Cooling Revolution.

[PC-Engine]

You really do live in an alternate reality where things only exist in 2 dimensions, don't you?

How do you figure a heatsink measuring over 4" X 6" is small? Smaller than the GCN? If you tried putting that heatsink in the GCN it would poke through the side of the case. The GCN's heatsink is almost an inch shorter on both sides.

And I just love how you are dodging the fan issue. There are 2 fans, 1 for the CPU and the other for the GPU. Each one of these fans is taller and requires more space than the Revolution provides.

That heatsink is NOT 4" x 6" let alone OVER! It's kinda funny you just pulled those dimensions out of your butt. Look closely at the WHITE square outline around the GPU excluding the one around the CPU.

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=75&d=1132831953

If you're claiming that square is 4" x 6" then you're the one living in an alternate reality. You telling me that white square outline around the GPU which represents the area for the heatsink is WIDER than the DVD drive?

If A > B and B > C, C cannot be > A. A and B are known yet you're saying C > A?

Using the white outline around the CPU for reference it's obvious that the outline around the GPU is only slightly wider than that of the CPU. Now if you look at the pic above, the DVD drive extends all the way to the left edge of the motherboard. In other words the DVD drive is about TWICE as wide as the outline around the CPU. So let me ask you this. How can the heatsink for the GPU be more than TWICE as wide as the CPU heatsink when the evidence says otherwise??? The evidence is the two white outlines around the CPU and GPU.

BTW GCN's heatsink is around 3" x 6". In other words it's bigger than the one for Xenos.

However if I had to guess the size of the heatsink for Xenos it looks to be 2/3 the width of the DVD drive which comes out to around 3.75" x 3" which is really small for a GPU with that much performance.

As for the fans, what idiot would think one fan is for the GPU and one is for the CPU?

The two fans work together to pull air through a single duct to cool both CPU+GPU, they don't work separately, but I liked how you dodged that fact and pretend it didn't exist. If you can show me a dividing wall inside the duct, routing separate air passages to separate fans, I'd appreciate it.

Like I said before only 25% of the total cooling system is devoted to cooling the GPU. The rest is for the CPU. It's not 50/50 like you like to believe.

Lets supose that it is true, how will/would use 2/3 of the XeCPU power for physics only (and limited animation as far as we know), some schems that we saw pointed at 1 thread for physics at max (lets say about 1/6 instead of 4/6)? I dont think it is a good trade of as complex physics would probably taxe in others parts of the game like AI, animation, sound, network...

Well a single PPE can run 2 threads, one for AI, the other for whatever you need it for that cannot be accerlerated by the PPU. The PPU can run all the physics and animation. The sound is processed by the integrated sound block in the GPU.

 

[pc999]

...

 

[Readykilowatt]

So, the Xbox 360's GPU heatsink is as big as the outlined white rectangle viewed here?

If so, the GPU's heatsink is very small. Maybe at 65nm, Nintendo will be able fit a more powerful GPU into the Revolution's small form factor.

 

[PC-Engine]

So, the Xbox 360's GPU heatsink is as big as the outlined white rectangle viewed here?

Yes that's the exact size of the heatsink and it's fairly small about 3.75" x 3" from the looks of it. If you look at this pic notice how the heatsink fits between the 3 yellow capacitors exactly matching the white outline. In fact that's what the outline printed on the PCB is for. It looks big in this pic but that's just an optical illusion.

http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/system/microsoft/xbox360/therm_removed.jpg

Maybe at 65nm, Nintendo will be able fit a more powerful GPU into the Revolution's small form factor.

That would surely drop a bomb on Xbox360 and PS3.

 

[pc999]

But a PPU (ageia) isnt suposed to do animations, it can help while physics are involved but nothing else, and in Rev we probably will see very complex animations (if we can do anything then the player most do too), even taking sound of, the others consoles will use more power for AI, network, processural work, voice/image recongnizion (and I really expect at least part of this in Rev), de/compression (althought probably a lot more), and more thinghs as well as new thinghs once that Rev will give for the first time such a control why not prepare it for minimun details that will use even more power.

I cant see that as a balaced system.

