ShadowRunner
Veteran
Indeed, i doubt we will know too much about the final design until after then, for now we know what they are likely targeting +/-10%
Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech
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I'm not sure, but it seems that there is a thread of thought going on that the CPU may be overclocked, perhaps undervolted to keep power consumption/heat down?
I don't think this is feasible as cost need to be reduced, and yields need to go up, so "binning" isn't feasible to get cores that run acceptably at lower volts (such as LV/ULV bins). Historically, the opposite was actually true, to get yield rates higher, it's common to reduce frequency, and in some cases cores are deactivated to increase yields (Cell has 8 SPE's, 1 deactivated to increase yields).
dagnastyep
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Recent rumors say there are 3 unique features MS has request be added to the CPU/GPU. Likely audio DSP, esRAM or EDRAM, and an unknown third thing.
Thinking back to the Xenos gpu, I remember that there were 3 special features that were added to that: unified shaders, edram, and a hardware tessellation unit. ATI went on to implement 2 of the 3 in the next GPU designs. And IIRC, the tessellation unit in ATI/AMD's discrete GPUs was for the most part unused by PC games.
I was trying to think what this 3rd hardware feature could be, then I remembered that in AMD's 7000s series cards they had a new piece of hardware that will be used for their Partially Resident Textures technology, which is based on the ideas in John Carmack's Megatexture technology. I don't think there are any games out there that even use this feature, so why would AMD dedicate die space for it (similar to the tessellation unit in the R600)?
If Orbis is using Southern Island GPUs, it will have this as well, but it's currently limited to 32k textures. What if a more robust version of hardware PRT is the third item that MS wanted implemented in their GPU?
Thinking back to the Xenos gpu, I remember that there were 3 special features that were added to that: unified shaders, edram, and a hardware tessellation unit. ATI went on to implement 2 of the 3 in the next GPU designs. And IIRC, the tessellation unit in ATI/AMD's discrete GPUs was for the most part unused by PC games.
I was trying to think what this 3rd hardware feature could be, then I remembered that in AMD's 7000s series cards they had a new piece of hardware that will be used for their Partially Resident Textures technology, which is based on the ideas in John Carmack's Megatexture technology. I don't think there are any games out there that even use this feature, so why would AMD dedicate die space for it (similar to the tessellation unit in the R600)?
If Orbis is using Southern Island GPUs, it will have this as well, but it's currently limited to 32k textures. What if a more robust version of hardware PRT is the third item that MS wanted implemented in their GPU?
Partially resident textures are a coarser representation of GCN's general memory addressing capabilities and ability to use x86 page tables, to better fit the constraints of being an expansion board accessed with the current PC software models.
The die area was already spent because GCN's architecture can do much more.
The die area was already spent because GCN's architecture can do much more.
Unified shaders were already under development.
I don't think anyone is suggest that. As a console only has one spec of chip off a production line multiple bins and under/over clocking don't apply. The issue is about how suitable Piledriver based processors might be in a console. I don't think they'd be bad - certainly preferable to another Cell or Xenon.
Talk about overclocking and undervolting is really about the limits of existing processors. There's more headroom yet to Bulldozer derivatives in terms of clock or power (or perhaps both) so a console may be able to exceed the performance per watt of existing Piledriver chips. Trinity is the one to look at though as it doesn't have the L3 and is optimised for ppw over peak performance. Richland should be available for reviewers in a few weeks, and will hopefully improve on the already pretty good Trinity.
anexanhume
Veteran
You mean besides Rage?
Would you say more games will then use that feature to fully exploit the architecture now, especially since the optimization would carry between both consoles being based on GCN?
It's other optimizations like this I am curious about developers being forced into that turns out to reverberate back into PC games and change how they are developed too.
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ATI's Radeon 8500 in 2001 already had a hardware tessellation unit....
dagnastyep
Newcomer
PRT's are interesting for any game that streams textures.
If it's there on a primary platform it'll likely get used.
How that gets ported onto a PC which may or may not support it will depend on the developer.
anexanhume
Veteran
"Here's some obvious dates given what we know plus some guesses of what past milestones were"-map.
Blazkowicz
Legend
What the hell are an ATI r9 and r10?
Maybe 9th gen and 10th gen Radeon but that's pretty stupid, you have to selectively omit some half-gens, or start the count at a certain generation such as 9700 pro. And I'd start at Rage pro anyway.
Forget that, "jailbreaking" a graphics card is totally nuts (or did Sony unlock Radeons into FireGL to build dev kits, riiight.)
Maybe 9th gen and 10th gen Radeon but that's pretty stupid, you have to selectively omit some half-gens, or start the count at a certain generation such as 9700 pro. And I'd start at Rage pro anyway.
Forget that, "jailbreaking" a graphics card is totally nuts (or did Sony unlock Radeons into FireGL to build dev kits, riiight.)
Bagel seed
Veteran
Just noticed that ATI too. There goes their credibility 
r9 is probably R900, or Northern Islands in other words (Radeon HD6000), and r10 is probably R1000, which is known as Southern Islands (Radeon HD7000). That said, 2011 Sept/Oct for a Southern Island based card seems pretty early. Did AMD have any Southern Island based silicon back by then? I don't think TSMC's facilities were ready to start any production on 28 nm at that time.
As for 'jailbreaking', that might just be from poor translation or something. Or the entire thing is bogus....
anexanhume
Veteran
I assume they're referring to firmware unlocked cards or something. Disabled some CU's or reset stock clocks or something along those lines.
Seems plausible, or actually very very likely. They're using engineering samples anyway.
That said, isn't the timeframe for their Southern Islands card a bit odd? 2011 Sept/Oct for a 28 nm HD7000 card. Anyone got some reliable information how when AMD got their first samples back from TSMC?
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