G70. A design for console or pc?

[Neb]

Have you not seen the cooling solutions for GPUs and available for CPU's? Massive is the word. And each one needs their own since it is not a compact system and it inculdes different brand components.

Though neither console is cool either, the warm air comming from the back reaches quite high temperature, and the chips even higher (probably 20-30+'c more than ambient temp).

 

[Akumajou]

I'm not quite sure what your point was there. I understand that a console would come with custom cooling suited to its case and its expected use. But that has nothing to do with the core itself.

RSX is relatovely cool/low power compared to say the 7900GTX simply because it runs 150Mhz slower. Couple that fewer transistors because of the stripped out ROPS/memory bus and a cooler designed to work well within the PS3 case and you have a relatovely cool and quiet solution. However its not going to be any better than a similarly clocked G71 in a PC with a decent cooling solution.

I doubt you will find many people complaining of overheating 7900GT's!

Yeah, a relatively cool and quiet solution??, thats the cooling set up's job not the chips, the RSX will still generate heat, Cell will and so will the memory, as a matter of fact, although not major the BD drive will generate heat and the hard drive.

One look or comparison between the PS3 cooling set up against the X360 cooling set up tells you that more effort was placed in one over the other.

All of these things have to share an appartment where they will all be used mostly at the same time, all of them drawing power while generating heat and a powersupply that is managing all of this is dependent on cable that is connected to a power socket that will not always perform the same across all homes, countries, etc.

 

[Neb]

The cooling solution in PS3 looks robust and better than the ones in xbox360. But PS3 has the PSU built into the PS3 whilst the xbox360 has it externally.

 

[geeQ]

GF7 was very similar to GF6 in many respects so in that way it was a natural evolution. If it was more power efficient (I don't remember tbh) then it was most likely down to the fact that NV didn't need to push the clocks up very high since at the time, ATI had no competing solution. If say the X1800 had been launched at around the same time as G70, we would probably have been looking at a 500Mhz+ 7800GTX which would make the power efficiency story very different.

Good point. Never thought of that. As you say nvidia faced almost zero competition from ATI around the launch window of Geforce 7 and more than likely this influenced clock speeds. Still I find it interesting that what Sony would require from a GPU part is a powerful, yet efficient design that would be able to fit into there strict power and heat requirements. And it just so happens that nvidia were already working along these exact same lines with G70.

If Sony were to have released PS3 say just 6 months ago would Geforce 8 have been be a good fit without extensive alterations? Or perhaps to word it differently would Geforce 8 be a good fit for any closed box environment such as a games console or set top box system?

 

[pjbliverpool]

If Sony were to have released PS3 say just 6 months ago would Geforce 8 have been be a good fit without extensive alterations? Or perhaps to word it differently would Geforce 8 be a good fit for any closed box environment such as a games console or set top box system?

Well RSX is actually a die shrunk G70 released (in PS3) around 18 months after the original chip. So a comparison to PS3 launching 6 months ago with a G80 isn't quite equivilent.

Its more like PS3 launching now with a G92 chip. Probably the closest comparison would be something along the lines of an 8800 GTS 512MB.

I'm afraid someone else will have to comment on how technically feasible that would be but it doesn't seem that unlikely that a console could be launched today for $600 that came sporting a GTS 512MB.

 

[swaaye]

7800 was originally NV47. They quick changed the codename somewhere during development. Probably so conversations about it being a hopped-up 6800/NV40 would be throttled back a bit. NV47 is still in the driver INFs, I believe.

From what NVIDIA touted at G80's launch, it sounded like up to 7900/G71 they had been just revising things. All the way back to GeForce 256. G80 was the first major departure this decade.

 

[Mobius1aic]

7800 was originally NV47. They quick changed the codename somewhere during development. Probably so conversations about it being a hopped-up 6800/NV40 would be throttled back a bit. NV47 is still in the driver INFs, I believe.

From what NVIDIA touted at G80's launch, it sounded like up to 7900/G71 they had been just revising things. All the way back to GeForce 256. G80 was the first major departure this decade.

Well yeah G80 was Nvidia's introduction of unified shader GPUs, that's a big departure from the usual VSU > PSU > TMU > ROP type of graphics processor.

