Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[Rangers]

FX-8350, 4 ghz, 8 core sounds like the business
http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/23/amd-fx-processor-refresh/
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6396/the-vishera-review-amd-fx8350-fx8320-fx6300-and-fx4300-tested

But really, I have no idea.

They do seem to compare pretty badly with Intel's (mid-range) offerings in gaming performance though:http://www.anandtech.com/show/6396/the-vishera-review-amd-fx8350-fx8320-fx6300-and-fx4300-tested/5

Though, with the heavy multi-threading you see in console titles that should be less of an issue.

What's also interesting is how the PS3 will compare, since IIRC apparently it has a quad core APU + discrete GPU. So maybe we could see the opposite of this gen where the Xbox has more CPU processing power and the Playstation more GPU power.

Piledriver is very hot+power hungry. I'd think it unlikely.

They are typically 125 watt TDP chips. By themselves. The console will probably need to be ~200 watts altogether.

I think it would be overkill for a console.

 

[McHuj]

Lets just hope that if it is a 7850 card they don't cripple the memory bus!!

Yes, that will be interesting. A 7850 has BW of ~150 GB/sec I don't see how then can come close to that using DDR3/4. Would 64MB of embedded ram be sufficient?

8GB Main Ram => 64MB Embedded Ram at 50-75GB/sec
64MB Embedded Ram => GPU at 150-250 GB/sec

Is that good enough?

 

[almighty]

Yes, that will be interesting. A 7850 has BW of ~150 GB/sec I don't see how then can come close to that using DDR3/4. Would 64MB of embedded ram be sufficient?

8GB Main Ram => 64MB Embedded Ram at 50-75GB/sec
64MB Embedded Ram => GPU at 150-250 GB/sec

Is that good enough?

EDRAM would be a lot faster then 75Gb/s

 

[Shifty Geezer]

EDRAM would be a lot faster then 75Gb/s

McHuj says that. 150-250 GB/s on eDRAM, with a 50-75 GB/s connection to main RAM in his example. And that would indeed be plenty enough system BW as long as the eDRAM was adequately sized and versatile.

I'm disappointed Rambus has failed. Years ago I was hoping for 500 GB/s RAM performance.

 

[dumbo11]

ARM security is basically hardware DRM.

I forgot to mention, but "in theory" this could be used for far more than simple DRM.

It could be used for some type of layered security model - allowing different pieces of code access to different pieces of data/hardware resources... i.e. the console could have a native winRT OS/dashboard that is hardware isolated from the sensitive parts of the console. (i.e. so that a winRT game can't steal your login/access the gaming data or run accelerated 3d etc).

Alternatively, it is just a solid DRM system... and given the repeat failures in this area (by all parties), that's not a terrible idea.

 

[Blazkowicz]

I'm disappointed Rambus has failed. Years ago I was hoping for 500 GB/s RAM performance.

lol. They were working on a 64-lawyer-wide technology clocked at 5 giga-lawsuits per second. The output went through a Legalese hardware encryption module, this were all fine but the sheer amount of output was hardly possible to process and store. Archival was on printed letters circulating in tubes. During tests, congestion quickly resulted in a big explosion sending 1400 million subpoenas flying around in a five miles radius.

 

[Grall]

lol. They were working on a 64-lawyer-wide technology clocked at 5 giga-lawsuits per second.

Post of the century! LOLROFL.

Btw. Of course... Even Rambus couldn't possibly sustain a 5 GLS/s filing rate, which is why their technology failed.

 

[Squilliam]

I don't know what they're branding strategy is. On the PC it's all Live - Live Messenger, Live Mail, etc. And that came after Xbox Live - I thought we were seeing Live become the umbrella concept. Xbox Music and XBox Video seems contrary. Maybe they want a entertainment/productivity distinction? Xbox is an odd choice as it sounds like a device, so why access Xbox Music on your phone or PC? Whereas Live is clearly a service. Whatever, I'm sure someone like bkilian can fill us in on the thinking, or at least the plan even if the thinking is lost to us.

