PS3 internals [Archive] - Beyond3D Forum

one

11-Nov-2006, 06:25

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3.htm
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_2.htm

M/B
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_32.jpg

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_35.jpg
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_36.jpg
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_37.jpg

CXD2973GB controller chip
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_34.jpg

BD drive and PSU
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_20.jpg
PSU connector
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_21.jpg
WLAN card and PSU
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_23.jpg

Fan (16cm)
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_25.jpg
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_26.jpg
Heat sink
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_27.jpg
Heat pipe
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_29.jpg

Nikkei Tech-on posted movies for the disassembly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHS07EFGZ3g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcoEA69MuYM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdB2qQPv7LI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOf5m8XH4pY

Bad_Boy

11-Nov-2006, 06:32

Nice find one, very interesting stuff. :)

BlueTsunami

11-Nov-2006, 06:46

lol Bad_Boy luring me back to B3D with the info on GAF. You've been real awesome as of late one, who am I kidding, you've always been awesome dude!

Bad_Boy

11-Nov-2006, 06:51

lol Bad_Boy luring me back to B3D with the info on GAF. You've been real awesome as of late one, who am I kidding, you've always been awesome dude!

What can I say, b3d is great. :D and indeed one is doing great with the updates.
To stay on topic though, nice to finally see what keeps the PS3 cool and quiet. :)

Rangers

11-Nov-2006, 06:59

Booo, there is heatspreaders on the RSX+Cell, that they didn't remove so we could see the die.

And I guess this proves the PS2 hardware is contained in totality in the PS3. Even looks like the PS2 RAM is there as well.

Am I missing something about the Ram layout? Where are all the chips?

So there is a 160mm fan? Just one? So that is how they stayed "cool and quiet". As do it yourself PC modders know, the big fans push more air at lower RPM. But the standard PC size is 80mm, and the big PC case fans are 120mm. So that is one huge fan.

This article was okay, but lacked a lot of details. I'll wait for the proper Anandtech takedown, in my native language.

Too be honest the layout reminds of the Xbox 1, with how packed it is.
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Carl B

11-Nov-2006, 07:05

C'mon people, not expecting Watch-Impress to take this thing apart - and One not to bring the info - that's just naive! ;)

I'll wait for the proper Anandtech takedown, in my native language.

Let's get serious: Watch Impress >>> Anandtech

(I'll give you the language advantage though!)

babcat

11-Nov-2006, 07:07

Anyone run some of that Linux probing software through the system to see if they can detect all the specifications of various components? I don't know exactly how complicated that would be, but I was told it would be possible to do.

one

11-Nov-2006, 07:10

Hmm maybe should have posted in the Technology Forum?

This is the last year's PC Watch article for the Xbox 360. The immediate impression is the PS3 motherboard uses very few electrolytic capacitors.
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2005/1210/xbox360.htm

Rangers

11-Nov-2006, 07:17

C'mon people, not expecting Watch-Impress to take this thing apart - and One not to bring the info - that's just naive! ;)

Let's get serious: Watch Impress >>> Anandtech

(I'll give you the language advantage though!)

Are you sure? This article seems much more informative:
http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2610

But yeah, PC Watch does seem good.
________
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one

11-Nov-2006, 07:18

Nikkei Tech-on does another breakup series
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20061111/123435/
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20061111/123436/

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20061111/123435/20061111cover3.jpg

PSU
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20061111/123436/20061111power1.jpg
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20061111/123436/20061111power2.jpg

dangerose

11-Nov-2006, 07:24

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_32.jpg
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2005/1210/xbox56.jpg

Xbox 360 circuitry looks kinda bad.

one

11-Nov-2006, 07:25

Too be honest the layout reminds of the Xbox 1, with how packed it is.Erm... No.
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/PC/docs/article/20011116/xbox.htm

Are you sure? This article seems much more informative:
http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2610You know that's a Microsoft sponsored article judging from the date (1 week before the official release) right?

dangerose

11-Nov-2006, 07:25

Nikkei Tech-on does another breakup series

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20061111/123436/20061111power2.jpg

Wait! Is that a universal PSU?

nonamer

11-Nov-2006, 07:30

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_39.jpg

How very clever. At least VRAM will never overheat. :)

one

11-Nov-2006, 07:36

How very clever. At least VRAM will never overheat. :)Aha, the article seems still updating :smile:

Another Tech-on article
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20061111/123437/

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20061111/123437/fan2.jpg

Dr Evil

11-Nov-2006, 07:49

Wait! Is that a universal PSU?

Sure looks like it!!
That's very good to know.

dangerose

11-Nov-2006, 07:50

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_39.jpg

How very clever. At least VRAM will never overheat. :)

http://www.samsung.com/Products/Semiconductor/Support/Label_CodeInfo/Graphics_code.pdf

RSX is using 700MHZ GDDR3. :)

Geeforcer

11-Nov-2006, 07:50

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_32.jpg
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2005/1210/xbox56.jpg

Xbox 360 circuitry looks kinda bad.

It also looks like if you took the die of every chip on the Xbox mobo and put them next to each other, you'd still be able to fit the result under any of the 4 huge heatspreaders on the PS3 board.

Carl B

11-Nov-2006, 07:51

dangerose

11-Nov-2006, 07:54

http://www.samsung.com/Products/Semiconductor/Support/Label_CodeInfo/Graphics_code.pdf

RSX is using 700MHZ GDDR3. :)

Why are the memory modules on the same RSX die?

Dr Evil

11-Nov-2006, 07:57

What are you guys talking about with 'universal PSU?'

Is it a PSU? Yes.

Will you be able to replace it with an off-the-shelf model? No.

The connector is proprietary and the form-factor is obviously non-standard.

It is universal in a way that it accepts 100-240v, so you can import the machine to Europe and just change the cord or use adapter to make it run, instead of buying 50-100e power converter.

Carl B

11-Nov-2006, 07:57

http://www.samsung.com/Products/Semiconductor/Support/Label_CodeInfo/Graphics_code.pdf

RSX is using 700MHZ GDDR3. :)

Heads up that that doesn't mean the GDDR is actually clocked at that speed, just that modules capable of operation at that speed are being used.

Carl B

11-Nov-2006, 07:58

It is universal in a way that it accepts 100-240v, so you can import the machine to Europe and just change the cord or use adapter to make it run, instead of buying 100e power converter.

Ok gotcha, I misinterpreted the meaning of 'universal' obviously. :)

(Just shows my US-centric way of thinking I guess! :razz: )

dodo3

11-Nov-2006, 08:00

Wow @ X360's mobo. What a mess!

A lot of electrolytic and dialytic capacitors! I wonder which system uses power more efficiently!? :wink:

dangerose

11-Nov-2006, 08:06

Wow @ X360's mobo. What a mess!

A lot of electrolytic and dialytic capacitors! I wonder which system uses power more efficiently!? :wink:

That is the picture of a non-engineering company dipping their hands into hardware manufacturing. :lol:

Dr Evil

11-Nov-2006, 08:06

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_39.jpg

How very clever. At least VRAM will never overheat. :)

Nice, I was wondering that where the hell the chips are!:smile:

(Just shows my US-centric way of thinking I guess! :razz: )

It's okay, I pardon you :lol:

Dave Baumann

11-Nov-2006, 08:08

How very clever. At least VRAM will never overheat. :)
Thats a fairly standard option for laptop graphics packaging, however it is expensive.

Xbox 360 circuitry looks kinda bad.
I'd say it looks much cheaper.

Heads up that that doesn't mean the GDDR is actually clocked at that speed, just that modules capable of operation at that speed are being used.
Additionally, GDDR3 comes in 100MHz steps - the next one down being 600MHz; anything much above that speed and you would be running it out of spec. 700MHz RAM indicates speeds of between 600-700MHz.

Farid

11-Nov-2006, 08:17

I moved this to the Technology Forum.

On topic, the mainboard layout is very clean, nice stuff for a first (released) revision.
The heatsink/heatpipe design is also worth of note.

Dave Baumann

11-Nov-2006, 08:19

Actually, I'm going to be very interested in the analysts take on the BOM for this. To me it looks like there considerable more expense in the PS3 in relation to XBOX from the components and packaging used, let alone the apparent volume of silicon on that board and the BRD.

Martin Eddy

11-Nov-2006, 08:25

Xbox 360 circuitry looks kinda bad.

Especially next to that PS3 board. I'm not a big fan of Sony, but they sure now how to manufacture electronics.:smile: They make the Xbox360 board look amaturish.

babcat

11-Nov-2006, 08:29

Is there anything that can be found from these pictures in relation to the PS3's performance? On another forum someone stated that the GDDR3RAM is close to the RSX which could reduce latency. Does anyone here agree or have any other comments to make?

Can anyone take some of these images an label the various major components? For example, where is the XDR or FlexIO or the FLASH MEMORY that was admitted to be in there.

hey69

11-Nov-2006, 08:39

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20061111/123436/20061111power2.jpg

this I was looking for.. but then again, i think i'm going to sweat a bit before i plug it in directly in to the plug in a few days here....

exciting.. maybe i will be the first who blows up his ps3 :razz:

dodo3

11-Nov-2006, 08:45

How is the PSU cooled down? I was thinking maybe it was passively cooled, but then I saw this picture of after the PSU & BD-ROM are removed:

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_22.jpg

Graham

11-Nov-2006, 09:04

What are the two small black chips at the very top and top left of the board? (They seem to have an awful lot of wires running to them from RSX)

Also, what are the NEC/Tokin OE 128 chips? There are 8 of them as far as I can tell (4 on the back too)...

Thanks

SteamedRice

11-Nov-2006, 09:04

it just looks like its passively cooled because the only fan I see is at the bottom of the ps3 pushing air out these located below the oval top of ps3.

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_27.jpg

Arun

11-Nov-2006, 09:12

Thats a fairly standard option for laptop graphics packaging, however it is expensive.Interesting, thanks! :)

I'd say it looks much cheaper.Yeah, it does look a bit cheaper to me too (XBox360), in terms of layout. As others said, it's also likely that PS3 is more power-efficient though; which only makes sense, since less power efficiency would have meant higher heat, and even higher costs to achieve such low noise (or higher noise for the same cost, obviously...)

Additionally, GDDR3 comes in 100MHz steps - the next one down being 600MHz; anything much above that speed and you would be running it out of spec. 700MHz RAM indicates speeds of between 600-700MHz.That is not entirely correct. If you look at Samsung's GDDR3 (http://www.samsung.com/Products/Semiconductor/GraphicsMemory/GDDR3SDRAM/256Mbit/K4J55323QF/K4J55323QF.htm) page, you'll notice that the 600-700MHz range is an exception: there's also a 667MHz model, which is relatively recent afaik, compared to the other ones. You could argue that Sony is clocking it between 650 and 700MHz however, and needs to buy the two kinds of models to meet capacity, however.

Uttar

babcat

11-Nov-2006, 09:20

So we now have mystery chips on the mother board?

Confirmation of Sony's claimed FLASH memory on the PS3?

Reduced GDDR3 Latency for the RSX?

Cowabunga dude!

Dave Baumann

11-Nov-2006, 09:27

Yeah, it does look a bit cheaper to me too (XBox360), in terms of layout. As others said, it's also likely that PS3 is more power-efficient though; which only makes sense, since less power efficiency would have meant higher heat, and even higher costs to achieve such low noise (or higher noise for the same cost, obviously...)
Power efficient in term of what? The non-major silicon components? Or the overall system power?
In terms of system power the PSU appears to be outputting 32A over the 12V line, whereas the 360's PSU is 16.5A - there wouldn't be such a large difference if it wasn't expected to need it.

