Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[MrFox]

No wonder RSX was a bit gimped then

Maybe IBM calculates it correctly (like the intel burn test), the TDP is never reached in practice and it does only 75W in games. This could be why the power supply was much bigger than 200W and they wanted to be safe in case some crazy dev actually reach closer to the TDP in a real game. I mean the risk always exists. Devs tend to find more and more clever ways to maximize the performance much later. I can imagine a big game coming out that breaks first gen consoles would be a PR nightmare.

Are we comparing apples to oranges, average in game power draw versus manufacturers TDP?

 

[Butta]

My 2 cents about next gen:

I don't expect there to be that much of a gap between WiiU and next gen Sony and MS consoles. Everybody seems to be worried about WiiU specs but seem to overlook the fact that they are targeting 720p instead of 1080p. If their system comes equiped with 1-1.5 GB of ram it will be an enormous jump for asset quality in comparison with this gen. Also I expected that the shadders will be far more efficient and capable regardless of stats like flops. The other major issue that current gen machines have been struggling with this gen (especially PS3 due to limited bandwidth) is framerate and fillrate. I don't expect this to be an issue for Nintendo and expect them to be targeting 60fps on their hardware in most first party games. WiiU will be a significant jump over current gen and not that far removed from new PS and XBOX which will be struggling to offer 1080p at a reasonable price point. I expect the difference to be somewhere in the area of Gamecube versus original XBox and I personally never found the difference between those 2 systems to be that big if at all.

 

[Ninjaprime]

Maybe IBM calculates it correctly (like the intel burn test), the TDP is never reached in practice and it does only 75W in games. This could be why the power supply was much bigger than 200W and they wanted to be safe in case some crazy dev actually reach closer to the TDP in a real game. I mean the risk always exists. Devs tend to find more and more clever ways to maximize the performance much later. I can imagine a big game coming out that breaks first gen consoles would be a PR nightmare.

Are we comparing apples to oranges, average in game power draw versus manufacturers TDP?

Also have to account for that being a full Cell with 8 SPEs and PS3s only have 7.

 

[hoho]

Also have to account for that being a full Cell with 8 SPEs and PS3s only have 7.

and even one of those was reserved for OS/DRM so probably not under all that heavy load.

 

[AlNom]

How was power consumption under Folding@Home loads?

 

[MrFox]

How was power consumption under Folding@Home loads?

About 200W. Highest average consumption I've seen was 217W for Formula One.
I'm curious about the newer games using lots of texture streaming, since the reserved core is doing all the HDD crypto it should wake up...

 

[Platon]

The original PS3 had a 380W power adaptor (although in operation the console had a peak consumption of only around 200W).

That was also around a 5x jump in power consumption compared to its predecessor the PS2. Although I don't expect another jump of near that magnitude this upcoming generation, I don't share the view that we have hit some mythical barrier at 200W.

There isn't really anything mythical about it though. Allthough wattage has been going nowhere but up for CPUs and GPUs the cooling solutions, at least to me, seem to be the same as always.

I'm not saying we will not see a wattage increase next gen, but if they want to keep the same levels of size/form factor and noise as last gen, they will be restricted around the 200-something barrier, as they most likely do not want to spend too much $ on expensive cooling solutions, either...

 

[DuckThor Evil]

There isn't really anything mythical about it though. Allthough wattage has been going nowhere but up for CPUs and GPUs the cooling solutions, at least to me, seem to be the same as always.

I'm not saying we will not see a wattage increase next gen, but if they want to keep the same levels of size/form factor and noise as last gen, they will be restricted around the 200-something barrier, as they most likely do not want to spend too much $ on expensive cooling solutions, either...

The second part I agree, but the first isn't accurate. CPUs haven't really seen a meaningful wattage increase and GPUs certainly don't use the same cooling solutions "as always", they've been beefed up a lot, kind of silly to assume that for example 2x rise in power consumption would have the same cooling solution.

 

[Platon]

The second part I agree, but the first isn't accurate. CPUs haven't really seen a meaningful wattage increase and GPUs certainly don't use the same cooling solutions "as always", they've been beefed up a lot, kind of silly to assume that for example 2x rise in power consumption would have the same cooling solution.

Yeah, true the CPUs have had much more modest watt changes as they have always been quite high.

As for the cooling I don't get your point. Aren't GPUs (and CPUs), with some maybe extreme exceptions, cooled by heatsinks and fans blowing air?...

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Yeah, true the CPUs have had much more modest watt changes as they have always been quite high.

As for the cooling I don't get your point. Aren't GPUs (and CPUs), with some maybe extreme exceptions, cooled by heatsinks and fans blowing air?...

Well yes they are still pretty similar in function, although at some point they started using vapor chamber designs. The sizes and capacity to transfer heat has changed a lot, I classified that as not being the same as always, but I see what you mean.

