Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[Platon]

this is a little bit taking it into the extreme side dont you think ? sony was a hardware company from the very beginning, Microsoft a software one from the very beginning, you cant jump from one into the other that easily and safely do you ? I mean just look at what happened to them with xbox1 (they were obliged litterally to stop producing these things, they were loosing money like crazy, thats not in my dictionary the best definition of competent hardware designers and architects, they litterally assembled a PC not a console), and for xbox360 hardware failure scandal....

Funny you bring up the xbox 1 as an engineering failure. It might have been business failure but not an engineering one. On the contrary, compared to the 360, well compared to almost any other console, it was very powerful and very durable, it was a damn tank. From that point of view actually, for being their first console and their first major hardware adventure I would say they manged their hardware jump extremely well.

That MS did crap deals and could not bring down costs is a whole different story. It does not matter that they assembled a PC into a console form, that was not the problem. If that is the case then then they should have the same problem with the 360 and from the looks of it both the PS4 and next xbox will be basically PC hardware. Should we expect MS/Sony to be screwed next gen because of that?...

 

[DoctorFouad]

Funny you bring up the xbox 1 as an engineering failure. It might have been business failure but not an engineering one. On the contrary, compared to the 360, well compared to almost any other console, it was very powerful and very durable, it was a damn tank. From the point of view actually, for being their first console and their first major hardware adventure I would say they manged their hardware jump extremely well.

That MS did crap deals and could not bring down costs is a whole different story. It does not matter that they assembled a PC into a console form, that was not the problem. If that is the case then then they should have the same problem with the 360 and from the looks of it both the PS4 and next xbox will be basically PC hardware. Should we expect MS/Sony to be screwed next gen because of that?...

you should read mmy previous post and the double standards problem

That MS did crap deals and could not bring down costs is a whole different story.

so do you accept my offer for ps4 : an I7 processor, GTX680, 4Gb of GDDR5 ? hoping that sony management team wont do crap deals with intel and anvidia and could bring down costs in the future, but thats as you said is a whole different story, its not my problem as a hardware designer so my choices are great.

 

[Ruskie]

the problem with your reasoning is that you are imposing double standards.

If I tell you the following : the best thing for ps4 is to have an intel processor and an nvidia GPU. you would tell me : thats a bad choice, you are not a good hardware engineer, both companies offer their products at a very expensive price, its not practical, you should have picked a processor from AMD or IBM and a custom cheap GPU from AMD...

you wont at all be tolerant and supportive with my choices and tell me : OK thats a great choice ! these companies offer nowadays great off the shelf products with great performance ! We will try to negociate very hard with them to buy the parts you picked up !

But you are making an apology for microsoft engineers, saying that its the management team fault...

you should choose your side : as a hardware engineer do i have or not to take into account the costs of harwdare I pick up ? but you just cant impose double standards as you wish...

What do I care what you choose? First of all, I'm not MS or Sony employee much less executive, I'm not choosing a thing and neither are you.

I don't have double standards, don't know how where you got that impression. This all started with "money" debate. MS can, without much problem (they won't though, they aren't nuts) lose couple billion on hardware without feeling a thing. Sony can't.

Both of them go to same vendors for same hardware and the only way to get better performing one is to pay more. What you are proposing is to forget about the money, to forget about the fact that they both buy hardware from the same vendors and go with "Sony is hardware company, they can't have weaker machine than MS. They have to design more efficient hardware". And thats not possible. Neither of these companies is expert in computer graphics so they can't design their own hardware. They have to pay to "usual suspects" to design it for them. More money = better hardware. Simple as that, no "double standards", just common sense.

 

[arijoytunir]

http://www.amd.com/us/products/notebook/graphics/7000m/7800m/Pages/radeon-7800m-series.aspx#2

hd 7870m rated as 1 TF . its successor hd 8800m at 992 GF ! is it going backwards ?

 

[Love_In_Rio]

http://www.amd.com/us/products/notebook/graphics/7000m/7800m/Pages/radeon-7800m-series.aspx#2

hd 7870m rated as 1 TF . its successor hd 8800m at 992 GF ! is it going backwards ?

Yes. But isn´t 8800m chip too big for only 640 shaders?. Full functioning chip ( 8900m) could be really a downclocked 8850 ( Pitcairn successor ) and so, consoles' chip. Maybe they want to stock out ingent amount of defective chips...

 

[Platon]

you should read mmy previous post and the double standards problem

I really don't see any double standards here or any problems, we must be having a different definition of the meaning.

so do you accept my offer for ps4 : an I7 processor, GTX680, 4Gb of GDDR5 ? hoping that sony management team wont do crap deals with intel and anvidia and could bring down costs in the future, but thats as you said is a whole different story, its not my problem as a hardware designer so my choices are great.

So if you got a very good price for that you would not go for it? If you got Ip rights so you can manage the die shrinks and whatever you wouldn't go for it? If I could get that at a great deal I would definitely go for it, if I don't get it at a good price I will not go for it, simple.


