Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[anexanhume]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units#Radeon_HD_7xxxM_Series

75W is what's listed for the chip.

If you look at the graph, the 6990M was also listed at 75W (somehow the same as the 6970M that had 160 less shaders and a 35MHz slower core clock. The 6990M was AMD's first 100W mobile GPU. Nvidia had been doing it since the 480M). That's because AMD specifies the chip TDP on mobile cards and Nvidia specifies the card TDP. They require the same size heatsink in Clevo models that use them.

 

[Carl B]

More selective than is already done for mobile parts?

True, good point. Well, we've got the 50Mhz downclock to work with then at least, and some dead silicon.

 

[Ruskie]

So...3rd gen curse does factually exist!?

 

[AlNom]

If you look at the graph, the 6990M was also listed at 75W (somehow the same as the 6970M that had 160 less shaders and a 35MHz slower core clock. The 6990M was AMD's first 100W mobile GPU. Nvidia had been doing it since the 480M). That's because AMD specifies the chip TDP on mobile cards and Nvidia specifies the card TDP. They require the same size heatsink in Clevo models that use them.

So what's your point?

 

[anexanhume]

So what's your point?

It's still that his 75W number is wrong. That's important when estimating overall system power.

 

[XpiderMX]

3GB (Durango) for OS? WTF?

 

[DoctorFouad]

If richard leadbetter is spot on (I think so) regarding the specifications of ps4 VS xboxnext, than I would be very happy for 3 reasons :

1- I was right since the beginning regarding the false rumors of IGN of a weak GPU, I always expected a laptop top of the line GPU for ps4 !

2- I was also right regarding the continuity of the historical trend of sony's superiority with console hardware, sony always had the superior console hardware for at least 1 year ahead of its competitors.

3- Nextgen consoles (especially ps4) first and second gen exclusive games would destroy anything on PC, the historical trend of consoles games being ahead graphically than PC games would continue afterall as I expected too !

so lets see now in fall 2013 - fall 2014, how PC titles could compete with console titles designed with an almost 2 teraflops GPU in mind....(I hope Shifty Geezer is reading this ) when sony reveals this E3 its demo of the next naughty dog ps4 game or guerilla or santa monica or polyphony digital game, jaws will surely drop...

 

[Ruskie]

3GB (Durango) for OS? WTF?

Maybe you will be able to use skype while gaming (even though you have your PC right beside you). That sounds like a great way to spend resources.

*I doubt there is 3GB of RAM dedicated for OS. That seems horrible even for Nintendo standards

 

[3dilettante]

I was speculating that maybe the reason that they are not part of the graphics pipeline is that they have cache coherency with the CPU something like a 4 Core Jaguar module + 1 dedicated CU. Could be an interesting setup.

The ACEs are effectively the workload setup and dispatch logic that is present in the graphics pipeline, minus the graphics-specific portions. It's somewhat ambiguous as to whether one of the ACEs in Tahiti is the graphics pipeline, but the graphics pipeline can run compute and graphics commands, while the ACEs are limited to the compute subset.

General cache coherency is more the province of the cache subsystem, which GCN has linked most parts of the chip to, including the parts of the graphics portion not explicitely kept separate.

The more interesting idea would be if there were CPU cores were under the ACEs as well as CUs, which at least in theory could be a future direction to take things. ACEs assign contexts and set up the register allocation and flag setup per wavefront assignment, which at a high level is what loading a CPU thread is, absent hardware accelleration of the process.

edit: One could also make an x86 core take the place of an ACE, for a more software-driven approach.

 

[XpiderMX]

2- I was also right regarding the continuity of the historical trend of sony's superiority with console hardware, sony always had the superior console hardware for at least 1 year ahead of its competitors.

Both looks very similar.

 

[Ruskie]

If richard leadbetter is spot on (I think so) regarding the specifications of ps4 VS xboxnext, than I would be very happy for 3 reasons :

1- I was right since the beginning regarding the false rumors of IGN of a weak GPU, I always expected a laptop top of the line GPU for ps4 !

2- I was also right regarding the continuity of the historical trend of sony's superiority with console hardware, sony always had the superior console hardware for at least 1 year ahead of its competitors.

3- Nextgen consoles (especially ps4) first and second gen exclusive games would destroy anything on PC, the historical trend of consoles games being ahead graphically than PC games would continue afterall as I expected too !

so lets see now in fall 2013 - fall 2014, how PC titles could compete with console titles designed with an almost 2 teraflops GPU in mind....(I hope Shifty Geezer is reading this ) when sony reveals this E3 its demo of the next naughty dog ps4 game or guerilla or santa monica or polyphony digital game, jaws will surely drop...

PS4 sounds like something 99% of b3d members would put in the gaming box under 200W. I wouldn't call something like that an achievement that others couldn't match (for one we don't know Durango). I would call it "gaming centric" console. Funny how that sounds

 

[ERP]

The profiling tools should make a big difference, no? That's what I was thinking. If you are hitting a bottleneck in your executable and it's hard to trace and there's a deadline coming, you'd just let it slide. Hence poor dev tools leading to lower hardware utilisation.

