Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[Gipsel]

At least we will see them appearing soon in high end Radeon an Gforce cards.

I would almost expect a Tesla K25 with 12 GB and some Xeon Phi models with 12 and 16 GB first.

 

[tunafish]

That'd mean 8 chips on a 256 bit bus would yield about 4GB of RAM. Would that be a viable option?

Yes. Note that practically all GDDR5 can also be ran in clamshell, or x16, mode, so that you can fit 8 chips on a 128-bit bus. I think this would be more desirable, simply because it would not be possible to ever reduce the amount of chips in a 8-chip, 256-bit design. If you go clamshell, you can put in twice the amount of memory, and when 8Gb chips are made, cut the chip count in half. If you want a 256bit bus, might as well double the ram amount now -- it would not cost nearly as much as it sounds like in the long term.

I wonder about the tradeoffs for instance in terms of cost especially if GDDR5 is quickly replaced by stacked memory due to size/cost/power reasons. If they release a console towards the end of 2013 and in 2014 or 2015 major graphics cards transition away from the memory standard it could get quite expensive couldn't it?

I agree with you. I think going with GDDR5 would be a significant risk for cost reduction, as ending up stuck as the only user of a niche memory standard would not just be possible, it would be very likely. I think Sony would be particularly averse of this -- once bitten, twice shy.

How do the pin counts for GDDR5 compare to DDR4? I understand that GDDR5 has 30% more pins for a particular bus width than DDR3 IIRC so therefore a 256 bit GDDR5 would be equivalent to 333 bit DDR3, right?

A x16 DDR4 module has the same amount of pins as a x16 DDR3 module. Note that the 30% is not even all of the difference -- GDDR5 has much tighter tolerances, which means you have to spend more effort in shielding the lines from each other. If I had to toss a number off the top of my head, I'd say the real difference in implementation difficulty and cost is at least 50% if not more. So, a GDDR5 256bit would be equivalent to 384bit DDR4 or more. Of course, those tighter tolerances do buy you something -- the narrower GDDR5 bus would still be faster.

 

[AlNom]

Yeah, die shots of recent GPUs show a pretty fat memory I/O plane. Complexity there goes up so said GPUs can even handle the higher speeds.

 

[LXFBN]

4G/5T
5G/8T

Based on the Xboxworld article, 4G/5T can't be the number of threads. And the 8T in 6G/8T probably refers to the amount of memory.

4 teraflops GPU or Graphics / 5 teraflops Total (GPU + CPU)
6 gigabytes Games / 8 gigabytes Total

A 4 Teraflops GPU is nothing but a dream at this point.

 

[bbot]

A 4 Teraflops GPU is nothing but a dream at this point.

Not really HD 9780 ghz edition (4096 gflops)

 

[RedVi]

7970 GHz edition is what I'm guessing you meant after first thinking your post was tongue in cheek

4TF is not out of the question - if they use a Pitcairn sucessor based GPU but with more CU's and nothing else it actually becomes fairly possible I guess.

 

[fehu]

Oland XT?

 

[Proelite]

4G/5T
5G/8T

Based on the Xboxworld article, 4G/5T can't be the number of threads. And the 8T in 6G/8T probably refers to the amount of memory.

4 teraflops GPU or Graphics / 5 teraflops Total (GPU + CPU)
6 gigabytes Games / 8 gigabytes Total

 

[Lightman]

If that's reasonably close to truth then I will happily give MS my money on the day it's released!
Better yet, if GPU and CPU will work in unified memory space and be able to operate on the same data set without need of copying then I will look at it as new 'Amiga'! Innovative, cutting edge with lots of new ways to extract performance

 

[almighty]

I seriously doubt you're going to get 4/5 Terraflops in a next generation console, 2.5/3 yes but not 4/5.

 

[Arwin]

Normally, my guess of GPU performance would be something like:

{performance}/2 of best PC gpu that costs ${price of console} at time of (intended) console launch

But of course there are also power constraints that could have a negative effect.

 

[arijoytunir]

can ARM cores replace x86 as the choice of cpu for nxt gen consoles ? like 8-16 A53 or A57 64bit cores to amd piledriver cores ? ARM seems to be most future proof ! even intel atom is now weaker than the A15 core in google nexus 10 .

 

[tunafish]

can ARM cores replace x86 as the choice of cpu for nxt gen consoles ? like 8-16 A53 or A57 64bit cores to amd piledriver cores ? ARM seems to be most future proof ! even intel atom is now weaker than the A15 core in google nexus 10 .

