Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[Acert93]

if each core can exceed 100GFLOPS a Series6 with 32 or 64 cores will be multi teraflops

And what would the footprint (mm^2) be of a 64 core Series6? TDP?

NV and AMD have been making multi-TFLOPs GPUs for a a while now. Until someone else actually makes such a chip and can be competitive in features, performance, area, and power speculating on the idea of scaling up smaller chip does fly for this reason: I will match your 64 core Series 6 and raise you a dual-GPU board quad-SLI (8x 7970 Tahiti!) Obviously the cost ($, power, space) would be outrageous. But we don't know if the cost of a multi-TFLOPs Series6 would have outrageous costs--or shortcomings, either. If it was so simple there would be more PVR products in the PC space and not just the power sensitive markets.

 

[IllusionistK]

and do you want to pay $5000 for it?

I just spent $750 on a brand new Core i5 2500k PC, so I will say that I will pay at least that amount for it

 

[Rangers]

I just spent $750 on a brand new Core i5 2500k PC, so I will say that I will pay at least that amount for it

Math fail?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If it was so simple there would be more PVR products in the PC space and not just the power sensitive markets.

Isn't that because up to now, IMG have focussed on low power mobile parts, but with Rogue they are actually wanting to dip into a larger pie? Not that they will necessarily manage to go toe-to-toe with AMD/nVidia, but their lack of presence in the PC space up to now doesn't give any indicators on how competitive PVR6 is.

 

[sebbbi]

Isn't that because up to now, IMG have focussed on low power mobile parts, but with Rogue they are actually wanting to dip into a larger pie? Not that they will necessarily manage to go toe-to-toe with AMD/nVidia, but their lack of presence in the PC space up to now doesn't give any indicators on how competitive PVR6 is.

It will be really interesting to see what IMG does. Intel's new ATOMs use IMG GPUs, and those ATOMs will be used in Win8 x86 tablets. That pretty much forces IMG to spend considerable amount of resources in creating solid x86 DX11.1 and OpenGL drivers. As they will have a GPU running properly on x86 hardware and have a sofware team focusing on DX11.1 and OpenGL drivers there's not much left to do to enter the PC notebook(/desktop) market. I doubt they are yet interested in desktops, but if all things go smoothly we might have at least have a slight chance that we see some discrete Rogue chips on notebooks. It's not a completely impossible scenario, especially knowing that Apple is focusing lots of resources on Macbook Air (making it even thinner and improving it's performance and battery life), and they use solely IMG products in their iPads and iPhones. Powerful yet efficient IMG product with x86 OpenGL drivers might interest them. I would personally be happy to see IMG back in force in PC space (Kyro II was a pretty good product back then).

 

[Rodéric]

PowerVR in a home console would be way more interesting than in a PC.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I doubt they are yet interested in desktops.

Probably not, but then aren't laptops/netbooks a bigger market for PCs now than desktop boxes?

PowerVR in a home console would be way more interesting than in a PC.

Indeed, but that's where Acert's question is most important. Can PVR compete with AMD/nVidia in a 'big box' system, depending on how big the box is. Both Sony and MS are positioned to try Rogue, Sony having SGX in Vita and MS having a DX box with Rogue being DX. A launch this year would be too early; they'd have to see real-world performance to know if Rogue is viable prior to designing a system around it.

Still, it actually gives us something interesting to consider for next-gen hardware.

 

[sebbbi]

PowerVR in a home console would be way more interesting than in a PC.

Agreed, and also more likely to happen. Consoles are power constrained, and PowerVR seems to be doing very well in low TDP environments. If Apple ever released a console (or the rumoured television set with integrated entertainment/gaming features) my bets are on PowerVR.

 

[DieH@rd]

New information about future vision of Playstation consoles have resurfaced from interviews with Masaaki Tsuruta, SCE's Chief Tech Officer. They chose a good person for that job, he is really good in chanelling Kutaragi.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=34182308&postcount=1
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=34182712&postcount=37

[^ everything inside is not final or confirmed, and some numbers are speculations]

Article talks about expected 7-10 year long shelf life for PS4, extension of its lifecycle trough new peripherals, collaboration with many 3rd party developers to produce really expensive tech (3d stacked SoC chip that will host CPU, GPU and extra DSP and programmable logic that will cost them ~$1billion, 2.5 time more than development cost of CELL), with a expected launch moved year or two away from 2012.

