What I find weird (in the UK anyway) is the latest PS4 advert says (something like) 'the worlds most powerful console just got upgraded' - so I'm thinking, ooohhh...a Pro advert - then it continues...'now smaller...' at which point I lose interest because they're talking about PS4 slim
Middle Generation Console Upgrade Discussion [Scorpio, 4Pro]
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Tkumpathenurpahl
Veteran
Yeah, there's some silly marketing going on with the PS4 and the Pro. Why market the Pro as the world's most powerful console when the PS4 is the second most powerful?
I'm gonna wait 3 more years
I'm so desperate for a 65" FreeSync, OLED 144Hz 4K set with near 0 input lag, I recognize that's it may be unreasonable, but man, once you see the frames its hard to go back.
I went from 120fps on my Gsync monitor playing OW down to 30fps destiny on my xbox, honestly, it was the most jarring thing ever. My eyes had adapted to the super high refresh and it made destiny feel like I was playing through some sort of slide show. really awkward for 5 minutes of play until my eyes adjusted again.
Eh , I was at my buddies house and he just got a 32 inch 21:9 freesync panel and I am in love . I am waiting to be able to grab one for about $250 and I am in. My 1080p 50 inch tv is fine. I rarely play console games anymore . I will buy a 4k when I can get it for $200 like I got this 50 inch
Is Carrizo (well really updated Stoney Ridge for 16nm) that much better than Jaguar? I think at the same clock, the IPC is maybe 10% better, the difference was Cat cores couldnt clock very high. Not sure that will matter in a console TDP though
Well, the Carrizo L based APUs actually use puma+ cores. When AMD transition to Stoney Ridge they replaced some of the low power puma+ based quads with dual core excavator+ based apus.
Basically AMD sacrificed multithreaded performance for singlethreaded performance allowed by the higher clocks and IPC of the excavator+ cores.
http://wccftech.com/amds-stoney-ridge-performance-market-positioning-detailed/
If Scorpio is an 8 core excavator+ based apu it might offer a significant improvement over Durango in terms of CPU performance. But there are questions if 8 excavator+ cores are feasible in an apu design and how high could you clock the cpus.
wasn't today the day when AMD are going to show their new line-up of CPUs and GPUs for 2017? I heard it somewhere...iirc
EDIT: found this, seems real.
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Yeah i just read the Anandtech article about it, AMD got some decent improvement in perf/watt by tweaking the design at 28nm bulk CMOS and using adaptive voltage frequency, Bristol/Stoney clocks as high as 3,7 GHz compared to 3,4 GHz for "big" Carrizo at the same 35 watt draw. I guess retooling the cpu for 16nm finfet might improve power draw by quite a bit. But as you say even then we are talking about 8 of these cores in an APU design
It is real, but they didn't talk anything about Zen at that point, and they mentioned PS4, PS4 Slim, PS4 Pro, Xbox One and Xbox One S too.
It's around this mark:
edit: seems you can't embed to a certain time, jump to 19:35 or so
So 8 core 16 thread Zen at 90w for 3.4ghz.
Depending on how well it can scale down in voltage at different core clocks we could see a 2.5ghz 8 core 16 thread chip in Scorpio. Even going all the way down to PS4 Pro clocks at 2.1ghz MS would have a much more powerfull chip than the jaguar in the ps4pro.
Also factor in that the zen demoed today isn't even the final chips being sold in Q1 and MS would have a few more quarters of production and tweaking before it and I can really see Zen making it into scorpio
Depending on how well it can scale down in voltage at different core clocks we could see a 2.5ghz 8 core 16 thread chip in Scorpio. Even going all the way down to PS4 Pro clocks at 2.1ghz MS would have a much more powerfull chip than the jaguar in the ps4pro.
Also factor in that the zen demoed today isn't even the final chips being sold in Q1 and MS would have a few more quarters of production and tweaking before it and I can really see Zen making it into scorpio
I'm still not convinced, either way.
they could run at sub 2ghz and be faster than 4pro, same speed as x1 even.
Current games that use a job dispatcher type design would easily stop having cpu limited situations.
could get rid of all the sensors, power boost etc, have it running at fixed clock and voltage. Loose lots of benefits of zen, but not as important in console space.
"I talked about our Zen roadmap for our products, in terms of desktops, servers and notebooks, but one should expect Zen in our semi-custom roadmap as well as we look beyond 2017 into the 18/19 timeframe, and so we really do view this as developing foundational IP that can go into a number of different markets and we have good prospects in those areas."