 

[Prophecy2k]

My 2 cents about next gen:

I don't expect there to be that much of a gap between WiiU and next gen Sony and MS consoles. Everybody seems to be worried about WiiU specs but seem to overlook the fact that they are targeting 720p instead of 1080p. If their system comes equiped with 1-1.5 GB of ram it will be an enormous jump for asset quality in comparison with this gen. Also I expected that the shadders will be far more efficient and capable regardless of stats like flops. The other major issue that current gen machines have been struggling with this gen (especially PS3 due to limited bandwidth) is framerate and fillrate. I don't expect this to be an issue for Nintendo and expect them to be targeting 60fps on their hardware in most first party games. WiiU will be a significant jump over current gen and not that far removed from new PS and XBOX which will be struggling to offer 1080p at a reasonable price point. I expect the difference to be somewhere in the area of Gamecube versus original XBox and I personally never found the difference between those 2 systems to be that big if at all.

I think the premise of your post fails because neither Nintendo, MS nor Sony will be making every game released for their new boxes. Devs will dev games to whatever resolution they choose, unless the platform holders decide to do somehting foolish and force them using some platform development policy. I don't think that after what happened this gen, MS, Sony or Nintendo are that stupid.

So I think we'll see a mix of resolutions across all games on each platform, depending on the balance of graphical and gameplay features a given developer decides to have in their game. If a dev thinks he can get away with 720p with some sophisticated AA scheme, then he will do that across all platforms, and make use of the remaining processing resource to make those pixels prettier.

There won't be a hard and fast minimum resolution limit on any of three platforms.

 

[Prophecy2k]

Well yes they are still pretty similar in function, although at some point they started using vapor chamber designs. The sizes and capacity to transfer heat has changed a lot, I classified that as not being the same as always, but I see what you mean.

Curious at what you mean by this? Am I being pedantic and you really mean gas chamber? Or are you taking about the use of heatpipes?

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Curious at what you mean by this? Am I being pedantic and you really mean gas chamber? Or are you taking about the use of heatpipes?

This is about the nVidia GTX 580, AMD has had similar designs for a while I think.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1462/1/

 

[Prophecy2k]

This is about the nVidia GTX 580, AMD has had similar designs for a while I think.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1462/1/

Cheers, thanks for that.

So it's effectively a thermosiphon. I know they use such things on high end servers, but didn't know they had them on GPUs.

I'd imagine it adds a certain additional cost element to the system.

The concept is similar to what heat pipes do. I'd imagine that the higher the thermal output of the chip, you'd reach a point where heatpipes would become insufficient (given the limit on heatpipe cappiliary diameter and length, and thus liquid volume and circulation rate), and thus you'd need to use this sort of thermosiphoning system.

 

[Gubbi]

The concept is similar to what heat pipes do. I'd imagine that the higher the thermal output of the chip, you'd reach a point where heatpipes would become insufficient (given the limit on heatpipe cappiliary diameter and length, and thus liquid volume and circulation rate), and thus you'd need to use this sort of thermosiphoning system.

I think heat pipes can move a lot more heat, since you can make the condenser arbitrarily large. Vapour chambers seems simpler and is thus cheaper (and more rugged) than heat pipes.

Cheers

 

[lefizz]

Actually i think that Vapour chambers can probably move more heat due to there size however heat pipes have the advantage in certain senarios that the heat can be move further away, such as in a laptop. Vapour chambers must be pretty effective or else they couldnt cool a 190 watt GPU.

The heat exit radiator part of the heat pipe can be placed near to an air vent , this way you can avoid heating up the internals of the unit as much which in very thin case which is hard to properly ventilate is a huge advantage.

I have pulled many laptops apart and have often found heat pipes used exactly for this, to move heat away from say the gpu out to the edge of the case where a fan can effectively remove the heat without cooking the guts of the unit.

 

[almighty]

Also a big factor in terms of heat sinks is noise, 360 is damn loud, and I have 13 fans in my PC!!

PS3 from what I remember is a very quiet system.

 

[lefizz]

The PS3 is near silent at the distant you use it at boot. However the fans spin up after a few minutes of use, even then though its significant quieter than my second 360 (first RROD after 2 years)

 

[anexanhume]

This is why vapour cooling works:

Heat transfer coefficient for some common fluids:

• Air - 10 to 100 W/m2K
• Water - 500 to 10 000 W/m2K

It's essentially self-enclosed water cooling with evaporation taking the place of a pump.

 

[tunafish]

This is why vapour cooling works:

Heat transfer coefficient for some common fluids:

• Air - 10 to 100 W/m2K
• Water - 500 to 10 000 W/m2K

It's essentially self-enclosed water cooling with evaporation taking the place of a pump.

No. In a water cooling rig, the heat gets captured in the water by heating it, and released in the cooler by cooling it. In a vapour chamber or a heatpipe, most of the heat is stored as the energy of evaporation, as opposed to just heating the water. This is ~an order of magnitude more efficient than plain water cooling.