Xbox One (Durango) Technical hardware investigation

[Shifty Geezer]

you mean next gen or current?

Next gen. PS4 has been said to have full installs, and PC has it, and my expectation was Durango would have an HDD because it's necessary to sell content and get decent load speeds.

never thought of it that way, do current ps360 games actually do this?

I don't think 360 does, but I expect PS3 to as the HDD was always present. Even if not, it's a viable option for a platform with two guaranteed IO sources.

one reason i sometimes install games to my 360 is the vague notion of "save wear on the optical drive". if what you say is correct it doesn't. and come to think of it, it reduces noise too, so i guess they arent reading from both optical and hdd.

Any 360 game that can be installed to HDD isn't likely to expect the DVD in the drive to stream audio, as it basically dumps the game to HDD. The system was designed for concurrent HDD and optical access from day one. All next-gen consoles can do that because they all will have an HDD (or flash eventually) as standard.

If you think about the workload the HDDs will be doing, with not only game access but also all the supposed extras like game recording, content streaming, etc., shifting some game workload to optical which will be exclusively for the game makes sense to me. Then again, if the HDD is being thrashed all the time anyway, maybe that little bit of optical streaming wasn't considered worth bothering with? I'd certainly prefer to minimise HDD searching though, and I'd stick streamable content like audio and other game content, on the BRD to help minimise HDD head moving. If you think of a virtual textured game and the HDD is constantly searching the image map for tiles, and then jumping to the audio track...then again maybe the audio will just be a 30 MB MP3 in RAM?

some dont have installs, and the installs are typically only 3-4gb right? so this is different.

There's a difference between mandatory install and optional full install. On PS3 there were plenty of mandatory installs before you could play a game, and you can be sure if those installs didn't happen, the game performance would have suffered!

 

[silhouette]

Would be rather strange to fabricate such tediously boring screenshots .

Although, one quirk - it was my understanding that the 360 graphics API was 'based on direct3d' (direct3d9+ says google), whereas that screenshot seems to imply that Durango's API is simply direct3d11?

Of course to get as many hit as possible... The site is full of ads.. They are making money out of it..

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Non-hardware discussion about Kinect and game downloads moved to general Durango thread.

 

[dagamer]

Next gen. PS4 has been said to have full installs, and PC has it, and my expectation was Durango would have an HDD because it's necessary to sell content and get decent load speeds.

I don't think 360 does, but I expect PS3 to as the HDD was always present. Even if not, it's a viable option for a platform with two guaranteed IO sources.

Any 360 game that can be installed to HDD isn't likely to expect the DVD in the drive to stream audio, as it basically dumps the game to HDD. The system was designed for concurrent HDD and optical access from day one. All next-gen consoles can do that because they all will have an HDD (or flash eventually) as standard.

If you think about the workload the HDDs will be doing, with not only game access but also all the supposed extras like game recording, content streaming, etc., shifting some game workload to optical which will be exclusively for the game makes sense to me. Then again, if the HDD is being thrashed all the time anyway, maybe that little bit of optical streaming wasn't considered worth bothering with? I'd certainly prefer to minimise HDD searching though, and I'd stick streamable content like audio and other game content, on the BRD to help minimise HDD head moving. If you think of a virtual textured game and the HDD is constantly searching the image map for tiles, and then jumping to the audio track...then again maybe the audio will just be a 30 MB MP3 in RAM?

There's a difference between mandatory install and optional full install. On PS3 there were plenty of mandatory installs before you could play a game, and you can be sure if those installs didn't happen, the game performance would have suffered!

It starts getting sticky if games will be able to use both the HDD and optical drive at the same time to load data, because it means you can never have games run only off the HDD. In fact, you can have a similar but opposite problem with a game like Halo 3, which will always cache data on the HDD even if installed to the hard drive, making load times longer from pointless HDD->HDD copying.

Mandatory installing to HDD seems obvious though. Trying to fill anywhere near 5GB worth of RAM from a Bluray drive that might peak at 24MB/sec (6x drive) on the outer track just seems painful. That's somewhere in the range of 3.4 minutes. A typical 500GB hard drive at it's slowest still does 60MB/sec, a 2.5x improvement.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It starts getting sticky if games will be able to use both the HDD and optical drive at the same time to load data, because it means you can never have games run only off the HDD. In fact, you can have a similar but opposite problem with a game like Halo 3, which will always cache data on the HDD even if installed to the hard drive, making load times longer from pointless HDD->HDD copying.