That is not entirely correct. If you look at Samsung's GDDR3 (http://www.samsung.com/Products/Semiconductor/GraphicsMemory/GDDR3SDRAM/256Mbit/K4J55323QF/K4J55323QF.htm) page, you'll notice that the 600-700MHz range is an exception: there's also a 667MHz model, which is relatively recent afaik, compared to the other ones. You could argue that Sony is clocking it between 650 and 700MHz however, and needs to buy the two kinds of models to meet capacity, however.
If it is new, then yes, they are likely to be buying both should 700MHz not actually be a requirement.

Rangers

11-Nov-2006, 09:50

Xbox 360 circuitry looks kinda bad.

I like it better, the PS3 board looks dishwater dull, where the 360 is more brightly colored. I know that has nothing to do with performance or engineering however. Also the 360 board is smaller. What does it mean that the 360 is busier looking and has so many more capacitors though?
________
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Rangers

11-Nov-2006, 09:52

Erm... No.
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/PC/docs/article/20011116/xbox.htm

You know that's a Microsoft sponsored article judging from the date (1 week before the official release) right?

Erm, yes.

And sponsored by microsoft? How so? Anandtech is not a console site so they would not have signed any NDA's. There plenty of PS3's floating around right now, one week until North American release.

Also wonder what the engineering thinking was behind one company using heatspreaders and the other not? (Heatspreaders decrease thermal efficieny btw, there is another layer between the die and the cooling). I know in PC's heatspreaders are nice because they prevent potential cracked die's when you mount a heatsink by hand. But I wonder if that applies to console manufactoring?
________
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Shifty Geezer

11-Nov-2006, 10:22

Fan (16cm)I was right! It is larger than 120 mm. I think my guess was 150 mm. Big fan!

Why's the controller chip got such a larger spreader? What's that doing to generate heat?

And I'm guessing the Marvell chip is the Firmware?

Can we spot the PS2 RAM for the EE+GS as well?

DJ12

11-Nov-2006, 10:26

What is the point of having nicely engraved heat spreaders telling everyone what the chips are?

Surely it's an unnecessary cost (although it does look good)

pascal

11-Nov-2006, 10:35

First impression looks good for the PS3

Looks like a embedded electronics design for a large scalle premium consumer product.

The XBox 360 looks like a cheap PC style Taiwanese mobo.

Arun

11-Nov-2006, 10:36

Power efficient in term of what? The non-major silicon components? Or the overall system power?I was thinking of non-major silicon components; basically everything but CELL/RSX. It should be fairly obvious those are more power hungry than the XBox360 equivalents, I'm just arguing that the PSU and overall layout might be more power efficient. That would imply, I'll admit, that the chips are even more hungry than XBox360's, if it needs more raw wattage and it's more efficient with it! I ponder how much power that 160mm fan is taking too - probably not more than the XBox's fans combined. The costs in terms of cooling for the PS3 are much more in terms of heat sinks, heat pipes, and beefier PSU, after all.

Uttar

"Nerve-Damage"

11-Nov-2006, 10:39

The XBox 360 looks like a cheap PC style Taiwanese mobo.

*surve saids* :yep2:

Arun

11-Nov-2006, 10:45

*surve saids* :yep2:That makes me ponder who made the motherboard layout actually. VIA made the chipset, but did they design the board? At least, you could argue those guys have some experience in cost efficiency, considering their ASPs for PC products, hah! ;)

Uttar

Mefisutoferesu

11-Nov-2006, 10:56

Aha, the article seems still updating :smile:

Another Tech-on article
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20061111/123437/

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20061111/123437/fan2.jpg

:O That pretty neat.

If you notice the the blades on the fan are nearly straight (steep angle), which is normally really bad, since this formation stinks at creating airpressure, especially in tight spaces, even if it does push a considerable amount of air (the air pressure simply isn't focused when the blades are at such a steep angle). As a result, you never see fans with blades like that, they're just not useful, BUT Sony's gone and taken a negative and turned it into something useful by moving the heat sink from being in front/back of the fan to the sides, which in turn lets you make use of all the air the fan pushes despite it's incoherent nature. It's similar to GPU coolers, but because of the way they've oriented the heat sink it isn't as confining a design nor does it have to rely on tunneling, so the fan doesn't have to spin at as high an RPM to be effective. Nice.

DJ12

11-Nov-2006, 11:00

I wonder which site is going to be the first to be brave enough to yank the cover off CELL.

avaya

11-Nov-2006, 11:09

"Nerve-Damage"

11-Nov-2006, 11:13

london-boy

11-Nov-2006, 11:35

mrboo

11-Nov-2006, 11:38

What's the 4th big processor on the PS3 motherboard? There are 4 big chips, one is the BE, one is RSX, one is EE+GS... What's the 4th one? It's close to the outputs so i'm guessing it's the video/scaling chip? Looks huge!

Yes i was wondering that aswel, it could be the I/O controller? a scaler as you said, or both.

london-boy

11-Nov-2006, 11:40

Yes i was wondering that aswel, it could be the I/O controller? a scaler as you said, or both.

An I/O chip that big? Then again that's just the cover, the chip itself might be tiny... It just looks weird cause it's just as big as Cell, RSX or EE+GS...

It must be... a G80!!!!!!!111

:lol:

avaya

11-Nov-2006, 11:42

pipo

11-Nov-2006, 11:43

What is the point of having nicely engraved heat spreaders telling everyone what the chips are?

Surely it's an unnecessary cost (although it does look good)

That's it. Design. Very nice IMO. You could almost hang it on the wall.

Oh, and the fan is pretty cool too.

/coat

mrboo

11-Nov-2006, 11:45

An I/O chip that big? Then again that's just the cover, the chip itself might be tiny... It just looks weird cause it's just as big as Cell, RSX or EE+GS...

It must be... a G80!!!!!!!111

:lol:

Yes its big but it could also be the scaler aswel as the I/O, that would explain the chips size. :)

Hold on a minute....

Maybe its a FLUX CAPACITOR for PS3s 4D time manipulation :lol:

london-boy

11-Nov-2006, 11:45

It's the 4D Flux Capacitor.

Damn i knew Sony were up to something! That's the reason of the delay!! They had to go into the future, get it, modify it to make it fit in a PS3 and come back!!

No seriously.

DJ12

11-Nov-2006, 11:47

An I/O chip that big? Then again that's just the cover, the chip itself might be tiny... It just looks weird cause it's just as big as Cell, RSX or EE+GS

CXD2973GB controller chip
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_34.jpg
If the PS3 had a scaler chip surely it would be functional right out of the box, but the PS3 cannot upscale anything in it's current state so I'm guessing it hasn't got a scaler chip.

london-boy

11-Nov-2006, 11:48

What is the point of having nicely engraved heat spreaders telling everyone what the chips are?

Surely it's an unnecessary cost (although it does look good)

It's Sony. They make hardware, and good hardware with good design, and they're proud of it. It's hardly going to cost them anything material to write "cell" or "rsx" on small metal pieces.

london-boy

11-Nov-2006, 11:49

If the PS3 had a scaler chip surely it would be functional right out of the box, but the PS3 cannot upscale anything in it's current state so I'm guessing it hasn't got a scaler chip.

Huh? Of course it can scale now, at least it scales DVDs.

mrboo

11-Nov-2006, 11:49

If the PS3 had a scaler chip surely it would be functional right out of the box, but the PS3 cannot upscale anything in it's current state so I'm guessing it hasn't got a scaler chip.

PS3 scales games from 720p to 1080p straihgt from the box, so it does have a scaler chip.

DJ12

11-Nov-2006, 11:49

That's it. Design. Very nice IMO. You could almost hang it on the wall.
Seems like a lot of trouble to go through to impress some net nerds like you an I though. 99.9% of all PS3s will never be opened, much less completely dismantled to the point the heat spreaders are exposed.

DJ12

11-Nov-2006, 11:50

PS3 scales games from 720p to 1080p straihgt from the box, so it does have a scaler chip.
Never thought of that, I was thinking about the dvd and PS1/PS2 games. My bad.

DJ12

11-Nov-2006, 11:52

Huh? Of course it can scale now, at least it scales DVDs.
It doesn't yet. It is apparently something Sony are looking into for a future firmware update.

mrboo

11-Nov-2006, 11:52

Huh? Of course it can scale now, at least it scales DVDs.

DVD's:?: , must be a type london boy as PS3 does'nt scale dvd'as to HD. The only scaling that occurs in the machine is games from 720p to 1080p.

london-boy

11-Nov-2006, 11:52

Seems like a lot of trouble to go through to impress some net nerds like you an I though. 99.9% of all PS3s will never be opened, much less completely dismantled to the point the heat spreaders are exposed.

I think you're getting worried about anything that shouldn't need worrying.

By the same token, you could wonder why manufacturers put any information on the chips at all, be it engraved or hand-painted.

In fact, between pressing 100million metal pieces with "CELL" written on it (cause they's not engraved afterwards, they're pressed like that) and pressing blank pieces of metal and then go back afterwards and write things on them, i'm not sure which one is more expensive.

london-boy

11-Nov-2006, 11:53

DVD's:?: , must be a type london boy as PS3 does'nt scale dvd'as to HD. The only scaling that occurs in the machine is games from 720p to 1080p.

No. PS3 scales DVDs up to 1080p like all Bluray players out there (u know, the 2 out at the moment err). Heck, like most DVD players out at the moment.

DJ12

11-Nov-2006, 11:54

I think you're getting worried about anything that shouldn't need worrying.

By the same token, you could wonder why manufacturers put any information on the chips at all, be it engraved or hand-painted.

In fact, between pressing 100million metal pieces with "CELL" written on it (cause they's not engraved afterwards, they're pressed like that) and pressing blank pieces of metal and then go back afterwards and write things on them, i'm not sure which one is more expensive.

I'm not worried about it (my PS3 will be one of the 0.01% that does get dismantled), I'm just trying to get my head around why they would bother that's all.

mrboo

11-Nov-2006, 11:55

No. PS3 scales DVDs up to 1080p like all Bluray players out there (u know, the 2 out at the moment err). Heck, like most DVD players out at the moment.

Sorry dude,

On a down note, SCE informed us that DVD upscaling was not part of the PS3 multimedia feature set. The Xbox 360 upscales DVDs, so it's surprising to see SCE go without the feature.

Link (http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/740/740601p4.html)

london-boy

11-Nov-2006, 11:56

Sorry dude,

Link (http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/740/740601p4.html)

Oh thanks! Was out yesterday.

Well i guess the firmware is broken. Won't take much to update it.

EDIT: Actually no, that link is quite old, I thought Sony confimed that PS3 DOES upscale DVD playback after that IGN article. Could be wrong.

DJ12

11-Nov-2006, 11:59

It could be that the functionality isn't there and they will be doing it via CELL.

mrboo

11-Nov-2006, 12:00

london-boy

11-Nov-2006, 12:03

here...

Turns out PS3 will upscale DVD movies afterall, at least according to Peter Dille:

http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/t...entertainment/

Quote:
Because, that's something that actually kind of turned some heads is when Microsoft announced 1080p support. They also announced that they were going to be adding DVD playback upscaling to 1080p, which is kind of something that is more or less unheard of in the consumer DVD playback market.

Right, so I guess from a Blu-ray perspective, Blu-ray movies are obviously 1080p capable; the Blu-ray player will upscale DVDs -- your question's about why not PS1 and PS2 games?

