Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[east of eastside]

From what I can gather, the problem with going with a many-mini-core CPU vs a few-big-core CPU is much of the code is not able to be threaded out and run in parallel. Some things are, but much of it isn't.

I expect we will see higher thread capable CPU's, but the core count will remain < 8. They will likely attempt to increase IPC for the cases where multithreading is limited.

I'd like to think this would mean a Power7 derived CPU (even a tricore would be nice) but at this point, I'm not getting my hopes up. Xenon/Cell x2 with improved VMX and a turbocore option to run a subset of the cores at higher speed while disabling the unused cores is all I'm expecting.

Well, I was talking about its usage in Wii U, so I don't understand why it would have to be many mini-core? The Wii U CPU has already been reported to be quad core. The 204 flops of the 16 core PowerPC A2 Blue Gene configuration is coming from a quad floating point unit on each core. Couldn't they just add one or two of those units to each of the Wii U's four cores, up the clock speed over 3GHZ and get the performance they should be shooting for?

 

[bgassassin]

Well, I was talking about its usage in Wii U, so I don't understand why it would have to be many mini-core? The Wii U CPU has already been reported to be quad core. The 204 flops of the 16 core PowerPC A2 Blue Gene configuration is coming from a quad floating point unit on each core. Couldn't they just add one or two of those units to each of the Wii U's four cores, up the clock speed over 3GHZ and get the performance they should be shooting for?

Well the majority of the rumors point to a tri-core processor. The only one I recall that talked about a quad-core was the one with 768MB of eDRAM.

Also I would eliminate the A2 as that one is in-order and I don't see Nintendo deviating from using an OoO CPU.

 

[liolio]

For you guys information informations cessions about "Durango" seems to happen now in London as report by Eurogamer and Kotaku (possibly others).
The info supposedly (I was too lazy to check) comes from a twit posted by Crytech dev.

This let me think that the thing is no longer "that confidential". No matter what the hard consist of for me it gives some wait to Charlie's claim that something came back from the the foundry (ies in this case) to Redmond at the beginning of 2012.

I expect proper Devs kits to be in the wild pretty soon and a launch could be possible as soon as fall 2012. I would put the odds really low though, anytime in 2013 depending on the market situation is a safer bet. Launching in a slower part of the year if MS think that production is unlikely to match production for a while.

For what it's worse the word "amazing, powerful, etc." were no where to be read and at this point I can't MS refusing adverse about building hype. All we got is "great swag and interesting talk".
I read too much in it but it start to be a constant in every rumors we get emphasis has never been put on particularly impressive specs.

Anyway with the odds of dev kits in the wild really soon, I really hope we learn more soon... really soon.
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Different topic this the INtel white paper about scatter/gather and atomic operations implementation I was speaking about some pages ago:
https://agora.cs.illinois.edu/download/attachments/23430050/kumar%20-%20vector%20atomics%20-%20isca08.pdf
FYI I got a certificate warning while accessing the page but the source is an university.

This as well as IBM implementation of transactional memory seems to be pretty cheap as far as silicon investment is concerned. I wonder if a processor combining both would indeed comes to an "ideal' as far as throughput CPU designs are concern.

 

[babybumb]

Ofcourse its confidential. The guy removed the tweet as soon as it was in the media. Probably hadnt heard that "Durango" was known to public

Nintendo was presenting Wii U early 2011.. There is a minimum over a year from kits to ship date. Even E3 showing is not all guaranteed as some think.

 

[liolio]

Ofcourse its confidential. The guy removed the tweet as soon as it was in the media. Probably hadnt heard that "Durango" was known to public

Nintendo was presenting Wii U early 2011.. There is a minimum over a year from kits to ship date. Even E3 showing is not all guaranteed as some think.

Ms has always pimped the hell out of their upcoming line-up for Christmas so you should be right.
Between stealing Nintendo thunder and their own I believe MS will choose none and do their usual advertizing for the holiday season.

 

[Kaotik]

The obvious hope is "shaky iphone video".

Let's hope someone there got the new Nokia 808 Pureview there

 

[Kaotik]

Well the majority of the rumors point to a tri-core processor. The only one I recall that talked about a quad-core was the one with 768MB of eDRAM.

Also I would eliminate the A2 as that one is in-order and I don't see Nintendo deviating from using an OoO CPU.

At least to my knowledge, the only "source" for any tricore rumors is (once again) the "easy porting from xbox" on Nintendo slide, only factual information is that it's described as "multicore" which could mean anything from dual to infinitycores.

I tried searching, but couldn't find any info saying A2 is in-order execution, got any links for that?

 

[liolio]

At least to my knowledge, the only "source" for any tricore rumors is (once again) the "easy porting from xbox" on Nintendo slide, only factual information is that it's described as "multicore" which could mean anything from dual to infinitycores.

I tried searching, but couldn't find any info saying A2 is in-order execution, got any links for that?

At the bottom of the wiki page for the powerpc A2 the white papers for the chip are.
May the force be with you in your quest for them

 

[east of eastside]

Well the majority of the rumors point to a tri-core processor. The only one I recall that talked about a quad-core was the one with 768MB of eDRAM.

