PlayStation 4 (codename Orbis) technical hardware investigation (news and rumours)

[Mianca]

I'm still marvelling at just how small the PS4 is.

XBOX One is about 60% bigger (volume-wise) - and that's not even taking into account that the PSU seems to be internal for PS4 (while Xbox One supposedly comes with an external power brick).

So ... either PS4 will apply a much louder cooling solution to make up in fan speed what it lacks in heat sink capacity - or XBOX One actually runs A LOT hotter than PS4. In the end, it's probably a blend of both options (less heat to dissipate, yet still somewhat louder); but indications still are that SONY (despite using GDDR5) has the more power-efficient console (at least under load).

 

[AstoundingHolmes]

What confuses me is there only seems to be vents on the back of the PS4, so where is it getting fresh air from? Certainly, it can't be from the crack, the thing would probably start whistling when you turn it on if that's the case. I would really like a guts shot.

 

[Billy Idol]

The need at least 1GB for OS for their share button feat, right?

 

[hesido]

My Chrome has currently 5 tabs open, and uses 700 MB of memory. A browser that cannot keep at least 5 tabs open is useless. A good browser needs at least one GB of memory at 1080p to operate smoothly (when browsing rich multimedia web sites).

It would be really good if the browser could be fully integrated to the console experience. Games could have internal links to community forums, youtube video feeds (perfect for user created content, clans/teams, tournament videos, etc), tips/tricks/tutorials/walkthough sites, etc, etc. It's a pain to copy these addresses manually from your TV screen to your iPad touch screen (typing addresses with a touch screen is not as good as clicking a direct link).

You have to remember that Sony and Microsoft are no longer only competing against each other in the living room. Apple and Google both have plans to be there too. It could be quite an embarrassing story, if the console companies lost the battle, just by allocating a few bytes too little memory to run a good browser and a good application ecosystem. A lot of things have happened in the last 7 years (current gen console life time). A lot of things will happen during the next generation console life cycle. Don't reserve enough memory and you might be screwed in the long run.

But would you need that many tabs open when a game is running? When the game is suspended, the browser could have more ram and if PS4 has an SSD, even instant switching won't be hampered. Also, those processes can be offloaded to the second screen function on PS4.

 

[patsu]

I'm still marvelling at just how small the PS4 is.

XBOX One is about 60% bigger (volume-wise) - and that's not even taking into account that the PSU seems to be internal for PS4 (while Xbox One supposedly comes with an external power brick).

So ... either PS4 will apply a much louder cooling solution to make up in fan speed what it lacks in heat sink capacity - or XBOX One actually runs A LOT hotter than PS4. In the end, it's probably a blend of both options (less heat to dissipate, yet still somewhat louder); but indications still are that SONY (despite using GDDR5) has the more power-efficient console (at least under load).

Hmm... Has MS released dimensions for Xbox One ? I couldn't find it earlier on.

 

[Arwin]

PS4 seems 40% smaller, its quite amazingly small actually

 

[almighty]

Looking at the vent lay out I would say it draws air in from the top set of vents and expels it via the bottom vents.... Or visa versa

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Considering PS4 is driving hotter hardware, it's an impressive design. I bet the cooling setup will look pretty fab when someone performs a teardown.

 

[patsu]

Welp, I'm staring at my shelf now. No more space.

 

[BoardBonobo]

Welp, I'm staring at my shelf now. No more space.

I've just been and ordered a stack of wood to create a whole new shelving unit to accommodate the additional members of the family!

 

[patsu]

My wife may use the wood to make me a coffin. I need to get rid of some gadgets. Simple as that.

 

[DJ12]

Surely the ps3 can be moved into your kids room for safe keeping.

That's where mines going even though he will only be a month or two old when the ps4 comes out lol

 

[patsu]

Thanks for the laugh.

Nah... we want the kid to spend less time with video games. He likes SoundShapes and LBP. He's actually pretty good at Scratch programming. Made Pong, a sidescroller shooter, a top-down dungeon crawler, a digital boom box, and more.

... which reminds me. I need to delete his digital boom box from the public Scratch repository. He pirated 10 odd songs from Youtube, and dumped them into his boombox. RIAA will go after my *ss.

 

[almighty]

Considering PS4 is driving hotter hardware, it's an impressive design. I bet the cooling setup will look pretty fab when someone performs a teardown.

How you figure the hardware is hotter?

We have no hard evidence to suggest that....

 

[function]

How you figure the hardware is hotter?

We have no hard evidence to suggest that....

The ram will certainly be hotter, and 50% more shaders at the same clock should generate ~50% more heat I'd imagine (all else being equal). I guess the wildcard might be the esram and yield related voltages?

 

[almighty]

The ram will certainly be hotter, and 50% more shaders at the same clock should generate ~50% more heat I'd imagine (all else being equal). I guess the wildcard might be the esram and yield related voltages?

Heat out put doesn't scale with shaders....

Having transistors tightly packed like SRAM gets really hot....

I would honestly wager them being equal or PS4 being slightly cooler.

But yes that GDDR5 will run hotter.

 

[function]

Heat out put doesn't scale with shaders....

Heat output from the shaders will!

Also the TMUs scale with shader count, and the PS3 has twice the ROPs (so that's 200% from the ROPs, again all else being equal).

I would honestly wager them being equal or PS4 being slightly cooler.

PS4 might run cooler, but that could just be more efficient cooling despite more heat being generated. If Xbone is 40nm (there was some confusion around that iirc) then I guess that would be a big factor too.

 

[DJ12]

Doesn't the xbone apu have shape esram cpu and the gpu housed in it?

Pretty sure thats going to run hotter than just a cpu and gpu.

 

[almighty]

Heat output from the shaders will!

Also the TMUs scale with shader count, and the PS3 has twice the ROPs (so that's 200% from the ROPs, again all else being equal).




PS4 might run cooler, but that could just be more efficient cooling despite more heat being generated. If Xbone is 40nm (there was some confusion around that iirc) then I guess that would be a big factor too.

You only have to look at the heat out put of PC graphics cards.. A 7970 doesn't put out twice the heat of a7850.

Voltage, process, leakage, AISC quality & transistor density all have an affect on the final out put

 

[Mianca]

If Xbone is 40nm (there was some confusion around that iirc) then I guess that would be a big factor too.

There's no way Xbox One Soc is made on 40nm process. Far too old and inefficient - and given that 40nm AMD Cayman was about ~390mm² @ ~2.65 billion transistors, 5 billion transistors @ 40nm would just go waaay beyond anything that could actually be manufactured (even if the eSRAM was very densely packed) ...

My best guess is that the Durango silicon just needs some massive voltage to run at the desired target speeds.