News & Rumors: Xbox One (codename Durango)

[bbot]

Not sure if I should this.

But someone on neogaf is claiming that Durango had 8GB of GDDR5 RAM from the start.

It's a post by a "mistercream" on a Semiaccurate forum. He/she posted links to neogaf:

http://semiaccurate.com/forums/showpost.php?p=182588&postcount=528

Maybe we could discuss why GDDR5 RAM is impossible for Durango.

 

[Xenus]

It isn't impossible it just invalidates the reason for the ESRAM to exist in the first place.

 

[McHuj]

It wouldn't invalidate it if the GDDR5 was on a 128-bit bus instead of 256-bit one. You'd still have the equivalent of a Cape Verde BW ~72 GB. Just because it would be GDDR5 doesn't mean that the overall bandwidth would be huge.

You can't just swap out memory, the chip would need a new memory controller so it would be a major redesign, but if the bandwidth was in the 70GB/sec range as before, the change should be fairly transparent to developers already working, I would think.

A 128-bit bus may help long term with die shrinks.

 

[MrFox]

yeah but a 128bit gddr5 will be only 4GB at best.

 

[McHuj]

Nevermind then. I thought GDDR5 could be configured for 8-bit I/O.

 

[XpiderMX]

Not sure if I should this.

But someone on neogaf is claiming that Durango had 8GB of GDDR5 RAM from the start.

It's a post by a "mistercream" on a Semiaccurate forum. He/she posted links to neogaf:

http://semiaccurate.com/forums/showpost.php?p=182588&postcount=528

Maybe we could discuss why GDDR5 RAM is impossible for Durango.

I don't like mistercteam, but he posted what Vustadumas wrote at neogaf, and supposedly Vustadumas is a Blizzard worker. What I think is Vustadumas meant DDR3 instead GDDR5.

 

[Rangers]

I don't like mistercteam, but he posted what Vustadumas wrote at neogaf, and supposedly Vustadumas is a Blizzard worker. What I think is Vustadumas meant DDR3 instead GDDR5.

I think somebody said Vustadumas keeps drive by posting the 8GB GDDR5 thing.

Odd. File under likely to be wrong/forgotten rumors.

edit found a couple examples. didn't look too far back but the 2nd is from a month ago, so doesn't seem that often

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=57028434&postcount=3192

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=52539330&postcount=281

googling the name reveal a twitter indicating he's an animator. may not be in a position to know that much. overall the idea he's mistaking ddr3 for gddr5 seems likeliest.

anyways i would rather have 12gb of ddr3 over 8gb gddr5. possibly even the esram+8gb. even if the performance is less, a very large BOM edge might sell more consoles easily.

as long as their are differences in the architectures we can speculate how they will play out. but if more components are exactly the same, the possibilities of differences narrow, which i dont really like.

 

[Cyan]

Not sure if I should this.

But someone on neogaf is claiming that Durango had 8GB of GDDR5 RAM from the start.

It's a post by a "mistercream" on a Semiaccurate forum. He/she posted links to neogaf:

http://semiaccurate.com/forums/showpost.php?p=182588&postcount=528

Maybe we could discuss why GDDR5 RAM is impossible for Durango.

Thanks for the news bbot, I wrote a post mentioning what you are saying here.

I don't what impact GDDR5 + ESRAM does have on performance, if this is true, compared to DDR3 + ESRAM combo.

I kind of liiiiiiiiiked the specs, 'cos I was used to them, although I expected some sort of efficiency in the console's design to close the gap with the PS4, which is the most powerful console if rumours are to be believed.

 

[XpiderMX]

I think somebody said Vustadumas keeps drive by posting the 8GB GDDR5 thing.

Odd. File under likely to be wrong/forgotten rumors.

edit found a couple examples. didn't look too far back but the 2nd is from a month ago, so doesn't seem that often

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=57028434&postcount=3192

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=52539330&postcount=281

googling the name reveal a twitter indicating he's an animator. may not be in a position to know that much. overall the idea he's mistaking ddr3 for gddr5 seems likeliest.

You're right, maybe he was confusing GDDR5 and DDR3, but looks like he mean Sony paired to Microsoft, not that Sony exceeded to MS. Anyway, I don't think Microsoft will use GDDR5.

anyways i would rather have 12gb of ddr3 over 8gb gddr5. possibly even the esram+8gb. even if the performance is less, a very large BOM edge might sell more consoles easily.

as long as their are differences in the architectures we can speculate how they will play out. but if more components are exactly the same, the possibilities of differences narrow, which i dont really like.

Well, a GDDR5 announcement will impact more (mainly to GAF) than current known specs.

 

[Gradthrawn]

Well, a GDDR5 announcement will impact more (mainly to GAF) than current known specs.

In terms of meltdowns, GDDR5 would be a win no matter what. You either get GDDR5 at the same frequency as the PS4 plus ESRAM which will cause meltdowns. Or you get GDDR5 with same bandwidth as before plus the often reported, never supported, "super high latency" given a whole different set of meltdowns. Pure comedy either way. .

 

[(((interference)))]

Sorry but the concept is stupid and perhaps there were people pushing for it but the reality is that MS was never going to abandon that large a % of their user base when it came down to it.

I don't buy that some forums warriors in an uproar changed anyones mind.

Oh you're going to dispute bkilian too...

I think the situation is more likely to be that some people at MS were pushing for an offline mode as an always online console would alienate much of their userbase and that, along with the widespread backlash to the always online, meant MS decided to listen to those people.

 

[(((interference)))]

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.