So you're saying the PlayStation 3 will upscale DVDs to 1080p?

Yes. Oh, yes.

Okay.

That's part and parcel of the Blu-ray technology. I thought you were questioning about the PlayStation game aspect.

Yeah, this is also about PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 games that are going to be played on the console.

Yeah, I don't know the answer to that, as I said. I thought that's what you're asking. Blu-ray does upscale the DVD movie experience. I'd have to check on the PlayStation -- we can get back to you on that.

pipo

11-Nov-2006, 12:03

london-boy

11-Nov-2006, 12:04

I just wanna know why the EE+GS is there? Sony, IBM and Tosh made the EE so why the hell cant they emulate it in software? Afteral they kow the chip design better then anyone and should breeze though it. Its not as if they havent got programers to do it either.

It was always meant to be there as its the only way to get near 100% backward compatibility out of the box. Emulation just wasn't good enough at the time of manufacturing. Sony hopes that in future, they will be doing emulators good enough to take out the EE+GS of the PS3 and save some money.

DeanoC

11-Nov-2006, 12:05

PS3 scales games from 720p to 1080p straihgt from the box, so it does have a scaler chip.
No it doesn't scale games from 720p to 1080p without effort.

DJ12

11-Nov-2006, 12:07

I read something the other day that said the emulator was almost complete.

As long as it's ready before the PAL launch I'll be happy.

DJ12

11-Nov-2006, 12:08

No it doesn't scale games from 720p to 1080p without effort.

Meaning?

RSX/CELL has to do the scaling?

london-boy

11-Nov-2006, 12:09

I read something the other day that said the emulator was almost complete.

As long as it's ready before the PAL launch I'll be happy.

Why? What will change for you? Heck i'd prefer to have the PS3 with EE+GS there, cause the emulator will inevitably be less successful than the real hardware, unless Sony manage to do a miracle and create the "Perfect Emulator".

london-boy

11-Nov-2006, 12:11

Meaning?

RSX/CELL has to do the scaling?

Why would Cell do upscaling tasks?

one

11-Nov-2006, 12:11

As for DVD upscaling, no there's no upscaling now.
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35517

The second article is up
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_2.htm

Blu-ray drive
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_222.jpg
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_216.jpg

PSU
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_206.jpg

DJ12

11-Nov-2006, 12:20

Why? What will change for you? Heck i'd prefer to have the PS3 with EE+GS there, cause the emulator will inevitably be less successful than the real hardware, unless Sony manage to do a miracle and create the "Perfect Emulator".
The only things that stops people from making perfect emulators is a possible lack of skill and the lack of information forcing people to employ guess work to figure things out, this isn't going to be a problem for Sony.

Even if it wasn't 98.5% compatable, I would much sooner have the software based emulator as it (according to Sony) will upscale all the old games to 720p. As long as the good games work I couldn't careless to be honest.

mrboo

11-Nov-2006, 12:52

No it doesn't scale games from 720p to 1080p without effort.

Thats a little blunt DeanoC.

Shifty Geezer

11-Nov-2006, 13:02

Why would Cell do upscaling tasks?
Because they don't have a scaling chip, and Cell ought to be good at it :wink4:

Rewind to the start of this scaling talk. What's that big chip? It's a CXD2973GB controller chip. I dunno why it has such a large heat sink (the silicon under might not be that large, but runs hot and maybe wants to spread the heat?) but we do know it's a controller chip, which I understand means BlueTooth, USB, WiFi, and device control with IDE/SATA etc. (someone correct me if wrong here!).

A controller chip certainly shouldn't be doing scaling, and I don't recall any reason to think Sony were including a scaling chip in there. For movie playback PS3 and RSX can easily manage. For scaling games, it'd take a little more effort but might fit okay onto the OS SPE, depending on the complexity of the scaling algorithm. I make it about 400 MB/s BW needed to read 1080p and write 480p, and an awful lot of calculations for a simple bilinear resample.

Rolf N

11-Nov-2006, 13:17

Also wonder what the engineering thinking was behind one company using heatspreaders and the other not? (Heatspreaders decrease thermal efficieny btw, there is another layer between the die and the cooling). I know in PC's heatspreaders are nice because they prevent potential cracked die's when you mount a heatsink by hand. But I wonder if that applies to console manufactoring?Heatspreaders lend themselves well to better/more expensive material. Copper inlets in an aluminum heatsink are harder to pull off than a heatspreader.
The hs not only helps in sessions of putzing around with the heatsink, but also as a shield against the roughness of transportation ... the heatsink is huge.

Rolf N

11-Nov-2006, 13:26

Why are the memory modules on the same RSX die?Because routing GDDR traces is a fuckin' mess. Look at the relatively disorderly traces around Xenos on the 360 PCB. The RSX MCM keeps that mess locally contained.
(and might theoretically allow for a wide bus, but with four chips it's 99% certain that it's 128 bit wide, as expected)

SugarCoat

11-Nov-2006, 13:32

And I'm guessing the Marvell chip is the Firmware?

Ethernet controller.

threepac3

11-Nov-2006, 13:40

As for DVD upscaling, no there's no upscaling now.
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35517

Blu-ray drive
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_222.jpg

I don't think anyone noticed this yet but Ill make note: There seems to be only 1 laser inside the Blu-Ray drive. SO does this mean that Sony and company has developed a fully functional laser that reads CD/DVD/BR?

Laa-Yosh

11-Nov-2006, 13:43

Thirty dollars tops (bulk/mass production).

Assuming 6 million units shipped of this hardware revision, we're already talking about up to 180 million dollars lost on providing backwards compatibility only...

SugarCoat

11-Nov-2006, 13:48

looks like 512mb of some sort of flash memory or mask ROM on there as well. Cant read the damn print. Two attatched to RSX and two to Cell. Wonder if its for the OS.

Rolf N

11-Nov-2006, 13:51

looks like 512mb of some sort of flash memory or mask ROM on there as well. Two attatched to RSX and two to Cell. Wonder if its for the OS.I'd rather believe these things are part of the power regulation circuitry. Some fancy newfangled form factor for either FETs (extra large surface to better dissipate heat?) or capacitors. Someone figure out/look up the part number stat!

Rolf N

11-Nov-2006, 13:53

Assuming 6 million units shipped of this hardware revision, we're already talking about up to 180 million dollars lost on providing backwards compatibility only...Why is mulitplication necessary now? 30 per machine is still 30 per machine. If you think 180 million for 6 million units communicates something different, how about comparing that against more than 3 billion of revenue?

It doesn't really change anything. The chip needs to eventually go away to reduce costs, yes.

SugarCoat

11-Nov-2006, 13:53

I'd rather believe these things are part of the power regulation circuitry. Some fancy newfangled form factor for either FETs (extra large surface to better dissipate heat?) or capacitors. Someone figure out/look up the part number stat!

its not, i can clearly make out NEC/Tokin and 128 on each chip. Its problably Mask ROM.

DeanA

11-Nov-2006, 14:02

Thats a little blunt DeanoC.
You might think DeanoC is being blunt, but at least he's telling the truth.. :)

I'm not sure what else he could have said, to be honest.

Rolf N

11-Nov-2006, 14:05

its not, i can clearly make out NEC/Tokin and 128 on each chip. Its problably Mask ROM.No. I've found it, it's a capacitor.

Look here, first page has the exact same part pictured:
http://www.nec-tokin.com/english/product/pdf_dl/capacitors_db.pdf

(if the download doesn't work, start here (http://www.nec-tokin.com/english/product/dl_ene.html))

Shifty Geezer

11-Nov-2006, 14:06

I don't think anyone noticed this yet but Ill make note: There seems to be only 1 laser inside the Blu-Ray drive. SO does this mean that Sony and company has developed a fully functional laser that reads CD/DVD/BR?
AFAIK it's a three-laser head, or does the red laser read DVD as well as CD? Anyhow, it has diodes for red and blue lasers and switches between them - part of the reason the things are hard and costly to make.

rendezvous

11-Nov-2006, 14:06

zeckensack
I'd rather believe these things are part of the power regulation circuitry. Some fancy newfangled form factor for either FETs (extra large surface to better dissipate heat?) or capacitors. Someone figure out/look up the part number stat!

its not, i can clearly make out NEC/Tokin and 128 on each chip. Its problably Mask ROM.

It's a Proadlizer (Never heard of that name before) from NEC/TOKIN. It's a decoupling device.

http://www.nec-tokin.com/english/product/cap/proadlizer/product.html

Rolf N

11-Nov-2006, 14:12

It's a Proadlizer (Never heard of that name before) from NEC/TOKIN. It's a decoupling device.

http://www.nec-tokin.com/english/product/cap/proadlizer/product.htmlSomething like a "gold cap" if you ask me. It has insane capacity for its size, so it can't be entirely traditional, but it's still a capacitor :razz:

(err, is it "capacitance" or "capacity"?)

Arun

11-Nov-2006, 14:33

Expect a fun little news post from us in a few hours max about RSX ;)

Uttar

Shifty Geezer

11-Nov-2006, 14:57

Oooooooooooooooooooo, I'm so excited I can't sit still!

:runaway:

G80 announcement for sure!!! :twisted:

Dr Evil

11-Nov-2006, 15:00

clockspeed would be nice.

Laa-Yosh

11-Nov-2006, 15:15

Why is mulitplication necessary now? 30 per machine is still 30 per machine. If you think 180 million for 6 million units communicates something different, how about comparing that against more than 3 billion of revenue?

Excuse me, I've thought that it does matter, or at least is interesting, that Sony's throwing a lot of money out of the window just for backwards compatibility.
See, all this is in addition to the losses on just manufacturing the basic hardware, and not just a $30 loss on its own...

rendezvous

11-Nov-2006, 15:20

It does atleast look a little bit bigger than the G71 according to my measurements.
The area I calculaded was 242 mm squared. I used the ram chips as a reference.

According to this page the ram chips measue 11,0 x 14,0 mm.
http://www.samsung.com/Products/Semiconductor/common/cdance_list/cdance_popup.asp?family_cd=GME1002&partnumber=K4J52324QC

And by pure luck it seems like 10 pixels in the picture with the MCM of RSX corresponds to 1mm. :)

Deepak

11-Nov-2006, 15:39

Expect a fun little news post from us in a few hours max about RSX ;)

Uttar

Wow, I hope it is up before I go to bed ( in 5 hours). BTW, really sexy motherboard. PS3 has a damn good toned body.:wink:

Gubbi

11-Nov-2006, 15:43

Excuse me, I've thought that it does matter, or at least is interesting, that Sony's throwing a lot of money out of the window just for backwards compatibility.
See, all this is in addition to the losses on just manufacturing the basic hardware, and not just a $30 loss on its own...

It's probably a fairly safe predition to say that backwards compatibility will be one of the first things to go once the race to meet demand settles and we'll see a full game lineup for PS3.

This time around there'll be real competition on price since MS is in a much better position to drive down cost.

If Sony decides to sink $15-$30 per PS over the lifetime of the console without any real way to recoop the cost (few PS3 owners will buy new PS2 games to run on it), investors will probably be giving Sony top brass a good bollocking (and they don't really need that with the current execution fiasco).

Cheers

Carl B

11-Nov-2006, 16:08

If Sony decides to sink $15-$30 per PS over the lifetime of the console without any real way to recoop the cost (few PS3 owners will buy new PS2 games to run on it), investors will probably be giving Sony top brass a good bollocking (and they don't really need that with the current execution fiasco).

