Next Generation Hardware Speculation with a Technical Spin [2018]

[anexanhume]

Out of question? no but this 384bit wide interface on 300-400mm2 chip will create problems for effective die shrinks and 12 ram chips will always be need. MS might done it because they knew the scorpio engine will not undergo die shrink. It remains to be seen if that door is really open. It depends how much they are willling to complicate life for themselves later on. They may as well use 384bit bus and hope there will be solution two years later to replace it for something cheaper.

Then we have capacity. All those objects spinning with zen cores and drawn using primitive shaders will be memory hungry. Its forgone conclusion we wont see 8-16 bump in memory capacty but will 24 be enough? or use 32GB using 256bit clamshell with clear path to cost reduction. I don't envy architects trying to reach next gen dream with this 4k ball and chain, at cost and path to cost reductions in this day and age. Maybe console family at different pricepoint is the answer. BTW nice tech summary on resetera, Tim posts would help temper the expectations (i don't have account).

As a counterpoint, the number and magnitude of die shrinks this coming gen will likely be less than previous gens. That would soften the blow of committing to a 384-bit bus.

I think the expectation is that HBCC will help with memory footprint somewhat.

 

[AlNom]

As a counterpoint, the number and magnitude of die shrinks this coming gen will likely be less than previous gens. That would soften the blow of committing to a 384-bit bus.

Indeed, I don't think it's something they should count on.

A wider bus can also help to mitigate the need for top-bin GDDR6. With GDDR6 expected to hit 24/32Gbit per chip later on, it makes the requirements that much less expensive.

 

[metacore]

Yeah HBCC to the rescue. Proportion of high bandwidth task like framebuffer size (1gig for 4k) or visible assets to total memory amout is getting smaller each gen. This time around it might be possible to replace part of ram with flash to stream assets.

 

[vipa899]

Wouldnt mind as powerfull as it can get for the next consoles, even the one x with its sub 1060 level performance was long away from high-end products more then a year older.
That way maybe people that buy a 1180 or whatever thats out by then get more out of their gpu with cross-platform titles, as PC doesnt see exclusives like Sony's platform does. If not microsofts xbox exclusives scale very well on pc, maybe halo infinity?

 

[sniffy]

I/O is going to suffer again in an effort to hit console price points, and it's going to be disproportionately bad relative to other aspects of the system even more than it is now. Meanwhile PC's have moved onto NVMe SSDs.

 

[Xbat]

I/O is going to suffer again in an effort to hit console price points, and it's going to be disproportionately bad relative to other aspects of the system even more than it is now. Meanwhile PC's have moved onto NVMe SSDs.

Only if you buy said nvme for your PC. It always amazes me how people always think everyone with a PC has the latest and greatest. One of my friends always goes on about me being a console peasent but my PC is way more powerful than his. His PC can barely run modern games.

 

[vipa899]

He must have a very old system then, like 2011 or older. If you match base ps4 (7850/7870) with a half decent cpu from that era your fine playing most games but with altered settings.
One of my pcs is a gtx670/i7 920/8gb, still plays most modern games at high. Ac origins isnt really a great port though.

A playstation is almost a must besides the pc for its exclusives, its not always about graphics its games that never get ported and ps4s can be found cheap now.

 

[Xbat]

His rocking a AMD 6850

 

[vipa899]

Yes thats very old, a ps4 would perform better for most multiplatform games i would think. His gpu is 3 years older then the ps4, 2010 hardware and midrange for that year aswell.

Its a memory problem aswell for the 6850 with its 1gb, really too small.
Then theres the 5870 which was faster then the 6870, close to 7850 and thus ps4, thats a late 2009 gpu.

 

[Silenti]

Yeah HBCC to the rescue. Proportion of high bandwidth task like framebuffer size (1gig for 4k) or visible assets to total memory amout is getting smaller each gen. This time around it might be possible to replace part of ram with flash to stream assets.

My terminology may be short in the following. It's been awhile.

