Xbox One (Durango) Technical hardware investigation

[AlNom]

Some flops are more equal than others.

 

[pch]

To best of my knowledge Cell SPE disabling is done during manufacturing-when faulty SPE is detected, the bits are fused on Cell as "read partial good register"(where "0" stands for good),which then syscon use during configuration ring to Cell.
Also quite positive you can enable the locked SPE by changing config ring-just that lots of the first 90nm ones have a faulty SPE so changing it in software can get you unpleasant results.
If on later console, you have a quite a good chance rd_partial_good got no "1" fused on Cell and you free to play with it.

 

[(((interference)))]

There's 8 active cores on PS4 too, we know 2 cores are reserved with 6 available for games.

PS4's no more powerful than PS3. and XB1 is less powerful than PS4. So XB1 is less powerful than PS3!

Stands to reason, obviously.

Dat 2 TF monster with teh CELL...

7 years later and even Sony themselves couldn't make a more powerful box!

 

[ninzel]

Just read an article interview with MS that says Kinect is required to play games.
Not sure if its news but I thought it was because it seems to contradict what has been previously said about being about to almost completely disable Kinect.
Not a big deal for me but I thought some might want to know.
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/06/19/xbox-one-will-require-day-one-update

Whitten also confirmed that, as Microsoft first said in May, Xbox One will still require the Kinect sensor (which is included in the box) in order to play games.

 

[IllusionistK]

You don't get consistent yields with larger dies sizes.
The larger the size, the more you take a hit on yields.

According to
http://www.soiconsortium.org/pdf/Economic_Impact_of_the_Technology_Choices_at_28nm_20nm.pdf
And only taking the die cost ratios, (which is consistent across the same wafers ranging from 50% yield to 70% yields)

Doubling the size of the APU results in 2.6~2.7 times more costs. (e^1)
adding 30% the size would thus be around 1.35 times the cost (e^0.3)
as a result your comparison would be

XB1: $63+$40 = $103
PS4: $47+$80 = $127

We're also not considering the apparent issues eSRAM is bringing into the manufacturing process here.


... I just figured your math is totally wierd. How are you getting $47 for PS4?
$5000/165*0.65 = $19.7

We also have to consider how current reports on BOM pricing is actually favoring PS4 over Xbox One by a healthy 30~50 dollars for some reason. Taking out the kinect doesn't seem to put the Xbox One much lower than the PS4 if it's even lower at all.

His math is fine... Your's is weird though.

Order of operations dictate which operand gets calculated first. In this case 165*0.65 = 107 which is then divided by 5000 to equate to roughly $47.

The BOM price of the PS4 is roughly 19% higher. With Kinect in every box, the SKU price is offset in PS4's favor.

All things constant, both may be taking a small loss or breaking even. Its not possible to tell at the moment.

 

[Strange]

His math is fine... Your's is weird though.

Order of operations dictate which operand gets calculated first. In this case 165*0.65 = 107 which is then divided by 5000 to equate to roughly $47.

The BOM price of the PS4 is roughly 19% higher. With Kinect in every box, the SKU price is offset in PS4's favor.

All things constant, both may be taking a small loss or breaking even. Its not possible to tell at the moment.

Nvm, I forgot to use division for yields.

 

[XpiderMX]

Just read an article interview with MS that says Kinect is required to play games.
Not sure if its news but I thought it was because it seems to contradict what has been previously said about being about to almost completely disable Kinect.
Not a big deal for me but I thought some might want to know.
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/06/19/xbox-one-will-require-day-one-update

Whitten also confirmed that, as Microsoft first said in May, Xbox One will still require the Kinect sensor (which is included in the box) in order to play games.

It is not required for games, it is required to be plugged to the Xbox One, but you can turn off the camera (not the kinect itself).

 

[Rangers]

Could go in either tech thread but IW says they really need "final hardware" to advance on COD:Ghosts? Odd, article is dated June 20, though I'm not familiar with the website

http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/...ent-stalled-by-final-next-gen-hardware-delays

However, he is clearly confident that the AI improvements will be successful for Call of Duty: Ghosts, but in order to progress Infinity Ward is crying out for the finished hardware from Microsoft and Sony.

“We are making big strides [but] we need some hardware, some finished hardware, before we can really expand.”

Dont know what to make of it. Another part of the article calls Ghosts development very early, it's actually like 3/4's through a 2 year cycle, so I'm not sure how much to trust the article.

 

[Mianca]

Could go in either tech thread but IW says they really need "final hardware" to advance on COD:Ghosts?

