Little things that Sony can do to upgrade the PS3?

[Josh378]

I was thinking small things that Sony can do to upgrade the system without overall massive cost...

1. FlexIO from 36.8 to 50 gb/s between CELL and RSX

2. Full 512MB of XDR-ram (or 512MB GDDR3 for RSX and 256 XDR for CELL...wishful thinking )

3. Increase XDR-RAM from 3.2 to 4.0 ghz

4. CELL GHZ increased from 3.2 to 3.6

5. RSX to go to 600ghz

Optional: 20 gig HDD with 10MB hi speed gaming cache.


Whats your thoughts on small upgrades for the PS3?

-Josh378

 

[ERP]

Whats your thoughts on small upgrades fopr the PS3?

I think they're extremly unlikely at this point...

 

[therealskywolf]

I was thinking small things that Sony can do to upgrade the system without overall massive cost...

1. FlexIO from 36.8 to 50 gb/s between CELL and RSX

2. Full 512MB of XDR-ram (or 512MB GDDR3 for RSX and 256 XDR for CELL...wishful thinking )

3. Increase XDR-RAM from 3.2 to 4.0 ghz

4. CELL GHZ increased from 3.2 to 3.6

5. RSX to go to 600ghz

Optional: 20 gig HDD with 10MB hi speed gaming cache.


Whats your thoughts on small upgrades for the PS3?

-Josh378

Aside from 4 and 5, i dont see how the rest are "Small" or "little" upgrades.

 

[Edge]

I don't think the PS3 specs are lacking, and it will be a long while for developers to reach the full potential of this machine. Be happy and satisfied with what Sony has decided upon. It's going to be an outstanding game machine.

 

[Josh378]

Whats your thoughts on small upgrades fopr the PS3?

I think they're extremly unlikely at this point...

Maybe...but I'm guessing Sony may have to cut some stuff out to make up for this?



Blu-ray off of the PS3= -$100 from the systems cost (not exact figures...just off the top of my head).

Hmm, that would have made some significant system upgrade cost...I just want tos ee how much is the PS3 costing Sony to make...

-Josh378

 

[Carl B]

I think a CPU speed boost or a RAM speed boost (maybe even the GDDR3 moreso than the XDR) are the only two from that list I would see as being feasible. 550 on the GPU already seems to be pushing things, honestly.

 

[3roxor]

What is the use of this thread (serious question)

 

[Carl B]

What is the use of this thread (serious question)

Mental excercises in speculation?

 

[Josh378]

I don't think the PS3 specs are lacking, and it will be a long while for developers to reach the full potential of this machine. Be happy and satisfied with what Sony has decided upon. It's going to be an outstanding game machine.

Yea, but I would hope that the bandwidth between CELL and the RSX would be a little bigger since this is the main point of the system's "advantage" in hardware.

I just think that 36 gb/s between the two is kinda "lacking" and I would like to see much more bandwidith, but I guess thats just me.

-Josh378

 

[seismologist]

1. Enabling the redundant SPE

I think this would be pretty easy to do if the yields are high enough.
Also increased clock speed for Cell.

 

[Guden Oden]

I just think that 36 gb/s between the two is kinda "lacking"

Damn, you must be totally unable to sleep then with the paltry 8GB/s that PCIe 16x offers in PCs then.

Frankly, the PS3 is hardly underspecced as it is, and at some point the hardware designers just have to stop and say enuff is enuff, and then lock down the specs so the thing can friggin start to get produced...

 

[Carl B]

I agree Guden, but with the speed bumps Samsung keeps bringing to GDDR I think a move to 1600 effective from 1400 isn't out of the question with their expected release window. Also a move to 3.6 on the CPU, if pre-planned with a conservative 3.2 announcement...

Anyway, hope springs eternal. 8)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

What is the use of this thread (serious question)

Mental excercises in speculation?

Yeah, we don't get enough of that.

I do think it funny that given the most powerful hardwares ever in single affordable platforms, people still manage to hope for more

 

[Edge]

> "I just think that 36 gb/s between the two is kinda "lacking" and I would like to see much more bandwidith, but I guess thats just me."

Well I have a Nvidia 6800 graphics card (the 12 pipeline version), that is very powerful in running games, and yet it's main bandwidth (22 GB/sec) to graphics memory is much lower than CELL<->RSX bandwidth. 35 GB/sec is an incredible lot of bandwidth, especially considering any data that needs to be passed from CELL's SPE's local memories do not have to be written out to XDR Dram, but can be passed directly to the RSX. That type of tight coupling is nothing you can find in the PC world, so we should see some amazing results because of that. Better vertex creation/manipulation, greater particle creation/manipulation, and greater lighting/shadowing, along with more complex physical interactions.

 

[richardpfeil]

The weakest link in the RSX is the GDDR bandwidth. It's not cheap, but the most improvement would be seen by doubling down to a full 256 bit interface, increasing bandwidth from 22GBs to 44GBs.

 

[PC-Engine]

Dropping the fugly controller would be a good start...

 

[Megadrive1988]

The weakest link in the RSX is the GDDR bandwidth. It's not cheap, but the most improvement would be seen by doubling down to a full 256 bit interface, increasing bandwidth from 22GBs to 44GBs.

agreed.

 

[Guden Oden]

Dropping the fugly controller would be a good start...

Well, who REALLY cares if it's fugly or not as long as it works well? I just want sony to drop two of the shoulder buttons and turn em into analog paddles a la every other console at the moment, existing or announced. And switch position of the left analog stick and D-pad too, thad'd be great thank you. And add two more buttons next to those already present on the front face of the controller, if they have to keep the standard game controller configuration for next generation intact.

 

[Embedded Sea]

The following things are likely to not be in the final box which will compete with MS, who knows why they announced all this crap it was likely just to counter Xbox hype:

WiFi

USB Ports

SD/CF media card slots

Second HDMI port

So yeah, like ERP said, they are going to be cutting if they are doing anything. It's just too expensive to make this sucker, especially because without Kutaragi pushing it for every device imaginable CELL is having problems getting down to a sensible cost in manufacture from all indication which will likely cause a Summer 06 Japan ship and worldwide shortages Fall 06.

 

[ralexand]

The following things are likely to not be in the final box which will compete with MS, who knows why they announced all this crap it was likely just to counter Xbox hype:

WiFi

USB Ports

SD/CF media card slots

Second HDMI port

So yeah, like ERP said, they are going to be cutting if they are doing anything. It's just too expensive to make this sucker, especially because without Kutaragi pushing it for every device imaginable CELL is having problems getting down to a sensible cost in manufacture from all indication which will likely cause a Summer 06 Japan ship and worldwide shortages Fall 06.

I see all those things making the final product. It might be more costly to drop those things and redesign.