Xbox has become the entertainment brand it seems going by what is happening on the desktop. The only 'entertainment' side which hasn't seemed to have migrated across is games in the App store. They have two game stores in the new Windows 8 but neither are any good yet from the perspective of a PC user downloading HD style games, I can see however some of the new games aren't called 'GFWL' they're called 'Xbox Windows' in their title. From what I can tell they're calling everything entertainment related Xbox something. The thing which I would like clarity on is licensing between the Xbox game store and their consoles, I.E. if you buy an Xbox Windows version of Fable 3 does that entitle you to the Xbox 360 version download? Also how does it work? Is it a license per log-in or is it a license to the machine first downloaded to plus a log in?

McHuj says that. 150-250 GB/s on eDRAM, with a 50-75 GB/s connection to main RAM in his example. And that would indeed be plenty enough system BW as long as the eDRAM was adequately sized and versatile.

I'm disappointed Rambus has failed. Years ago I was hoping for 500 GB/s RAM performance.

If they use stacked memory couldn't they target a 256, 512bit or ever 1024bit DDR4 bus? I don't know the specifics but wasn't that the promise of using stacked memory aside from the packaging advantages?

 

[AzBat]

Heh, Xbox 360 is actually 5 syllables in English anyway, so the math doesn't work out in any case.

Oops!

I don't know what they're branding strategy is. On the PC it's all Live - Live Messenger, Live Mail, etc. And that came after Xbox Live - I thought we were seeing Live become the umbrella concept. Xbox Music and XBox Video seems contrary. Maybe they want a entertainment/productivity distinction? Xbox is an odd choice as it sounds like a device, so why access Xbox Music on your phone or PC? Whereas Live is clearly a service. Whatever, I'm sure someone like bkilian can fill us in on the thinking, or at least the plan even if the thinking is lost to us.

Actually Microsoft has dropped all the Live branding on the Windows side with the launch of Windows 8...

The Windows Live brand was phased out during August 2012; coinciding with the RTM of Windows 8. Most services kept their name, but with the removal of "Windows Live" in front of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Live

Other than Xbox I think Windows Live Messenger is the only other Live brand left. Could be they are either getting ready to drop the Live brand altogether or they're dropping all the others to let Xbox Live stand on its own.

To keep this slightly on-topic, can somebody explain if the AMD news today about ARM-based Opterons has anything to do remotely with the next gen?

http://arstechnica.com/information-...arm-based-opteron-cpus-due-to-launch-in-2014/

Tommy McClain

 

[ERP]

To keep this slightly on-topic, can somebody explain if the AMD news today about ARM-based Opterons has anything to do remotely with the next gen?

http://arstechnica.com/information-...arm-based-opteron-cpus-due-to-launch-in-2014/
Tommy McClain

Probably nothing he idea of using ARM based servers for compute clusters and large data servers have been tossed around for a long time (at least 5 years to my knowledge).

I saw figures that suggested some of the data centers we used at one job averaged less than 5% CPU utilization.

Data centers are limited by power requirements, and often the CPU's are massively underutilized the vast majority of the time, going to a less powerful, more power efficient architecture makes a lot of sense.

 

[Blazkowicz]

Nothing ; you can see they position ARM on the servers, and low end or storage and network oriented ones, at that. A database server requiring high single-thread performance may be served by x86 opteron.
In this, ARM Opteron would take the role of IBM's PowerPC A2 while x86 Opteron would more like the Power7, as a comparison.

For a desktop or console they intend you to still use x86 cores.

Probably nothing he idea of using ARM based servers for compute clusters and large data servers have been tossed around for a long time (at least 5 years to my knowledge).

Yes, and there may be a few products but this will only get serious with ARMv8 (64bit and virtualisation extensions)
I can be nice for a rented virtual server, pile up cheap 64-core ARM boxes, and rent me one full ARM core for as cheap as possible.

 

[XpiderMX]

Are the FX CPUs APUs?

 

[Gipsel]

Are the FX CPUs APUs?

Not yet. And probably won't for one or two more years.

 

[3dilettante]

AMD's proposed cloud server product is wrong in terms of timeline, process node, topology, and design.

