nVidia building the PS3 GPU in its "entirety"

[Joe DeFuria]

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19053

I only had a chance to listen to the first 15 minutes or so, but it was made quite clear that for all intents and purposes, nVidia is designing the GPU itself in PS3.

In other words, not really a "collaboration" with Sony on the design...not giving Sony some IP, etc, to integrate into a Sony design... nVidia is designing the GPU like they would any other PC chip.

The reason why the deal has a royalty structure, is because "Sony" is fabbing the chips.

It is interesting to hear that Jen-Husn say that X-box was a "massive" undertaking in part because nVidia basically designed the whole thing (GPU, MPU....). Whereas with the PS3, it's "only the GPU", so it's not as big of a deal.

Another little factoid: they expect to have a production GPU by the end of the year.

 

[Blade]

Why send a woman to do a man's job? nVidia specializes in this field, I'm not surprised that they're fully in control.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Joe, I've not listended to it yet (they didn't have a replay last I tried) -when you say produced by the end of the year is that this calender year (i.e. a few weeks), next calender year or end of the financial year? Was there any clarification?

 

[one]

In other words, not really a "collaboration" with Sony on the design...not giving Sony some IP, etc, to integrate into a Sony design... nVidia is designing the GPU like they would any other PC chip.

The reason why the deal has a royalty structure, is because "Sony" is fabbing the chips.

Is that what he explicitly clarified, or what you deduced from what he said?
Did he deny someone else who asked about Sony's involvement?

 

[bbot]

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19053

I only had a chance to listen to the first 15 minutes or so, but it was made quite clear that for all intents and purposes, nVidia is designing the GPU itself in PS3.

In other words, not really a "collaboration" with Sony on the design...not giving Sony some IP, etc, to integrate into a Sony design... nVidia is designing the GPU like they would any other PC chip.

Hello, Vince, did you read that?

 

[Panajev2001a]

I doubt there is no involvement from SCE, nVIDIA has MUCH less experience in e-DRAM design than SCE and I think e-DRAM makes sense for a console chip as they target a limited range of rwsolutions (even ATI pushed for e-DRAM for Xbox 2/Xenon's GPU if rumors are true)... really 480p and 720p.

Still, nVIDIA would not be lying when they said they designed the GPU by themselves (with SCE letting know some of the features they really wanted to have): e-DRAM is not the GPU, is part of the memory and the memory interface blocks .

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Joe, I've not listended to it yet (they didn't have a replay last I tried)

It's available now...if you're having trouble with the PC media, they also have a phone-in replay number:

U.S. Toll Number: 646-827-3701
U.S. Toll-Free Number: 866-369-8596
U.K. Toll-Free Number: 0-800-032-3672
International Number: 001 646 827 3701

Pin 173

...when you say produced by the end of the year is that this calender year (i.e. a few weeks), next calender year or end of the financial year? Was there any clarification?

Next calendar year if memory serves...I'm trying to listen to it again...

 

[Megadrive1988]

ironicly, I have not been able to listen to the conference myself.

interesting.


I could see that Nvidia is handling the entire rasterization portion. like, Panajev, I do not believe SCEI is not involved. they must be working with Nvidia to help Nvidia make the GPU work well with the Cell-CPU. and then there's the eDRAM.

hmmm.

 

[MightyHedgehog]

So, it sounds like PS3 GPU = NV2A-like deal.

*am clueless*

 

[one]

OK here's the direct link

 

[Joe DeFuria]

ironicly, I have not been able to listen to the conference myself.

interesting.


I could see that Nvidia is handling the entire rasterization portion. like, Panajev, I do not believe SCEI is not involved. they must be working with Nvidia to help Nvidia make the GPU work well with the Cell-CPU. and then there's the eDRAM.

hmmm.

Well, I wouldn't say Sony has ZERO involvement, but the "PS3 GPU = NV2A-like deal" seems to be correct.

On an odd note...this first 15 minutes I'm listening to now is entirely different than before...now it's all PC stuff. I wonder if this was split into two parts....though there's no way to tell how to listen to one part or another.

 

[Megadrive1988]

I'm now listening to the conference... its PC stuff so far (5 min in)

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Via the direct link...it's at about the 40:00 mark...

 

[one]

Via the direct link...it's at about the 40:00 mark...

The talk about Sony starts from 35:00

 

[darkblu]

In other words, not really a "collaboration" with Sony on the design...not giving Sony some IP, etc, to integrate into a Sony design... nVidia is designing the GPU like they would any other PC chip.

then again, one could say that NV don't have lots of liberties when designing a PC chip. neither would i expect them to have those with the PS3 GPU design, no matter how Jen-Husn may make it sound like, or the audience may interpret.

It is interesting to hear that Jen-Husn say that X-box was a "massive" undertaking in part because nVidia basically designed the whole thing (GPU, MPU....). Whereas with the PS3, it's "only the GPU", so it's not as big of a deal.

precisely for that reason NV has possibly had way greater freedom designing the xgpu than it is going to have now with the ps3 gpu -- there's a certain architecture there they need to tailor that GPU for, and they have little control over that architecture, unlike last time.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

In the case of the xbox 1, we designed the entire system......it was a very large project proportional to our size....We're not building the entire system [for PS3], we're building the custom GPU....

...Although it's structured ultimately as a royalty deal, the reason for that of course is because Sony has its own fabs....and its important to them that we manufacture it at Sony....this is a capability that we'd like to leverage. So the easiest way for us to of course struture a deal like that.... is to structure it as a royalty.

However the way I think about it is no different than a chip that I'm building. Building a chip in its entirety...and I think about the gross profits that is consistent with a device like that... The economics that we ought to get from something like this should be consistent with gross profits we get from one of our GPUs.

So, upon a second hearing, it's not as clear cut (integration of technology) as I originally made it out to be. But still, it's pointing toward nVidia building the chip. The royalty nature of the deal ceratainly seems to be there not based on any integration / sharing, but because of Sony fabbing and consuming the chips themselves.

 

[thop]

Why send a woman to do a man's job?

http://www.ilovebeams.com

 

[one]

Basically, he defends the royalty way as something as fruitful as manufacturing a card, something like that. So if you are an nVIDIA stockholder, he want you to think virtually as if

In other words, not really a "collaboration" with Sony on the design...not giving Sony some IP, etc, to integrate into a Sony design... nVidia is designing the GPU like they would any other PC chip.

The reason why the deal has a royalty structure, is because "Sony" is fabbing the chips.

, right?

 

[Megadrive1988]

I'm still having problems with this webcast. had to start over again, and I cannot skip ahead. have to listen to it from start to finish. cannot get the full functioning version because it keeps detecting pop-up blockers even though Ive disabled all of mine. anyway, lets not jump to any conclusions about whether Nvidia is designing the whole GPU or parts of it..

 

[j^aws]

He talks about the GPU becoming a programmable DSP...hmm...isn't that CELL?

Apparently 50 engineeres are working on it as opposed to 200 engineers for the xbox but they pretty much designed the whole system as opposed to the GPU.

Around 1 billion dollars of nVidia investement's have been made since the xbox gpu that are going into the PS3 gpu.

Still not clear how much influence SCE are having but he emphasises custom gpu.

He's extremely proud that Sony has chosen nVidia and how visionry the whole PS3 team are. The gpu will form the basis of media centric roles and apparently the PS3 will be the 'centre of gravity' for CE products.

And boy does he BIG-UP CELL!