Cheers

Yeah but Gubbi, Sony won't be sinking $15-30 into B/C over the life of the console; as has been mentioned elsewhere, the software emulation is 'almost there.' Not that it's a non-factor, but I wouldn't expect to see the chip in there past the first 25% of the initial five-year run

Just plain commentary in general, I really like the layout of the PS3 - extremely elegant. All the components say 'quality' to me, and I don't think Sony was ahead of themselves to have boasted about the PSU and heatsink designs.

Tossing the EE+GS (and associated MB support structure), rapid BOM drops on the Blu-ray drives as time goes on, 65nm on RSX and Cell (to be reached shortly), and 'lighter' cooling to be used once said drops occur should all lead to a Playstation 3 that a year out from now is significantly cheaper to manufacture than the current version. And I think that eventual system would be mighty fine to own as well from an 'aesthetic of technology' standpoint.

rounin

11-Nov-2006, 16:25

weaksauce

11-Nov-2006, 16:26

Does the GS chip mean that it does not upscale ps2 games?

Rolf N

11-Nov-2006, 16:32

Excuse me, I've thought that it does matter, or at least is interesting, that Sony's throwing a lot of money out of the window just for backwards compatibility.Of course it matters. But "out of the window" it is not. It's a PStwo. It plays FF12 and Rogue Galaxy and what-have-you. "Out of the window" does not capture that.See, all this is in addition to the losses on just manufacturing the basic hardware, and not just a $30 loss on its own...It's not a loss. It's a feature that costs money but is good to have on board nonetheless. Like a graphics chip or the networking or whatever.

mrboo

11-Nov-2006, 16:33

Expect a fun little news post from us in a few hours max about RSX ;)

Uttar

This is'nt a trick is it :(

Carl B

11-Nov-2006, 16:38

This is'nt a trick is it :(

Uttar wouldn't be joking about something like that. ;)

(and oh my god - I just noticed; Uttar are you quoting Scooter in your sig??? That song rules! :lol: )

Deepak

11-Nov-2006, 16:59

Here is the small bit Uttar was referring to.

http://www.beyond3d.com/#news35566

:cool:

Edit: Can anyone explain in simple terms what it means?

Arun

11-Nov-2006, 17:04

hah, you spotted it faster than I could post the link here!
And yup, that's it, and the comment thread is: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?p=871293
Sorry for doing something on roughly the same piece of data as you rendezvous, I had actually calculated it one hour before you posted that. And I think the related information I'm adding is worth the trouble ;) Feel free to link it in any forum you frequent, too, of course.

Uttar

Shifty Geezer

11-Nov-2006, 17:08

Edit: Can anyone explain in simple terms what it means?Not a great deal. The larger size is news, but the explanation isn't anything we haven't had here before. The suggestion is inclusion of a redundant set of pixel pipes or other shaders and some larger caches. Would that be enough though to make up the larger die, especially if PureVideo has been dropped, which I don't think has been stated anywhere?

The only other news is clarification that though the chips are rated to 1400 MHz, that doesn't mean RSX is still clocked at 600 MHz, with 700 MHz RAM. The probability of the clock-speed 'drop' from E3 '05's specs is still high, with a 550MHz part and 650 MHz RAM.

Carl B

11-Nov-2006, 17:12

Here is the small bit Uttar was referring to.

http://www.beyond3d.com/#news35566

:cool:

Edit: Can anyone explain in simple terms what it means?

Well, it means that unless there's something else coming, they're just telling us what we already knew. :razz:

Though that said, the die-size extrapolation and posited theory/confirmation of quad redundancy would be a new element to the knowledge base. Kutaragi had said 'redundancy' might factor in before, and with a G71 derivative back in the day a lot of folk had assumed that meant a 24PP chip down to 20. But if this ends up holding true, it'll actually have been a larger G71 custom 28PP chip down to 24 effective (which we already know to be the operational number of units).

mrboo

11-Nov-2006, 17:14

Not a great deal. The larger size is news, but the explanation isn't anything we haven't had here before. The suggestion is inclusion of a redundant set of pixel pipes or other shaders and some larger caches. Would that be enough though to make up the larger die, especially if PureVideo has been dropped, which I don't think has been stated anywhere?

The only other news is clarification that though the chips are rated to 1400 MHz, that doesn't mean RSX is still clocked at 600 MHz, with 700 MHz RAM. The probability of the clock-speed 'drop' from E3 '05's specs is still high, with a 550MHz part and 650 MHz RAM.

RSX was announced at 550mhz @ E3'3005

Carl B

11-Nov-2006, 17:15

Shifty meant 500 on the RSX and 650 on the GDDR. (at least I think/hope! :) )

Arun

11-Nov-2006, 17:22

Would that be enough though to make up the larger die, especially if PureVideo has been dropped, which I don't think has been stated anywhere?It is AFAIK a pretty small part of the die. The caches etc. are substantially larger in RSX (I've seen 96KiB instead of 48KiB floating around, but afaik, it's actually 96+48KiB for the texture caches) - and so are the register files (although not to the same extend, perhaps!)

You'll find, however, that one pixel quad is a perfectly normal thing in add in terms of die sizes though, before you question the fact the increase might have had to be larger then: comparing G71, G73 and G72 give a pretty good idea of that, imo. So the increased die size is really both better caches to improve efficiency in relatively more advanced workloads (remember G70 was designed with 2004 games in mind) and redundancy to improve yields, afaik.

Uttar

Shifty Geezer

11-Nov-2006, 17:27

Shifty meant 500 on the RSX and 650 on the GDDR. (at least I think/hope! :) )I meant the numbers for what the numbers are, whether I typed the wrong ones or not! I thought I might be 50 MHz out on the RSX speed but just couldn't be arsed to check as I was talking about RAM speeds :p

INKster

11-Nov-2006, 17:34

RSX was announced at 550mhz @ E3'3005

That E3 was a long time ago.
Since then, the PS3 as lost some features (reduced clocks, 3 Ethernet ports, Dual-shock), but it also gained others (Hard Drive, HDMI on the basic model, Playstation Network, SixAxis controller, etc).

pascal

11-Nov-2006, 17:42

Fox5

11-Nov-2006, 19:40

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_39.jpg

How very clever. At least VRAM will never overheat. :)

So uh.....does the proximity of the VRAM indicate any performance benefits? Shouldn't they be able to clock it higher or use a wider bus? Physically, the PS3's vram looks closer to the die than xbox 360's edram.

That is the picture of a non-engineering company dipping their hands into hardware manufacturing.

I'd say the xbox 360's mobo looks generic. Whereas Xbox 1 looked rushed, the xbox 360's layout looks almost like something you'd expect a computer program to put out, or the simplest design possible to make non-cutting edge hardware work. Not simplest in terms of layout, but simplest in terms of effort put into design. Looks dreamcastish.

Especially next to that PS3 board. I'm not a big fan of Sony, but they sure now how to manufacture electronics. They make the Xbox360 board look amaturish.

PS2 (the original) didn't give that impression of Sony.

That makes me ponder who made the motherboard layout actually. VIA made the chipset, but did they design the board? At least, you could argue those guys have some experience in cost efficiency, considering their ASPs for PC products, hah!

I'd imagine one of the larger Taiwanese firms made it. Could even be Asus (though the motherboard looks like a cheaper design than Asus would normally do, reminds me of a biostar motherboard). Oh, and I thought SIS made the 360's core logic?

babcat

11-Nov-2006, 20:46

Hmm... 96KB plus 48KB per quad.... the cache gets LARGER!

Plus extra light and vertex transform cache.

But what does extra register size mean?

Hmm... sounds exciting. Because info about the RSX is so rare.

RobertR1

11-Nov-2006, 20:56

No. PS3 scales DVDs up to 1080p like all Bluray players out there (u know, the 2 out at the moment err). Heck, like most DVD players out at the moment.

No it doesn't. Try to do some research.

Shifty Geezer

11-Nov-2006, 21:15

But what does extra register size mean?It means there's more likelihood of required data being in local cache, meaning less fetches from RAM, and lower latency between wanting to texture and being able to texture (or whichever cache). It means an efficiency improvement for the existing architecture.

Dave Baumann

11-Nov-2006, 22:30

So uh.....does the proximity of the VRAM indicate any performance benefits? Shouldn't they be able to clock it higher or use a wider bus?
It doesn't really mean much. I believe that a closer proximity may make clocking high a slightly more difficult prospect because of the reduced trace lengths. I've also only ever seen this up to 128-bit in the mobile space.

Basically I wouldn't read into it as being mean anything more than what has already been announced.

Hmm... 96KB plus 48KB per quad.... the cache gets LARGER!
I believe thats 48KB across all quads.

It means there's more likelihood of required data being in local cache, meaning less fetches from RAM, and lower latency between wanting to texture and being able to texture (or whichever cache).
Its more about tempories for the shader programs - the more temps you have per pixel the more pixels you can have in flight. i.e. it means that it custs down on the occasions where you are going to be texture bandwidth limited (important if you are texturing from FlexIO).

london-boy

11-Nov-2006, 22:53

No it doesn't. Try to do some research.

Gee sorry i was out yesterday! I did stand corrected later in the thread after that post! Gosh i go away for a day and look what happens! :twisted:

Teasy

11-Nov-2006, 23:33

It's Sony. They make hardware, and good hardware with good design, and they're proud of it.

I don't wish to start an argument but I'm not sure how you can say that considering how prone to failure PS1 and PS2 were..

london-boy

11-Nov-2006, 23:37

I don't wish to start an argument but I'm not sure how you can say that considering how prone to failure PS1 and PS2 were..

Let's not start it then, or we'll have people like me saying they never had a problem with their 6-year old PS2 bought at launch, and as many people saying they went through 5 PS2s in 6 months. :wink:

one

12-Nov-2006, 03:38

Nikkei Tech-on posted movies for the disassembly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHS07EFGZ3g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcoEA69MuYM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdB2qQPv7LI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOf5m8XH4pY

rounin

12-Nov-2006, 04:07

Let's not start it then, or we'll have people like me saying they never had a problem with their 6-year old PS2 bought at launch, and as many people saying they went through 5 PS2s in 6 months. :wink:

Either that or people will come streaming in furious that in less than a year they went through more Xbox360s and are still not done :lol: I think its all relative anyway.

wco81

12-Nov-2006, 04:38

According to Pana (posted at GAF) the EE+GS also looks like it has 32MB of Direct RDRAM attached to it a la PSTwo.....backwards compatibility is no small cost. What would you guys estimate the cost of it being?

Didn't someone speculate that on a future PS3 revision, they would do backwards compatibility through software?

If that happened, would it be better to have the actual PS2 silicon or have it done through software?

Maybe with software BC, there would be an opportunity to have some enhanced playback, such as upscaling?

Then again, by the time they remove the EE and GS, assuming they do it, there may not be as much demand for BC.

Sankari

12-Nov-2006, 06:35

Didn't someone speculate that on a future PS3 revision, they would do backwards compatibility through software?

If that happened, would it be better to have the actual PS2 silicon or have it done through software?

Maybe with software BC, there would be an opportunity to have some enhanced playback, such as upscaling?

Then again, by the time they remove the EE and GS, assuming they do it, there may not be as much demand for BC.

It has been thought that they will do it trough software but hardware will also do better than actual software.

There is alot of things that can make the PS3 price go down, so I wouldn't be surprised if the first price drop came earlier than expected.

