MS: "Xbox 360 More Powerful than PS3"

[expletive]

"On balance I think most people who study the space will tell you our system is slightly more powerful then theirs from a hardware standpoint..""
'
That quote is cleverly worded. Basically he's claiming the 360 is more balanced not more powerful.

No i think hereally is claiming that, all things considered, its more powerful. This is exactly what i would expect someone from MS to say.

Theres no point in trying to analyze these statements though, its not like these off-the-cuff comments are read from a carefully prepared script with hidden meanings left for us to discover. This is simply MS firing off a PR salvo and attempting to quell the perception that the PS3 is more powerful (true or not).

 

[Hardknock]

I expect (and of course I could be way off base here ) for Xenos to have the edge in advanced shading capabilities that involve branches (such as parrellax occlusion mapping), being able to do HDR + FSAA, less bandwidth restrictions (due to EDRAM), being more flexible with more advanced shader techniques in the future (due to Memexport) and being easier to develop for.

I expect PS3 to be able to push more geometry, have better lighting due to higher precision HDR and the help of Cell, better physics, sharper textures (due to less compression needed on Blu-ray discs) and to be harder to develop for.

 

[weaksauce]

No i think hereally is claiming that, all things considered, its more powerful. This is exactly what i would expect someone from MS to say.

Hm, actually, considering all things would mean they would have to take it into account that ps3 hasn't been released yet. So there is no ps3 and 360 is just better than.. Nothing.

 

[expletive]

Hm, actually, considering all things would mean they would have to take it into account that ps3 hasn't been released yet. So there is no ps3 and 360 is just better than.. Nothing.

Well according to the quote, he's basing his comments on the 'released specs' and takes another little shot at Sony by phrasing it like "if they do hit the specs", FUD alert!

 

[ERP]

it's not just a few jaggies here or there or some shimmering, everything in the entire screen becomes unstable and even with static camera angles and geometry gigantic jags begin actively wobbling with ever greater intensity even at angles where jags shouldn't occur(straight vertical or horizontal.), and mad shimmering starts to occur. It's quite crazy, and I've always wondered what h/w peculiarity could've caused such?

That's what happens when you attempt to field render and you don't manage to maintain 60Hz.

 

[weaksauce]

Well according to the quote, he's basing his comments on the 'released specs' and takes another little shot at Sony by phrasing it like "if they do hit the specs", FUD alert!

Yeah about those released specs.. Does anybody know if the specs written on wikipedia.com are accurate? Like Xenos only having 2 shader operations per clock per cycle. If they're not, is it because the writer is uniformed or is there another reason for it?

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360#Graphics_processing_unit )

 

[Fox5]

""With Sony if they do hit the specs which they've said they'll have there's a debate, there's a couple of categories where they outdo us, there's several categories where we outdo them. On balance I think most people who study the space will tell you our system is slightly more powerful then theirs from a hardware standpoint.."


Source of Article

Objectively speaking, is Microsoft right? Is there somethings PS3 does better and some things Xbox 360 does better?

On a gpu to gpu comparison I'd say microsoft probably has the advantage slightly (due to its shadng ability)... it remains to be seen what cell can do for graphics that the x360 cpu can/can't.

 

[aldo]

"With Sony if they do hit the specs which they've said they'll have there's a debate, there's a couple of categories where they outdo us, there's several categories where we outdo them. On balance I think most people who study the space will tell you our system is slightly more powerful then theirs from a hardware standpoint.."

Pure conjecture. And based on the "their both Ferraris" comment he is just repeating what others from MS have stated when trying to intimate that the X360 approximates the power of the PS3 and then his "they outdo on a couple, we outdo on several" is most likely in reference to the suspect MS comparison of specs supplied to IGN.

If we are going by info from MS and Sony execs, I think it's should be noted that Allard and Gates have intentionally avoided stating that the X360 is more powerful than the PS3 and tended to steer interviews toward the advantages of Xbox Live, while Kataragi has been very open in stating that the PS3 is much, much more powerful than the X360.

My take is that both Sony and MS are taking their stances on the concept that whoever releases their console last typically has the more powerful technology. MS is crossing their fingers and hoping Sony wasn't able to gain too much of an advantage, if any. And Sony is making strong boasts because it has to maintain buyers interest for a few more months.

Which is more powerful? Perhaps only a handful of developers and some Sony techs who have had enough time to evaluate a retail version of the X360 know the answer to this.

-aldo

 

[scooby_dooby]

It remains to be seen how bandwidth limited PS3 becomes with only a 128bit bus.

This seems to me to be a huge achilles heel for PS3, as important as the small 10mb of EDRAM, however it almost never gets discussed.

Once dev's start using good tiling engines, doesn't Xenos have MUCH more internal bandwidth than PS3's 128-bit G70 varient?

 

[kyleb]

Yeah about those released specs.. Does anybody know if the specs written on wikipedia.com are accurate? Like Xenos only having 2 shader operations per clock per cycle. If they're not, is it because the writer is uniformed or is there another reason for it?

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360#Graphics_processing_unit )

I think you missread the link:

2 Shader operations per [/b]pipe[/b] per cycle

 

[weaksauce]

I think you missread the link:

Actually wrote what I remembered but yeah i ment pipe.

And scooby, xenos also has a 128-bit bandwidth.

But could anyone take a look at the wiki specs?

 

[scooby_dooby]

Actually wrote what I remembered but yeah i ment pipe.

And scooby, xenos also has a 128-bit bandwidth.

