Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[green.pixel]

I doubt it will, but you're not top-end comparing PC cards 3 years from now - you're comparing GPU's that have to fit within a very restricted (by comparison) heat and price envelope.

Top-end PC card now = ~ mainstream/low mid-range card 3 years from now. And vice versa - top-end PC part 3 years ago = ~ mainstream/low mid-range part now.

See this. 600$+ 8800GTX from 2006 is in the same perfomance ballpark as 5+ times cheaper <=100$ish HD 4850/4770/5750 and almost the same with even less expensive 8800/9800GT/HD 4830. And that's even without taking in consideration the new API/feature set which e.g. 5750 supports and 8800 only to a certain extent - DX11 vs. DX10, lacking even 10.1 path.

Power consumption, heat, noise and price are also considerably reduced. Although, the noise hasn't changed much, but you can make any card noisy by using crappy cooling designs, e.g., single-slot solutions. Also you can go the opposite way - making the card almost dead silent it by with 3rd heatsinks and fans. But these solutions consume much more space and hence, are a no-go for console, obviously.

 

[fehu]

Quantifying the delta between xenos and 5870 looks a little like deciding what was the baddest dinosaur
maybe lets start measuring size and tdp of the original xenos and lets look what is the nearest gpu and how nicely runs games at relatively 1080p resolution

 

[AlNom]

Well just consider the point of the 360's launch power consumption at less than a couple hundred watts.... The 5770 would be reasonable right now from power consumption but it also needs a relatively big heat sink that won't fit nicely in a console.

Comparing retail costs is useless because the real issue is how big the die is.

 

[neliz]

Well just consider the point of the 360's launch power consumption at less than a couple hundred watts.... The 5770 would be reasonable from power consumption but it also needs a relatively big heat sink that won't fit nicely in a console.

Comparing retail costs is useless because the real issue is how big the die is.

Board Consumption or GPU consumption?

 

[AlNom]

RAM chips don't consume a lot of power...

If the GPU itself is going to be over 100W, that leaves extremely little for other components in the console. The 360 had enough heat problems at 200W with the paltry heatsinks they used in such a relatively small unit whilst also considering shipping weight.

If the move to 32/28nm goes well for a 5870 spec-equivalent, so much the better. Adjust clocks accordingly I suppose.

 

[fehu]

5770 runs farcry at 37fps at 1600*1200 (equivalent to 1080p), that is not a bigscore... :/

what we know about dx12? i was thinking that the timeframe is right to precede by little the next dx iteration, so microsoft may go again custom and make an ibrid gpu with some easy to implement dx12 optimization, so mayyyyyyyyyyybe at the same silicon budget we can expect some more performance

and what about gddr5+? too complex board layout?

 

[groper]

Updated/Revised expectations...
From a "fall 2011" xbox i would expect a 5 Tflop GPU @ 22nm with a suggested cofiguration - 3400:180:80 - 3GB unified memory - 3rd Gen EDRAM - 3rd Gen Tesselator.
But maybe it's just me and my crazy expectations

Edit: This is how Liberty city must look (by night) in GTA V.
photo 1
photo 2

 

[MarkoIt]

Quantifying the delta between xenos and 5870 looks a little like deciding what was the baddest dinosaur
maybe lets start measuring size and tdp of the original xenos and lets look what is the nearest gpu and how nicely runs games at relatively 1080p resolution

Transistors count:

Xenos: 232 millions + 105 milions of Edram
RV870: 2154 milions

TDP:
RV870: 190w
Xenos: around 100W (?)
Die-size:
RV870:324 m^2
Xenos: around 190 mm^2 + 70 mm^2 edram


Maybe Ati won't use the current architecture with Xbox 3. When "Xbox 3" will be launched, R600 will be a 4 years old architecture. Maybe they
will use the performance part of their next architecture, N.I.

By the way, the transistor density of the 28nm manufactoring process should be around 11.5 M transistor/mm^2. That's 2300 M for a 200 mm^2 chip.
If they target a fall 2012 release, and they use a 22nm m.p,a 200 mm^2 chip should have 3 billions transistors.
I can't see next generation going both 1080p and 3D, not if they launch by the end of 2011.

