Middle Generation Console Upgrade Discussion [Scorpio, 4Pro]

[Anarchist4000]

That's not an APU, though. See comments in the response I made to @Anarchist4000.

Not an APU, but the upcoming Zen/Vega APUs are in theory MCMs. So a 4/8 core Zen alongside Vega and HBM on an interposer. The size is ultimately how much chip can fit on the interposer and be cooled. Bigger chips at more conservative voltages could hit that target. The upcoming Project Quantum AMD has been toying with is allegedly Zen + dual Vega in a 9.5 in square case and water cooled. That would make one heck of a console. The big HPC Zen was allegedly 16 cores with a GPU attached and not exactly cheap.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That's not an APU, though. See comments in the response I made to @Anarchist4000.

I know it's not; it's bonkers dual GPUs. Point being, there are high-end laptops, and there may be reason to think a potent APU has a place in laptops rather than discrete CPU and GPU. You said AMD wouldn't introduce something that'd threaten their core GPU business - a laptop specific APU doesn't strike me as threatening their GPU business. Not that I see something with that much power draw being that sought after, but lower clocked/binned perhaps?

 

[mrcorbo]

I know it's not; it's bonkers dual GPUs. Point being, there are high-end laptops, and there may be reason to think a potent APU has a place in laptops rather than discrete CPU and GPU. You said AMD wouldn't introduce something that'd threaten their core GPU business - a laptop specific APU doesn't strike me as threatening their GPU business. Not that I see something with that much power draw being that sought after, but lower clocked/binned perhaps?

As per the post I mentioned if you design a laptop around an APU with that configuration you are pretty much creating a design that is only good for that specific configuration and then you are also buying components that can only work in that design. I think the flexibility gained by having separate parts is valuable once you start hitting higher component costs and higher price points.

 

[mrcorbo]

As per the post I mentioned if you design a laptop around an APU with that configuration you are pretty much creating a design that is only good for that specific configuration and then you are also buying components that can only work in that design. I think the flexibility gained by having separate parts is valuable once you start hitting higher component costs and higher price points.

OT: A product I think would be interesting is for AMD to create a reference design for a Thunderbolt 3 dock that integrated a Polaris 10 GPU (and maybe even Vega down the line) along with all of the ports necessary to turn a laptop/tablet into a gaming PC via a single cable (that also powered/charged the device). I think improving on the existing external GPU solutions on the market in this way would make them more appealing to more people and would lower the overall cost to both make and buy them.

 

[RobertR1]

When do you think we'll see the first ever uncompressed pixel in action?

 

[mrcorbo]

When do you think we'll see the first ever uncompressed pixel in action?

E3 2017?

 

[dobwal]

That's not an APU, though. See comments in the response I made to @Anarchist4000.

An APU is a term whose definition is determined by AMD. It is their nomenclature so if they include MCM designs under APU moniker its their prerogative. Plus, the rumors include AMD using MCM to scale beyond 8 Zen cores for any chip (8 zen cores per die) regardless of whether or not it sports an IGP.

It's not like Intel hasn't done anything similar with their "dual-core" pentium Ds in a time not long ago.

 

[mrcorbo]

An APU is a term whose definition is determined by AMD. It is their nomenclature so if they include MCM designs under APU moniker its their prerogative. Plus, the rumors include AMD using MCM to scale beyond 8 Zen cores for any chip (8 zen cores per die) regardless of whether or not it sports an IGP.

It's not like Intel hasn't done anything similar with their "dual-core" pentium Ds in a time not long ago.

It would have helped if you had followed the conversation back a bit to see what my quote was responding to. If you want to argue that *that* could be considered an APU, I'll be happy to engage.

 

[Rangers]

E3 2017?

Duh. That will be Scorpio's coming out party for the fall release.

 

[dobwal]

It would have helped if you had followed the conversation back a bit to see what my quote was responding to. If you want to argue that *that* could be considered an APU, I'll be happy to engage.

My bad. LOL.

I would assert that the reason you don't see apu on the level of the ps4 or Xbox one is not about AMD not wanting to cannibalize their their product line but rather the fact that their APUs have been paired with pretty anemic CPUs.

Gaming wise, AMD readily outshines Intel offerings, but with cpu performance its the exact opposite, even with Carrizo. So what's the point of upping flops on the gpu side? Zen is suppose to correct that issue so it might be more favorable for them to up the gpu performance now and offer more enthusiast level chips.

