotten in the first place.
- It adds extra manufacturing steps/needs more layers AFAIK so it's more expensive. Either you eat the cost of making the whole die more expensive - bad choice if it's just for memory that's just a relatively small fraction of the total die cost like it'd be here - or you put it on another die. The latter is what MS always did on XBox 360.. eventually even the CPU and GPU were integrated onto the same die but the eDRAM never was. But having a separate die adds various cost overheads too.
- eDRAM is less power efficient so eats a bit more out of the TDP budget

It's really all down to the size. For example if we were talking something like 2MB no one would argue that you should use eDRAM over eSRAM (unless it's IBM pitching a CPU for Nintendo.. I still have no idea how that design got approved!). If it was something like 128MB MS would have no realistic choice but to use eDRAM. 32MB is on the upper end of what they can reasonably use eSRAM with before it becomes a huge liability; it's possible that the choice for eSRAM dictated the 32MB size, but 32MB could be sufficient.

 

[Remobz]

So PS4 will be better then?

 

[imported_bman]

So PS4 will be better then?

Seems like it, except for the controller. Maybe Microsoft could up the frequency of the APU to close the gap a bit?

 

[SPBHM]

So PS4 will be better then?

faster GPU, faster memory... that's what we know... so... probably.

 

[tonyfreak215]

I for one was unimpressed by the presentation. Hopefully the use of DDR3 isn't catastrophic.

I think people are over exaggerating the use of GDDR5 vs the DDR3; especially since there is the SRAM.

"Vgleaks has a wealth of info, likely supplied from game developers with direct access to Xbox One specs, that looks to be very accurate at this point. According to their data, there’s roughly 50GB/s of bandwidth in each direction to the SoC’s embedded SRAM (102GB/s total bandwidth). The combination of the two plus the CPU-GPU connection at 30GB/s is how Microsoft arrives at its 200GB/s bandwidth figure, although in reality that’s not how any of this works. If it’s used as a cache, the embedded SRAM should significantly cut down on GPU memory bandwidth requests which will give the GPU much more bandwidth than the 256-bit DDR3-2133 memory interface would otherwise imply. Depending on how the eSRAM is managed, it’s very possible that the Xbox One could have comparable effective memory bandwidth to the PlayStation 4. "

faster GPU, faster memory... that's what we know... so... probably.

Yes, but what about the software advantage? I'm sure MS will had a little less overhead than Sony. Running the OS through a hypervisor will help to.

 

[Concillian]

So PS4 will be better then?

Perhaps, but remember that hardware advantages or disadvantages tend to make a really small difference in the overall success of a console. Pricing and user experience are a much, much larger picture.

Did the xbox gain traction on the Playstation 3 because it had superior hardware? I suppose you could argue that it's 1GB shared memory was significantly less limiting, but otherwise you'd be hard pressed to say it's superior hardware to a PS3. It gained traction due to the pricing significantly lower than PS3 and the XBL! interface / user experience.

This is why the XBOne was all about alternate user experiences. The management knows that games are gonna be there, so they're highlighting the features that really differentiate it from the competition. While I think they did it in a way that alienates their fanbase, they are probably focusing on the features they feel will be true differentiators in the marketplace. I think it demonstrates that they understand the business, but they don't understand how to market it.

 

[tonyfreak215]

I think it demonstrates that they understand the business, but they don't understand how to market it.

And that right there is why Microsoft has always had issues in the consumer space (excluding Windows) and Apple is worth as much as it is. Marketing...

 

[NTMBK]

Did the xbox gain traction on the Playstation 3 because it had superior hardware? I suppose you could argue that it's 1GB shared memory was significantly less limiting, but otherwise you'd be hard pressed to say it's superior hardware to a PS3. It gained traction due to the pricing significantly lower than PS3 and the XBL! interface / user experience.

The 360 was far, far easier for developers to extract performance from. 3 symmetrical cores and shared memory.

 

[Concillian]

And that right there is why Microsoft has always had issues in the consumer space (excluding Windows) and Apple is worth as much as it is. Marketing...

I don't really think you can exclude Windows.

Vista, for instance was not as big a flop as people make it out to be. I mean the OS itself is fine, and what many people consider Microsoft's best ever OS (Win7) is really just minor tweaks to Vista and a re-skin to make it look different. Clearly they didn't market Vista right... I also don't think you could really call Win8 a marketing success, even though they probably have the business part of it right in that there will be a strong need for an x86 OS that works well with convertible notebook / tablets.

 

[Concillian]

The 360 was far, far easier for developers to extract performance from. 3 symmetrical cores and shared memory.

But did that performance or development ease sell consoles?

I don't really think many console gamers were sitting down and comparing the graphics and performance of the PS3 and xbox side by side and using that as "the" decision maker.

Did easier to develop lead to cheaper software? A better xbox version than the PS3 version? I'm not totally sold on that. I do know some games had significantly less critical bugs on the xbox version than the PS3 version due to the memory architecture, but I'm not convinced a significant number of purchase decisions were made on this kind of thing. My overall point was that performance differences between consoles are fun to talk about, but are largely meaningless in the overall business picture. MS seems to recognize this, but fail to recognize that the public doesn't want to know about the features that actually will sell someone on the fence between one or the other.

This Forbes article is what got me thinking about it:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2013/05/21/first-round-of-xbox-one-vs-ps4-goes-to-microsoft/

At first I dismissed it as someone not understanding gamers, but after reading it and contemplation, he's probably right. The gaming and performance aspects are largely irrelevant portions of the decision process. I almost bought an Xbox... because of Kinect. My brother in law bought a PS3... because someone was selling it used for cheap and he wouldn't have to pay XBL! fees anymore. The performance and gaming aspect of consoles is largely a non-factor to the business end of this equation.

 

[tonyfreak215]

I don't really think you can exclude Windows.

Vista, for instance was not as big a flop as people make it out to be. I mean the OS itself is fine, and what many people consider Microsoft's best ever OS (Win7) is really just minor tweaks to Vista and a re-skin to make it look different. Clearly they didn't market Vista right... I also don't think you could really call Win8 a marketing success, even though they probably have the business part of it right in that there will be a strong need for an x86 OS that works well with convertible notebook / tablets.

I agree, but for the most part, a new Windows release will sell pretty decently. Heck even a "flop", like W8, is selling really well.

I think 7 sold well because "it wasn't Vista"; Vista was change and people don't like change. It had to get through some growing stages. (driver changes, etc.) It was also time for a new OS; one that would support the newer hardware coming out.

I have a feeling Windows Blue will be similar if MS can improve it enough to where it is better (in the mass' minds) than 8.

But did that performance sell consoles?

I don't really think many console gamers were sitting down and comparing the graphics and performance of the PS3 and xbox side by side and using that as "the" decision maker.

I don't believe so, but nowadays it might be different. The smartphone race has gotten non-tech people to start caring about specs. But ultimately it will be the large features (TV tuner, Kinnect, Bad Connection Policies) that set consoles apart.