If memory is such a big deal they can just release the 1GB held in reserve (and not being used by the OS or anything at the moment) back to devs.

I don't think we're going to get more RAM, especially more slow RAM.

It's possible we might see an increase in GPU clocks, up to 1.5 TF might be doable.
So increasing clocks is possible but I think it's still unlikely, any other changes - extra CUs, APUs etc are out of the question without an expensive redesign and corresponding launch delay.

Do MS need to increase clocks? By doing so, they still can't get their number to be bigger than PS4s so what's the point, and how many people will be able to tell the difference between a game running in 900p on Durango and 1080p on PS4 anyway.
Increased clocks, also means yields go down and your BOM goes up.

Might as well keep the hardware as is and pocket the BOM savings for a nice fat profit while Sony can only lose or breaks even on each console sold (assuming both are priced at $500).

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Devs can still target always on in their game as long as advertised as such ("this game requires an internet connection to play" icon on the box). And features can be enabled with the assumption that it's connected, with those features dropped when it isn't. Assuming cross-platform games, devs would have to factor that in anyway - only Durango exclusives could really go 100% online, cloud universe, no play offline, and that's probably not gonna be many games at all. So I doubt it's much of a loss or a gain either way, truth be told.

I wouldn't necessarily say that. After all PS3 currently has more games than the X360 requiring an always online connection with no gameplay possible if no online connection is available.

I don't see why that would be different for the PS4.

I'd say that the only thing that really changes next gen is that Microsoft will also now allow developers to go always online. I don't believe they did that with the X360 due to MS requiring everything to be run on their servers.

Which was both good and bad. Good in that it provided a consistent online multiplayer experience. Bad in that it prevented companies from rolling out always online games like they could on PS3.

It'll be interesting to see if Microsoft retains that restriction that everything be run on their servers, hence having to host any always online game. Or if they'll be relaxing that restriction.

Regards,
SB

 

[dobwal]

Whats the chance that Durango employs LPDDR3? Samsung has just announced its producing 4 Gb LPDDR3 2133 with production to increase later this year.

eSRAM, Jaguar and only 12 CUs look easily feasible for smaller form factors once MS starts shrinking past 28nm. The one impediment would seem to be the memory controller. Wouldn't it require a redesign if Durango uses standard DDR3?

Maybe Durango isn't a cost saving design but a mobile design limited to consoles in its current iteration but readily employable to tabs and phones as the design is shrunk. Even if the memory controller requires a redesign, 68 GBs of bandwidth will be readily available in the near future with mobile memory. If MS had gone with high bandwidth GDDR5, the mobile option becomes more difficult in terms of the arrival of low powered memory with 100s GBs of bandwidth.

 

[eastmen]

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.

I had no idea you work at all the memory fabs and know what they are capable of.

 

[Rangers]

If memory is such a big deal they can just release the 1GB held in reserve (and not being used by the OS or anything at the moment) back to devs.

I don't think we're going to get more RAM, especially more slow RAM.

It's possible we might see an increase in GPU clocks, up to 1.5 TF might be doable.
Increasing clocks is possible but I think it's still unlikely, any other changes - extra CUs, APUs etc are out of the question without an expensive redesign and corresponding launch delay.

Do MS need to increase clocks? By doing so, they can't get their number to be bigger than PS4s so what's the point, and how many people will be able to tell the difference between a game running in 900p on Durango and 1080p on PS4 anyway.
Increased clocks, also means yields go down and your BOM goes up.

Might as well keep the hardware as is and pocket the BOM savings for a nice fat profit while Sony can only lose or breaks even on each console sold (assuming both are priced at $500).

You keep saying no no no no, but this says...maybe...even probably

I'm kinda leaning 12GB. Mark Rein is involved and we know how that goes

12GB DDR3 and 1.5TF, sounds great! And likely cheap enough too. I will be more than content with XB3 at that point.

 

[(((interference)))]

Ok, you are taking a smiley emoticon as an indicator MS changed the specs - that's a bit farfetched.

We have no rumour from a legitimate source that the specs have changed, and there's no great motive for MS changing them hence it's most reasonable to believe they haven't.

However, it is possible for them to increase the clocks and not miss their launch date - so I can't reject the likelihood of them doing that (unlike say having dual APUs or ray tracing units in the chips).

 

[eastmen]

Ok, you are taking a smiley emoticon as an indicator MS changed the specs - that's a bit farfetched.

We have no rumour from a legitimate source that the specs have changed, and there's no great motive for MS changing them hence it's most reasonable to believe they haven't.

However, it is possible for them to increase the clocks and not miss their launch date - so I can't reject the likelihood of them doing that (unlike say having dual APUs or ray tracing units in the chips).

It's also possible that the specs we have aren't the real specs to begin with so if ms has better specs waiting in the wings it could be seen as change in specs.

Its also possible that Jeff will find the right earth on his first try.

 

[bkilian]

It's also possible that the specs we have aren't the real specs to begin with so if ms has better specs waiting in the wings it could be seen as change in specs.

Its also possible that Jeff will find the right earth on his first try.

It is very unlikely that the specs you've seen are faked. And by "very unlikely", I mean in the sense of you personally winning the powerball, especially if you haven't bought a ticket.

 

[eastmen]

It is very unlikely that the specs you've seen are faked. And by "very unlikely", I mean in the sense of you personally winning the powerball, especially if you haven't bought a ticket.

Don't jinxs me ! I have 10 bucks of tickets and the drawing is tomorrow night man. Its over 222m bucks. If I win I will buy you a car so take the jinx back ! Do it now !


Anyway haven't you been off the project for a year or so now ?