Farid

12-Nov-2006, 07:36

Didn't someone speculate that on a future PS3 revision, they would do backwards compatibility through software?
Yep, Izumi Kawanishi, an SCEI exec, said in a recent interview (translated by one, as always (http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35517)):
The EE+GS embedded in the PS3 does emulation for PS1/PS2 for initial shipments PS3, so no graphics upgrade for the time being. The software emulation technology is almost complete but not ready for the launch. As soon as it becomes complete EE+GS is removed from future units.

nAo

12-Nov-2006, 10:18

It means there's more likelihood of required data being in local cache, meaning less fetches from RAM, and lower latency between wanting to texture and being able to texture (or whichever cache).
Not really, Uttar is talking about register files size, not texture caches size.

nAo

12-Nov-2006, 10:19

it means that it custs down on the occasions where you are going to be texture bandwidth limited (important if you are texturing from FlexIO).
No, it's not about being texture bandwidth limited, but mem latency limited.

Dave Baumann

12-Nov-2006, 15:11

Of course, thats what I meant.

london-boy

12-Nov-2006, 15:30

Deepak

12-Nov-2006, 18:04

Do they buy a PS3 only to dissect it? I would love to see the video of putting everything back together. :lol:

_phil_

12-Nov-2006, 18:08

Do they buy a PS3 only to dissect it? I would love to see the video of putting everything back together. :lol:

hmm..the best way would be to play these videos backward

JardeL

12-Nov-2006, 19:03

Their reaction when they saw the huge fan was funny :grin: ... BTW i really like that cooling system ...

cloudscapes

12-Nov-2006, 20:56

I'm no fan of Sony and their obnoxious business practices, but DAMN do they know how to make electronics!

bobthebub

12-Nov-2006, 21:13

After seeing the guy that added a 3.5" Sata Drive to his PS3 I had a bit of a google around on external SATA Raid, does anyone know if eSata port multipliers ala http://www.sata-io.org/portmultiplier.asp are likely to work on a PS3?

SugarCoat

12-Nov-2006, 21:55

I'm no fan of Sony and their obnoxious business practices, but DAMN do they know how to make electronics!

Dude...its Japan. If they failed at making good electronics....well that would be like America failing to make a good bomb.

Platon

13-Nov-2006, 08:15

Damn, it really looks nice and very sleek and elegant, and the cooling system is... erm... very cool:smile: . And it does look expensive compared to the 360 that seems to be made on the philosophy of most cheap and simplest way possible, wonder if Sony will ever catch up when it comes to cost, I man they have a whole PStwo in there, wonder how long it will take before they remove it...

Rolf N

13-Nov-2006, 14:11

How many layers for the PCB?
With the GDDR bus off the main PCB, most of the remaining interconnects are serial(ish), and they seem to be accounted for already with what can be seen on the top surface. So I wonder ... the number could be really low. Maybe even 2.

If you know of somebody who took a saw and knew how to use it ....

Titanio

13-Nov-2006, 15:09

Anandtech/DailyTech took a screwdriver to one too - not a whole lot new in there, I guess, but the photos might be better:

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4908&ref=y

Carl B

13-Nov-2006, 15:26

Who was asking me earlier in this thread why I thought Anandtech was worse than Impress Watch? Stuff like this is why:

At this time, very little information about the NVIDIA RSX (Reality Synthesizer) processor is known, however we can pick some information out from the assembly. The RSX is a 550MHz graphics engine based on the G70 architecture, the same architecture family responsible for the GeForce 7800 series GPU.

Four 512Mbit GDDR3 DRAM modules are integrated onto the RSX package, providing a total of 265MB of on-GPU memory. The chips in our console are Samsung modules clocked at 700MHz which is essentially in-line with what reports claimed earlier this year. Like the original Xbox, the PlayStation 3 incorporates a memory controller on the graphics engine. According to documents leaked earlier this year, developers are supposed to use the RSX to access the main XDR memory or the GDDR3 memory found on the RSX chip.

This sort of casual error on their part translates into mass confusion for the rest of us that have to moderate it on various forums. ;)

Also they said the power supplies for Europe might be the reason for the delay in launch (like idiots), but beyond the naivity of that claim itself, wasn't it established earlier in the thread that the PSU was universal anyway? I seem to remember being corrected on just that point. :)

Shifty Geezer

13-Nov-2006, 16:09

wasn't it established earlier in the thread that the PSU was universal anyway? I seem to remember being corrected on just that point. :)It'd be rather stupid to have a PSU that can switch from 120 to 220 (or 240 for Blighty) volts if it's not going to be useable in countries with different voltages...

typoEDR

13-Nov-2006, 18:53

Wow. And it doesn't seem as clumsily assembled as my PS2.

Jesus2006

13-Nov-2006, 22:36

Who was asking me earlier in this thread why I thought Anandtech was worse than Impress Watch? Stuff like this is why:

So, does that mean RSX is 550Mhz after all (by the assembly??)?

Crossbar

13-Nov-2006, 23:04

So, does that mean RSX is 550Mhz after all (by the assembly??)?
Was this an intentional illustration of this? :wink:
This sort of casual error on their part translates into mass confusion for the rest of us that have to moderate it on various forums.

22psi

14-Nov-2006, 01:42

Very impressed by the quality of the internals!

Jesus2006

14-Nov-2006, 07:37

Was this an intentional illustration of this? :wink:

No, they just said " ...however we can pick some information out from the assembly. The RSX is a 550MHz graphics engine based on the ..." so i suggest they got the info somehow from the PCB (clocks/multiplier or anything)? (or at least thought they did so ;) )

Crossbar

14-Nov-2006, 07:54

No, they just said " ...however we can pick some information out from the assembly. The RSX is a 550MHz graphics engine based on the ..." so i suggest they got the info somehow from the PCB (clocks/multiplier or anything)? (or at least thought they did so ;) )
Highly unlikely you could see that from the board, if the RSX is NV47 based as claimed by Sony, they'll be able to tweak the clockspeed from the software.

I think Arstechnica is just mixing new info with some old info, which can be confusing as xb suggests.

Shifty Geezer

14-Nov-2006, 08:33

No, they just said " ...however we can pick some information out from the assembly. The RSX is a 550MHz graphics engine based on the ..." so i suggest they got the info somehow from the PCB (clocks/multiplier or anything)? (or at least thought they did so ;) )
I'm guessing they saw the 700 MHz chips and took that as the clock-speed, which is the original specs of RSX - 550 MHz and 700 MHz RAM (right figures this time ;)). They don't appear to have considered that for 650 MHz RAM you might still use 700 MHz chips.

The problem is identifying a fact where there isn't one, and communicating that to the world as a voice of technical competance and authority. If they really know RSX is 550 MHz, they need to mention how they measured that (as it's not conveniently printed on the chip!).

pascal

14-Nov-2006, 13:20

Power efficient in term of what? The non-major silicon components? Or the overall system power?
In terms of system power the PSU appears to be outputting 32A over the 12V line, whereas the 360's PSU is 16.5A - there wouldn't be such a large difference if it wasn't expected to need it.
Do you mean is capable to output more current.
Maybe the PS3 PSU is working at lower percentage of its nominal power, which means cooler components and longer life or MTBF. Also the PS3 PSU could handle peak surge much better than the XBox PSU.

randycat99

15-Nov-2006, 06:05

The insides of this thing are impressive! It's like half-terminator with all that steel plating in there.

-tkf-

15-Nov-2006, 07:31

Either that or people will come streaming in furious that in less than a year they went through more Xbox360s and are still not done :lol: I think its all relative anyway.

Well this dude ..

http://www.shacknews.com/ja.zz?id=13218694

london-boy

15-Nov-2006, 11:16

Well this dude ..

http://www.shacknews.com/ja.zz?id=13218694

Seven X360s?! How could anyone go through 7 X360's?! Does he live in a sauna or something? Even then, i'd have given up after the second one.

When i read these things i just keep thinking it must be something the user is doing wrong, or the location the hardware is, because one person cannot possibly be so unlucky.

I'd love to have the time to give a statistical calculation of how likely it is to buy 7 consecutive faulty X360's, taking into account the percentage of faulty X360's around. But i can't now.

DemoCoder

15-Nov-2006, 11:36

pascal

15-Nov-2006, 11:54

Democoder, I trust you. If you have a complain then something is really wrong.

Hmmmmm:
- hot console
- lots of customers reports of hardware problems
- cheap PC style mobo looks
Maybe they are waiting a new version of internet to deliver a HSP (Hardware Service Pack) :lol:

Microsoft should send its employes to some engineering quality course.
Specially about robust design.

DemoCoder

15-Nov-2006, 12:08

Basically, I think if it breaks again, I'll wait for the HDMI+HD-DVD SKU. :)

The PS3 is a different issue. I actually think the SKU with the EE+GS will be more valuable. I don't believe software emulation of the GS will ever be 100% unless the damn thing is emulated by CELL, much like old Commodore 64/AtariST/Amiga emulators do. People do lots of weird stuff with the GS that don't neccessarily map well to the RSX. It's much more likely that the EE+GS version can be made 100%, and alot quicker than the full software version. At worst, they may need to create a virtual DVD drive on the HD for games which have weird CD/DVD timing issues.

So, a later SKU may fix any heat/noise/failures in the PS3 HW, but the lack of EE+GS might be a negative. (Hell, initial PSPs are FAR more valuable due to 1.0-1.5 firmware)

Rangers

15-Nov-2006, 12:29

Anandtech/DailyTech took a screwdriver to one too - not a whole lot new in there, I guess, but the photos might be better:

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4908&ref=y

Awesome, much better than PCwatch. Going to read now.

Edit: Somewhat poor job compared to the 360 teardown, but I think this was by Kubicki not Anand. They didn't give any technical insight or even die shots..maybe it's just the Dailytech quick and dirty version and they will do better later..but I doubt it.
________
Box vaporizer review (http://vaporizerinfo.com/post/93570931/vaporite-solo-vaporizer)

[maven]

15-Nov-2006, 12:32

Well, I'm on my third XB360 and I can assure you that the unit is in a room with year-round 68-deg F temperature, with *ample* (it sits on its own cart with multiple feet of clearance) ventilation beyond what normal users are expected to it. Seeing MS's shoddy layout, I guess I'm not surprised. Microsoft isn't exactly a company known for quality 1.0 engineering, as Vista will prove shortly.
I am in the process of returning my 4th replacement 360 (and the system is equally well cared for as DemoCoders). I do think the biggest problem is that the contracted service centres don't properly check the systems. 2 of the refurbished 360s died of "3 red lights" or lock-ups rather shortly after receiving them (which seems to indicate they haven't properly been repaired / diagnosed), one only turned on the second time you tried to switch it on, and the last replacement unit has a broken sync button.

Arwin

15-Nov-2006, 12:49

Hell, initial PSPs are FAR more valuable due to 1.0-1.5 firmware

Well, they were for a while. But then you could downgrade 2.0, and then you could downgrade 2.5, and then you could downgrade 2.71 ...

mito

15-Nov-2006, 18:41

1. Will I be able to play mp3 files?
2. WAV/DTS files doing spdif passthrough to my receiver?
3. Can the ps3 run an app that'll convert a DVD to avi/mpg?
4. Does the ps3 have something like Windows Media Player / Foobar etc?

