Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[Shifty Geezer]

I did the math recently for myself and it would be cheaper to buy a new motherboard and 16GBs of DDR3 than to buy 8GBs of DDR2 for my current system. Figure I'll ride out my 4GBs until I can afford to upgrade the CPU, too, since I don't want to sink any more money into AM2/AM3.

Yep. Which means upgrading your PC isn't a cheap option if you aren't constantly doing it. Technology gets stuck in generations and when it becomes outdated, it's time for a massive change. DDR4 makes considerable sense for the consoles in that regard. The console companies need to be where the tech will be cheapest for the intended life of the machine. Being stuck with legacy tech will keep prices higher than necessary. I suppose the only counter to that is if the launch prices are so high that they nullify any long-term savings, but that's unlikely given volume of sales from launch through to end of lifecycle, unless something tragic keeps DDR4 rare.

 

[almighty]

I did the math recently for myself and it would be cheaper to buy a new motherboard and 16GBs of DDR3 than to buy 8GBs of DDR2 for my current system. Figure I'll ride out my 4GBs until I can afford to upgrade the CPU, too, since I don't want to sink any more money into AM2/AM3.

Where do you live, ddr2 can bocce had four cheap on eBay.

 

[DieH@rd]

I have 5 gigz of DDR2. Upgrade [mobo/ram/cpu] is out of the question before I find out how resource intensive will nextgen multiplatform games be [Epic used 16gigs of RAM for initial showcasing of Unreal 4].

 

[McHuj]

Sorry, what? How can you put 16 chips on a 64-bit bus and make it look like a 256bit bus?

If they use the stack, it will still be a 256-bit bus.

If the physical bus has to stay the same width, then there is no benefit to stacking, unless you're stacking on top of the GPU/CPU which won't be possible in a console.

One of the biggest benefits of a stacking memory is the ability to share the physical interconnects by the stacked dies. So you get greater speeds on a smaller physical bus. DDR4 spec allows the of stacking up to 8 DDR4 modules, but they can share the same physical signal. Yes, it's a faster interconnect, but it will burn a lot less power than the equivalent non-stacked bus. In theory you could get the same performance of 8 DDR4 devices on a 256-bit bus in the package of a 1x8 high stack on a 32-bit bus (assuming everything scales nicely)

 

[Brad Grenz]

Where do you live, ddr2 can bocce had four cheap on eBay.

Last time I priced it out I couldn't get 4 2GB DDR2 DIMMs (the max for my old Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe) for less than about $100, but I could pick up an AM3/3+ mobo for ~$45 and 16GBs of DDR3 for about $50.

 

[Gipsel]

If the physical bus has to stay the same width, then there is no benefit to stacking, unless you're stacking on top of the GPU/CPU which won't be possible in a console.

One could also stack next to the CPU/GPU on an interposer. That way one would basically save the logic die of a HMC and directly connect with a very wide relatively low speed bus (at least 512bit or even 1024bit) to the memory controller. If the production problems gets solved, it looks like a viable option.

 

[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 !

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Sony has a lot more to gain from a home console system that looks more like the competition for the sake of easy development/portability than from a system that looks more like vita.

The whole ps2/ps3 issue was that the systems weren't easy to develop for. They got away with it on ps2, they didn't with ps3. Making a manycore system that is very different from pc/xbox/wiiu will just make life harder for sony. Why bother when AMD can build you a system that pretty much guarrantees easy development and easy exchange code between the other main systems?

 

[Arwin]

More importantly, Vita is going to be so far away performance wise from the Playstation 4 that Playstation 4 could probably emulate it in software (with upscaling). So Vita should be completely irrelevant to Vita in that respect. It's more likely there'll be something included to make using the Vita as an extended controller work better.

Far more interesting will be Playstation 3 games on the Playstation 4. It's a matter of wait and see there whether they'll simply give up on that early and try to leverage GaiKai on that end, which seems likely.

The other interesting question will be if we'll see something like Playstation Mobile's framework for App type stuff.

 

[liolio]

Sony has a lot more to gain from a home console system that looks more like the competition for the sake of easy development/portability than from a system that looks more like vita.

The whole ps2/ps3 issue was that the systems weren't easy to develop for. They got away with it on ps2, they didn't with ps3. Making a manycore system that is very different from pc/xbox/wiiu will just make life harder for sony. Why bother when AMD can build you a system that pretty much guarrantees easy development and easy exchange code between the other main systems?