That's true, which is a concern for download titles which is the direction the market is moving. It's still a reduction in total performance over using both though. The disc is just a transport and copyright medium now, rather than a functional asset. In fact that'll be the first time for consoles where the medium is just for distribution and doesn't play a functional role in the game. All previous consoles has the game medium as the lowest level random access storage pool, whether cartridge or CD or DVD, but now that'll be the HDD.

Heck, they could eliminate 2nd hand sales by having the discs disintegrate in air so they can't be used a second time. (that's off course OT).

 

[BoardBonobo]

Or make the first sector writeable so that once it has installed the sector is wiped and thus renders the disc unusable.

 

[(((interference)))]

IMO - the reason to have mandatory installs is a different one. If they believe that going download-only (or at least play with the idea to make this transition) is going to happen within this generation, it makes sense to go this way. Then it doesn't really matter what the source of the game is, as long as the installed-state is what matters. This way, you're also making it clear that every game can rely on the minimum speeds your harddrive can offer, where as going half-half (where some may have a disk version and some a fully installed one) would mean that you have to target the lowest possible speeds of the optical drive.

Yes, plus this time they're going to have same day digital releases for all games.

Really? I think that would be a little out of character for Rein, he doesn't waste his time with things like that. He's always been direct in his statements. If he doesn't like something or in this case what Microsoft is doing, he would articulate it clearly and without any coyish references.

Hmm, we'll see.

No, that's just speculation on my part - but it definitely is something that could have happened given what I've heard about devs concerns for Durango.

 

[Pozer]

those things, and i dont think a ram bump to 12gb or even a doubling to 16gb is completely out of the question either. technical considerations aside, 16gb of ddr3 chips likely still costs less than half what 8gb ddr5 does (8gb of ddr3 would be more like 1/4).

many say it is, but that was the consensus before the ps4 switcharoo too, so i continue to not put much stock in the consensus.

then there's the wild card, that somehow the system wasnt what we thought in the first place, or they actually do add more cu's or something (could be contingent on the prevailing spec leaks being "old" and the like). i hope things at least get cleared up at april.

I would like to see 12GB of DDR3 on a 384bit bus instead of 256bit. I think that would equal to 102/GBs to the DDR3.

 

[Rangers]

I think they could run asymmetrical RAM for 12GB on 256 bus. I know Nvidia has done it on some cards before (EG, 2GB instead of 1.5 or 3 on 192 bit bus, etc)

 

[AlphaWolf]

I think they could run asymmetrical RAM for 12GB on 256 bus. I know Nvidia has done it on some cards before (EG, 2GB instead of 1.5 or 3 on 192 bit bus, etc)

With less than stellar results.

I don't think you'll see them make that choice on a console.

 

[Rangers]

With less than stellar results.

can you elaborate?

Also, on my tongue in cheek theory the thread tags sometimes contain secret inside info planted by mods, 15% overclock=920 mhz Durango GPu clock confirmed.

 

[AlphaWolf]

can you elaborate?

As i recall those cards typically perform worse than parts with the standard ram configuration. I'd have to dig for actual tests and they aren't easy to come by, but I believe it somewhat cripples the bandwidth. OEM's don't care, they're all about check box features.

 

[Rangers]

Just throwing crap at the wall but, might the Bonaire GPU supposedly containing 896 SP's not 768, imply that whatever's in Durango is really a 14 CU or more part, with 2 or more disabled for yield? (On the arbitrary assumption that Bonaire is an offshoot of Durango GPU at least in CU structure)

So maybe if they wanted to take a cost hit they could go to 14 CU's?

Maybe even Bonaire itself, or all AMD GPU's, contain redundant CU's? So it could actually be like 16?

I get that say, a 7950 is a scrap yield part of 7970. But I dont see a scrap yield part for Bonaire (EG, Bonaire=14 CU's, Cap Verde=10, no in between).

 

[Grall]

I speculate there's actually 2048 SPs in there, just hidden in an alternate dimension, ready to be pulled out if, or when MS needs them.

...Please. Enough already, ok?

 

[Betanumerical]

Just throwing crap at the wall but, might the Bonaire GPU supposedly containing 896 SP's not 768, imply that whatever's in Durango is really a 14 CU or more part, with 2 or more disabled for yield? (On the arbitrary assumption that Bonaire is an offshoot of Durango GPU at least in CU structure)

So maybe if they wanted to take a cost hit they could go to 14 CU's?

Maybe even Bonaire itself, or all AMD GPU's, contain redundant CU's? So it could actually be like 16?