 

[PC-Engine]

But a PPU (ageia) isnt suposed to do animations, it can help while physics are involved but nothing else, and in Rev we probably will see very complex animations (if we can do anything then the player most do too), even taking sound of, the others consoles will use more power for AI, network, processural work, voice/image recongnizion (and I really expect at least part of this in Rev), de/compression (althought probably a lot more), and more thinghs as well as new thinghs once that Rev will give for the first time such a control why not prepare it for minimun details that will use even more power.

I cant see that as a balaced system.

All of that other stuff doesn't require that much CPU power. Things like voice recognition can be done on NDS. Remember that a single PPE runs 2 threads and has a VMX unit and 1MB L2 all to itself. Also I'm not sure why you think a PPU cannot do animation considering a GPU can do it.

 

[pc999]

All of that other stuff doesn't require that much CPU power. Things like voice recognition can be done on NDS. Remember that a single PPE runs 2 threads and has a VMX unit and 1MB L2 all to itself. Also I'm not sure why you think a PPU cannot do animation considering a GPU can do it.

The L2 may change from CPU to CPU, in the case of Cell (PS3) and XCPU is less than that, and a GPU is programable (both vertex and pixel shaders) it can do almost every thing in GPGPU but a (ageia) PPU is only fixed function.

Plus from what we said one wolud think that (eg) XB dev would use up to 1 thread in physics (2 for animation too) and 1 VMX unit and the others 5 (4) and 2 VMXs units to do the rest and you are sugesting that Rev dev will the same physics ( and animation if we admint that it will run only in the PPU) but use half of the power for the rest 2 threads and 1 VMX unit instead of 4 (meybe 3 threads if sound will be indeed in GPU) and 2 VMX units. How can that be a balaced system (dev woulndt even have choice)?

Plus I expect more advanced Voice rec than DS, more in the level of UE3 (see my sig) which runs (from what they say) in a P4 @ 3Ghz, but anyway it would take a lot of flexibility from dev hands and while it may make life a bit easier (if ageia got good tools) what if someone wants dev a game that it is not physics/animations intensive (which will probably happen very much specially between japanes devs and others kind of not tipical action games like racing, FPS... for example a RTS, RPG, they probably will use more the power in AI, keeping the world... because physics will have a BIG impact but not in al games) in a console that originality is the main feature that would defeat in some way to some extent that.

I think that some kind of maths/vector processor or a "GPGPU unit" like (whatever that means) would make much more sense IMO.

BTW XeCPU does have some kind fixed function for sound on the CPU, for no or minimun penalty in performance, or I am cunfusing somethingh ?

 

[PC-Engine]

I think that some kind of maths/vector processor or a "GPGPU unit" like (whatever that means) would make much more sense IMO.

Isn't a PPU just a bunch of vector arrays?

 

[pc999]

Isn't a PPU just a bunch of vector arrays?

I think it is from what I have read around, but not a programable one, only fixed function like old GPUs, the diference between one fixed function and a programable should be ~the same (a very exiting ways of seing thinghs the thinghs I think).

 

[Teasy]

I'd say that GPU heatsink in 360 is even smaller then your saying PC-Engine, I think your being generous It looks a little bit less then two thirds as long as the DVD-ROM is wide (the DVD-ROM is 5 inches wide). Also the heatsink it about two thirds as wide as it is long. So that's about 3.3" long x 2.2" wide and less then half an inch high.

I agree, its a pretty small heatsink for a GPU that people claim couldn't fit into Revolution. More and more I'm thinking that, as far as heat goes, even at 90nm matching 360's GPU wouldn't be a real problem. Its the CPU that's the problem there, all 85 watts of it! Which is where a PPU could be very useful. Again this is pure speculation, but how about using a PPU that has the same physics power as a single PPE, but at a fraction of a PPE's power consumption. Marry that with two PPE's at 2.5Ghz each and you then have 98Gflops of processing power (60 of which is general purpose) at a fraction of the 85 watts 360's CPU runs at. Basically they would be sacrificing some flexibility for a much more power efficient design (similar to GC with its fixed T&L).

Also I was just wondering how dense is the embedded ram MS are using compared to 1T-SRAM-Q? Do we have any specifics on the embedded ram MS is using in its GPU?

 

[Urian]

The idea of a PPU is a very good idea but why naming it "PPU Idea" I believe that VMX-Array is a better idea.

A normal VMX is 4 milion transistors component that can do 4 op/cycle, take for example four of them with a dedicated L2 Cache and you will have 40GFLOPS extra in a system that runs at 2.5Ghz.