Titanio

16-Nov-2006, 13:09

iSuppli estimated BOM:

http://www.isuppli.com/news/default.asp?id=6919&m=11&y=2006

http://www.isuppli.com/images/news/111606-1.gif

“To give an example of how cutting-edge the design is, in the entire history of the iSuppli Teardown Analysis team, we have seen only three semiconductors with 1,200 or more pins. The PlayStation 3 has three such semiconductors all by itself,” Rassweiler noted. “There is nothing cheap about the PlayStation 3 design. This is not an adapted PC design. Even beyond the major chips in the PlayStation 3, the other components seem to also be expensive and somewhat exotic.”

Remember, just estimates..

Shifty Geezer

16-Nov-2006, 13:26

Pricey! Nice to see a full breakdown that isn't attributing crazy costs to various components. And buying the 60Gb model is doing Sony a big favour!

nAo

16-Nov-2006, 13:32

So be a good boy, please buy the 60GB model :lol:

Synergy34

16-Nov-2006, 14:24

fearsomepirate

16-Nov-2006, 14:35

Why would RSX be that expensive? I would think the CELL and the RSX est costs would be opposites.

Multiplicative or additive opposites? :lol:

Gubbi

16-Nov-2006, 14:38

Mmmkay

16-Nov-2006, 14:38

Why would RSX be that expensive? I would think the CELL and the RSX est costs would be opposites. Doesn't it make more sense that a newer CPU chip design would cost more than a GPU designed around dated tech?

It looks like they're including the GDDR3 cost with the chip, since it's not referenced anywhere else in the BoM. Still seems a bit on the steep side though, taking that into account.

LunchBox

16-Nov-2006, 14:53

Overall impression shows how well thought-out, the pcb is.
I'm quite surprised as to how big the fan is, yet it's quiet.

london-boy

16-Nov-2006, 14:53

I can not for the life of me understand why a BR drive would cost $125 when a DVD drive costs < $20. The only real difference is the blue laser diode (assembled in a more complex head, but still), right ?

And $148 for other components and manufacturing... What other components, the only one I see missing is the PCB ?

Cheers

The precision of the whole mechanism also needs to be much much more accurate, which i'm sure raises the cost (and the fault rate!).

I agree that the whole estimate is a bit on the dear side... $129 for RSX when i - a consumer - can get a whole 7900 board (with memory and all) (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2467316&Sku=P56-7832&SRCCODE=CNETFEED&CMP=OTC-CNETFEED&ci_srccode=cii_5766179&cpncode=09-19493855-2) for $199 - and these are sold at a profit! There is no way a chip like RSX costs $129 to produce, that's a ludicrous statement, and that's even before taking into account the huge discounts Sony would get from having ordered millions of the bloody things. Who's making them anyway? Nvidia or Sony?

Gubbi

16-Nov-2006, 15:16

I agree that the whole estimate is a bit on the dear side... $129 for RSX when i - a consumer - can get a whole 7900 board (with memory and all) (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2467316&Sku=P56-7832&SRCCODE=CNETFEED&CMP=OTC-CNETFEED&ci_srccode=cii_5766179&cpncode=09-19493855-2) for $199 - and these are sold at a profit! There is no way a chip like RSX costs $129 to produce, that's a ludicrous statement, and that's even before taking into account the huge discounts Sony would get from having ordered millions of the bloody things. Who's making them anyway? Nvidia or Sony?

You linked to a 7900GS. Which, while being g71 based like RSX, only has 20 pixel shaders and 7 vertex shaders active, is clocked lower and with slower memory.

So I think the $129 is probably pretty close to the real cost of a GPU with 256MB RAM mounted on a substrate similar to what mobile GPUs use.

Cheers

Gubbi

16-Nov-2006, 15:20

The precision of the whole mechanism also needs to be much much more accurate, which i'm sure raises the cost (and the fault rate!).

The only difference would be that tracks are packed closer together, on the other hand DVDs (12x) spin faster so the stabilizing mechanics/electronics needs to deal with a lot more wobble (and focus).

Cheers

DJ12

16-Nov-2006, 15:30

Who's making them anyway? Nvidia or Sony?
Sony

INKster

16-Nov-2006, 15:39

At their Nagasaki plant and some other fab.

london-boy

16-Nov-2006, 15:45

You linked to a 7900GS. Which, while being g71 based like RSX, only has 20 pixel shaders and 7 vertex shaders active, is clocked lower and with slower memory.

So I think the $129 is probably pretty close to the real cost of a GPU with 256MB RAM mounted on a substrate similar to what mobile GPUs use.

Cheers

I'm sorry but the difference in pixel & vertex shaders "active" and clock differences between the two chips (it's basically the same processor!) will never make up the difference in cost for a whole board, a 256-bit memory interface and 256MB of GDDR3, all the different video outputs and the PCIe bus.

And if Sony are making the chip themselves, it's likely to be even cheaper for them to manufacture.

nonamer

16-Nov-2006, 15:47

http://www.isuppli.com/news/xbox/

For review they thought the Xbox 360 cost $525 to make. That's somehow gotten down to $323 now.

PS: Personally I expect the semiconductor parts of the PS3 to be close to that of the Xbox 360. The higher quality parts and Bluray drive are probably the main source of extra cost.

london-boy

16-Nov-2006, 15:50

Shifty Geezer

16-Nov-2006, 15:54

The only difference would be that tracks are packed closer together.Firstly that requires much more accurate motors to control the head. Motors of that accuracy probably aren't hugely mainstream at the moment, so will cost. The head is very pricey too, not only having the blue diode, but also red lasers for the CD+DVD capabilities The general precision of everything needs to be better controlled to. Even though DVDs may spin faster, the percentage error in the data reads is higher in BRD where the data tracks are finer. If a DVD drive can read with a 5% margin of wobble, that might well be too much for BRD. I don't think their price is totally unreasonable for the BRD drive.

As for the GPU, as you pointed out, on-chip RAM is going to up the cost beyond a GPU card. The price for that doesn't seem unreasonable either.

Not sure about the misc prices though. They have Manufacturing Costs at $40, and yet at the top Other Components and Manufacturing for $148. Isn't that counting Manufacturing twice? And then again for $2.50! I can't factor what other costs there are (the mobo's just 4 big processors on a slab of empty PCB!), certainly not to the tune of $100 if the RSX price includes RAM.

BTW - When they say about chips having 1200 pins, what other chips are there? Is that the count for G70(71)? Or is RSX a rarity, in which case why so many pins!

nonamer

16-Nov-2006, 15:59

BTW - When they say about chips having 1200 pins, what other chips are there? Is that the count for G70(71)? Or is RSX a rarity, in which case why so many pins!

RSX is a G80 confirmed. :lol:

Mmmkay

16-Nov-2006, 16:01

Actually i just checked and in the breakdown there is not listing for the GDDR3... Does that mean that it's under the "Other Components" (which i'm still trying to figure out how they got to $148), or is it included in the RSX cost? If that's the case, and the $129 is for the RSX and the GDDR3, then that's quite cheap.
Still, what's the $148 for other components?

>.< (http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showpost.php?p=874339&postcount=174)

In Table 3 it mentions "** Samsung has significant DRAM content (~$30) which is integrated into the Nvidia GPU that content was considered in this ranking"

They counted the GDDR3 RAM cost with RSX.

PeterT

16-Nov-2006, 16:10

This estimate is not that bad, what I don't get is the cost for the IO bridge, the BR drive and especially the "other components". If you take these down to more reasonable (from my POV) levels, the 60 GB model would cost them $50 to $100.

RobertR1

16-Nov-2006, 18:24

I wonder if they take into account yield issues...

For the record, they estimated the Toshiba HD DVD player to be around $800 BOM also (with much less exotics parts and such) so I take their analysis with a grain of salt.

Arun

16-Nov-2006, 18:31

london-boy

16-Nov-2006, 18:36

Considering RSX is a 240mm2 chip, that puts it at ~260 chips per wafer. Let's say 200 of those are usable. With an exagerated wafer cost of $10K, that's $50/chip. Add $10 for packaging and $40 for the memory chips, both of which are probably too high, and then finally about $5 for NVIDIA. Heck, let's add another $5 for other minor costs, such as shipping the chips around, amortizing the NVIDIA NRE/License fees, etc... And you're still only at $100.

That's basically the most conservative estimate you could make. It's overly high in every single conceivable way. And it's still $30 lower than those guys' numbers. Yay?

Uttar

Thanks. It does feel like they slapped a nice 20% or more on top of most elements in the table.

nonamer

16-Nov-2006, 18:37

It's kinda interesting how they got 129 and 89 for RSX and BE respectively. It's almost like they brought them from a retail store. :lol:

Assuming a couple hundred dollar overcharge, is the PS3 pretty close to break-even?

london-boy

16-Nov-2006, 18:42

It's kinda interesting how they got 129 and 89 for RSX and BE respectively. It's almost like they brought them from a retail store. :lol:

Exactly. They are odd prices (that's the real marketing term, not kidding), and as such it is just very weird they would come up in a cost estimate. Odd prices are a sort of marketing tool to make consumer get the impression that something is cheaper than other things. Example: A $999 HDTV will have a different impact on people's mind than a $1000 HDTV. You would be surprised at how much of a difference that makes on sales, it's really quite amazing. And it works for all those things (the majority of products really!) with the .99 at the end, or all prices finishing with a 9 at the end.

Point of this is, as an estimate of a cost and therefore nothing to do with consumers or marketing, those numbers with 9's at the end just ring bells to me, they should be even prices (that is also the marketing term for... erm... even prices).

Bobbler

16-Nov-2006, 19:14

london-boy

16-Nov-2006, 19:17

Oddly, I'll have to agree with iSupply. This seems far more reasonable than the merryl one, even though they came up with similar prices in the end.

After seeing the videos of them dismantling one, I can't imagine that thing being cheap to produce at all at this point. The per part prices seem pretty reasonable from what I saw and actual manufacturing + other parts eat up a decent amount of cost (which seems very likely).

From the inside, the PS3 looks fantastically made, but definitely not cheap to produce. Over time it looks like there are tons of places where costs will fall dramatically, so I don't think there's much reason to be concerned about that. It'll no doubt be more expensive than X360 over it's lifetime, but I think they'll actually get pretty close to each other in the end (PSthree and whatever X360 lite is called).

I'm still trying to figure out what that $148 for "other components and manufacturing" is. I thought it could have been the PSU, but the PSU is accounted for in its own line... So it's really strange, there are no more components (surely not $148 worth of them) on the PS3 apart from the ones listed there. And manufacturing is already accounted for too. Twice.
The rest seems ok, bit inflated here and there (see RSX) but ok.

nonamer

16-Nov-2006, 19:27

The only obvious thing missing in the BoM is the built-in flash RAM for the firmware. It's probably at least 128MB and maybe 256MB+. Still, given how cheap flash RAM is these days this can't cost more than $50 and probably more like $20. I would definitely ax about $100 from the "other" part, and about another $50 from the chip costs, and I would still be conservative.

Shifty Geezer

16-Nov-2006, 19:41

Considering RSX is a 240mm2 chip, that puts it at ~260 chips per wafer. Let's say 200 of those are usable. With an exagerated wafer cost of $10K, that's $50/chip. Add $10 for packaging and $40 for the memory chips, both of which are probably too high, and then finally about $5 for NVIDIA. Heck, let's add another $5 for other minor costs, such as shipping the chips around, amortizing the NVIDIA NRE/License fees, etc... And you're still only at $100.
50+10+40+5+5 = 110... :p

I think a lot depends on the yields. Do we know 200/160 is about right? Could it be as bad as 150/260? Similar estimates for the Cell pegged the cost lower, and then we got yield figures from IBM that weren't particularly great. Is there anywhere to get yield results, or estimate yield results, for these chips?