 

[mrcorbo]

Duh. That will be Scorpio's coming out party for the fall release.

I'm confused. Do you think that wasn't the reason I responded with "E3 2017" when @RobertR1 asked , "When we will first see "uncompressed pixels"? Or should I not have responded because it was so self-evident or ???

 

[AlNom]

Does @RobertR1 have to go beyond Pro-state to experience it?

 

[RobertR1]

Does @RobertR1 have to go beyond Pro-state to experience it?

If you ask RobertR1's other half, he's already working towards Pro+

 

[mrcorbo]

Does @RobertR1 have to go beyond Pro-state to experience it?

I have an e-mail from a Canadian pharmacy with Beyond Prostate in the subject. Is this something I should look into if I want to properly appreciate Scorpio's visuals?

 

[milk]

You gotta check your pro-state if you don't want problems with your xbox scropio.

 

[function]

Plus, the rumors include AMD using MCM to scale beyond 8 Zen cores for any chip (8 zen cores per die) regardless of whether or not it sports an IGP.

I thought they were doing up to 16 cores / 4 memory channels per die for server Zen, with dual die for 32 core packages? Or am I behind on my rumours?

I have an e-mail from a Canadian pharmacy with Beyond Prostate in the subject. Is this something I should look into if I want to properly appreciate Scorpio's visuals?

Don't think it's something you can really "look into" ... more something where you have to go by feel.

 

[Rangers]

Not sure if it was discussed here, Phil talked Scorpio price

http://www.winbeta.org/news/microsoft-phil-spencer-project-scorpio

“So you can see the price of the S today. When we designed both of these, which we kind of designed it in parallel. We thought about the price performance of what we wanted to hit with the Scorpio, relative to what we were going to be able to do with the S. So that we would have a good price continuum, so people wouldn’t look at these two things as so disconnected because of the price delta,” Spencer explains. “So I think you will feel like it’s a premium product, a premium console. And not something, anything more than that.So I wouldn’t get people worried that this thing is going to be unlike any console price you’ve ever seen. We didn’t design it that way. That said, the opening price point for the Xbox One S, and the different hard drive sizes that is a critical part of this whole product. When I think about it as a product line, you should expect the pricing to kind of be in line with that.”

Sound like 399 or at most 499 to me. Maybe 449 as well.

While incredibly likely that Project Scorpio, like the Xbox One S, will have a 4K physical disk drive, Phil Spencer is quick to state that that hasn’t been confirmed yet. “We’ve seen great adoption of it with the S. People seem to like it, but those kinds of decisions aren’t the decisions that we announced at E3,” he clarifies. “That’s not a push-back, I’m just saying those are the kind of decisions that can kind of bind later, what the drive is. But it has been really great to see how people have responded to the S, and it seems like we would want to continue to ride that option.”

Sounds expensive and useless, so I'm sure it will be demanded as a non negotiable on forums.

That said might as well I guess. Soon enough you may as well drop the drive altogether, and I would assume 4k drives will drop to parity or lower to non 4k eventually.

Better yet charge an extra 50 for the UHD drive SKU nobody can buy it because nobody wants it. Nobody should be able to complain then...

 

[Nisaaru]

With 4k game content they definitely need a new Bluray drive. A lot games now are close to 50GB and if they mean 4k serious you can expect 100GB+ content and not everybody has VDSL or similar connections.

 

[Esrever]

Feels like games are getting bigger for no reason and developers aren't even trying to keep the size down these days. Even simple indie games are like multiple gigabytes. I am sure they can compress at least some of that stuff and remove some of the unused assets.

 

[eastmen]

With 4k game content they definitely need a new Bluray drive. A lot games now are close to 50GB and if they mean 4k serious you can expect 100GB+ content and not everybody has VDSL or similar connections.

I doubt bluray is going to be enough. Gears 4 on pc is 80gigs . A 6tflop machine targeting 4k and having 12 gigs of ram is going to need even more room

They just need to get rid of optical all together

Feels like games are getting bigger for no reason and developers aren't even trying to keep the size down these days. Even simple indie games are like multiple gigabytes. I am sure they can compress at least some of that stuff and remove some of the unused assets.

high quality textures take room , textures for 4k content will be bigger than those for 1080p