Are you envisioning a small amount (say 20-30GB) soldered to the board with its own dedicated channels? Or are you thinking a hybrid drive as the base model? I would have thought that an SATA connection wouldn't be fast enough for this to be realistic. If that is the case then someone help me out here. There are only so many channels available. What are the limits for PCIe connections on a Zen 2/3? Enough to have both a soldered high speed small NVme that is in all models and still have enough left over to cover an SSD? I ask because I really expect there to be a premium next-gen version available at release. Not in the PS4 Pro/ Xbox One X way, but in the XB360 way. The higher end model will have a decent sized NVme SSD. Enough to cache several games I should think.

His rocking a AMD 6850

Gotcha here. 4830. No joke. Running 2 monitors.

 

[vipa899]

Essentially xbox one x is allready above 1080ti level, 6TF but in a console its twice as fast, which equals a 12TF pc gpu.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Essentially xbox one x is allready above 1080ti level, 6TF but in a console its twice as fast, which equals a 12TF pc gpu.

Wot?

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Dafuq did I just read?

 

[anexanhume]

My terminology may be short in the following. It's been awhile.

Are you envisioning a small amount (say 20-30GB) soldered to the board with its own dedicated channels? Or are you thinking a hybrid drive as the base model? I would have thought that an SATA connection wouldn't be fast enough for this to be realistic. If that is the case then someone help me out here. There are only so many channels available. What are the limits for PCIe connections on a Zen 2/3? Enough to have both a soldered high speed small NVme that is in all models and still have enough left over to cover an SSD? I ask because I really expect there to be a premium next-gen version available at release. Not in the PS4 Pro/ Xbox One X way, but in the XB360 way. The higher end model will have a decent sized NVme SSD. Enough to cache several games I should think.



Gotcha here. 4830. No joke. Running 2 monitors.

Steam surveys suggest 90% of users are rocking a 1060 or less. So, I would say most users are experiencing XB1X/PS4 Pro level visuals or less. It’s fun to talk about spec wars, but consoles have an appreciable impact on the average PC user.

 

[turkey]

Essentially xbox one x is allready above 1080ti level, 6TF but in a console its twice as fast, which equals a 12TF pc gpu.

AHH the old Tom Foolery (TF) scale.

 

[iroboto]

Essentially xbox one x is allready above 1080ti level, 6TF but in a console its twice as fast, which equals a 12TF pc gpu.

That's not how that works mate. 6 is 6. 12 is 12.
Saturation, utilization of the hardware, developing games for a specific profile are factors for making the hardware sing. But that doesn't make 6 = 12.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Essentially xbox one x is allready above 1080ti level, 6TF but in a console its twice as fast, which equals a 12TF pc gpu.

Yeah, no.

edit: have we found MisterX's B3D account?

 

[vipa899]

Its clear that a chip in a console can punch above its weight, but twice the performance, aint buying that. There are analyses out there where a 1060 outperforms the one x, now they use some decent cpu but the console sees better optimizations.

Thats why im hoping next gen will start with more powerfull hardware then last gen in comparison whats on pc, imagine what naughty dog or kojima can do with something like that.

 

[AlNom]

That's not how that works mate. 6 is 6. 12 is 12.
Saturation, utilization of the hardware, developing games for a specific profile are factors for making the hardware sing. But that doesn't make 6 = 12.

I thought the original line of discussion about extracting performance was with regards to GCN not getting optimal utilization on PC for various reasons.

There was no reason to add nVidia to the comparison since it isn't relevant.

 

[iroboto]

Its clear that a chip in a console can punch above its weight, but twice the performance, aint buying that. There are analyses out there where a 1060 outperforms the one x, now they use some decent cpu but the console sees better optimizations.

Thats why im hoping next gen will start with more powerfull hardware then last gen in comparison whats on pc, imagine what naughty dog or kojima can do with something like that.

I think it just comes down to really smart utilization of the hardware. When you have to code for a lot of different configurations, things get loss in the optimization process. PC can be powerful, but it's far from optimal. Consoles are weaker, and as a result very optimized.
Best to look at it that way. It's why AMD and Nvidia FLOPS don't make sense. FLOP is a unit of measure. But nvidia is really good at it's utilization/saturation of it's hardware. It has bottlenecks in different areas from AMD, which is why you're seeing better performance out of nvidia, not to mention driver support is significantly better as well, so the drivers are being optimized per game much more effectively and frequently.