Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[Brad Grenz]

Is there anything preventing APUs from having large GPUs? If so one thing that makes me think they're still on an APU+GPU path. Though I guess with tiny Jaguar cores it's probably no big deal?

There is no technical reason. AMD doesn't market APUs with GPUs this large because the enthusiast market prefers more lucrative add in boards, and it is already a challenge to deliver enough memory bandwidth to current APUs with sockets and DDR3 RAM DIMMs. That could change a lot in the future as memory gets added to the APU package using interposers and/or 3d stacking.

 

[Bagel seed]

There is no technical reason. AMD doesn't market APUs with GPUs this large because the enthusiast market prefers more lucrative add in boards, and it is already a challenge to deliver enough memory bandwidth to current APUs with sockets and DDR3 RAM DIMMs. That could change a lot in the future as memory gets added to the APU package using interposers and/or 3d stacking.

That makes sense. Consoles to be the guinea pigs for the tech and then filtering down to the PC market. Will be interesting in seeing what ends up in the stack. It'd be smart if they got a couple banks of NAND in there for a super fast streaming cache.

 

[RedVi]

There is no technical reason. AMD doesn't market APUs with GPUs this large because the enthusiast market prefers more lucrative add in boards, and it is already a challenge to deliver enough memory bandwidth to current APUs with sockets and DDR3 RAM DIMMs. That could change a lot in the future as memory gets added to the APU package using interposers and/or 3d stacking.

Exactly. It's not feasible for PC's right now but it makes perfect sense for a closed box system set to stick around for 5+ years. PC can't be that forward thinking so it makes sense for a console to pioneer given the key differences. A gaming PC in a non-restricted development environment should be upgraded every 2-3 years. Because of consoles sticking around too long, this hasn't been the case for the current gen. I think PC's will be forced to shift to having a single SoC in a few years - maybe discreet cards can mirror what's in the SoC (CFX, SLI) for people who want higher IQ settings? Anyhow, that's going a bit off topic.

 

[upnorthsox]

Exactly. It's not feasible for PC's right now but it makes perfect sense for a closed box system set to stick around for 5+ years. PC can't be that forward thinking so it makes sense for a console to pioneer given the key differences. A gaming PC in a non-restricted development environment should be upgraded every 2-3 years. Because of consoles sticking around too long, this hasn't been the case for the current gen. I think PC's will be forced to shift to having a single SoC in a few years - maybe discreet cards can mirror what's in the SoC (CFX, SLI) for people who want higher IQ settings? Anyhow, that's going a bit off topic.

PC's can be that forward thinking, they just aren't. It a pretty big difference.

 

[RedVi]

It's a chicken and the egg scenario. If the games aren't designed to take advantage of a big APU, it won't be worth the money and no one will buy them. It usually has to be a transitional move on the PC front for any new feature/technique because you simply can't have a device that both costs more and performs worse than alternatives already available in the games that are available at the time of launch.

Consoles will pioneer it, development will shift, and it will appear on PC in the form of a more modern, faster and more refined version of what the next gen consoles have had for 2 years or more. This is one of the reasons I'm glad (still crossing my fingers) that both of the systems that matter will use a single SoC and pioneer HSA.

 

[Averagejoe]

I think all the people conjecturing ways that Durango will make up the difference with Orbis are somewhat missing the point.

As per the leaked roadmap, MS were aiming for 6-8x the performance of the 360, the specs we have are precisely that. They didn't know what kind of power Sony was going for, and from this gen with the Wii, they know that performance doesn't equate to sales.

So this time, they're going for a console with Kinect, media, social, apps, connectivity, all tightly integrated with the Windows ecosystem as it's focus.

Hence, the specs we have are the specs, and I don't think this much hyped 'special sauce' is going to bridge the 50% TF gap with Orbis. As Bkilian has hinted, people are hugely exaggerating the three custom blocks into things like ray tracers etc. when they are far more likely to be more humble fixed function hardware like audio/video DSPs, or even this blitter.

Exactly and can probably work wonders for them,most people (my self included) are always fix with the whole powerful thing,we want more flops,more ram and more of everything,when this generation was a clear indication that power means nothing.

Who knows maybe this time they get to be number 1,based on having a standard camera,not only for gaming but for social networking as well..

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

Exactly and can probably work wonders for them,most people (my self included) are always fix with the whole powerful thing,we want more flops,more ram and more of everything,when this generation was a clear indication that power means nothing.

The only thing that was clear to me, this generation, was how the scales can be tipped when concentrating on one's strengths versus another's weaknesses. If you has a contest between an average build doctor and a pro-lifting mathematician, wouldn't you think the contest was rigged if they started asking medical question and have only average weightlifting requirements? That seemed to be the situation, this generation.

The reasons behind it is a whole different thing. Maybe it was because devs had an extra year with a dev kit, so R&D was geared specifically towards X360 architecture. Maybe it was just the software tools between the two. It could just be the architectural complexity of a parallel system. Maybe it was a combination of those things. If it weren't for a few developers, this generation, I might would have agreed with you. That would be because no one would have been the wiser.

I would hope not to see that, again, next gen. Next generation, power and flexiblity should mean something, beyond just a few developers. Speaking of next generation, did the "special announcement" come out, yet?

 

[BRiT]

For those not paying attention, the discussion of the VGLeaks Durango is moved to it's own thread: http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?p=1696596

 

[dumbo11]

I think all the people conjecturing ways that Durango will make up the difference with Orbis are somewhat missing the point.

As per the leaked roadmap, MS were aiming for 6-8x the performance of the 360, the specs we have are precisely that. They didn't know what kind of power Sony was going for, and from this gen with the Wii, they know that performance doesn't equate to sales.

So this time, they're going for a console with Kinect, media, social, apps, connectivity, all tightly integrated with the Windows ecosystem as it's focus.

^ I completely agree. And, just to confuse matters, we've also heard rumours of glasses and a tablet for the Durango... One word for the 720 dev team: 'focus'.

Hence, the specs we have are the specs, and I don't think this much hyped 'special sauce' is going to bridge the 50% TF gap with Orbis. As Bkilian has hinted, people are hugely exaggerating the three custom blocks into things like ray tracers etc. when they are far more likely to be more humble fixed function hardware like audio/video DSPs, or even this blitter.

IMHO a lot of that customization relates to the media center aspect.

The 720 is a console that is going to do '2 things at once', historically that means your system slows down and becomes unresponsive/crash-prone... I think MS have invested a lot of time and money ensuring that their system is able to reliably do 2 entirely isolated things at once with 2 secure partitions - I think the phrase from a leak was 'mainframe-like'.

In terms of the Orbis, it's probably worth seeing what that looks like - there's a always a chance of it shipping with a tablet/media player/toaster.

 

[AlNom]

Thread has served purpose since the leaks. Sort out the discussions you want to continue into one of the appropriate spin-offs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut,_copy,_and_paste

News & Rumours: Playstation 4/ Orbis *spin*

There really ought to have been a thread on the Eurogamer article, but oh well. People need to figure things out for themselves because I can't find where it even started.

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

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

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The EG discussion pretty much went onto the OS, so deal with it. The rest was buried here.