Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[pjbliverpool]

ok i was wrong

I'm not sure you were. If by lanes for bandwidth you're talking about the bus width then I also thought buses could be wider with GDDR5 compared with XDR2. i.e. I'm not sure how feasible it would be to produce a 256bit interface for XDR2 compared which GDDR2 where such width is common.

 

[-tkf-]

So having quarter of the market share qualifies as "has taken over" then?

Don't get me wrong. I also think that BD is here to stay for quite a while and is far from dead. Just that I'm not sure if it'll dominate the movie (game?) distribution nearly as much as DVD did/does.

Nothing has been taken over, but bluray is taking over the market, maybe it´s my english?. You can see how it was up to 40% last year. And nowhere did i claim it would dominate like DVD did, DVD was for movies/games what CD´s was. Blu-Ray is something else...

 

[hoho]

Nothing has been taken over, but bluray is taking over the market, maybe it´s my english?

Could be either your or my English. I thought "it's taken over" means "it has taken over".

You can see how it was up to 40% last year.

Yes, I did see the bumps but those are just extremes. On average the share has grown by around 5% per year since the beginning.

 

[fehu]

I'm not sure you were. If by lanes for bandwidth you're talking about the bus width then I also thought buses could be wider with GDDR5 compared with XDR2. i.e. I'm not sure how feasible it would be to produce a 256bit interface for XDR2 compared which GDDR2 where such width is common.

I was throwing the bit number and counting only the number of traces, because in a console is that the limiting factor
if for example to achieve 100GB/s with xdr2 you need only 64bit but 200 traces, and with gddr5 you need 128bit but only 160 traces, the best option is gddr5 because wider xdr2 bus are out of budget
Of course i'm making this number up because i don't know the real values...

 

[Blazkowicz]

I can't even stream SD BBC iPlayer in an evening because our internet's so crap!

this.
there are plenty of rural homes with end-of-line DSL or worse (homes likely to have a living room, and where a console is a nice distraction), student dorms retro-fitted with terrible crowded wifi (and with some unmaintained filtering and proxy portal page)

if there are perfect internet connections everywhere you could say, why bother with console hardware at all, just build server farms with 16 core, 128GB ram PCs with multiple GPUs and follow Onlive's model.

 

[Blazkowicz]

I was throwing the bit number and counting only the number of traces, because in a console is that the limiting factor
if for example to achieve 100GB/s with xdr2 you need only 64bit but 200 traces, and with gddr5 you need 128bit but only 160 traces, the best option is gddr5 because wider xdr2 bus are out of budget
Of course i'm making this number up because i don't know the real values...

with xdr2 you have to pay the whole bringing up a production plant that will only be used for your product.

and well. can't someone buy these patent trolls just to bury the company in the ground?
rambus, a company that only exists for the purpose of being hated, like SCO and its linux affair.

 

[fehu]

Nothing has been taken over, but bluray is taking over the market, maybe it´s my english?. You can see how it was up to 40% last year. And nowhere did i claim it would dominate like DVD did, DVD was for movies/games what CD´s was. Blu-Ray is something else...

The graph doesn't take into consideration the demographic distribution
I'm sure that the 25% overlap the gamer profile almost perfectly

 

[fehu]

rambus, a company that only exists for the purpose of being hated

this can really be their best payoff

 

[rapso]

dropping physical media doesn't strictly mean they'll drop any retail sales. I had this silly idea:
imagin you can format some cheap memory card with your Xbox720 that includes some "signature" of your console, then you go to a store, copy whatever game you want to it (on a similar station like those where you can upload pictures to get real prints, in case you have a digi-cam but no internet ).
Then you go to purchase those copied games like usually disc games. (yes, that would demand every shop to have some signing-device).
Maybe you could even copy those games from a friend, you just need to activate/sign it on your Xbox720 (via slow network or a phone call).

