PS3 internals

[one]

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

PSU

 

[DJ12]

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]

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

Thats a little blunt DeanoC.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Why would Cell do upscaling tasks?

Because they don't have a scaling chip, and Cell ought to be good at it

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]

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]

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]

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

Ethernet controller.

 

[threepac3]

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

Blu-ray drive

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

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]

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]

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

Something 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

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

 

[Arun]

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


Uttar

 

[Shifty Geezer]

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



G80 announcement for sure!!!