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I don't think the 3 GB is limited to the OS. The main app (games) will be given 5 GB and the OS and other apps will have access to the other 3 GB, which should be plenty and allow room for growth. MS seems to want to expand the level of concurrent processing on a console, which means increasing the level of contention for resources. The more apps that reside in RAM means the HDD spends less resources trying to load apps into memory during gaming.
@Grall
I don't know who the hell suggest the 4GB increase and I don't believe it but I have spent the last two pages waiting for someone to confirm if increasing memory amount but no memory bandwidth would be a good thing to do and would not reduce the percentage of accessible memory.
I think that it's not the case but I am not sure so if ANYONE can answer me once and for all please do it.
I don't care if I am wrong just give me quick answer/death.
I don't know who the hell suggest the 4GB increase and I don't believe it but I have spent the last two pages waiting for someone to confirm if increasing memory amount but no memory bandwidth would be a good thing to do and would not reduce the percentage of accessible memory.
I think that it's not the case but I am not sure so if ANYONE can answer me once and for all please do it.
I don't care if I am wrong just give me quick answer/death.
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You can accommodate that gap with streaming off the HDD. And you can bet that most devs of third party titles wont make full use of the PS4 memory capacity if it means porting to Durango will be difficult. Simply trying to one up your competitor on every spec is kind of useless when devs will target the lesser denominator.
Adding ram will never hurt your performance. Even if they only used the extra ram as a cache. What matters is whether the gain is worth the cost.
I'm sure they did as well, but prices are not static or necessarily certain. The benefit analysis could also have changed.
Sure, sure but MS must have drawn a line somewhere.
At one point they must have have decided that the specs where "right" cost/benefits wise.
MS must have decided that more ram or higher clock rate weren't worth the cost and most likely it happened before the PS4 unveil.
At one point they must have have decided that the specs where "right" cost/benefits wise.
MS must have decided that more ram or higher clock rate weren't worth the cost and most likely it happened before the PS4 unveil.
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So there are now noise about MSFT lessening it always online requirements, that is quiet a good news imo.
Though I think that the device is still to require an internet connection, there were those rumors/leaks that stated that when the connection is lost the network troubleshooter were as fired after 3 minutes, I would think that MSFT may have greatly extend that delay though I would be surprised if Online is no longer required.
Did they move to a couples of hours, or users right are checked on a daily basis, or even longer?
I could think that 6 hours is a lot already and should cover for most infrastructure lacking (/network failures) in most places in Occident.
Though I think that the device is still to require an internet connection, there were those rumors/leaks that stated that when the connection is lost the network troubleshooter were as fired after 3 minutes, I would think that MSFT may have greatly extend that delay though I would be surprised if Online is no longer required.
Did they move to a couples of hours, or users right are checked on a daily basis, or even longer?
I could think that 6 hours is a lot already and should cover for most infrastructure lacking (/network failures) in most places in Occident.
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There aren't just two platforms for these games now, but three, and PC has multiple specs targets. If devs are already going to create low, middle, and high tier graphics for the PC and port the game to consoles, they will surely also pick the best assets for the consoles. If Durango has 5 GBs available and PS4 has 7.5, that should be easy to accommodate from the appropriate PC resources at little extra cost. I would absolutely expect any 3rd party game with a PC version to show asset differences between platforms, thanks to better scaling middleware and simplicity of the new machines, unlike the old 'lowest common denominator' mantra of previous consoles.
I'm talking about the 8 chips of 8Gbits versus 16 chips of 4Gbits. I'm saying MS would use the least expensive option, all else being equal (whatever can do 8GB 256bit at 2133). Nintendo's choice is a hint that using 4Gb chips is probably less expensive than 8Gb.
There's no suitable 2133 8Gbits in production. This has nothing to do with JEDEC standard. If they can't even make them at 2133 what makes you think they can clock them above 2133? It's not logical. They're not even sampling.
No, these are very small chips, very narrow bus per chip, it spreads the heat. Small chips are easier to bin aggressively.
They are also overvolted to 1.65... so it would be my #4 option, except for the fact that they are not the 32bit wide 8Gbits 2133 we're looking for (which would be #2).