Rangers

16-Nov-2006, 19:42

This is a completely retarded BOM. These guys are terrible.

Off the top of my head..$129 for RSX? That chip likely costs like 50 bucks. Maybe 70...

the reason a HDD is included in the PlayStation 3 is to store the mathematical modeling based on physics for the motion and impact of the various game objects.

What?

I also noticed, the GDDR is nowhere to be found in the report..probably because they didn't physically see it because it's under that heatspreader. So I guess they completely dont know it exists. Nice product knowledge these guy have..

Some of their conclusions may be broadly right, aka the PS3 BOM surely is $600-$800, but they are just scattershooting in the dark to arrive there..
________
VAPOR INFO (http://johan-luis.tumblr.com/)

london-boy

16-Nov-2006, 19:46

This is a completely retarded BOM. These guys are terrible.

Off the top of my head..$129 for RSX? That chip likely costs like 50 bucks. Maybe 70...

I also noticed, the GDDR is nowhere to be found in the report..probably because they didn't physically see it because it's under that heatspreader. So I guess they completely dont know it exists. Nice product knowledge these guy have..

Mmm nope, we already covered that. GDDR cost is included in the RSX figure.

the reason a HDD is included in the PlayStation 3 is to store the mathematical modeling based on physics for the motion and impact of the various game objects.

Yeah.. that was... odd..

Shifty Geezer

16-Nov-2006, 19:50

This is a completely retarded BOM. These guys are terrible.

Off the top of my head..$129 for RSX? That chip likely costs like 50 bucks. Maybe 70...
It's all very well people giving figures ($50, $125) but without explanations, they could just be random guesses. How do you know RSX is $50-70? Have you seen figures on yields perhaps from which they can be calculated? Or have you examples of similar chips that are priced at $70? There seems to be a lot of pie-in-the-sky guess-work when we talk about chip costs, and it'd be nice to have some real examples from which to derive prices!

Dave Baumann

16-Nov-2006, 20:29

It looks like they're including the GDDR3 cost with the chip, since it's not referenced anywhere else in the BoM. Still seems a bit on the steep side though, taking that into account.
That would probably encompass silicon, RAM and packaging costs all in one.

I figured this would be an expensive board.

Dave Baumann

16-Nov-2006, 20:34

bobthebub

17-Nov-2006, 07:39

Anyone else pondering whether the CXD2973GB controller chip

CXD2973GB controller chip
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_34.jpg

Could possibly be a rebadged Toshiba Super Companion Chip, and if so could that not have the capability to do video scaling? although probably not in conjunction with RSX, if so that seems like another chunk of wasted silicon on PS3

Picture of SCC on Toshiba Refernce set Motherboard (anyone got a better one?)
http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/news/2005-09/toshiba_kit.jpg

Details on SCC functionality
http://www.hotchips.org/archives/hc17/2_Mon/HC17.S1/HC17.S1T3.pdf

edit: This crossed my mind as soon as I saw the chip but I didn't mention until I saw the iSuppli article which lists the controller chip as being Toshiba sourced.

"Nerve-Damage"

17-Nov-2006, 07:52

Anyone else pondering whether the CXD2973GB controller chip

Could possibly be a rebadged Toshiba Super Companion Chip, and if so could that not have the capability to do video scaling? although probably not in conjunction with RSX, if so that seems like another chunk of wasted silicon on PS3

Am I not the only one who remembers that Sony specially stated that the Cell processor will handle all the video scaling capabilities!? Remember the conference were they showed many video thumb nails being scaled at different sizes and different resolutions, just using the Cell alone.

bobthebub

17-Nov-2006, 08:05

"Nerve-Damage"

17-Nov-2006, 08:22

Surely video stream scaling is an entirely separate problem to game output scaling.

With a video stream you can easily imagine how content would be decompressed on one SPE then passed to another for scaling all within cell but with game scaling the spe's will be busy running the game and output would have to be generated on RSX then post processed by cell before being displayed, seems like a much more difficult job

You’re not giving the Cell enough credit. One SPE was able to render, scale, and manipulate many video streams (2-3 streams per SPE IIRC). So game output scaling shouldn’t be a problem with the Cell, since video data (especially HD content) will always be more CPU intensive than game outputting.

avaya

17-Nov-2006, 08:50

At their Nagasaki plant and some other fab.

Oita, Toshiba.

bobthebub

17-Nov-2006, 08:51

If it was that easy i don't think we would be seeing the problems with scaling that people are reporting, but this subject is probably better left to the PS3 Scaling thread, I am though still curious as to whether there is actually an SCC on the M/B and if so whether that's something that might open up additional functionality in future revisions or whether it could be utilised in some way from Linux.

Jesus2006

17-Nov-2006, 09:06

Surely video stream scaling is an entirely separate problem to game output scaling.

With a video stream you can easily imagine how content would be decompressed on one SPE then passed to another for scaling all within cell but with game scaling the spe's will be busy running the game and output would have to be generated on RSX then post processed by cell before being displayed, seems like a much more difficult job

The problem is not the SPE since one is "reserved" for OS operations anyways. A much harder hit would be taken by the bandwidth which is required to resample the output from RSX. This is what bothers me most.

swaaye

17-Nov-2006, 20:02

Isn't scaling usually performed by a little teeny tiny TV encoder chip? Why do it on Cell when it would be so much less efficient?

Fox5

17-Nov-2006, 20:22

Isn't scaling usually performed by a little teeny tiny TV encoder chip? Why do it on Cell when it would be so much less efficient?

Well, from what I've read about Stream processors, assuming Cell actually is a Stream processor, they have a good potential to be even more efficient than dedicated DSPs at many tasks. I know the Imagine architecture (a stream architecture made at Stanford) was supposed to be getting better performance per watt than DSPs, and orders of magnitude better than a Pentium M.

aaronspink

17-Nov-2006, 23:29

Internals look really nice on the PS3. I especially love the clean design taken in designing the circuit board as well as the love taken in making the whole package. Coming from a electric engineering background, you can really appreciate the mastery Sony has shown. Certainly makes the Xbox360 looks like a design from somebody's 2nd year ECE project.

Hmm, I don't know. I kinda thought the xb360 board looked like a master's level design. But then again, I think the important optimization factor in these things is cost. Its easy to spend a lot of money and get something to work. A lot harder to do it on a budget.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

aaronspink

17-Nov-2006, 23:43

I agree that the whole estimate is a bit on the dear side... $129 for RSX when i - a consumer - can get a whole 7900 board (with memory and all) (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2467316&Sku=P56-7832&SRCCODE=CNETFEED&CMP=OTC-CNETFEED&ci_srccode=cii_5766179&cpncode=09-19493855-2) for $199 - and these are sold at a profit! There is no way a chip like RSX costs $129 to produce, that's a ludicrous statement, and that's even before taking into account the huge discounts Sony would get from having ordered millions of the bloody things. Who's making them anyway? Nvidia or Sony?

Isn't that 7900 a cut down/defective part? As for the costs....

MCM packaging adds significant test and manufacturing costs. I could easily seeing the cost of the MCM RSX being $129. Possibly more. Factor in the production yield hit for a fixed frequency target, etc and you have significantly more costs than PCB GFX.

And Sony doesn't get any discounts on them. Nvidia did the design as contract work.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

aaronspink

17-Nov-2006, 23:47

I'm sorry but the difference in pixel & vertex shaders "active" and clock differences between the two chips (it's basically the same processor!) will never make up the difference in cost for a whole board, a 256-bit memory interface and 256MB of GDDR3, all the different video outputs and the PCIe bus.

Um, in a word: NO!.

Consider this. For the PC part, out of 1000 devices made, 930 can be sold in at least some form that covers manufacturing costs.

For the RSX part, out of 1000 devices made, 400 can be sold as PS3 parts that meet spec. Another 40-50 or so are lost do to MCM failures. knocking it down further to ~360 parts.

And if Sony are making the chip themselves, it's likely to be even cheaper for them to manufacture.

Depends. Sony isn't exactly known for the low cost Si manufacturing.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

aaronspink

17-Nov-2006, 23:54

Considering RSX is a 240mm2 chip, that puts it at ~260 chips per wafer. Let's say 200 of those are usable. With an exagerated wafer cost of $10K, that's $50/chip. Add $10 for packaging and $40 for the memory chips, both of which are probably too high, and then finally about $5 for NVIDIA. Heck, let's add another $5 for other minor costs, such as shipping the chips around, amortizing the NVIDIA NRE/License fees, etc... And you're still only at $100.

With that die size and the frequency requirements and the fault issues, they be lucky to get 80% yield. Esp right now. More realistic is in the 150 per wafer range though possibly in the 100 per wafer range. You all underestimate what yield recovery programs such as the GS, etc, mean for the overall yields.

Then you have packaging yield effects which MCM packaging has not insignificant impacts on.
Also remember that a lot of these parts of a significant number of pins on the package which also drives up costs.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

PeterT

17-Nov-2006, 23:55

For the PC part, out of 1000 devices made, 930 can be sold in at least some form that covers manufacturing costs. For the RSX part, out of 1000 devices made, 400 can be sold as PS3 parts that meet spec. Another 40-50 or so are lost do to MCM failures. knocking it down further to ~360 parts.Did you take the speculated redundant quad into account when estimating these numbers? Because that seems very similar in effect to me to the staggered product lines on the PC side of things.

aaronspink

18-Nov-2006, 00:04

I'm still trying to figure out what that $148 for "other components and manufacturing" is. I thought it could have been the PSU, but the PSU is accounted for in its own line... So it's really strange, there are no more components (surely not $148 worth of them) on the PS3 apart from the ones listed there. And manufacturing is already accounted for too. Twice.
The rest seems ok, bit inflated here and there (see RSX) but ok.

All those fancy caps everyone was ogling over? Yeah, NOT CHEAP. The number of PCBs they are using is also high. I think you are underestimating the cost of that board design with all high end components. It looks closer to a design used for high end analysis than production consumer hardware.

The rumors were that Sony was running into significant design issues with the PS3 and started pulling people from all over the company to fix things with a cost isn't an issue philosophy, and it certainly is reflected in the design and component selection.

FWIW, I think they are underestimating the cost of the heatsink/fan design as well.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

aaronspink

18-Nov-2006, 00:16

Did you take the speculated redundant quad into account when estimating these numbers? Because that seems very similar in effect to me to the staggered product lines on the PC side of things.

Yep. One of the fundamental issues with yield in console designs is frequency yield. In most normal semiconductor designs, you can usually design to a fairly de-rated frequency or get yield recovery via various frequency SKUs. For example, take something like the Opteron or Core 2 Duo chip. They have a frequency range of SKUs of almost 2x. This has a significant impact of yield.

For example, say that the top bin yields at 10% but functional yield is at 95% and base market yield (ie lowest cost covered sku) of 90%. Then assuming the market is robust, I can make enough wafers to satisfy the market for the highest sku part, and still make money on the parts that don't hit said sku by selling them at lower skus with the knowledge that my effective yields will be quite high.

Early in a console design period, you want to set the clock speed high because the device will be around for a significant time span, and you can't upgrade the frequency at the later date. This generally results in the target frequency sku being set in the 10-20% range of functional parts. The theory is that over time with process manufacturing improvements, and process changes (ie shrinks) you will up that frequency yield from the 10-20% range to the 80-90% range.

Right now, I would be hard pressed to believe that either sony or microsoft were getting frequency yield for either the processor or graphics much above the 30% range and likely lower than that for sony.