 

[PC-Engine]

The idea of a PPU is a very good idea but why naming it "PPU Idea" I believe that VMX-Array is a better idea.

A normal VMX is 4 milion transistors component that can do 4 op/cycle, take for example four of them with a dedicated L2 Cache and you will have 40GFLOPS extra in a system that runs at 2.5Ghz.

Can you have multiple VMX units per core? If you can then that's an easy solution. I've always thought that you could only have 1 VMX per core that's why XeCPU only has 3 VMX units.:smile:

 

[Urian]

Can you have multiple VMX units per core? If you can then that's an easy solution. I've always thought that you could only have 1 VMX per core that's why XeCPU only has 3 VMX units.:smile:

Cell PPE has 2 VMX.

 

[PC-Engine]

Cell PPE has 2 VMX.

I didn't know that.

Would 4 VMX units attached to a PPE work? What about 8 VMX units? Or 2PPE and 8VMX? Would you need a lot more L2 to get efficient use of the VMX? How about a one 970FX and 8 VMX units?

 

[Urian]

2 PPE with 2 VMX each and Shared L2 Cache. Total 100GFLOPS at 2.5Ghz.

 

[pc999]

Cell PPE has 2 VMX.

Only in DD2 version.
Also multiple VMX uses more L2 (DD2 does have 1Mb, but even without the extra VMX is stronger) also it requires a bit more work from the CPU and probably it add a lot more of heat, I think a no integrated solution with the CPU would be better for heat and BW (if they will use MoSys 1T-SRAM latency would very smal, almost as L2, and it wouldnt use more L2 (now that I am thinking, if the BW is good enought do they really need L2?, or at least a large portion (per core?)), overall it may be cheaperand generate less heat.

Anyway I am no expert please correct me.

 

[Teasy]

IBM's Broadway Complete

IBM's Broadway Complete (rumour)

RevoGaming has heard from sources inside the development community that IBM has finalised the Broadway processor and is showing it to developers. Details inside.

The details come from two different sources inside the development community. One source revealed the information to RevoGaming around three weeks ago, whilst the other revealed it to us a few days ago. We were waiting for a word from another development insider before we would report it.

Apparently, the "Broadway" processor is finished, and IBM has shown plans and a prototype to Nintendo. After some discussion, it has been shown to select developers. One source said that the processor was a dual-core one, whilst the other would not reveal any technical information.

Both sources would not talk about ATi's "Hollywood" graphics chip or any other internal Revolution components. The names of the sources cannot be revealed at their request, nor the developers they work at.

There is no official word from Nintendo, so this should still be classified as a rumour.

http://www.revogaming.net/html/modules/news/article.php?storyid=145

 

[pc999]

Nice , I hope it will have somethingh to boost math intensive tasks too (beyond VMX).

Just wondering, when they talk about prototipe is final version (mass production ready) or is one that still need debugging/corrections and improvements

BTW anyone knows when IBM can start mass production of 65nm chips (remeber that PS3 will be done in Sony plants, so it is not valid for comparition)

Thanks

 

[Powderkeg]

BTW anyone knows when IBM can start mass production of 65nm chips (remeber that PS3 will be done in Sony plants, so it is not valid for comparition)

Thanks

Current schedule shows test samples of complex processors starting in Q1 2006 and full production not begining unitl Q4 2006, assuming there are no further delays.

If the Revolution launches in 2006, it's going to be using 90nm chips. They would have to delay launch to 2007 if they wanted to wait for a large supply of 65nm processors.

 

[Powderkeg]

I'd say that GPU heatsink in 360 is even smaller then your saying PC-Engine, I think your being generous It looks a little bit less then two thirds as long as the DVD-ROM is wide (the DVD-ROM is 5 inches wide). Also the heatsink it about two thirds as wide as it is long. So that's about 3.3" long x 2.2" wide and less then half an inch high.

I agree, its a pretty small heatsink for a GPU that people claim couldn't fit into Revolution.

Sure the heatsink is small, but like PC-Engine you happily forget about the size of the fan and ducting that that heatsink requires to keep the GPU cool. Where in the Revolution are you going to fit 2X80mm case fans and a large ducting unit? You'll have to find somewhere to put them if you plan on using such a small heatsink.