 

[MarkoIt]

Updated/Revised expectations...
From a "fall 2011" xbox i would expect a 5 Tflop GPU @ 22nm with a suggested cofiguration - 3400:180:80 - 3GB unified memory - 3rd Gen EDRAM - 3rd Gen Tesselator.
But maybe it's just me and my crazy expectations

Edit: This is how Liberty city must look (by night) in GTA V.
photo 1
photo 2

22nm won't be here before 2012.
I wish for more memory..

 

[fehu]

what is costly?
memory chips or board trace for each chip?

clamshell mode give me hopes for 4G/+ consoles :S

 

[Sound_Card]

Why divide by 4? If we go by what John Carmack said, dividing by 3 sounds about right if we work backwards from his Rage -> Doom comments with regards to onscreen action and performance. Maybe theres something im missing here.

Also would not shaders be more efficient following a compute model as the Xenos shader units are more efficient than the RSX which followed an non unified model? If early DX11 games are maybe 15% more efficient at rendering the same scene, would that not translate to higher performance on screen with the same hardware? Say comparing DX10 and DX11 hardware with the same raw performance.

Overall even if realisable performance is only 3* greater than with current generation hardware then I don't see how anyone aside from the technophiles will be upset. However if games can push 3D without duplicating frames then it would be the best solution going forward for performance, cost and flexibility.

I agree, and we are also at the point of diminishing returns for what we see on the screen. In order to appease and create new and larger market bases, more exciting technologies other then "more graphics!!1!" need to be introduced. Enter Natal or other controllers, 3D, physics... etc. I would for one would be completely disappointed if it's other wise. I see no problem providing hardware that can push those technologies combined with a standard such 1080p@30fps. Even if the graphics don't push a new boundary, although I don't see why we can't do that either. Comparing Xenos to Cypress is not even funny. I would love to see what we are comparing Xenos to in 2011 or 2012.

 

[eastmen]

5770 runs farcry at 37fps at 1600*1200 (equivalent to 1080p), that is not a bigscore... :/

what we know about dx12? i was thinking that the timeframe is right to precede by little the next dx iteration, so microsoft may go again custom and make an ibrid gpu with some easy to implement dx12 optimization, so mayyyyyyyyyyybe at the same silicon budget we can expect some more performance

and what about gddr5+? too complex board layout?

Not a great way to look at it .

A) Farcry 2 on the pc is much better looking and pushing more effects than the 360/ps3 verisons

B) your already at 2 times the pixel count as what the 360 would run at (it coudl be running at an even lower res)

C) Farcry 2 does not really take advantage of the 5770. Its a dx 9 game. The 5770 is a dx 11 card. Designing a game around the 5770 would blow farcry 2 out of the water.

D) ITs doing farcry at ultra high settings with 4x fsaa
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3658&p=6 an dhas a higher framerate than the 360 or ps3


Whats really interesting is gpu roughly equal to the radeon 5850. It has some good specs . Its rumored that ati's new design from the ground up will be here for next fall. I would think a part based on that but the size of the 5850 would be a great chip for the next xbox .

You get a second gen dx 11 card with very low power usage. Put it on 32nm and you got a winner.



As for ram.

I'm hoping for 6 gigs of ram.

The playstation had 3 megs of ram , the ps2 had 32 megs and ps3 has 512 thats a 10 and 16 times increase in avalible ram.

Going from the 360 with 512 megs of ram your looking at 5 gigs or so of ram. 3 gigs of ram would simply be a 5.8 times increase.

Of cours ei'm hoping we are surprised and they go 8 gigs .


I really think next gen will be a long gen. So i hope they are more foward thinking.

 

[Sound_Card]

I really think next gen will be a long gen. So i hope they are more foward thinking.

I have no problem with a long gen either. They need to be forward thinking as possible.

 

[MarkoIt]

As for ram.

I'm hoping for 6 gigs of ram.

The playstation had 3 megs of ram , the ps2 had 32 megs and ps3 has 512 thats a 10 and 16 times increase in avalible ram.

Going from the 360 with 512 megs of ram your looking at 5 gigs or so of ram. 3 gigs of ram would simply be a 5.8 times increase.