I'll add option #7, which would be a 2400 with an 1.65v overvolting with 4Gb chips, and an extreme heatsink. (heat, cost, ram validation issues)
I think you are forgetting about good ole console politics. I can see devs making use of the 7-7.5 gigs of RAM on the PS4 but I think they will be extra motivated to find some solution that accommodates Durango in an effort to maintain a perceived parity between the two techs.
That's based on a reality where overall performance difference isn't huge. There is also a reality where both fall into middle or low category versus PC gaming and devs see no point of accommodating one over the other. The moment gpus start employing stack dram is the moment both products will have pretty crappy bandwidth.
Well, I can't speak for any developer executives who make such calls, but from my perspective, I can see why that was does this gen due to costs in developing two different versions, but when those costs look to be pretty much nil next-gen if rumours are to be believed, I expect competition on the platform with rival games to push tech forwards as it has done before. Platform parity isn't the big thing publishers think it is, IMO. Plenty of games this gen have had ports that didn't perform as well and yet that haven't fared obviously worse as a result AFAICS, although I'm not looking at specific numbers so maybe it's played out. But things like FIFA which reportedly run much better on 360 still sell just as well on PS3, and why wouldn't they? If you own a PS3, you aren't likely to snub a favoured franchise because a different machine plays it better, which is something you're probably unaware of anyway. Likewise, you don't want your football game to be tied to a 2/3rds spec when your rivals are utilising the full range of the machine and looking better for it.
No, next gen it'll be a case of one game compiled for three or more flavours of x86 'PC' on some middleware nine games out of ten. The cost of improving your game one one console will be very little when you already have the best version on PC (the PC version may top out at the best the upper console can do with added special FX and IQ, in cheaper games). The less powerful console will have a worse framerate and worse AA and whatnot, and if there's a significant shortcoming in available RAM, inferior textures and such. But not enough that Joe Public will care. I also question if MS will want to redress the RAM imbalance. It would appear that PS4's 8 GBs took everyone by surprise, and MS may have expected a RAM advantage as a key feature which is a rug pulled out from under them. Is it worth scrambling to some alternative solution, or just pushing forwards with your business plan and maybe gunning for a cost advantage? Some years ago MS looked at this gen, 8 years on from XB360, and decided 1.2TF GPU and 8 GBs RAM and 170 GB/s BW was what they wanted to produce. They could have gone way more on any feature, but their business plan selected this box over a monster machine at massive price or loss, or throw-away 360 x2 at $200, or IBM designed console with PVR graphics and inbuilt projector. Whatever decisions they make have to be in respect of that plan. A knee-jerk reaction throwing in ill-considered cost and risks for unevaluated gains would be crappy business. If they strategy relied heavily on a RAM advantage over the opposition, Ms deserve whatever issues they now face in trying to patch together a better gameplan.
Well let see first what are the compared price of the systems, it is not like 8GB of GDDR5 is really sane as far as BOM is concerned. That is quite a Fu***g aggressive move from SOny / possibly knee jerk as lack of RAM could prove more bothering than lack of horse power.
MSFT can play on clock speed if they feel they have too but they can also play on price (another way to swallow extra costs), Sony doesn't seem to have much room here, GDDR5 is expensive I've read a lot of people in the thread dedicated about either the BOM of the next gen system or Orbis expect Sony to have crazy rebate on GDDR5 (vs what AMD or Nvidia pays) and that is imo massive wishful thinking. I'm still not convince that to go to that far was a good decision (from Sony), I think the system may launch @499$ but the price won't go down anytime soon imo.
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TBH, RAM doesn't dissipate a lot of power at all, even when overvolted. You can be sure though that MS wouldn't actually want to do that (as in no way ever, in hell kind of sure), because pushing RAM beyond its limits can cause all kinds of dodgyness and weird unreproduceable bugs, crashes and so on due to random data corruption and shit like that and you REALLY don't want the slightest chance of that happening. Especially in your development systems, because seriously, how are you to hunt down a crashbug which might or might not be caused by the hardware itself...? It's madness, absolute madness to think MS would risk something like that for only a very minor speed bump. It's fanboy silly-willy-nilly madness!