Early production is 2014, so unless we're counting on a holiday 2014 or early 2015 next gen as a best case, it's too late.
The time frame also seems to indicate the chip is on a 20nm process, which would mean the console makers skipped a whole node.
The chip is designed for a large shared-nothing virtualized server system with low single-threaded performance and virtualized storage and IO services. It either directly hurts the performance needs of a console or it is wildly inappropriate for a console.
The design completely lacks a GPU, and AMD very subtly indicates no GPU is able to play with this new chip at all. So let's not plan on playing games on an ARM console with no GPU.

 

[XpiderMX]

Not yet. And probably won't for one or two more years.

Talking about gaming, is there a big difference in performance between SBE and FX CPUs?

 

[Gipsel]

Talking about gaming, is there a big difference in performance between SBE and FX CPUs?

In quite a few CPU limited situations there is a marked difference. But intel's CPU licensing terms probably makes it difficult to use it at acceptable long term costs. And integrating it together with a GPU on a SoC is probably close to impossible, let alone to contract the manufacturing of that SoC to another fab other than intel (which woud be a problem with an integrated AMD or nV graphics).

But in the end, does a dual core quad thread Core i3 packs much more punch than an 8 core Jaguar in roughly the same die real estate and the same 30 to 35W power budget? After all, the developers got quite acquainted to the 6 threaded Xenon and used it actually quite well (they had to, because a single thread is not very fast).

 

[tunafish]

If they use stacked memory couldn't they target a 256, 512bit or ever 1024bit DDR4 bus? I don't know the specifics but wasn't that the promise of using stacked memory aside from the packaging advantages?

Yes. But it's important to note that the key idea here is either to stack the ram on the logic die, or stack them both on a silicon interposer. Just normal logic -> stacked ram gets you nothing.

The various 3d integration methods are the dark horse in this race. They would allow really significant cost-effective improvements in the area that has traditionally been the weak point in console hardware, but honestly, they are really not quite mature enough to be comfortable for a late 2013 launch IMHO.

If I had a few billion to design a console now I'd be really tempted to wait for them. Then again, that would probably mean a year of this gen vs next gen on the market.

The option I find most realistic is that the consoles are designed to ship with traditional ram bus, but cost-reduce into a stacked configuration. The cost of 256-bit ram bus at launch is not really that bad. The reason they don't want to do that is that it puts a minimum circumference on your chip, which is bad for cost-reducing down the road. If they assume that they can move into a stacked DDR4 bus when they want to, it might free them to do 256bit buses.

 

[(((interference)))]

Not yet. And probably won't for one or two more years.

Do we know whether the Orbis dev kit has a quad core CPU or a quad core APU?

It'll be interesting if the PS4 has an integrated GPU+discrete GPU while the 720 has only a discrete GPU+2x the CPU cores (and double the RAM). Both discrete GPUs seem to be around 2TF from what we know too.

 

[Rangers]

It wouldn't shock me because Sony likes doing goofy system designs...then again BG's rumors never made mention of it.

 

[Squilliam]

Yes. But it's important to note that the key idea here is either to stack the ram on the logic die, or stack them both on a silicon interposer. Just normal logic -> stacked ram gets you nothing.

The various 3d integration methods are the dark horse in this race. They would allow really significant cost-effective improvements in the area that has traditionally been the weak point in console hardware, but honestly, they are really not quite mature enough to be comfortable for a late 2013 launch IMHO.

But if they did have them they could design around a significantly higher level of bandwidth so they'd get both the packaging advantages as well as the bandwidth advantages right from the start wouldn't they?

Maybe they could do something like:

APU -> Interposer (64MB embedded ram) -> RAM and have the ability to resolve directly to the embedded RAM whilst putting the embedded RAM right on top of the memory bus? Wasn't one of the big problems with the 360 the transfer speed from the eDRAM to the main memory and vice versa?

The option I find most realistic is that the consoles are designed to ship with traditional ram bus, but cost-reduce into a stacked configuration. The cost of 256-bit ram bus at launch is not really that bad. The reason they don't want to do that is that it puts a minimum circumference on your chip, which is bad for cost-reducing down the road. If they assume that they can move into a stacked DDR4 bus when they want to, it might free them to do 256bit buses.

How fast is DDR4? How much bandwidth is DDR4 on a 128 bit bus and how fast is it in comparison to GDDR5?