I get that say, a 7950 is a scrap yield part of 7970. But I dont see a scrap yield part for Bonaire (EG, Bonaire=14 CU's, Cap Verde=10, no in between).

The GPU docs do not mention any information on redundant CU's or anything of the sort, its at 800mhz 12CU GCN1.0 part from what i can gather.

 

[kalelovil]

Just throwing crap at the wall but, might the Bonaire GPU supposedly containing 896 SP's not 768, imply that whatever's in Durango is really a 14 CU or more part, with 2 or more disabled for yield? (On the arbitrary assumption that Bonaire is an offshoot of Durango GPU at least in CU structure)

As a custom APU for Microsoft, there is no reason for it to stick to the same CU arrangement as Bonaire.

12 CUs is somewhat more balanced than 14 CUs anyway, since GCN divides CUs into groups of up to 4 sharing L1 cache (although that hasn't appreciably hurt Cape Verde and Pitcairn in the past).

 

[Rangers]

http://www.techpowerup.com/181740/A...al-Specifications-Release-Date-Confirmed.html

AMD Radeon HD 7790 Physical Specifications, Release Date Confirmed
A presentation slide, allegedly by AMD, leaked by a Japanese distributor confirmed specifications of AMD's upcoming Radeon HD 7790 graphics card. According to the slide, the HD 7790 is indeed based on a brand new silicon, with a transistor count of 2.08 billion. Compare that, to the 1.5 billion TC of "Cape Verde," and 2.80 billion of "Pitcairn." The silicon is built on the 28 nanometer silicon fab process.

The clock speed mentioned in the slide could be core, which is clocked at 1.00 GHz. Next up is the stream processor count, which stands at 896. The HD 7790 is mentioned to feature a primitive rate of 2 prim/clk, suggesting that its component hierarchy is more similar to "Tahiti" than "Cape Verde," which could mean double the tessellation processing power. All said and done, the HD 7790 belts out 1.79 TFLOPs of floating-point performance. The source goes on to mention in its text that the card features a 128-bit wide memory interface, memory clock speed of 6.00 GHz (96 GB/s), a TDP of 85W, and a single 6-pin PCIe power connector. It is expected to launch no later than tomorrow (22/03).

Sounds like a nice part for a console. Really stupid if MS quibbled over a few dollars and missed out on 1.79 teraflops.

But it does 2 triangles per clock, like Durango's GPU...

TDP 85 watts, very console reasonable.

96 GB/s, Durango should be able to match or exceed in practice with it's 68/102 setup.

 

[Betanumerical]

http://www.techpowerup.com/181740/A...al-Specifications-Release-Date-Confirmed.html




Sounds like a nice part for a console. Really stupid if MS quibbled over a few cents and missed out on a near PS4-equaling 1.79 teraflops.

But it does 2 triangles per clock, like Durango's GPU...

TDP 85 watts, very console reasonable.

96 GB/s, Durango should be able to match or exceed in practice with it's 68/102 setup.

Well we know that last Durango had 12 CU's if thats going to change its probably going to be more expensive then the PS4 all up and also launch later. Don't think its a smart move by microsoft.

 

[DJ12]

It is unlikely ms has told developers they are including a 1.2 tf part and then go an stick a 1.79 tf part in there.

That is wishful thinking at best, at worst it's just noise creation.

 

[liolio]

http://www.techpowerup.com/181740/A...al-Specifications-Release-Date-Confirmed.html




Sounds like a nice part for a console. Really stupid if MS quibbled over a few dollars and missed out on 1.79 teraflops.

But it does 2 triangles per clock, like Durango's GPU...

TDP 85 watts, very console reasonable.

96 GB/s, Durango should be able to match or exceed in practice with it's 68/102 setup.

I don't really see much of a difference between that and the GPU embedded in Durango.
2 extra CUs we speak of only a 16% increase, not negligible for sure but the biggest reason behind the difference in FLOPS is the clock speed, 1GHz vs 800GHz =>25% increase.

Durango at the same clock speed would push 1536MFLOPS not a crazy difference here. THe other way around that HD7790 would have pushed 1434MFLOPS @800Mhz, even less of a difference but at which cost the extra 200MHz comes? I guess it is a consistent increase.

I think that Durango has to be really low power, closer to the HD 7750 than to the 7770 as a xx% increase in clock speed seems to have a greater impact on power consumption than the sane increase in the number of CUs.

I do believe that power may have been the primary concern of MSFT, let hope at least it reflects nicely on a sleek form factor.