Judging by what was shown at E3, Ghosts in its current state looks like a last-gen game when compared to BF4. So they better "optimize" the heck out of it anyway.

Fancy dog and fish AI won't convince the fanbase to buy this game.

 

[Phil]

I'm not sure if this is relevant, but I never bought any BF game and got each CoD game. I'm not sure graphics are the huge deal that people will be looking for when deciding which to get. I think it's more important that they both come out at the same time. If you're already getting a shiny new next-gen console, you will get the game that are on the shelves. If there's only BF to chose from, then that's likely what I'll be getting. If both are on the shelves, I might get both, but due to past experiences with CoD games, that one is almost a guarantee-buy, lacking graphics or not.

 

[loekf]

I'm not sure if this is relevant, but I never bought any BF game and got each CoD game. I'm not sure graphics are the huge deal that people will be looking for when deciding which to get. I think it's more important that they both come out at the same time. If you're already getting a shiny new next-gen console, you will get the game that are on the shelves. If there's only BF to chose from, then that's likely what I'll be getting. If both are on the shelves, I might get both, but due to past experiences with CoD games, that one is almost a guarantee-buy, lacking graphics or not.

IW is just lazy and talking BS. An engine development could easily be done using dev. hardware or on a PC, because they knew what the hardware looks like.

Lazy, because the PS3 and XB360 install base (2 x ~77 million + PC) already gives them plenty of cash. For the "fans" the yearly CoD game is an automatic buy.

That's why there's also no push to them to improve the graphics/engine. People will buy it anyways.....

 

[upnorthsox]

IW is just lazy and talking BS. An engine development could easily be done using dev. hardware or on a PC, because they knew what the hardware looks like.

Lazy, because the PS3 and XB360 install base (2 x ~77 million + PC) already gives them plenty of cash. For the "fans" the yearly CoD game is an automatic buy.

That's why there's also no push to them to improve the graphics/engine. People will buy it anyways.....

So its the new Madden.

 

[eastmen]

So its the new Madden.

Its not really , Madden has the NFL to fall back on. Without that liscense there is nothing that can dethrone it . Look at Fifia and Pez . There are 2 franchises that go back and forth being better than the other.

With COD at some point a Titan Fall or Battlefield or Destiny can come out and disrupt people from buying it. It only takes a game to change things

 

[Solarus]

I'm happy to see so many XBox games running at 60fps. and its thanks to the dme and esram with the display planes. ms made a amazing system. it'll be interesting to see it evolve over the next 5 years.

 

[Betanumerical]

I'm happy to see so many XBox games running at 60fps. and its thanks to the dme and esram with the display planes. ms made a amazing system. it'll be interesting to see it evolve over the next 5 years.

I think you should be thanking the programmers and not all the not-so-special source. I can guarantee you the DME's and display planes had nothing to do with it, the eSRAM might have helped but the other two not so much.

 

[XpiderMX]

I think you should be thanking the programmers and not all the not-so-special source. I can guarantee you the DME's and display planes had nothing to do with it, the eSRAM might have helped but the other two not so much.

Are you a Xbox One developer? Or do you know a Xbox One dev?

Just curious.

 

[Betanumerical]

Are you a Xbox One developer? Or do you know a Xbox One dev?

Just curious.

No, i just think its funny to attribute 60FPS to something thats been in computers for multiple decades (DMA) and something thats been in the mobile space for a very long too (display planes). When in reality it is not the hardware that gets itself running at 60FPS, its the programmers that get it running at 60FPS.

Thats all.

 

[XpiderMX]

No, i just think its funny to attribute 60FPS to something thats been in computers for multiple decades (DMA) and something thats been in the mobile space for a very long too (display planes). When in reality it is not the hardware that gets itself running at 60FPS, its the programmers that get it running at 60FPS.

Thats all.

Ok, I agree in some degree, but maybe that hardware, all together and the programmer's ability, can do the thing.

 

[AlphaWolf]

I think you should be thanking the programmers and not all the not-so-special source. I can guarantee you the DME's and display planes had nothing to do with it, the eSRAM might have helped but the other two not so much.

So the DME's don't do anything to help performance, that's an interesting perspective. I guess MS just added them to reach a transistor count so they could say 5 billion.

 

[AlNom]

The point is that it's about the developers targeting 60fps (or any arbitrary framerate) from the get go and working around the hardware to ensure it. What the HW consists of exactly is immaterial to the design targets since FPS is so high up there in terms of what's contributing; it's up to the people involved to scale down or up various aspects according to what the HW can do.