That way everyone with a slow internet connection would still be able to buy games, those games would just work on one account/xbox and would eliminate 2nd hand trading as well as the cost companies usually have to distribute games (retail stores would just download a new game from the xbox-market like every other consumer).

another possibility is that MS sells an external drive, just like HD-DVD back then and if you really need it, you pay those $100-$200 extra (albeit a BD-Rom drive is cheaper).

I highly doubt any of the next consoles will be using just an online market place, but I highly believe they'll focus on it.

 

[hoho]

There is no need for some complicated signing procedure. Just require online activation and tying it to your account and it's done.

 

[Elan Tedronai]

why would anyone compare xdr from 2006 to brand new gddr specs? back that xdr was the only fast memory available that was good enough for the cell.


xdr 2 is available. as for production, you're talking about a hardware manufacturer. sony manufacturers components such as the cell and rsx as well. yeah xdr2 will be expensive in the begiining like any new tech. after a few years of production costs will come down.


as for generic pc stuff, yes that what it is. sony always distinghuished itself because of it exotic different specs. you have to be a techie debbie downer if you want sony to go with generic out of shelf crap parts. no innovation, no creativity.

sony's greatest skill is their hardware engineers. software wise the are okay. their competitors trump them in that aspect. their only advantage to up the competition is to build powerful hardware that shames the competition

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Could be either your or my English. I thought "it's taken over" means "it has taken over".

-tkf- probably meant 'overtaken'.

 

[TheD]

why would anyone compare xdr from 2006 to brand new gddr specs? back that xdr was the only fast memory available that was good enough for the cell.

Funny how GDDR3 is fine for the 360 (22GB/S shared between the CPU and GPU even) and also the RSX.

 

[hoho]

XB had 22GB/s to GDDR + additional 32GB/s to eDRAM. That kinda balances it out in the end. Also it's quite obvious that Cell was way too powerful next to RSX (or RSX was way too weak, depends on point of view). I don't think Sony intended to pair Cell with that kind of GPU but they had little choice.

 

[Rangers]

sony's greatest skill is their hardware engineers. software wise the are okay. their competitors trump them in that aspect.

What? All i hear about on message boards is their great, unparalleled exclusives lineup mostly...

also exotic vs non exotic doesnt even matter mostly, it's just powerful vs not powerful. I'll take a powerful off the shelf console vs less powerful one with "exotic" technologies every time. Or vice versa.

PS3 would have been better off with Xenon redux and a 8800GTX class G80 GPU, no doubt at all, despite being less "exotic"

On to the memory debate, google tells me nothing, are 4Gb GDDR5 chips even coming in the next couple years?

Over on GAF a lot seem to be all about the stacked memory as being our answer, I have no idea if that's reasonable in our timeframe.

My "preferred" next gen setup has been a 192 bit bus, no EDRAM, and 3GB GDDR5, but the RAM is a bit light. But if there was any way to kick that up to 6GB, problem solved imo.

Failing that we're probably looking at EDRAM, just hope it's a better deal than it was this generation.

It seems like a case where you could almost be limited to a 7770 class GPU in order to go with 4GB+ of GDDR3 RAM. Anything else you could be bandwidth limited anyway. Just some ideas. Who knows, GDDR3 may be "too obsolete" and be priced too high later in the gen.

 

[pjbliverpool]

why would anyone compare xdr from 2006 to brand new gddr specs? back that xdr was the only fast memory available that was good enough for the cell.

You tell me, you're the one that said:

"xdr is not smoke and mirrors. it's the only memory fast enough for the current ps3 processor.

gddr3/5 are simply not fast enough"

If your now changing your statement to refer only to memory at the time of PS3's laumch then you are, well... still wrong. As pointed out GDDR3 could achieve equal or greater bandwidth on a 128bit bus than what XDR provides in PS3 during the same period.

as for generic pc stuff, yes that what it is. sony always distinghuished itself because of it exotic different specs. you have to be a techie debbie downer if you want sony to go with generic out of shelf crap parts. no innovation, no creativity.

