PlayStation 4 (codename Orbis) technical hardware investigation (news and rumours)

[3dilettante]

The upper layer of Vita's memory is wire-bonded, so it has wires that stretch down to the package. BGA and the speed of the interface precludes that.

The one layer that is truly stacked, is a custom face to face Wide IO chip, which only works because it's right on top of the SOC.
It would be a very non-standard GDDR5 module that tried something like that for the memory chips.

 

[Kb-Smoker]

What is the source of this 2011 GDDR5 price?

AMD bom released to investors. Its in the next gen tech thread somewhere.

 

[Bagel seed]

Give a guy 4GB of GDDR5, he thinks he's Superman. Give him 8GB and he thinks he's God.

 

[patsu]

Give a guy 4GB of GDDR5, he thinks he's Superman. Give him 8GB and he thinks he's God.

There are two aspects to this. From h/w perspective this may be true. From s/w perspective, it's the other way round. If you can do the same thing with half the resources, you are the man.

 

[rockaman]

I think it was a joke, patsu lol.

 

[patsu]

I know. It's just that people often forget about the developers' contribution, and only focus on h/w. -_-

 

[Bagel seed]

Guess you didn't see that movie :\

Hardware enables the software. I think there's still room to grow in terms of asset size before we get to diminishing returns. I'm sure they can make use of the ram, generating stuff procedurally or whatever way they can... devs are creative. Even if it's just used to keep track of world state that's a big plus.

 

[AzBat]

Why does the supposed increase in RAM amount have to be unified? Why can't it be as simple they still have the same 4gb DDR5 as before but they added an additional 4gb DDR3 for the OS once they found out that MS segregated their RAM to use 3gb for the OS & apps?

Tommy McClain

 

[3dilettante]

When do you think Sony would have made the call to completely rip apart and redesign the SOC to add a new memory controller and IO?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Adding 4GBs DDR3 is a not inconsiderable change. The aggregate costs will be substantial in a way going from 4GB to 8GB DDR3 wouldn't be. The chips themselves aren't a significant cost, as going by rumours Orbis only needs another 1 or 2 GBs. but a whole new memory controller, bus, system redesign (how are you going to map that memory to the CPU+GPU?) - it's not a straight-forward upgrade. It's so not straight-forward that I doubt a RAM upgrade is at all true.

 

[AzBat]

Ok, gotcha. Could the extra RAM not be used for the main CPU+GPU? Maybe it's for a separate ARM processor used for OS tasks? I don't think the new upgrade is true either. Just trying to figure out other ways the new rumors could be right.

Tommy McClain

 

[DieH@rd]

If they are not going to stack some WideIO memory, only solution is placing eight 8gbit GDDR5 chips on mobo. And they dont exist.

My sugestion to Sony is... dont try to mess things up now and drive price into heavens. Increase RAM speed to 196 GB/s if you really want more performance and security against late-gen Durango titles [or at least test all memory for that speed, so that firmware update can enable it down the line].

 

[Butta]

and why can this RAM not be DDR4 stacked? Who says Sony ever planned on sticking with DDR5 in the first place for the final design. Would DDR4 be significantly cheaper?

 

[Bagel seed]

Who says it wasn't planned out from the beginning and is a change..? Or at least in the works as of last year? That 16gb devkit rumor is still floating out there after all.

*speculation* Low tier and leaky multi devs got the gimp kit, because well, it'll just be coded all the same to match the Durango version anyways. 5GB vs 3.5GB available.. who cares, launch games are fodder. Let the first party shine.

 

[DieH@rd]

and why can this RAM not be DDR4 stacked? Who says Sony ever planned on sticking with DDR5 in the first place for the final design. Would DDR4 be significantly cheaper?

According to one analyst, 512MB DDR4 would cost between 2 and 3 bucks in late 2013. Large interposer would be <$10. But who knows if anyone can pull such operation this spring/summer when final designs go to production.

 

[MrFox]

I can see GDDR5M as an option if they planned to have a fanout interposer, which wouldn't need any TSV so nothing high tech. At 512bit on a 400mm2 to 500mm2 interposer, they can use the lowest bin at 2800 (would be 176GB/s), maybe they initially planned to use the 3000 parts (would yield 192GB/s), and it's supposed to be much less expensive than GDDR5, and much lower power.

 

[Xenus]

Why does the supposed increase in RAM amount have to be unified? Why can't it be as simple they still have the same 4gb DDR5 as before but they added an additional 4gb DDR3 for the OS once they found out that MS segregated their RAM to use 3gb for the OS & apps?

Tommy McClain

Becuase to do that you'd either have to split off part of the bus to address it losing bandwidth or you'd have to attach a new bus to it. Neither which sound likely this late in the game

 

[Arwin]

If it is going to be more than 4, it is very likely to still stay the same type of RAM. GDDR5 has at least the advantage of for now very likely to remain the high end GPU RAM of choice, I think? The biggest single card GPU has something like 6GB, doesn't it?

We'll see what happens, but it probably pays to be skeptical and perhaps be pleasantly surprised later ...

 

[Rangers]

Maybe on Feb 20 they reveal the basic specs. Which will lock in the 4GB RAM.

 

[Xenus]

Put it this ay if Sony manages to launch a box with 8GB RAM and 176GB/s or more of bandwidth without completely breaking the bank I tip my hat to them. it'll be a very impressive feat.