Their current end goal is support for 8kx4k resolution, displays that can produce 300fps visuals (and reduced latencies for gameplay), transparent HD glasses that could produce realistic AR [early tech demo]. They are really aiming high, but they acknowledge that some of this tech will most probably be left for PS5.

 

[Titanio]

Article talks about expected 7-10 year long shelf life for PS4, extension of its lifecycle trough new peripherals, collaboration with many 3rd party developers to produce really expensive tech (3d stacked SoC chip that will host CPU, GPU and extra DSP and programmable logic that will cost them ~$1billion, 2.5 time more than development cost of CELL), with a expected launch moved year or two away from 2012.)

Think it's worth clarifying that the cost and the timetable are analyst and author speculation respectively - not things he actually said.

But yeah, some good hints to both shorter and longer term things.

 

[onQ]

New information about future vision of Playstation consoles have resurfaced from interviews with Masaaki Tsuruta, SCE's Chief Tech Officer. They chose a good person for that job, he is really good in chanelling Kutaragi.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=34182308&postcount=1
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=34182712&postcount=37

[^ everything inside is not final or confirmed, and some numbers are speculations]

Article talks about expected 7-10 year long shelf life for PS4, extension of its lifecycle trough new peripherals, collaboration with many 3rd party developers to produce really expensive tech (3d stacked SoC chip that will host CPU, GPU and extra DSP and programmable logic that will cost them ~$1billion, 2.5 time more than development cost of CELL), with a expected launch moved year or two away from 2012.

Their current end goal is support for 8kx4k resolution, displays that can produce 300fps visuals (and reduced latencies for gameplay), transparent HD glasses that could produce realistic AR [early tech demo]. They are really aiming high, but they acknowledge that some of this tech will most probably be left for PS5.

& the people on Neogaf said I was crazy for saying that the PS4 would support 4K? & they are aiming for 8K

 

[DieH@rd]

8K will be most probably left for PS5...

 

[onQ]

It will be really interesting to see what IMG does. Intel's new ATOMs use IMG GPUs, and those ATOMs will be used in Win8 x86 tablets. That pretty much forces IMG to spend considerable amount of resources in creating solid x86 DX11.1 and OpenGL drivers. As they will have a GPU running properly on x86 hardware and have a sofware team focusing on DX11.1 and OpenGL drivers there's not much left to do to enter the PC notebook(/desktop) market. I doubt they are yet interested in desktops, but if all things go smoothly we might have at least have a slight chance that we see some discrete Rogue chips on notebooks. It's not a completely impossible scenario, especially knowing that Apple is focusing lots of resources on Macbook Air (making it even thinner and improving it's performance and battery life), and they use solely IMG products in their iPads and iPhones. Powerful yet efficient IMG product with x86 OpenGL drivers might interest them. I would personally be happy to see IMG back in force in PC space (Kyro II was a pretty good product back then).

I thought they already had a GPU running on x86 hardware? Intel GMA 500

 

[Scott_Arm]

I stopped reading those posts when I got to "8K x 4K at 300fps."

 

[Titanio]

Who's working on stacked chip designs at 28nm currently? That could give an indicator of the partners they're talking with, given his reference to yields of 28nm stacked chips.

I know IBM is talking about a stacked Power8 at 28nm or 22nm and they're obviously a prime candidate. Anyone else?

 

[upnorthsox]

Who's working on stacked chip designs at 28nm currently? That could give an indicator of the partners they're talking with, given his reference to yields of 28nm stacked chips.

I know IBM is talking about a stacked Power8 at 28nm or 22nm and they're obviously a prime candidate. Anyone else?

Just about everyone.

 

[rpg.314]

You are talking about powerful CPU and GPU with extra DSP and programmable logic.

I just hope that if this was a direct quote, then the original was in Japanese and the translator was smoking something wildly exotic. If they are hoping for game developers to write Verilog after giving them cell, then...

 

[Titanio]

Just about everyone.

Ah, I thought some places were maybe skipping 28nm and so it could perhaps be used as a discriminating factor. I guess not though.

 

[DieH@rd]

How many layers can we expect?

 

[AlNom]

I stopped reading those posts when I got to "8K x 4K at 300fps."

Don't worry, it'll be used for the PS2 UHD ports.

& the people on Neogaf said I was crazy for saying that the PS4 would support 4K? & they are aiming for 8K

Did you even read the interview? We really need to stop with the hasty misinterpretations and wishlists and look at what's actually being said here.