Thats a direct quote from Lisa Su at an investors call with Credit Suisse. So unless Scorpio is a traditional PC with a mobo then Zen is not happening
Thats a direct quote from Lisa Su at an investors call with Credit Suisse. So unless Scorpio is a traditional PC with a mobo then Zen is not happening
Megadrive1988
Veteran
Thanks for posting that.
So, Scorpio launches late 2017, will not use Zen.
Zen will enter semi-custom roadmap sometime in the 2018-2019 timeframe.
Most expect the full successors to PS4/XB1 in the 2019 / 2020 timeframe (I'm betting 2020) so PS5 and whatever Xbox Microsoft has to rival PS5, will no doubt use Zen
After watching the zen presser, it did get me thinking.
Next year going to have a jump in cpu power.
Scorpio isn't just an upgraded x1. It's a machine that straddles generations.
So therefore it needs to be able to support games well into the release of the next machine/gen imo.
GPU seems to be enough to do that. Even if the games won't look great, but will a jaguar cpu be able to at that point?
Maybe Scorpio is same family as X1 but Scorpio 2 isn't, but has full bc?
So x1 & Scorpio won't play Scorpio 2 games, or will be allowed to have Scorpio 2 only games.
I think the only statements made was about Scorpio (same family), and only statements referring to after scorpio is taking library with you. Which bc is.
Sure there's smarter ways to use cpu, but by that time the delta between the new console and pc, could be to big, to limiting.
Next year going to have a jump in cpu power.
Scorpio isn't just an upgraded x1. It's a machine that straddles generations.
So therefore it needs to be able to support games well into the release of the next machine/gen imo.
GPU seems to be enough to do that. Even if the games won't look great, but will a jaguar cpu be able to at that point?
Maybe Scorpio is same family as X1 but Scorpio 2 isn't, but has full bc?
So x1 & Scorpio won't play Scorpio 2 games, or will be allowed to have Scorpio 2 only games.
I think the only statements made was about Scorpio (same family), and only statements referring to after scorpio is taking library with you. Which bc is.
Sure there's smarter ways to use cpu, but by that time the delta between the new console and pc, could be to big, to limiting.
I dont think it will be using Jaguar. Thats why i was speculating about Excavator+ since AMD is replacing the Jaguar cores with Excavator+ (Stoney Ridge) for their low power products. Its most likely their budget solution or stop gap solution until Zen comes for notebooks late 2017
With the PS4 Pro GPU they were adding features from Polaris and Vega, and the speculation discussion was a bit off-track thinking it would be being either the old arch, or entirely polaris, and couldn't be vega because it wasn't ready. It ended up a mix of old/new plus custom features.
For Scorpio, could a similar thing happen on the CPU side? Could they add important features from the new Zen architecture without actually putting the complete Zen part? Or is a CPU arch so intricately connected and balanced together that it would be all or nothing?
For Scorpio, could a similar thing happen on the CPU side? Could they add important features from the new Zen architecture without actually putting the complete Zen part? Or is a CPU arch so intricately connected and balanced together that it would be all or nothing?
There are certain limited ways where tweaks can happen. For example, ARM has a new license where they will adjust certain parameters. CPUs do have revisions and derivatives built as well, but their lead times are hidden by having their development periods pipelined with the release of current products.
Adding new features is harder since complex and higher-performance cores are very tightly integrated with design hooks and trade-offs all through the pipeline, and the payoff in the CPU space is generally not major. Notably, the CPU space is much less forgiving of mistakes as well.
GPUs are internally much more fragmented, and the more I see of them the more I wonder just how fragmented they are. Various portions are really independent cores, and even the "cores" might be more like semi-independent pipelines. There's more room for tweaking because the demands (implementation, validation, architectural consistency, etc.) are lower, the upside to specialized features can be higher, and it seems like more of the GPU is really not tightly linked once you dig below the surface.
or unless MS doesn't want her spilling the beans because if AMD said hey we have a semi custom zen chip coming in 2017 everyone will know its MS
Also, if that quote above is exact, and I have seen it worded that way in multiple points, then it doesn't say what people claim it says. That does not specifically say that there is no SOC for 2017. In fact, given the way it is worded I would take that statement as more evidence for Zen in Scorpio and not proof that it isn't.
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