 

[Akumajou]

7800 was originally NV47. They quick changed the codename somewhere during development. Probably so conversations about it being a hopped-up 6800/NV40 would be throttled back a bit. NV47 is still in the driver INFs, I believe.

From what NVIDIA touted at G80's launch, it sounded like up to 7900/G71 they had been just revising things. All the way back to GeForce 256. G80 was the first major departure this decade.

Although Nvidia changed the code names, in the Sony presentation Nv47 is used alot when referring to what RSX is based on.

Well RSX is actually a die shrunk G70 released (in PS3) around 18 months after the original chip. So a comparison to PS3 launching 6 months ago with a G80 isn't quite equivilent.

Its more like PS3 launching now with a G92 chip. Probably the closest comparison would be something along the lines of an 8800 GTS 512MB.

I'm afraid someone else will have to comment on how technically feasible that would be but it doesn't seem that unlikely that a console could be launched today for $600 that came sporting a GTS 512MB.

The problem with a PS3 launching with a G92 and 65nm engineering process is that like Nv47/G70 RSX @ 90nm is that Sony would most likely be fabbing the GPU at their Japan, Sony supervised foundries in Nagoya and Nagasaki as well as any modifications it would need.

Then you also gotta factor that CellBE would also have to be 65nm, yet it would either have to be a higher clock speed (4Ghz+) or a revised CellBE.

Looking at it that way IMHO the only way such a PS3 would launch would have to be in a Spring 2008 or maybe even a late December 2007 but that would be unlikely due to all the things that have to be checked out and we don't really know but at least the engineering process making favorable yields is no cakewalk.

The other issue is that again, IMHO the launch games and first year games would be just as few as it was and most likely looking the same and still having framerate issues here and there and questionable issues/glitches, and the multiplatform titles would still have the same issues and the devs (the ones that do) would still have issues with development and Cell learning curve.

Oh and then I don't know how it would matter but the competion in XBox 360 would have had a 2 year plus sales lead and if the graphics/visuals are hardly noticably different it may have created a bigger backlash than when the PS3 launched in 2006...

Then again most hardware spec junkies would have fought tooth and nail to snap them up and the whole "wait for the potential" would have reached super cult status, though still it would be $600 though versus price drops from MS though even that is a mistery since it took MS so long to drop in price.

One thing that would have been guarranteed would have been that Halo 3 would have had to launch in 2008 instead.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Don't get me wrong, I don't for one moment think that waiting until now to launch with a G92 would have been a good business decision. In fact i'm sure it would have been a terrible one which may not only have killed the PS3 for this generation but perhaps more importantly, lost the HD standard war to HD-DVD.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Not really since RSX is just a basic GF7. You analogy would make RSX more like a pair of 7800GTX's in SLI which clearly isn't the case.

If anything, because of the reduced memory bus and ROP count, the closest analogy for RSX would be a Prescott based Celeron.

Very much agreed.

 

[Megadrive1988]

The G80 / GF8 / GeForce 8800 is still of course, what would've been the NV50.

It is the basis of everything Nvidia has today and even what's coming in the near term.

Even the so-called "next-generation" GT200 will probably not be anything more than a refresh/overhaul of G80, ala NV47/G70 was over NV40/GF 6800. GT200 will probably not be a totally clean-slate new architecture as G80 was in 2006, or that NV40 was in 2004. re: GT200 = NV55. Nvidia's true next-gen "NV60" is still very much unknown, and Nvidia is probably saving it to go up against Intel's Larrabee, probably the thing that is scariest to Nvidia.

I think it was a big mistake not basing PS3's RSX GPU on NV50 / G80 / GF 8800 technology, it would've future-proofed the PS3 graphics to some extent.

 

[Akumajou]

...

I think it was a big mistake not basing PS3's RSX GPU on NV50 / G80 / GF 8800 technology, it would've future-proofed the PS3 graphics to some extent.

The problem with that kind of thinking is that there is just no way around the real physical limitations that would have been imposed on a home console like PS3 if it would have had 680 million transistors on a 90nm engineering process in November 2006 (when GeForce 8800s went on sale)

reguardless of whom Sony would have had fabbing the GPU, either their own supervised fabs or TSMC or UMC, having G80 in the PS3 would have been exactly like Nvidia releasing the GeForce 5800 Ultra aka Nv30 all over again but even worse, time is a friend to no one and unfortunatly all must bow down to time.