Also I would eliminate the A2 as that one is in-order and I don't see Nintendo deviating from using an OoO CPU.

Okay, I'll defer to you on that.. Something like A2 made me think it would fit Nintendo's bill in that it is relatively small, cheap and low power consuming making it suitable to fit in that little, thermal constrained Wii U box roughly 1/3 of the volume of 360 and probably not having much more than a 20watt CPU.

 

[bgassassin]

At least to my knowledge, the only "source" for any tricore rumors is (once again) the "easy porting from xbox" on Nintendo slide, only factual information is that it's described as "multicore" which could mean anything from dual to infinitycores.

I tried searching, but couldn't find any info saying A2 is in-order execution, got any links for that?

Actually the target specs Nintendo gave said tri-core. More specifically we know that it's targeting 3MB of L2 cache, one of the cores acts as a "master core", and has more cache than the other two cores. But they seemed to have given rather vague target specs. Nothing about the GPU other than a codename.

And here's a link about A2.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/22/ibm_bluegene_q_chip/

The A2 core have four threads and has in-order dispatch, execution, and completion instead of out-of-order execution common in many RISC processor designs.

Okay, I'll defer to you on that.. Something like A2 made me think it would fit Nintendo's bill in that it is relatively small, cheap and low power consuming making it suitable to fit in that little, thermal constrained Wii U box roughly 1/3 of the volume of 360 and probably not having much more than a 20watt CPU.

I agree. It being in-order was the only reason why I eliminated it as a possibility awhile back.

 

[DieH@rd]

Kotaku has posted rumors that Sony will not use CELL in PS4.
http://kotaku.com/5889410/playstati...sources-say-which-leads-to-some-wild-theories

 

[liolio]

Well a rumor but an interesting one. I would bet on one of the first AMD made ARM chip

 

[east of eastside]

Kotaku has posted rumors that Sony will not use CELL in PS4.
http://kotaku.com/5889410/playstati...sources-say-which-leads-to-some-wild-theories

ha, the people I've recently discussed with can attest to the fact that I was clearly suggesting as much.

Well a rumor but an interesting one. I would bet on one of the first AMD made ARM chip

I would love that to be true. It will have to be a 2014 console, though?

 

[TheChefO]

I hope Sony isn't pinning their hopes on AMD's ability to hit a deadline involving a performance Fusion chip ...

Even trinity is rumored to be using old GPU tech. AMD's ability to hit deadlines has been atrocious for anything other than graphics chips for quite a while now...

 

[bgassassin]

I hope Sony isn't pinning their hopes on AMD's ability to hit a deadline involving a performance Fusion chip ...

Even trinity is rumored to be using old GPU tech. AMD's ability to hit deadlines has been atrocious for anything other than graphics chips for quite a while now...

Well that tech guy from Sony specifically pointed out the stability of 28nm so I personally would believe it to be GCN-based. And for all we know this thing may have been in development for a good while. For them to be concerned about not launching too far after the others, I'd assume they have something that could be ready for market by at least early 2013.

 

[Blazkowicz]

AMD is competing with Intel and so particularly suffering from fabs coming late, processes late and more troublesome than what their arch enemy gets by itself.
lately they had to cancel their quad bobcat APU processor. (not that it would be any faster for browsing and gaming than a dual but it could have been a very interesting CPU for other uses)

 

[patsu]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=35615404&postcount=1

This was tucked away in an article Richard Leadbetter (Digital Foundry) wrote for GamesIndustry.biz. I guess it went a little unnoticed because it's behind a registration wall, but it and the Kotaku article seemingly corroborate each other.

I recently heard from a reputable source that the forthcoming Sony console is "essentially a PC" in terms of its technological make-up and in this sense, an AMD collaboration on the CPU holds many attractions - for the first time since the launch of the original Xbox, we could well be seeing an x86 processor in a console. It may be hard to imagine that the company that brought us the Cell would be embracing PC tech so wholeheartedly, but a look at the make-up of Vita suggests a fundamental shift in the way Sony builds its consoles in the wake of Ken Kutaragi's departure.

It's not about exotic, groundbreaking hardware anymore, it's all about creating the best possible games machine with an enviable set of development tools - and it's an approach that has already yielded results. While PlayStation Vita may lack a stand-out killer app, I still think that it's set the bar in terms of overall quality and quantity over and above any console launch I've seen in over 21 years in the business. Extrapolating that same philosophy towards PlayStation 4 makes a PC-style approach to Sony's next console seem very likely indeed.

Spoiler

Hello Playstation Vaio !

 

[babybumb]

If they all AMD it would have to be nicely redesigned. Console needs more GPU power and not so much powerful cpu cores

 

[ultragpu]

The prospect of having 10x power over a PS3 is diminishing day by day if this keeps going . I hope the GPU inside the PS4 is somewhat decent.

Spoiler

Don't you dare shovel in a 6670 Sony!

 

[Brad Grenz]

The prospect of having 10x power over a PS3 is diminishing day by day if this keeps going . I hope the GPU inside the PS4 is somewhat decent.

Spoiler

Don't you dare shovel in a 6670 Sony!

Yeah, if the rumors for PS4, 720 and WiiU are all true, I don't see any reason to even upgrade. Sigh...