Of cours ei'm hoping we are surprised and they go 8 gigs .


I really think next gen will be a long gen. So i hope they are more foward thinking.

ps3 was launched 7 years later ps2. If they aim for 2011 release, Xbox 3 will be launched 6 years after Xbox360. 4Gb will be the graphic memory of an high end video card by 2011. 8 gb of ram would require to many chips in 2011.

 

[MarkoIt]

I agree, and we are also at the point of diminishing returns for what we see on the screen. In order to appease and create new and larger market bases, more exciting technologies other then "more graphics!!1!" need to be introduced. Enter Natal or other controllers, 3D, physics... etc. I would for one would be completely disappointed if it's other wise. I see no problem providing hardware that can push those technologies combined with a standard such 1080p@30fps. Even if the graphics don't push a new boundary, although I don't see why we can't do that either. Comparing Xenos to Cypress is not even funny. I would love to see what we are comparing Xenos to in 2011 or 2012.

Let's go backwards:
we want a console capable of moving at least 10x more complex game, 1080p (double resolution)
30fps @ 3d (double the frame rate). To do that we need 40x the power of the current system. Let's even say that new architecture + DirextX11 are 50% more efficient. We still need 20x the raw specs of current system. That is 5 Tflops GPU, 8 gigabytes of ram,at least 8 core /16 threads processor: too much for a 400$, 200 watt system in 2011. It looks like more a late 2012 or even 2013 system.

 

[fehu]

actually top density is 2gbit, so for 4GB 16 chips needed, 8 in clamshell mode, 256bit bus - 192GB/s, nice but asking too much
in 2011 what will be top density?

 

[AlNom]

2gigabit density is still in the works, so it's a rough patch as to when they'll hit volume on that. There have been no plans mentioned as yet for anything higher. One issue they may have (again) are supply constraints, which could take over a year from intial introduction to resolve if GDDR3 512Mb has any similarity. The 360 had that issue for awhile even post-launch IIRC... 700-800MHz GDDR3 was near top end in 2005, wasn't it?

Will they have similar problems for ramping up? Hard to say.

 

[Squilliam]

At this point I can only see them using either 6x 32 bit 2Gb ram modules for 1.5GB total or 8x 16 bit clamshell 2Gbit modules for 2GB total or at a stretch clamshell 12 x 16 bit 2Gb ram modules for 3GB total ram. It really depends on the strategy of deployment and how long until the even higher density 4Gb ram modules are expected to be developed. It also relies on how much of a loss if any they are willing to take to launch the console. They can't easily go higher than 2GB of ram on a 128bit bus as they will only be able to address 8 ram modules.

Personally I can't really see them going higher than 2GB of ram for the consoles released at or slightly before 2011 as I don't really believe they will want to go to the extra expense of having a 50% wider bus and 50% more ram along with the added board complexity. I expect they would want to spend that money elsewhere. I believe the Xbox 360 was only intended to release with 256MB of ram at one point so given cost constraints 2GB is 8 times greater than what the consoles should have had last time. Its not the ram architectures we have now that are confusing the scaling between generations its the consoles before which had much more than they should have had otherwise.

Is there much call to go beyond 2GB for next generation consoles that anyone can forsee at this point?

 

[AlNom]

Is there much call to go beyond 2GB for next generation consoles that anyone can forsee at this point?

In-game web browsing, dur!

 

[brain_stew]

However much RAM they invest in a cache of say ~8GB super fast flash memory seems like a good investment imo, if only to help combat load times as the speed of the optical drive is still going to be a major bottleneck next generation. Similar principal to how Nintendo used the A-RAM in the GCN which delivered great results when properly optimised for.

It should be cheap enough at launch and will eventually become a very trivial cost over time. A good potential solution if 4-8GB of RAM proves cost prohibitive.

Is there much call to go beyond 2GB for next generation consoles that anyone can forsee at this point?

Sure it may not be particularly memory optimised and its an apples vs. oranges comparison but Crysis will routinely eat through more than 2GB of RAM with ease and that's a 2006 title with texture streaming and potentially an extra 1GB used up by a GPU depending on how they/Vista manage memory (I'm unsure, some input here would be helpful). You can never have enough RAM.