Having said that there would have been no question about the console's capabilities and I agree with you to an extent, of course the problem with G80 is that it is not future proof.

Like Nv30, and Nv40, G80 is a new GPU architecture even if its a departure there are still engineering issues and limitations that only a die shrink to 65nm and Nvidia's engineers can fix or make better just like they did with Nv35, Nv47/G70/G71, RSX and G92.

Also like RSX based on Nv47/G70, a G92 would still have been unsuitable for slapping into a PS3 or any home console so of course Nvidia and Sony's engineers would have had to work out all the problems and again time is a factor, thats why I said that a March 08 or Spring 08 would have been a realistic launch time as I personally have been thinking about this alot and was even working on making a thread about it in B3D.

Don't get me wrong, I don't for one moment think that waiting until now to launch with a G92 would have been a good business decision. In fact i'm sure it would have been a terrible one which may not only have killed the PS3 for this generation but perhaps more importantly, lost the HD standard war to HD-DVD.

The problem is that its hard to predict what would have happened because HD-DVD would have only had to compete against standard Blu Ray players and not a do everything device like PS3 so maybe there would have been less pressure and less price drops but it still would have been bad because the rift would have been very wide.

Still I find that the anticipation for a perceived to be an undisputedly far more powerfull Playstation 3 with a faster Cell BE (as a result of the year+months delay from Nov06) and a more efficient G80 in the form of a custom G92 @65nm and no doubt a 4x BD drive (up from 2x) and most likely twice the RAM and bus speed if possible and it would have generated alot of drooling word of mouth but the price is still the killer factor.

Graphics whores would have loved the idea, Tech-nerds would have jumped for joy and the dedicated fanatics would have been singing victory and we are the champions, the real question would be if they would put their money in their mouth and I think they would have and maybe the console would have sold better than the PS3 did in Nov 06 but that would still leave a year of certain customers dealing with having to pay $600 for a console by people who degrade consoles as kids toys.

Still it would have been interesting specially because we all know how the XBox 360 started to develop the DVD grinding, scratched game discs and Red Ring of Death diseases months after launch and it was only addressed by Microsoft nearly two years after the console was released and only because a Gamestop/EB employee decided to blog about it on the internets.

PS: The biggest factor of all however is that neither Nvidia nor Sony would have been able to predict what would have happened after G80 since they did not know that AMD-ATI was not going to really compete against Nvidia for the benchmark/performance crowns its likely that some guy was estimating that GPUs were gonna keep on increasing in power and cost to make just like previous GPUs with Nv25 being faster than Nv20, Nv30 being faster, Nv35 faster still, NV40 shattering the times two barrier easy, G70/Nv47 doing the same, G71 patching things up. Its probable that someone thought that G9X would have again been twice as powerfull/fast and that may never happen given that its AMD who will decide if they raise the bar.

 

[Mobius1aic]

Well Akumajou, despite our mouths frothing at idea of a BR-DVD x4 as well as higher clocked Cell BE and G80 class equiped PS3, most consumers wouldn't really give a shit. We'd still get the same cross platforming issues of games being the same, with exclusives being the only real push for the system I would expect, just higher resolutions and framerates. Given the fact that we might have had to wait even longer for the PS3 probably would've fueled more resentment towards Sony for having waiting so long to release the PS3 and even more especially a possible higher price. G80 was way to expensive anyways.

A better aim would've been something intermediary to the GF 8600 and GF 8800 series cards, maybe perhaps 64 unified shaders/32 TMUs/ 16 ROPs @ 550 MHz core and 900 MHz shader speed. Still no telling how expensive this would've been, but it could've given Nvidia another possible SKU to sell as a graphics card for PCs (8700GT or 8800GS possible names?), and a much more satisfying successor to the 7600 series of graphics cards.

Oh and on the note of the possible names (8700GT and 8800GS) I know there are such thing as them and I know what they are but I think my idea would've made for a better fitting product to fill those "gap" names.