Well it proved to be a pain still the system sold well (in similar quantity as 360 more or less) the really issue was the cost of the system and the bunch of money they lost.
There is also another issue (not from my customer pov but from the corporate one) they haven't manage to have people to pay for play online, and it is not a light achievement MSFT pulled it has implication on the cash flow generated by the system. It would not be easy to embrass such a model with possible reaction in the user base (as a costumer I hope they don't try, but that is a different matter).

 

[Blazkowicz]

Last time I priced it out I couldn't get 4 2GB DDR2 DIMMs (the max for my old Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe) for less than about $100, but I could pick up an AM3/3+ mobo for ~$45 and 16GBs of DDR3 for about $50.

a really cheap ass mobo will only take 8GB.
an option I may have is an Asrock mobo with 770 chipset (and still an IDE port), and a friend selling me 4x2GB ddr3 for cheap. it supports piledrivers, too, and some useless crap (USB3, SATA 6Gb)

 

[almighty]

Last time I priced it out I couldn't get 4 2GB DDR2 DIMMs (the max for my old Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe) for less than about $100, but I could pick up an AM3/3+ mobo for ~$45 and 16GBs of DDR3 for about $50.

You're seriously doing something wrong, there's no way 4Gb of DDR2 is $100.... Even having a look for you I can find it for much much cheaper.

And I used to have that board, loved the thing!!!

 

[Blazkowicz]

that was four times 2GB. Well if I wanted 8GB without touching any screwdriver I could get 2x4GB ddr2 for 136 euros.

 

[DieH@rd]

Any opinions analyst speculations about DDR4 price in 2013 [published in June]:
http://www.desktopreview.com/default.asp?newsID=1884

There's no rush, really, as Garber notes that the price for DDR4 is outrageous. A 1Gbit DDR3 chip is $1.40, while a 2Gbit chip is $1.70, and a 4Gbit DDR4 chip is $30. By December, when volume production kicks in, that will drop to $5 and by this time next year, it will be $2.50, she said.

Entire industry is apparently waiting on Intel and Haswell's memory controller. What do you think, will Sony/MS have access to these cheap DDR4 prices in the second half of 2013?

 

[MfA]

What does it matter? The improvement is peanuts ... slightly lower power consumption is all.

 

[shiznit]

Any opinions analyst speculations about DDR4 price in 2013 [published in June]:
http://www.desktopreview.com/default.asp?newsID=1884



Entire industry is apparently waiting on Intel and Haswell's memory controller. What do you think, will Sony/MS have access to these cheap DDR4 prices in the second half of 2013?

consumer haswell is ddr3

 

[almighty]

consumer haswell is ddr3

No the first batch of consumer level Haswell chips will be DDR3 while a DDR4 version will be released later.

 

[Blazkowicz]

It's been announced Haswell-EX will use ddr4 and will be the first to (i.e. highest end platform, competing with POWER7 and Sparc).
ddr4 may be most relevant on servers, memory density is looked for and even power usage is very significant when you have racks of maxed or almost maxed out servers. Here with the newer, ddr4 mutli-socket "EX" you're easily looking into computers with 1TB memory each.

Then there's a new socket 2011, but no word on what it supports, I believe ddr4 is quite likely but it may well come quite late, after Haswell EX and Haswell consumer, which is on 1150 with ddr3. No ddr4 affordable version of Haswell I guess : they wouldn't junk that Socket 1150 right after launching it. Well they will junk but please give it slightly over a year's lifetime at least .
But maybe the ddr4 version of Haswell you refer to is Broadwell, which is rumored to be a chip on soldered package only.

 

[Blazkowicz]

What does it matter? The improvement is peanuts ... slightly lower power consumption is all.

Give it a couple of years and bandwith will be up significantly, on commonly affordable chips.
Same thing than last, ddr3 sucked, it did 1066 when ddr2 did 800 and 1066. Now ddr4 sucks, it does 2133 where ddr3 does 1866 or 2133. But ddr4 will do 3200 and up.

For consoles? I can agree it's not interesting for them. too early. But they can just use gddr5, or ddr3 + interposer, or gddr5 + interposer.

 

[MrFox]

Then there's a new socket 2011

If you mean the Xeon DP/MP socket 2011, we recently upgraded our farm with it, and it's still ddr3, but quad channel per CPU and up to 3 dimm per channel... so a low cost dual CPU board can have up to 768GB RAM.
Still, DDR4 is REALLY needed here, because a 32GB ddr3 dimm is stupidly expensive (>1000$ each), while the 8GB are like 30$, there's something wrong