Could next gen consoles focus mainly on CPU?

[3dilettante]

I meant microcode fixes that then compromise more or less CPU performances that are needed to be at a fix, stable level in consoles

I don't follow what you mean by this.
The problems in the page you linked are not related to the x86 cores. They are what make up the CPU performance of the chip, and no microcode for x86 is going to impact the separate ARM core. The two areas are kept very separate and interactions would already be too high overhead for the PSP to be called too often.

 

[BRiT]

No posts were deleted.

The discussion chain that started with just dropping of a URL was moved into the appropriate thread: https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/cpu-security-flaws-meltdown-and-spectre.60577/

 

[dobwal]

I think a majority of us agree it’s going to be Zen. The question which actually seems to be at debate is a matter of how much Zen (size) or how much of Zen (features) should we require for next-gen knowing what we know today and where developers want to bring their games in the future.

They are going to use a mobile zen core codenamed “jaguar 2”. LOL

 

[HBRU]

yes ... many clues let me think the same.... Jagauar 2... But dont know if derivative of Zen or Jaguar arvancement... Must be something that allow easy forward compatibility while advancing performances and have low transistor necessities

I'm playing Prey on my PS4 pro... wow really a good game... ! But sales where not so good strangely... ... Current gen CPU where enough for such a game and sales was low SURE not because of weak CPU... Ok loading times doesnt help as with many other current gen games... But look at what they where able to build up with current hardware. I think a monthly subscription fee as for MS is coming and that means also Sony will care a lot in BC...

really cpu intensive.... http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/prey-2017-benchmarks,5072-4.html

 

[Mobius1aic]

So what do developers need more of?

Integer Performance, branch prediction, SIMD GFLOPS?

 

[HBRU]

I think the last patched Prey can be usefull as benchmark to really discover what are the real Jaguar performances... What I know is that not automatically a stronger CPU is overall better in an unified RAM environment... Aka is better a 16xjaguar@3ghz or 8xryzen ?!? Transistor, power... Performances... Backward & Forward compatibility

high preset is what is seen on ps4pro @ 30 fps... so lets see the fps of the i5-6500 (that runs 90%)... with a comparable gpu...

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/prey-2017-benchmarks,5072.html

the rx460 2,2TF vs ps4 1,8TF looks to be the best match...

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-3135987/amd-radeon-460-tflops-ps4-tflops.html

on very high preset RX460@2,2TF runs between 28 and 40 fps vs 30 fps of ps4@1,84 on high preset... Somerhing like 20% more calc power... and you got something like a 30% better results... Lets say 50% better result considering the high vs very high preset... So I would say the CPU handicap here is a 30%

so my conclusion is that 8 jaguars@1,6 ghz behave like i5-6500 - 30%... Jaguars are not so bad into an unified memory system... In the article is stated this game is optimized specially for AMD... So ok, lets say i5-6500 - 50%...

so 16 Jaguars @ 1.6 ghz = 4 cored i5-6500@3,2 ghz.... (3,6 ghz turbo)

also a i5-6500 (quad) is really close to a ryzen 1200 (quad)... Power consumption. Frequencies. Performances...

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-6500-vs-AMD-Ryzen-3-1200/3513vs3931

ryzen 2400g on prey (1,76 tflops) very close GPU to orig ps4... Low preset.... 40 - 48 fps. 4 cored Ryzen (8 thread) 3,6 ghz... Almost same result as 8 jaguars@1,6 ghz that runs high preset.. Lets say 30% less performing.

 

[Adrian]

I think the last patched Prey can be usefull as benchmark to really discover what are the real Jaguar performances... What I know is that not automatically a stronger CPU is overall better in an unified RAM environment... Aka is better a 16xjaguar@3ghz or 8xryzen ?!? Transistor, power... Performances... Backward & Forward compatibility

high preset is what is seen on ps4pro @ 30 fps... so lets see the fps of the i5-6500 (that runs 90%)... with a comparable gpu...

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/prey-2017-benchmarks,5072.html

the rx460 2,2TF vs ps4 1,8TF looks to be the best match...

