anexanhume
Veteran
100% agreed. Either they put stacked RAM on a hot die or they made 8GB of GDDR5 affordable somehow.
PlayStation 4 (codename Orbis) technical hardware investigation (news and rumours)
- Thread starter Love_In_Rio
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100% agreed. Either they put stacked RAM on a hot die or they made 8GB of GDDR5 affordable somehow.
Albofighter
Newcomer
hmm would the gpu make use of all that ram? What kind of things does it mean to have 8gb high bandwidth? Higher quality open world games? high resolution and framerate 3D gaming? I guess no more loading screens but that's more of a convenience factor.
We will probably know in 3 weeks how much ram we're getting. By that, we can dictate the setup they are using.
We will probably know in 3 weeks how much ram we're getting. By that, we can dictate the setup they are using.
Bagel seed
Veteran
Well imagine 10x Uncharted 2. Now try to imagine 20x 
Or the most logical thing: "the system is going to be expensive."
Sold at a loss until later on in the lifecycle, like all other generations. This time Sony must have saved some (a lot of) capital compared to the whole Cell adventure, so perhaps they are still willing to sell at a loss initially, knowing they will be able to drive costs down later?
Well imagine 10x Uncharted 2. Now try to imagine 20x
I cannot imagine even 2x Uncahrted 2/3. Mostly because Naughty Dog would not invest those resources in graphics all the time. They would create some totally new GAMEPLAY segments with dynamic environments that would not be possible in realtime enviroment before.
DDR4 stacking seems to be for added capacity inside a standard packaging, and it cannot improve bandwidth. I haven't found any provision for wider 2.5D solutions. If you stack standard DDR4 on an interposer, you'll get a horrible bandwidth, there's no such thing as a 1024bit DDR4 chip. So if they really have 176GB/s and 8GB, it would be either GDDR5M or some HBM/wideIO solution, or a full speed clamshell GDDR5 which,from what others here are saying, would be ridiculously expensive.
lol.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't it be the most cost effective solution to go with about 2 Gigs of the very fast GDDR4 memory for bandwith intensive stuff, and then go crazy with 8Gigs of the cheapest GDDR3 around there just for caching stuff that does not have to be accessed real fast every single frame? Something faster than an HDD, but not much faster than 360's level ram sort of thing...
No, because you'd still have to have a 256 bit bus for the 2GB of GDDR5 to actually be fast, so you'd be adding another 64-128 bit memory interface for the DDR3 on the APU and a bunch of complexity to the motherboard, all to get a less than ideal segmented memory design.
dagnastyep
Newcomer
Pretty much same as what brad posted above, the bus would need to be completely changed; from 256bit to 384bit I believe.
Prophecy2k
Veteran
Considering there were some old rumours of sony testing multiple memory configurations with two different types of devkits, I think it highly possible that Sony may have been planning a HBM/WideIO stacked memory solution from the start. And maybe they had the 2-4GB GDDR5 option as a back-up, in case the stacking technology would not be ready in time.
Perhaps they are still evaluating whether they can still push forward with the original stacked HBM/WideIO memory solution they had already been lookin into.
What strikes me is that Sony's PS4 is a very simple and no-frills setup. I cannot believe that they would have spent much at all on R&D on it. This would indicate to me that they may have been doing continuous R&D on multiple PS4 system designs, honing in on the final solution as more of the puzzle pieces regarding things like manufacturing technology availability had fallen into place. It's just speculation, but i think it's certainly possible.
Perhaps they are still evaluating whether they can still push forward with the original stacked HBM/WideIO memory solution they had already been lookin into.
What strikes me is that Sony's PS4 is a very simple and no-frills setup. I cannot believe that they would have spent much at all on R&D on it. This would indicate to me that they may have been doing continuous R&D on multiple PS4 system designs, honing in on the final solution as more of the puzzle pieces regarding things like manufacturing technology availability had fallen into place. It's just speculation, but i think it's certainly possible.
I agree. Everybody knew that they could never have spent the half billion dollars (or more) they spent developing the PS3 again this time around.
Hopefully the money they saved in R&D will be used somewhere else useful that can give us something to be excited about.
Money -> software, services, tools
Yes, that is something our insiders forgetfully note in their leaks (i.e. are they talking about the current devkit or final hardware?). Maybe Sony is using GDDR5 in the devkit because they have not ramped up their final kit and GDDR5 is the closest thing they can get to the bandwidth? We know that Sony has talked about interposers and has invested in such and we know AMD had a prototype GPU with an interposer.
And we are lead to believe Sony is using an AMD chip. This leaves open the door to the possibility.
Let's put it this way: if Sony ended up using an AMD solution with memory on an interposer with high bandwidth would *anyone* look back at all the evidence we have now and say, "All that GDDR5 fluff was totally wrong"? No, they would say, "GDDR5 was the best solution in the kits until they could bring it all together."
Hecatoncheires
Newcomer
Absolutely everything pointed towards a 2.5D-stacked SiP until Eurogamer came up with the GDDR5 in their article: Yole forecasted it, there is a vast number of slides on stacking that name 'next gen consoles', 'AMD', 'Sony' or all of them together, and Sony already used WideIO stacking for the VITA SoC. A 2.5D stacked SiP with WideIO on Interposer is the silver bullet for next gen, it will reduce wattage and it will reduce production costs in the long run. It's just perfect.
Different topic:
I think that the Share-Button is the most brilliant thing Sony ever came up with. If this feature works without a penalty for game developement, then Sony will have countless TBs of free advertisement spread all over youtube, facebook, and other social sites. Making money with the internet means utilizing "playbor": Give your customers something fun, adress their vanity and they will use it to increase your profit for free. That's exact what Sony is doing with the Share-Button. Gamers will compete for the best video clips and everyone will know that it is Sony PlayStation footage. Best killing spree in a shooter? Hottes lap in a racing game? Boss guide? No matter what: They will post it online and everytime that means free viral advertisment for the Sony PlayStation 4 system. This is just brilliant!!!
Different topic:
I think that the Share-Button is the most brilliant thing Sony ever came up with. If this feature works without a penalty for game developement, then Sony will have countless TBs of free advertisement spread all over youtube, facebook, and other social sites. Making money with the internet means utilizing "playbor": Give your customers something fun, adress their vanity and they will use it to increase your profit for free. That's exact what Sony is doing with the Share-Button. Gamers will compete for the best video clips and everyone will know that it is Sony PlayStation footage. Best killing spree in a shooter? Hottes lap in a racing game? Boss guide? No matter what: They will post it online and everytime that means free viral advertisment for the Sony PlayStation 4 system. This is just brilliant!!!
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