Then there is the issue about how much the memory controller can suck out the RAM:
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/892-1/ivy-bridge-ma-moire-ddr3.html
Ivy bridge gains next to nothing (GPU or CPU) by going from 2133 to 2400 or above, I would suspect the same would applies to an AMD chip.
+10% or more in cost for a couples of % in perfs => not worse the expense.
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/892-1/ivy-bridge-ma-moire-ddr3.htm
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As for upping the quantity of RAM that sounds like a lot of bull.. to me. 8 GB is plenty and it is not like either Windows 8 or windows RT needs Gigs and gigs of memory to run fine => Msft is more likely to lower the amount of RAM reserved for the OS than to add extra GB of RAM (which price is not really set to change fast).
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/892-1/ivy-bridge-ma-moire-ddr3.html
Ivy bridge gains next to nothing (GPU or CPU) by going from 2133 to 2400 or above, I would suspect the same would applies to an AMD chip.
+10% or more in cost for a couples of % in perfs => not worse the expense.
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/892-1/ivy-bridge-ma-moire-ddr3.htm
EDIT
As for upping the quantity of RAM that sounds like a lot of bull.. to me. 8 GB is plenty and it is not like either Windows 8 or windows RT needs Gigs and gigs of memory to run fine => Msft is more likely to lower the amount of RAM reserved for the OS than to add extra GB of RAM (which price is not really set to change fast).
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Okay, maybe just a normal heatsink 
...
But a PC has usually 4 DIMMs of 16 chips for 256bit, and it still need heat spreaders and good airflow at 2133+ 1.65v. Here we're talking about the same amount of power into 16 chips instead of 64, that's a hypothetical four times more heat per chip, I'm guessing that would need a good heatsink. Imagine if Durango uses 32bit ram chips, it's 8 times hotter chips.
... But a PC has usually 4 DIMMs of 16 chips for 256bit, and it still need heat spreaders and good airflow at 2133+ 1.65v. Here we're talking about the same amount of power into 16 chips instead of 64, that's a hypothetical four times more heat per chip, I'm guessing that would need a good heatsink. Imagine if Durango uses 32bit ram chips, it's 8 times hotter chips.
I agree with you for the most part. I didn't account for the reality where perceived parity amongst general consumers allows for a much larger gap disparity than here on B3D. So I think the difference between ports will be readily apparent here but maybe not so much for the mainstream. I think you and others will see a IQ difference in native resolution, texture resolution and AA. Fortunately I'm blessed with general consumer eyes (LOL, you guys have it so hard being cursed with such acute opticals).
One point of contention. Publishers don't hold PC games in any high regards. You do have guys like CryTek but they are few and far in between. PC games benefit from their vastly more powerful hardware where IQ improvements over consoles is a relatively cheap endeavor. PC game revenue doesn't compare to the combined revenue of generated by PS360.
I think Sony blindly increased RAM without real concern of why MS went with 8 GBs. There is no reason in a reality where aggressively minimizing the OS footprint is an upmost priority for both parties that MS should have an bigger OS memory footprint. I think MS's 3 GB reservation is there to allow concurrent servicing of multiple users with multiple apps. A device won't really do a good job at being the center of your home entertainment if its feature set become greatly constrained when a full retail game is launched. 0.5-1 GB of RAM isn't that accommodating and is more applicable to a single user device versus one that services multiple users. MS has already demonstrated the ability to be more feature rich with a smaller OS memory footprint. What happens when they have a 3X-6X advantage in available memory to employ outside of the main game app? MS has the potential to radically differentiate its feature set in this area.
Also, the leaked documents make reference to a MLC storage and SLC cache so maybe MS plans to use SSHD or some derivative to allow for faster data transfer which would make for a more robust streaming solution. MS knows stacked RAM is around the corner so I do think MS has accounted for that in their design.
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Nah. Most of the watts burnt most likely goes into signalling between the RAM IC and the memory controller. So you need heatsinks and airflow BECAUSE you have 64 chips sitting there sucking down power...
GDDR5 chips which are multiples faster and use a lot more power per chip (due to the high signalling rate) don't even need heatsinks really. Titan graphics cards have no heatsinks or even spreaders on the rear side of the board, and those chips run at 6Gbps rate.
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