Afaik there is presently no way to get more than 6 cache-coherent ARM cores in a single device. Doing coherency well and fast is *hard*, and ARM is not going to do the work because almost none of their customers care. (The upcoming ARM servers will not have system images with lots of cores, they just pack a lot of independent systems in the same box.)

While it is theoretically possible that they would just pack something like 2 or 4 separate quad-cores in the device, without coherency, and call it a day, devs would really, really hate that. It would be a nightmare to put all cores to work. Cache coherency is important.

If you want a lot of rather wimpy cores, why not look at Jaguar instead of A15? It's going to be in the same ballpark in speed, and only slightly bigger. And based on the published information (which is admittedly somewhat vague), the L2 seems to have all the necessary parts in it that you can tie more than one 4-core unit together.

(As a minor twist, I think it's almost a certainty that one if not both of the next-gen consoles will indeed have ARM cores in them. Just not as the main CPU -- the arm core will be responsible for, among other things, maintaining the security policy.)

 

[Blazkowicz]

Normally, my guess of GPU performance would be something like:

{performance}/2 of best PC gpu that costs ${price of console} at time of (intended) console launch

But of course there are also power constraints that could have a negative effect.

especially, the TDP of high end cards were around 100 watts when the HD consoles launched.

 

[arijoytunir]

Afaik there is presently no way to get more than 6 cache-coherent ARM cores in a single device. Doing coherency well and fast is *hard*, and ARM is not going to do the work because almost none of their customers care. (The upcoming ARM servers will not have system images with lots of cores, they just pack a lot of independent systems in the same box.)

While it is theoretically possible that they would just pack something like 2 or 4 separate quad-cores in the device, without coherency, and call it a day, devs would really, really hate that. It would be a nightmare to put all cores to work. Cache coherency is important.

If you want a lot of rather wimpy cores, why not look at Jaguar instead of A15? It's going to be in the same ballpark in speed, and only slightly bigger. And based on the published information (which is admittedly somewhat vague), the L2 seems to have all the necessary parts in it that you can tie more than one 4-core unit together.

(As a minor twist, I think it's almost a certainty that one if not both of the next-gen consoles will indeed have ARM cores in them. Just not as the main CPU -- the arm core will be responsible for, among other things, maintaining the security policy.)

 

[XpiderMX]

Normally, my guess of GPU performance would be something like:

{performance}/2 of best PC gpu that costs ${price of console} at time of (intended) console launch

But of course there are also power constraints that could have a negative effect.

Can it be applied to Xbox 360 GPU? or/and Original Xbox GPU?

 

[arijoytunir]

this is just my speculation (not based on the rumours) and i just want to get the response from u all on this!
my take on next playstation is the following-

after the playstation vita launched on february ; sony is making most of their psn and some retail titles like ps all-stars battle royal , payable both on ps3 and vita . So to ease the development of making a game for 2 completely different systems , playstation 4 could be based on 4 or 8 or 16 Arm A57 64bit cores cpu . this would make games scalable between ps4 and vita . and the vita would get more games . regarding the gpu - ps4 can take amd gpu but its better to take power vr rogue gpu cores to make the code scalable on both platforms . Since the upcoming power vr rogue can offer upto 1Tf of theoretical performance , sony can choose the number of simd (cores of gpu ) like they did on vita ( powervr 543+) or custom make it . and the smartphone games could also be scalable between these platforms with playstation mobile . as for the future ; amd is building Arm servers and sony can use them to power gaikai ! i think this can turn around sony into a profitable business !
( again this is pure my speculation )

 

[Proelite]

IMO

Xbox RT = Phones, Tablets, Setup-Box

Durango = Xbox RT chip, same OS, Apps and casual games as Xbox RT
AND Xbox x64 games

Xbox RT innards:
ARM SOC with 2GB of LDDR3

Durango innards:
ARM SOC with 2GB of LDDR3
AMD SOC with 4GB+ of DDR4
maybe a discrete GPU with faster RAM.

PC = Xbox x64 ports.

 

[arijoytunir]

IMO

Xbox RT = Phones, Tablets, Setup-Box

Durango = Xbox RT chip, same OS, Apps and casual games as Xbox RT
AND Xbox x64 games

Xbox RT innards:
ARM SOC with 2GB of LDDR3

Durango innards:
ARM SOC with 2GB of LDDR3
AMD SOC with 4GB+ of DDR4
maybe a discrete GPU with faster RAM.

PC = Xbox x64 ports.

where did u get that ?
did u asume from this - http://t.co/QO1K4Z91

 

[Proelite]

where did u get that ?
did u asume from this - http://t.co/QO1K4Z91

and

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-microsoft-scalable-platform-patent

I am just connecting some dots.