This is complete rubbish. How can you seriously claim there is no creativity or innovation coming out of Nvidia or AMD? The chips they produce are literally state of the art bleeding edge graphics technology that is completely unrivalled by any other company.

Regardless of your personal opinions I'd say there's probably a greater than 90% chance that a system built using those "generic out of shelf crap parts" a year from now would be significantly more powerful than whatever's in the PS4 regardless of how "exotic" it is (exotic merely being defined here as significantly different to what the industry leaders are producing).

 

[Brimstone]

If Rambus is used I doubt it would be XDR2 with 16x data signaling rate. It would have elements of the Terrabyte Initiative technology so a 32x data signaling rate. Rambus has been working on this for many years.

TBI = XDR3


Here is what Rambus says.

32X Data Rate
Rambus' 32X Data Rate technology transfers 32-bits of data per I/O on every clock cycle. This enables extremely high bit-transfer rates and per device bandwidth while maintaining relatively low system clock speeds. Use of lower clock speeds reduces system costs and complexity.

Current industry standard memories employ double, or quad, data rate technology which transfers two, or four, bits of data per I/O for every clock cycle. Using quad data rate technology, GDDR5 memory requires a 1750 megahertz (MHz) clock to achieve a peak performance of 7 gigabits per second (Gbps) data rate and 28 gigabytes per second (GB/s) total bandwidth from a 4-byte wide device. The complexity and cost of routing, distributing and maintaining clock signals rise significantly as frequencies increase. This added cost and complexity reduces scalability.

32X Data Rate technology offers a scalable migration path to higher memory system performance and device bandwidth by enabling breakthrough signaling rates. A data rate of 20Gbps can be achieved with an easily manageable 625MHz system clock. This provides a total bandwidth of 80GB/s from a single 4-byte wide DRAM device.


Commercial and Performance Benefits
Rambus' 32X Data Rate technology offers a scalable migration path to faster memory and higher resulting device bandwidth while maintaining a more manageable lower-frequency system clock. Use of low-speed system clocks lowers power consumption and reduces complexity and cost in board and system design.

4gigs of XDR3 and a Blu-Ray style optical drive that reads holographic discs (fast data rates and large storage capacity for John Carmack).

 

[AlNom]

Just keep in mind that the TB bandwidth initiative as first mentioned with XDR2 was implied to be achieved with 16 32-bit MCs surrounding a chip. Doubling throughput will halve that, but the physical I/O still doesn't come cheap since there are two wires per signal bit versus single ended designs.

 

[Elan Tedronai]

http://www.rambus.com/in/technology/innovations/tbi/index.html

wow the more i am reading about the TBI the more impressed i am. This should be playstation 4 memory. right there.

@pjbliverpool

when i talk about generic stuff i mean things like cpu design, memory design etc. pointless really.

The only thing that is a remotely a pc part in the ps3 is the rsx. And nvidia shafted sony in that aspect. Giving them a weak gpu which needs help from the cell to even gain the same time of performance as xbox gpu.

that's what happens when you go with lowest common denominater. things then look pretty uninspiring considering that pcs will then catch up to your console within a year or so in terms of specs and performance.


That's why sony should go for something more powerful and unique that is their signature trademark. Something that would take sometime for pc to ages to catch up. even now the cell trumps everything in processing power in terms of costs and wattage.


the ps4 must last another 7-10 years. So they should go for 8 gigs xdr3 minimum with an improved cell processor that would last till 2020 at least.

 

[BRiT]

http://www.rambus.com/in/technology/innovations/tbi/index.html

wow the more i am reading about the TBI the more impressed i am. This should be playstation 4 memory. right there.

the ps4 must last another 7-10 years. So they should go for 8 gigs xdr3 minimum with an improved cell processor that would last till 2020 at least.

Fuck it, why stop there? Why not go for TBI 2 and 16GB? After all, you're already dreaming.