Or put another way, the Fury X is already 8.6TF and Arctic Islands launching next year is supposed to deliver 2x it's performance/watt which means at the high end (much higher power draw than the consoles of course) we could be seeing 15TF+ GPU's from AMD as early as 2016.
Predict: Next gen console tech (9th iteration and 10th iteration edition) [2014 - 2017]
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Or put another way, the Fury X is already 8.6TF and Arctic Islands launching next year is supposed to deliver 2x it's performance/watt which means at the high end (much higher power draw than the consoles of course) we could be seeing 15TF+ GPU's from AMD as early as 2016.
72 EU Skylake GPU model (with EDRAM) is already announced, and should be available in a few months. It is quite close to Xbox One in GPU (theoretical) performance already.
Both Apple (with PowerVR) and Intel could be competitors, if they wanted to invest the required money in creating semi-custom next gen console SOCs. But Apple and Intel both enjoy high profit margins in their current market segments, so I doubt they want to invest in lower profit margin business, such as gaming consoles.
If AMD aren't going to try for reasonable profit margins with the next consoles, perhaps they shouldn't bother?
They're going to be in 100+ million consoles from this generation, but they continue to bleed out in the gutter with minimal revenue coming from providing something that no-one else could.
They're going to be in 100+ million consoles from this generation, but they continue to bleed out in the gutter with minimal revenue coming from providing something that no-one else could.
On the Intel front, there are signs that its stance on customization and reaching out for outside business has faded a bit. Intel's cores are starting to specialize a bit based on segment, and AVX512 is showing that it is willing to fragment its ISA base further in pursuit of niches.
Apple already has significant pull on specific features for Intel's mobile architectures, perhaps including the 72 EU Skylake.
Other items include the dropping of IVR to get the thickness of its packages down, and rumors that Intel is dedicating porting resources to get its modem used by Apple.
Being allergic to lower-margin business does need to be weighed against the cost of underutilizing incredibly expensive fabs.
Apple could be argued as already being a vertically integrated competitor, in terms of offering products and services that compete with Microsoft and Sony in terms of media and apps. Its the worldwide leader in profitability for the phone and tablet platforms that have been blamed for hurting the console niche in general. How far, given that it is driving Intel to provide high-end integrated solutions, is Apple from just offering the last part of the console niche?
The console wins on their own seem to be doing reasonably well for themselves. They just can't compensate for the incredible money suck that is AMD's main business being in a 9-figure death spiral. Contracted products with well-defined lifespans, paid-for engineering costs, and a way to avoid AMD's inability to manage inventory are also pluses.
I could see the argument that they still might not be worth it in the end, given how much AMD has contorted itself to service those obligations and how it has distracted from AMD's ability to brace against the aforementioned death-spiral. Consoles have decent overlap with some of AMD's IP needs, but the Jaguar core's hops between foundries and a lack of high-end features that would make server and HPC clients happy mean that semicustom money paid for AMD to be distracted from staunching its bleeding.
But how depressing would it be to see the next gen consoles powered by Apple?
I almost would prefer Nintendo powering them. That's saying a lot.
Blazkowicz
Legend
As implied by the article the AMD console APU might be just a die shrink.
Going wild on the extent of it : it's on 14nm, has the same old Jaguar cores shrunk to that process. 8GB of HBM2 are used, in a high density variation that is meant to match the bandwith of the 8GB gddr5 but not more ; buses and latencies are crippled so that the timings and performance are the very same than on the original console. The end
.
PS : something bluray 4K, 4K H265 and VR something.
Going wild on the extent of it : it's on 14nm, has the same old Jaguar cores shrunk to that process. 8GB of HBM2 are used, in a high density variation that is meant to match the bandwith of the 8GB gddr5 but not more ; buses and latencies are crippled so that the timings and performance are the very same than on the original console. The end
.PS : something bluray 4K, 4K H265 and VR something.
I wouldn't be sure there would be consoles powered by Apple hardware. There isn't much money being what AMD is, a component supplier.
Providing a low-margin widget that goes into a box that lets others to make money wouldn't serve Apple well.
Even selling the box, and providing the console niche may not be sufficient. The volumes and iteration rate are low, relative to what portable devices are getting, and those devices have evolved quickly to cut away some of the broadening of the console space. The raw iteration, volume, and vertical integration into a bigger pool than gaming is getting them closer to co-opting even more functionality or stealing eyeballs from consoles, slowing them further.
Providing a low-margin widget that goes into a box that lets others to make money wouldn't serve Apple well.
Even selling the box, and providing the console niche may not be sufficient. The volumes and iteration rate are low, relative to what portable devices are getting, and those devices have evolved quickly to cut away some of the broadening of the console space. The raw iteration, volume, and vertical integration into a bigger pool than gaming is getting them closer to co-opting even more functionality or stealing eyeballs from consoles, slowing them further.
Nintendo somehow purchases AMD, rebrands both CPU and GPU lines under Nintendo Power™ name, provides Nintendo Power™ chips for Sony and Microsoft's next-generation consoles.
They could sell the chip you describe as a PC like Intel does with the NUC. They might want to replace those Jaguar cores with a fewer number of (much) better ones. And come to think of it, it might need a little more HBM as well. But it could sell like gangbusters I think.As implied by the article the AMD console APU might be just a die shrink.
Going wild on the extent of it : it's on 14nm, has the same old Jaguar cores shrunk to that process. 8GB of HBM2 are used, in a high density variation that is meant to match the bandwith of the 8GB gddr5 but not more ; buses and latencies are crippled so that the timings and performance are the very same than on the original console. The end
PS : something bluray 4K, 4K H265 and VR something.
Whoops I'm daydreaming again
Blazkowicz
Legend
Anyway : you put 9000 CPUs on a chip, and then they're all starved for bandwitdh and/or the very high aggregate internal bandwidth uses up your power budget. Whereas in the G80 and RV670 days already GPUs had huge register files and other schemes to move and deal with gigapixels, gigatexels and gigatriangles etc.
At least with Nintendo, underpowered hardware is sold cheap. With Apple we'd be paying Apple prices for Nintendo hardware. 
Blazkowicz
Legend
They could sell the chip you describe as a PC like Intel does with the NUC. They might want to replace those Jaguar cores with a fewer number of (much) better ones. And come to think of it, it might need a little more HBM as well. But it could sell like gangbusters I think.
Whoops I'm daydreaming again
It's the way it can happen as a step to "APU is the end game of computers", likely
.Zen cores of course, 16GB HBM hopefully, everything soldered to the motherboard (sucks a bit but that's the deal), power budget could be 100W, 125W, 220W (going over board but they already did it with a CPU), 65W or lower too.
If they want to be nice the APU + memory would be contained on a board like MXM boards, Slot 1 cartridges and a few similar examples.
What I've described in the other post is what I would expect in a console shrink similar to those of PS3 and Xbox 360.
I don't know about that. I would call WiiU systems awfully expensive for what they deliver. WiiU consoles are only $50 cheaper than XB1 or PS4 consoles [$299 vs $349]. Then during BlackFriday the XB1 and PS4 will be $299. No idea what sales price WiiU will drop to.
Was joking of course. I love my Apple stuff But they would never even want to get involved with something sold at single digit margins (if even that). And no one would buy a console at PS3-launch-or-more kind of prices.
But they would never even want to get involved with something sold at single digit margins (if even that). And no one would buy a console at PS3-launch-or-more kind of prices.- Status