Outside of PIX which at the time set the standard, and was about the only tool that gave you good insight into what was happening between the CPU and GPU.
the answer is yes and no.
All profiling tools have their limitations, and you end up rolling your own intrusive profiler anyway, but having something that mostly works is a nice to have, you just can't trust the results of any one profiler because often the profiler overhead swamps the thing you're trying to measure.
Between SN Tuner and Razor, Sony have equivalent profiling tools to MS at this point which various people love/hate.

Dev tools are hard, you'll only ever hear people who use it moan about VS and how bad it is, but it's by far the best development environment out there. Sony's tools for Vita give up on the separate debugger, and have pretty close to perfect VS integration, but that means there isn't a lot of scope to differentiate outside faster compile/link times (which do matter).

 

[Ruskie]

ERP, whats your take on rumored Orbis? You think thats pretty much spot on? Would appreciate your opinion.:smile:

 

[Bagel seed]

Reviewing what we have now, what do we really know over what was said over 6 months ago? In the Vgleaks specs it's basically the same thing except with Steamroller cores which was rumored to be replaced with Jaguar around the same time. That and special compute units? But Vgleaks also mentioned that too with hw zlib decompressing and audio dsp.

But we also know Vgleaks specs were confirmed to be pretty old (lherre)... at least months old when it came out. So by now over a year old! So old, but mildly accurate, at that time. And now we get a near regurgitation of that spec list to be final?

Really doubting this EG article now

 

[ERP]

ERP, whats your take on rumored Orbis? You think thats pretty much spot on? Would appreciate your opinion.:smile:

I'm very careful not to comment on rumors of products from a company I work for.

 

[Ruskie]

I'm very careful not to comment on rumors of products from a company I work for.

Noted

 

[DoctorFouad]

PS4 sounds like something 99% of b3d members would put in the gaming box under 200W. I wouldn't call something like that an achievement that others couldn't match (for one we don't know Durango). I would call it "gaming centric" console. Funny how that sounds

thats not true,

if you read posts of beginning 2012 on this very thread, I was one of the few expecting 4 Gb of GDDR5 RAM for PS4, and I was criticized as being unrealistic...(too expensive)

I was also one of the very few to expect a top of the line laptop GPU for ps4, the idea was attacked furiously with the argument that "laptop top of the line GPUs cant be used for consoles because they cost too much and they come on limited quantity"

The only thing where I was hugely mistaken is about CPUs, I expected a derivative of IBM power8 CPU for nextgen consoles, I was wrong, I didnt expect sony or microsoft going for weak CPUs...its the only disappointment for me...

 

[liolio]

The ps3 if DF got it right looks like an interesting device.

With regard to the "secret compute sauce" I could bet on it in fact being part of the main GPU.
We know that for instance the HD 7970 has 2 ACE (asynchronous compute element) so Pitcairn.

I wonder if for example AMD could have a "hard bonds" between one of those ACE and a couple of CUs. From physical pov (if you look at a die shot you could see CUs, ROPs, CPU dies, etc.) you could not really tell there are a "special compute sauce" somewhere, though it would be visible for software.

Other than that the chip should be pretty "big",I would say in between 270mm2 and 300mm^2.
Along with the GDDR5 it won't be the affordable system I was hoping for. Lets hope it gets them a edge in perfs against MSFT product, otherwise if it too close to call without resorting to "frame analysis, etc." /things people could not spot by them selves, I would still be concerned about MSFT overall offering and subsidizing power.

 

[liolio]

thats not true,

if you read posts of beginning 2012 on this very thread, I was one of the few expecting 4 Gb of GDDR5 RAM for PS4, and I was criticized as being unrealistic...(too expensive)

I was also one of the very few to expect a top of the line laptop GPU for ps4, the idea was attacked furiously with the argument that "laptop top of the line GPUs cant be used for consoles because they cost too much and they come on limited quantity"

The only thing where I was hugely mistaken is about CPUs, I expected a derivative of IBM power8 CPU for nextgen consoles, I was wrong, I didnt expect sony or microsoft going for weak CPUs...its the only disappointment for me...

Well it may ended up being too expansive, let wait a few and see if it does Sony any good, it looks like the PSV for example is not doing them any good.

 

[Ruskie]

thats not true,

if you read posts of beginning 2012 on this very thread, I was one of the few expecting 4 Gb of GDDR5 RAM for PS4, and I was criticized as being unrealistic...(too expensive)

I was also one of the very few to expect a top of the line laptop GPU for ps4, the idea was attacked furiously with the argument that "laptop top of the line GPUs cant be used for consoles because they cost too much and they come on limited quantity"

The only thing where I was hugely mistaken is about CPUs, I expected a derivative of IBM power8 CPU for nextgen consoles, I was wrong, I didnt expect sony or microsoft going for weak CPUs...its the only disappointment for me...

Because back in early 2012 4GB GDDR5 wasn't feasible (thats why leaked specs showed 2GB). GPU is pretty much middle range GPU in current PC spectrum. Not bad, not amazing either.