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-3135987/amd-radeon-460-tflops-ps4-tflops.html

on very high preset RX460@2,2TF runs between 28 and 40 fps vs 30 fps of ps4@1,84 on high preset... Somerhing like 20% more calc power... and you got something like a 30% better results... Lets say 50% better result considering the high vs very high preset... So I would say the CPU handicap here is a 30%

so my conclusion is that 8 jaguars@1,6 ghz behave like i5-6500 - 30%... Jaguars are not so bad into an unified memory system... In the article is stated this game is optimized specially for AMD... So ok, lets say i5-6500 - 50%...

so 16 Jaguars @ 1.6 ghz = 4 cored i5-6500@3,2 ghz.... (3,6 ghz turbo)

On Ps4 the code is optimized to get the best out of that Jaguar, this don’t happen on pc, in conclusion, the Jaguar is really bad.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Is Prey a good game to evaluate the possible performance of Jaguar cores?
It uses DX11, so the CPU overhead should be substantially higher than DX12 or Vulkan games.

 

[HBRU]

yes... its a really good game for that purpose IMHO...

note that the RYZEN 2400G is a 5 billions transistor beast.... At 7 billions you have the One X that runs much much better...

ok Ryzen 2400g runs with DDR4 vs GDDR5... But for CPU calc less latency is maybe better

https://www.techarp.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-5-2400g-apu-review/

jaguars are bad... But MS after a lot of trials.... released an end-2017 console Jaguar based...

2400G cpu quite similar in cal power to i5-6500

 

[Deleted member 13524]

jaguars are bad... But MS after a lot of trials.... released an end-2017 console Jaguar based...

After all these years of performance profiling in all our games, the very best CPU core we could use for our premium console was....

(drums)

...
..
..

Jaguar!!

 

[function]

The profiling allowed them to deliver IPC improvements with practically no area increase and despite the fact the core Jaguar team at AMD was disbanded years ago. Infact, MS did more customisation work on the CPU than any other console vendor has since at least the WiiU, and possibly since 2006.

Zen wasn't a realistic option. There was no-where else to go, so they made the best of it.

Mocking Jaguar, or the use of Jaguar in X1X (or Pro) is asinine.

 

[phoenix_chipset]

The profiling allowed them to deliver IPC improvements with practically no area increase and despite the fact the core Jaguar team at AMD was disbanded years ago. Infact, MS did more customisation work on the CPU than any other console vendor has since at least the WiiU, and possibly since 2006.

Zen wasn't a realistic option. There was no-where else to go, so they made the best of it.

Mocking Jaguar, or the use of Jaguar in X1X (or Pro) is asinine.

While I would have much rather sony and ms have chosen a die shrunk phenom or something for larger increases in game complexity in 2013 ( sub 3ghz phenom 2 x4 with tacked on multithreading ala Xenon?), ms did good work with the 1x's jaguar. Even on desktop i've only seen jag hit 2.55ghz and that's with 4 cores, so MS may have already hit the limit with 8.

Not quite as much as Nintendo upgraded gekko though, let alone broadway to espresso which was triple the cores and more than 65% higher clocks.

 

[function]

While I would have much rather sony and ms have chosen a die shrunk phenom or something for larger increases in game complexity in 2013 ( sub 3ghz phenom 2 x4 with tacked on multithreading ala Xenon?), ms did good work with the 1x's jaguar. Even on desktop i've only seen jag hit 2.55ghz and that's with 4 cores, so MS may have already hit the limit with 8

Phenom was a dead line unfortunately, and AMD ran into massive problems porting to 32nm and then dumped it asap. I think it probably would have done better than Bulldozer if the investment had been placed there instead, but beyond a point, AMD were committed and had to ride Bulldozer out.

Not quite as much as Nintendo upgraded gekko though, let alone broadway to espresso which was triple the cores and more than 65% higher clocks.