 

[MBDF]

Here's what I've been thinking would have made a good ps3:

GPU

G80, 48 shaders, 24 TMU's, 8 ROP's, 500 mhz core clock, 1500 mhz shader clock. Bits and pieces of Graphics sythesiser to ease emulation, and some sort of EDRAM either on die or off die as with Xenos, this would have the dual purpose of aiding in PS2 emulation (allowing for native 720p HD res) and for bandwidth for AA and HDR for Ps3 games.

Then one of two things for texture banwidth and higher res textures:

Either 4xBD-ROM and leave the memory as is, or 2xBD-ROM, 512 MB of GDDR3 at 32 GB's per second 128-bit. I prefer the first option as it would highly benefit streaming games, and it would negate the need for more memory if games streamed properly.... plus I would have liked to have seen what Naughtly Dog would have done with that much streaming bandwidth.

I believe this would have been a very future proof design, with the added benefit of the HD PS2 and PS1 games bullet point which would have gone a long way!

And If I was in charge I would have still sold this for 599 US BUT I would have removed both the memory card ports and the wifi and sold them both as add-ons to somewhat offset the cost of up the upgrades above.

 

[eastmen]

Forget the graphics card. They should have had 512 megs of gdr ram and 256 megs of xdr ram.

That is where they messed up. They launched almost a year after the 360 . They should have upped the ram , it would have been the easiest way to gain a visual advantage on the 360.

I think though that the ps3 was allways meant to be a 2005 console but the bluray drive pushed it back to 2006 and at first was such a burden on their budget that they had to keep the console as is . If they waited till 2007 they most likely could have launched with a faster gpu , faster cell with most likely all the spu's enabled and more ram , however ms would have had a 2 year head start and most likely would have sold more consoles than they did in 2006 the way it actually worked out. Ms had a monster year in 2006 and many people would have jumped on the geow bandwagon if they new the ps3 wasn't out for another year . In 2007 ms had alot of other great games that people would have opted to buy. I'm also sure that ms would have droped the price by $100 if the ps3 wasn't out till the end of 2007. Also the additions to the ps3 would have most likely kept it up higher in cost than the ps3 actually cost in 2007.

Wow I think i confused myself

 

[Akumajou]

Well Akumajou, despite our mouths frothing at idea of a BR-DVD x4 as well as higher clocked Cell BE and G80 class equiped PS3, most consumers wouldn't really give a shit. We'd still get the same cross platforming issues of games being the same, with exclusives being the only real push for the system I would expect, just higher resolutions and framerates. Given the fact that we might have had to wait even longer for the PS3 probably would've fueled more resentment towards Sony for having waiting so long to release the PS3 and even more especially a possible higher price. G80 was way to expensive anyways.

A better aim would've been something intermediary to the GF 8600 and GF 8800 series cards, maybe perhaps 64 unified shaders/32 TMUs/ 16 ROPs @ 550 MHz core and 900 MHz shader speed. Still no telling how expensive this would've been, but it could've given Nvidia another possible SKU to sell as a graphics card for PCs (8700GT or 8800GS possible names?), and a much more satisfying successor to the 7600 series of graphics cards.

Oh and on the note of the possible names (8700GT and 8800GS) I know there are such thing as them and I know what they are but I think my idea would've made for a better fitting product to fill those "gap" names.

Hopefully you read all my posts and understand what I was trying to say, specifically as I was trying to demonstrate the flaw in thinking that the PS3 could have launched with more "power" of "future proof" technology.

The console is already the leading and bleeding edge in technology reguardless of any flaws or faults anyone would like to point out simply because its a console and traditionally if you know consoles, you know they ALWAYS ship with technology that is behind the tech of same period PC parts.

I will tell you this about your proposed GPU idea, with all the arguments against the current RSX by those so called hardware critics, don't you think they would then be frothing at their mouths at the chance to pick appart your GPU idea specially by comparing it to G80 and PC performance?

You are right though in that the average consumer (as I already implied) would not really care about all the technology (they did not care about it already) so if it was more advanced, and two years later to facilitate the tech development curve they would still be pointing their fingers at the $600 dollar price tag, despite the fact that the Dollar is often associated with one of the richest nations on the face of the planet.