So in summary the redundant quad would affect functional yield, but the primary issue currently is likely frequency yield.

Aaron spink
speaking for myself inc.

PeterT

18-Nov-2006, 00:32

I see, thanks for the explanation. That would also explain why it would make sense for Sony to drop the RSX clock by 50MHz.

Carl B

18-Nov-2006, 00:40

All those fancy caps everyone was ogling over? Yeah, NOT CHEAP.

Well obviously. We wouldn't be ogling them if they were cheap! ;)

pascal

18-Nov-2006, 02:33

Sony doesnt use cheap components.
They even use proprietary/exclusive expensive power transistors for their TVs PSUs.

dangerose

18-Nov-2006, 04:38

All those fancy caps everyone was ogling over? Yeah, NOT CHEAP. The number of PCBs they are using is also high. I think you are underestimating the cost of that board design with all high end components. It looks closer to a design used for high end analysis than production consumer hardware.

The rumors were that Sony was running into significant design issues with the PS3 and started pulling people from all over the company to fix things with a cost isn't an issue philosophy, and it certainly is reflected in the design and component selection.

FWIW, I think they are underestimating the cost of the heatsink/fan design as well.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

Thanks for the analysis but i disagree with this.

All Playstations are hailed as a mark of engineering beauty. I heard of more PDA failing than PSP shipped at half the supply. Playstations have great reliability outside the random optical DRE, and you can prevent DRE by putting effort to maintain dust congestion. Same goes with Nintendo hardware.

Consoles should not die of PCB components failure. I am not sure if we should be forgiving and encourage that kind of shoddy work...

jayco

18-Nov-2006, 06:24

I've heard some things about the ps3, some people said that the bus that uses RSX to get to the XDR memory is not enough to carry textures as big as 360 does, so the 360 textures looks much better, is this true? why?

Thnkx.

aaronspink

18-Nov-2006, 07:29

Thanks for the analysis but i disagree with this.

All Playstations are hailed as a mark of engineering beauty. I heard of more PDA failing than PSP shipped at half the supply. Playstations have great reliability outside the random optical DRE, and you can prevent DRE by putting effort to maintain dust congestion. Same goes with Nintendo hardware.

Consoles should not die of PCB components failure. I am not sure if we should be forgiving and encourage that kind of shoddy work...

And they don't die often of PCB components failure. The cost of the components that sony uses has little to do with their life expectency. The primary motivation factor with the high end caps is likely two pronged.

1) they needed flat board components for their cooling solution to work
2) they needed enhanced margins to meet increased tightness on the tolerances for CV in order to get a marginal yield improvement.

And I would hope you've heard of more PDA failures than PSP failures. PDAs have outsold PSPs 100 to 1.

So far there is no evidence that any past Sony console or other electronics equipment has enhanced reliability than any other console or electronics equipment.

As a data point, I know of server with higher reliability than any console ever shipped. And they didn't use exotic flat cap technology to get it.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

deathkiller

18-Nov-2006, 09:09

And I would hope you've heard of more PDA failures than PSP failures. PDAs have outsold PSPs 100 to 1.
More like 1 to 1, 15 millon PDAs shipped last year VS 15 millon PSP shipped last year. Obiously there is more PDAs in total since they had been sold for a long time.
http://digital-lifestyles.info/display_page.asp?section=platforms&id=2447
http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/data/bizdatapsp_e.html

RobertR1

18-Nov-2006, 09:45

Sony doesnt use cheap components.

You must not have had much experience with their DVD players then........

patsu

18-Nov-2006, 10:08

RobertR1

18-Nov-2006, 10:14

Welp... what are we talking about here ? As far as PS3 is concerned, it is quiet, has no overheat problem, uses < 200W, packed with hardware features and an internal PSU. Looks like a champ to me. Only problem so far is the missing/off-limit scaler(s) for games.

The proof is in the pudding. Whether it's low cost or expensive, look at the return rate.

You brought up their TV's and I brought up their DVD players. Now if we're back to talking about the PS3, I'd have to say, wait and see. The next few months should be quite telling. Only 1 of 3 things can happen:

1. minimal rate of failure
2. average/acceptable rate of failure
3. above average rate of failure

-tkf-

18-Nov-2006, 11:39

And they don't die often of PCB components failure.
Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

Isn´t the XBOX 360 doing exatly this? The Playstation problems always seem to have their roots in the optical drives which must be one of the hardest parts to build so it doesn´t break.

london-boy

18-Nov-2006, 11:43

You brought up their TV's and I brought up their DVD players. Now if we're back to talking about the PS3, I'd have to say, wait and see. The next few months should be quite telling. Only 1 of 3 things can happen:

1. minimal rate of failure
2. average/acceptable rate of failure
3. above average rate of failure

Well we have heard of people with PS3's overheating and locking up, but really, they are very very very few. So far, none of the horror stories we had with other launches.

pascal

18-Nov-2006, 13:30

You must not have had much experience with their DVD players then........I have one DVP-NS325 :smile2:

pipo

18-Nov-2006, 16:43

Well we have heard of people with PS3's overheating and locking up, but really, they are very very very few.

Fixed that for you. :twisted:

patsu

18-Nov-2006, 16:50

You brought up their TV's and I brought up their DVD players.

Read the thread again. People brought up TV encoder chip (and that was not me :) ) because they were talking about the expensive components and scaling function on PS3.

jayco

19-Nov-2006, 18:56

Shifty Geezer

19-Nov-2006, 19:00

It's way more complicated then that. RSX has more total BW for textures (GDDR + XDR, 45 BG/s versus XB360's 22 GB/s), but the framebuffer operations will consume a lot of that depending on rendering techniques employed. And that's ignoring BW consumed with other tasks.

nAo

19-Nov-2006, 19:04

And that's ignoring BW consumed with other tasks.
Yep..on both consoles

london-boy

20-Nov-2006, 12:26

Well we have heard of people with PS3's overheating and locking up, but really, they are very very very few.
Fixed that for you. :twisted:

Hehehe good one!

hey69

20-Nov-2006, 13:15

so that makes me special right :cool:

Planet

20-Nov-2006, 14:51

RSX has more total BW for textures (GDDR + XDR, 45 BG/s versus XB360's 22 GB/s)
I take the 45 Bold Grins per second! :D

Deepak

20-Nov-2006, 18:03

So any official confirmation if RSX runs at 500 MHz? Or is it like PSP, 500-550 MHz?

Shifty Geezer

20-Nov-2006, 19:19

I think the fact that Sony have declined to release RSX's clock speed is official confirmation enough ;)

jayco

20-Nov-2006, 21:03

I think the fact that Sony have declined to release RSX's clock speed is official confirmation enough ;)

Who knows, but as you said, if they havent't said it yet, is because RSX doesn't reach 550MHZ. We all know how nvidia works, remeber the gpu on xbox.

And i have a question about raytracing, the thing is, i heard that it could generate any image without textures, so if this is true,and a CPU could generate a 3D image, is this the beggineng of the end of the gpu's?

Tahir2

20-Nov-2006, 21:29

[Raytracing could]....generate any image without textures ... is this the beggineng of the end of the gpu's?

It has been possible for a CPU to generate raytraced images since before the time of the ATARI ST and Amiga 500, on Motorola 68000 CPU's running at a blistering 8MHz (slightly less for the AMIGA). Since then CPU speeds have increased in megahurtz by mre than 400x and still we don't see developers on masse using the CPU to render an entire image in a game.

Someone else will give you a reason why developers are not converting to raytracing and why iD, Epic or Crytek are not extolling the virtues of raytracing.

Sankari

20-Nov-2006, 21:35

It has been possible for a CPU to generate raytraced images since before the time of the ATARI ST and Amiga 500, on Motorola 68000 CPU's running at a blistering 8MHz (slightly less for the AMIGA). Since then CPU speeds have increased in megahurtz by mre than 400x and still we don't see developers on masse using the CPU to render an entire image in a game.

Someone else will give you a reason why developers are not converting to raytracing and why iD, Epic or Crytek are not extolling the virtues of raytracing.

You'd need a super computer to render whole games with CPU alone, no? Say no to 0,000003 FPS games! :)

Tahir2

20-Nov-2006, 21:37

But the PS3 is teh ubercomputer//1337!

jayco

20-Nov-2006, 21:42

You'd need a super computer to render whole games with CPU alone, no? Say no to 0,000003 FPS games! :)

LOL, but you could use it for some parts of the game, like the clouds on warhawk, i think that's interesting, clouds on warhawk looked pretty good.

swaaye

21-Nov-2006, 18:29

Bobbler

21-Nov-2006, 18:43

You know I was pondering the whole scaling thing and something powerful occured to me. Just why would a fancy scaler chip be needed at all? RSX should be just as capable of running at other resolutions as a PC GPU, and there's no real framebuffer size problem like Cube/Wii. So, why not just natively render at each needed resolution? Surely devs should be capable of planning for that.

That type of stuff is why PC gaming is more messy. Still wouldn't be as bad... but dealing with a single resolution is much easier (debug, assets - text/fonts/etc., and performance concerns at given resolutions).

It'd be possible, but a scaler is probably the optimal way (especially from a dev standpoint, I imagine). Apparently there is a scaler? It's just off limits or something? I wonder if that's part of what the extra size in the RSX is -- if that's the case, then I imagine software update should allow for it (hopefully there isn't some hardware fault in it, making it useless though!).

Scaling is my biggest concern for PS3 at the moment -- the rest of the stuff (background downloading, for example) are quite fixable in updates. I was dumb/lucky enough to get a 1080p TV, so there isn't any issues for me really (accepts any res), but it'd be nice if DVDs/PS1/2 games got upscaled (although, I'd prefer if PS1/2 games were actually just rendered at higher res).

Guess we wait and see at this point.

Rolf N

21-Nov-2006, 19:42

You know I was pondering the whole scaling thing and something powerful occured to me. Just why would a fancy scaler chip be needed at all? RSX should be just as capable of running at other resolutions as a PC GPU, and there's no real framebuffer size problem like Cube/Wii. So, why not just natively render at each needed resolution? Surely devs should be capable of planning for that.Fill rate.

RSX could perform some scaling duties though. Use current framebuffer as texture, render to differently sized display buffer using bilinear or something better (custom filter in a shader).
The problem though is that you can't tack such things on as an afterthought. If a game keeps RSX busy all the time to barely attain the framerate it is locked to, you can't pile extra duties on RSX later without breaking stuff.

Similar with Cell. Now the good thing about the Cell approach to scaling is that one if the SPEs is, as far as we know, reserved for OS duties anyway. It does consume memory bandwidth though, and by extension may interfere with RSX duties again (GDDR requests have to go through RSX).

ADEX

21-Nov-2006, 20:05

Someone else will give you a reason why developers are not converting to raytracing

Simply put, the workload is colossal. You'd need a whole row of Cell processors to generate a game grade image at even 30FPS.

There are ray tracers running on Cell but at the moment you get in the region of 1.5 FPS at 512x512 resolution (roughly 480p) - using 8 SPEs*.

There are many programatic ways of speeding things up and you could split the workload across the Cell and RSX which should give a nice healthy boost.

Even if you could speed things up by several hundred percent the Wii will still be kicking it's arse - and it'll be a really, really, really boring as the image generation alone uses 100% of the CPU's power.

That said I'd love to see someone do the old Amiga "juggler" demo in real time, Cell should be capable of that.

*See this (http://www-03.ibm.com/industries/media/doc/content/bin/RapidMind_Raytracer_Demo.pdf). There's also a video floating around somewhere.