I am not privy to how all these deals are being done behind closed doors. Most likely it is not engineers the ones that form the contracts and sign them. They might have requests and it is up to the management to deny them or grant them. It is up the management to set a budget and the engineers to design a system to make the most of it and the management to see to it that the project does not stray from the budget. Do you think that not having for example 1GB a RAM in the console was en engineering or a management decision? I doubt that it is the engineers that make the cost calculations and cost projections? Why would they, how would they know what thing in the end cost any better than the bean counter that is actually asking for offers/dealing directly with AMD/Nvidia for example.

In many ways I would say the PS3 was more of a engineering failure. Sure, the Cell was great, many many paper FLOPS and yes an engineering feature per se. However, considering all the RnD and all the cost associated with it and considering that it might not have the best most efficient design for a lot of game code with and deviating way to much on current practices on how you write code for a questionable power increase, shouldn't the engineers have designed a better CPU?...

 

[Blazkowicz]

http://www.amd.com/us/products/notebook/graphics/7000m/7800m/Pages/radeon-7800m-series.aspx#2

hd 7870m rated as 1 TF . its successor hd 8800m at 992 GF ! is it going backwards ?

it's the same chip, radeon 8700m and lower are a new, lower end chip, radeon 8800m is a renaming (but with dynamic clock, and +12.5% memory bandwith) : it's the Cap Verde GPU there.

 

[bbot]

It's already past December 17, 2012 3pm

 

[DieH@rd]

It's already past December 17, 2012 3pm

Fist unveiling of 8000m series happened on 17th.
http://www.techpowerup.com/177432/A...es-Detailed-Performance-Figures-Released.html

We wont get anything new for a while now I reckon.

 

[anexanhume]

7970M is a 2.2TF part, so I'd expect 8970M to be at least that. Also have to remember that MS and Sony don't necessarily need the aggressive binning that we see on true mobile parts.

 

[Kaotik]

thanks this is I think this is our first OFFICIAL confirmation that at least one of the next gen consoles would use an AMD GPU unless they mean Nintendo Wii and xbox360

Wii U has been confirmed too

 

[N2O]

Suddenly what aegies said in few days ago just doesn't matter anymore

 

[McHuj]

Suddenly what aegies said in few days ago just doesn't matter anymore

I'm not sure how the two are related or mutually exclusive?

 

[N2O]

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1687307&postcount=16562

Of course the 8000M maybe for PS4(something like A10 APU+8000M series GPU)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

so do you accept my offer for ps4 : an I7 processor, GTX680, 4Gb of GDDR5 ?

No. It's too bloody expensive. Or do you think nVidia and Intel are going to throw money away selling parts at cost price to fund a Sony super console? Or Sony are going to throw away all their remaining cash to one-up MS because they are stuck in their ways and are incapable of competing in terms of anything other than 'fastest console'?

 

[MrFox]

I thought a mobile part wasn't even a possibility for a console GPU, don't they need special binning, low clock and large die to be efficient? It looks like a big waste of money compared to the desktop parts. Flops per dollar should be prioritized over flops per watt, because watts are available.

 

[Helmore]

I thought a mobile part wasn't even a possibility for a console GPU, don't they need special binning, low clock and large die to be efficient? It looks like a big waste of money compared to the desktop parts. Flops per dollar should be prioritized over flops per watt, because watts are available.

They're still working in a limited power budget. It would surprise me if the entire package (CPU, GPU, memory, HDD, and everything else) would use more than 200 Watts. That's just my guess though, but as they will want to advertise their console as more than just a gaming device, they'll want to make sure it's quiet. I just hope they'll make sure it's still quiet when playing games and not just when running Netflix or something.

I think a maximum TDP of roughly 125 to 150 Watts for the CPU+CPU (the entire SoC actually) is reasonable. Some might even say that 150 Watts it a little much. Still, it means that they have a limit to their TDP budget and thus performance per Watt is very important. Does that mean that they'll go for a mobile GPU in their next gen console? I don't think so, for the reasons you named (mainly binning).

 

[MrFox]

But there's no point in using an expensive 50W mobile chip, and as far as I know, there's no such thing as a 150W mobile chip.

1. Same price desktop chip would be more powerful.
2. Same performance desktop chip would be less expensive.

What I mean is that performance per dollar remains the important factor until the system reaches the maximum TDP allowed, and THEN raising efficiency until the cost of the system reaches the maximum budget allowed. Mobile chips don't seem to fit anywhere within these margins.

 

[3dilettante]

The cost argument can be modified depending on the design.
It was intimated earlier that AMD designed the smaller chips with mobile as the primary target.

If the design is targeted so that its size and yield curve is a better match for the mobile market, then the component of the cost that is related to special binning is reduced, because acceptable chips become the baseline instead of being the exception.

 

[JasonLD]

Power requirement isnt going to as strict as laptops so they dont have to go fully on mobile varients but they can certainly utilize some power saving features though.