What bothers the most though is that the majority of game devs that complain about PS3 specs would still complain given that if the more power idea would have happened, they still would have to deal with Cell programming, split memory pool, etc and BTW I mean no disrispect to game devs.

People are always hard to please, I guess its within nature to do so.

I personally see the G70 implementation in RSX as indeed faster and more efficient than the PC part, after all G70 did ship at 430Mhz core clock speed while the 7800GTX 512MB @550Mhz was more of a specialty item for the PC crowd specially since months later the 90nm 7900 GTX showed up.

 

[Akumajou]

Forget the graphics card. They should have had 512 megs of gdr ram and 256 megs of xdr ram.

That is where they messed up. They launched almost a year after the 360 . They should have upped the ram , it would have been the easiest way to gain a visual advantage on the 360.

I think though that the ps3 was allways meant to be a 2005 console but the bluray drive pushed it back to 2006 and at first was such a burden on their budget that they had to keep the console as is . If they waited till 2007 they most likely could have launched with a faster gpu , faster cell with most likely all the spu's enabled and more ram , however ms would have had a 2 year head start and most likely would have sold more consoles than they did in 2006 the way it actually worked out. Ms had a monster year in 2006 and many people would have jumped on the geow bandwagon if they new the ps3 wasn't out for another year . In 2007 ms had alot of other great games that people would have opted to buy. I'm also sure that ms would have droped the price by $100 if the ps3 wasn't out till the end of 2007. Also the additions to the ps3 would have most likely kept it up higher in cost than the ps3 actually cost in 2007.

Wow I think i confused myself

So the HDMI spec compliance had nothing to do with it?

 

[Mobius1aic]

Hopefully you read all my posts and understand what I was trying to say, specifically as I was trying to demonstrate the flaw in thinking that the PS3 could have launched with more "power" of "future proof" technology.

The console is already the leading and bleeding edge in technology reguardless of any flaws or faults anyone would like to point out simply because its a console and traditionally if you know consoles, you know they ALWAYS ship with technology that is behind the tech of same period PC parts.

I will tell you this about your proposed GPU idea, with all the arguments against the current RSX by those so called hardware critics, don't you think they would then be frothing at their mouths at the chance to pick appart your GPU idea specially by comparing it to G80 and PC performance?

You are right though in that the average consumer (as I already implied) would not really care about all the technology (they did not care about it already) so if it was more advanced, and two years later to facilitate the tech development curve they would still be pointing their fingers at the $600 dollar price tag, despite the fact that the Dollar is often associated with one of the richest nations on the face of the planet.

What bothers the most though is that the majority of game devs that complain about PS3 specs would still complain given that if the more power idea would have happened, they still would have to deal with Cell programming, split memory pool, etc and BTW I mean no disrispect to game devs.

People are always hard to please, I guess its within nature to do so.

I personally see the G70 implementation in RSX as indeed faster and more efficient than the PC part, after all G70 did ship at 430Mhz core clock speed while the 7800GTX 512MB @550Mhz was more of a specialty item for the PC crowd specially since months later the 90nm 7900 GTX showed up.

Being a consumer myself as well as working in sales regarding both games, consoles, and PCs I think I have a good understanding of the average consumer. People who want their sports game fix won't give too much of a damn as long as the roster fits the current/upcoming year and improves a bit over last years game. And of course FPS fanatics like myself want better and better graphics. These new consoles are rather interesting (well not really new anymore), just like every new console is, and they have their perks. What makes this generation unique to me is the sheer similarities in capabilities between the PS3 and 360 in a number or areas and then of course the "disruption effect" (if you wanna call it that, thank you Beyond3d.com community ) of the Wii. Close graphics capabilities, same total RAM, however it's of course noteworthy the way each system implements certain features the other one doesn't have, and now I think we're seeing not just a push in graphics horsepower especially for HD qualities, but we really have orchestration being thrown into the mix (CPU capabilities) in terms of trying to vie for top spot in Physics, AI, etc. Sony was touting the PS2 in these regards as well but people payed more attention to the grpahics (I'd love to hear an arguement about Xbox CPU vs. Emotion Engine vs. PPC750).