But could anyone take a look at the wiki specs?

sure, but Xenos has EDRAM which if used properly can negate the problems of a 128bit bus. It provides it with 256gb/s internally, and 32gb/s to the daughter die.

Doesn't that mean that when efficient tiling engines are in place that Xenos will have a signifigant advantage in available bandwith?

 

[Phil]

Of course there's info, we know lots of things about the RSX. Namely that it will only have a 128bit bus, and doesn't seem to do much more than an overclocked G70 according to the theoretical peaks.

Only a 128bit bus? And that miraculously equates to what conclusion?

 

[kyleb]

Actually wrote what I remembered but yeah i ment pipe.

And scooby, xenos also has a 128-bit bandwidth.

But could anyone take a look at the wiki specs?

Well 2 per pipe and 48 pipes makes for 96 shaders per clock and that is a number I have heard tossed around a lot. Dave's article here goes into much more detail on the specs than your wiki link and from what I understand you can't rightly count pipes on the Xenos, but all of that is really over my head.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Only a 128bit bus? And that miraculously equates to what conclusion?

That the PS3 could potentially be bandwidth limited in comparison to Xenos, since it has no EDRAM to offer more effective bandwidth, and even current gen games (like Splinter Cell or FarCry) have show large >30% drops when halving the bus speed on a G70.

Why do we basially ignore this obvious weakspot for the RSX? We discuss al day long the disadvantages of using EDRAM, causing launch games to be sub-par due to the need for tiling that wasn't implemented. But how about the flip side? When tiling is implemented, well and efficiently what then?

If you want to talk real world advantages, and honestly compare the machines, you HAVE to talk about about potential bandwidth limitations on both GPU's. That advantage it seems to me, in real world scenarios, goes to Xenos hands down with the right game engine.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

That the PS3 could potentially be bandwidth limited in comparison to Xenos, since it has no EDRAM to offer more effective bandwidth, and even current gen games (like Splinter Cell or FarCry) have show large >30% drops when halving the bus speed on a G70.

As far as I know, there's also a FlexIO bus between the GPU and Cell, which could allow RSX to fetch data from the main memory as well. This would increase the total bandwith to ~40-45GB/sec, but I'm not sure how much of that could effectively be used by the GPU, or how you could split your memory accesses in two. I wouldn't really expect first gen games to make much use of this feature though.

Also, this unique architecture could allow for some rather non-traditional rendering approaches, like deferred rendering with Cell and RSX working together, and so on. Although I don't have a clue if it's practical to implement as well, but the option will be there. And PS2 also had some possibilities like this, but we haven't seen anything too different on it either...

 

[Phil]

That the PS3 could potentially be bandwidth limited in comparison to Xenos, since it has no EDRAM to offer more effective bandwidth, and even current gen games (like Splinter Cell or FarCry) have show large >30% drops when halving the bus speed on a G70.

So in other words, your conslusion on RSX is based on how PC games - which we all know how optimized they are - perform on a GPU that we may or may not be all that similar?

Why do we basially ignore this obvious weakspot for the RSX? We discuss al day long the disadvantages of using EDRAM, causing launch games to be sub-par due to the need for tiling that wasn't implemented.

Maybe, just maybe because we might know more about Xenos than we do about RSX? No oh no, that can't be it... silly me.

If you want to talk real world advantages, and honestly compare the machines, you HAVE to talk about about potential bandwidth limitations on both GPU's. That advantage it seems to me, in real world scenarios, goes to Xenos hands down with the right game engine.

So you're concluding that in "real world scenarios" (what ever that means anyway), some advantage goes "hands down" to Xenos... based on what again? I suppose I missed that step by step analysis by you outlining the relevant and definite facts and "real world scenarios" that show that even 10% of what you've typed out above holds any substantial weight in regards to a comparasion with something that we basically know nothing about?

 

[Laa-Yosh]

So in other words, you're concluding all that is known about RSX on how PC games - which we all know how optimized they are - perform on a GPU that we may or may not be all that similar?

Data and bandwith are the same on every system. If the RSX has no internal memory, that it has to work with an external frame buffer, through its main bus, and thus its capabilities will depend on the available bandwith. I don't see why we couldn't draw conclusions from the available specifications...

 

[expletive]

So you're concluding that in "real world scenarios" (what ever that means anyway), some advantage goes "hands down" to Xenos... based on what again? I suppose I missed that step by step analysis by you outlining the relevant and definite facts and "real world scenarios" that show that even 10% of what you've typed out above holds any substantial weight in regards to a comparasion with something that we basically know nothing about?

To be fair though, ALL the comparisons done to this point on ANY of the hardware between these two consoles is void of real world comparisons because one exists and one doesnt. If youre going to say we cant make assumptions on the tech based on specs and desgin then we may as well delete 70% of the console forum. Obviously none of us can be sure but we cant hypothesize until then?

People regularly made the assumption that the Cell has a hands-down advantage way before a production Xenon was ever available too, this is just how forums work...

 

[ROG27]

The Irony of this Generation...

is that, regardless of what the hypethetical performance is, what Sony has shown thus far (real-time) seems to be far ahead of the curve of what Microsoft currently has to offer. This seemed to be flip-flopped last generation, as is to be expected. Simply enough, one of the best indicators of a competing platform's performance/power is the date which it hits the streets. Some might argue this logic...but let's be serious here. If something comes out 6 months to a year after something else, it's going to have a clear technological advantage.

Again, a console is a price/performance trade-off piece of machinery. Sony is opting for the higher-end this time around. Microsoft had to make trade-offs to get their system out the door on time.