The clock increase came due to node shrinks, while at least some of MS X1X clock increases came though board level power optimisations that no-one else has implemented yet (as far as we know!). The X1X IPC increases were significantly grounded in chip engineering though; I'm not sure that the move from GC to WiiU involved that level of CPU modification.

Moving to three cores for WiiU would have involved some level of "uncore" work, as well as two cache arrangements (1 / 2) which is why I thought that WiiU was the last likely point of comparable work.

This round of systems, at least, the most highly performing and highly customised CPU design goes to MS. Through absolute necessity ... if that makes a difference.

 

[HBRU]

I think at 7nm maybe 3 ghz is possible...

 

[Deleted member 13524]

The profiling allowed them to deliver IPC improvements with practically no area increase and despite the fact the core Jaguar team at AMD was disbanded years ago.

Actually, the area for the CPU cores in Scorpio is ~10% larger than the area for Neo / Pro.
I don't know if Microsoft is simply using the exact same cores with less density-oriented transistors or transistor arrangements to get higher clocks, or if the additional transistors are there to actually provide higher IPC, but it didn't come "for free".

Mocking Jaguar, or the use of Jaguar in X1X (or Pro) is asinine.

I didn't think anyone mocked Jaguar, but rather the people complaining that Jaguar isn't good enough for the mid-gens when the hardware engineers over at Microsoft and Sony obviously know best.

 

[Mobius1aic]

I don't think Jaguar was that bad a choice for the end of 2013. Surely, Sony, MS, and AMD looked to see if a quad core Zen with SMT could functionally run pre-Pro and XB1X games correctly without threading issues. I'm going to guess they ran into problems, or the die cost wasn't worth it to them.

 

[HBRU]

zen is a huge chip... I really doubt it will come even in the next gen... I much more think in a sort of Jaguar 2 that merge zen lessons into orig Jaguar

 

[Allandor]

Actually, the area for the CPU cores in Scorpio is ~10% larger than the area for Neo / Pro.
I don't know if Microsoft is simply using the exact same cores with less density-oriented transistors or transistor arrangements to get higher clocks, or if the additional transistors are there to actually provide higher IPC, but it didn't come "for free".

MS stated that they optimized even the CPU-cores. E.g. the caches are a bit faster. So this can also lead to a bigger die area. Or they just needed bigger CPU-cores just the better spread the heat they produce at higher clock-rates.

btw, someone here in the forum stated that Zen-cores are actually not that much bigger than jaguar cores if you would cut all that external stuff a console-cpu doesn't need (like a big PCIe interface etc). Also Zen should do everything a jaguar can, but faster (because of higher clock-rates). So compatibility issues should not occur, only e.g. if they would reduce the cache size.

So yes, next-gen console will have zen-cores (or whatever comes next) but I wouldn't expect wonders of them. The CPU is still something a console normally doesn't need that much. Better base-speed is good, but that won't lead to magically more 60fps games. That only leads to more games that don't get optimized that much for the CPU because the game already runs at 30 fps.

 

[HBRU]

I think you understimate how many transistors Ryzen uses... And yes benefits -as One X lesson gives- are not so great as a consistent bandwidth increase... Why not just ADD jaguar cores while clocking them as high as possible ?!? In this case you have perfect backward (and to some extent also forward compatibility) with little effort... Me I would just double PRO gpu at 7nm and replace GDDR5 with GDDR6 that even on the 256 bit bus gives good results... This pro2 can probalby stand up till 2023 when a serious PS5 can come

 

[Allandor]

I think you understimate how many transistors Ryzen uses... And yes benefits -as One X lesson gives- are not so great as a consistent bandwidth increase... Why not just ADD jaguar cores while clocking them as high as possible ?!? In this case you have perfect backward (and to some extent also forward compatibility) with little effort... Me I would just double PRO gpu at 7nm and replace GDDR5 with GDDR6 that even on the 256 bit bus gives good results... This pro2 can probalby stand up till 2023 when a serious PS5 can come

because jaguar is not designed for much more. If you want to clock the jaguar cores any higher, you have to redesign them. And Ryzen is so big because it has many many cores and much cache, interfaces etc.