And for the sake of mentioning it, I think the PC gaming arena, while I think will never die out, is truly seeing consoles that compete with them thanks to the cost benefits of multiplatforming without excess modifications for running on a possibly superior system.

While I find PC gaming to be my favorite platform for actual play, I find console game development the most interesting due to the limitations developers must deal with to make a game as superior as possible. The PC market is where a product can be built with scalability to work with more mainstream systems as well as being ready for hardware that'll truly push full spec satisfyingly (I'm talking about you Crysis) and I think that takes away some level of challenge for devs, and of course their are exceptions to that idea because good PC games (especially PC exclusives) are usually rediculously well optimized

 

[Mintmaster]

Forget the graphics card. They should have had 512 megs of gdr ram and 256 megs of xdr ram.

That is where they messed up. They launched almost a year after the 360 . They should have upped the ram , it would have been the easiest way to gain a visual advantage on the 360.

I completely agree. In such a case a multiplatform game could probaby have triple the memory devoted to textures, and there would be no doubt which platform has better looking games.

 

[liolio]

I just add my feel about the ps3 "cutting edge" technology and the "ps3 will shine later"
For a lot of people it looks clear that the ps3 is overall a more potent system which in raw power which is true.
But the 360 has its strenght:
UMA
more advanced GPU.
Anyway, I agree on the fact that if one dev team manage to "max out" the ps3 and the other one do the same with the 360, the ps3 is very likely to come on top.

But every time I read that ps3 will get better and better while 360 games should hit a wall in quality soon, I really think that Sony marketting was really clever during the E3 2005.

IMHO, right now with my limited knowledge, I wouldn't have a hard time deciding witch system is put to better use (no matter how many legs ones would think is left with):
It's clearly the ps3!

Look at the presentation from insomnia, naughty boys and the like!
Look R&C, Uncharted, GT prologue and the like.
Ok multipatform games are lagging (but statuquo will be here soon).
But I'm not trying to decide this on average.
And when I read what insomnia is up to... I feel like Ms is in need for "ninjas".

On MS side? Bungy for some reason don't even implement tiling!
Most of the coolest stuffs on the 360 runs on the UE III.
Rare did come with some interesting presentation, particles on the gpu, some use of the tesselators, early use of tiling. But come on where is their "technical jewel" game?

MS hopes too differentiate themselves with games running on UE III engine? Epic is willing to make money on every platform.
Ms provides good tools an "easy going" development environment, but this is not enough they need some dev teams to put theirs hands close to the metal if they want something really brilliant.

Make me think of ome Nao comments, on the games is working the rsx was lagging behing the xenos, he put his hand close to the metal... and guess what brilliant as he is he get the code to run faster on the rsx. When some ask if he also tried his best on xenos, he said so but he also said (if my memory is right) that he had no total acces to load balancing and it sounds to me like the metal was more hide to him than it was while working on RSX.
He also hinted at some clever uses of the tesselator, but didn't develop his idea because of NDA.

And I guess the situation is worse for the xenon, the chip is potentially powerful, tough to use, and from what I red... buggy (cache trashing...).
There is a lot less memory on the xenon than on cell:
1Mo of memory is shared between 6 threads / 3 cores
the latency to this memory is pretty high which must hurts even if SMT can help to hide some latency.
single thread perfs must be nothing to write home.
The only strengh is the vmx128 units, but use them efficiently (write properly vectorised code) doesn't seem that trivial and no mater what you still have to do with 1Mo of slow L2 cache.
Ms provides good profiling tools, but I'm sure that making the most out of it is not that easier than make the most out of the cell.
So far it looks like most devs have stuck to coarse-grained multi threading, and haven't put the simd units to good use. None of the 360 devs is close to trying do what insomnia tries to do with rfom II (I might be wrong... but I have a bad feeling about it).

More on topic.
Some devs have argue that rsx has its limitations in regard to xenos and some others have stated that there work around for those issues (both at gpu level or by using the cpu to help).
Anyway, I've never really understand all that rsx mystic... It's a really potent gpu, that's it no matter if it's really close to a pc part.
And by the way g70 is cleary a PC design it will be a long time before sombody manage to prove otherwise