PS3 specs could change?

[Tahir2]

If there was a cost reduction in HDMI etc it doesn't necessarily free money up. It could be Sony's way of minimizing losses and you cant do that by detracting one feature and adding another.

Also clockspeed and the RSX, it is already 24 pipes and at 550MHz on a relatively smaller bandwidth compared to the PC parts (counting both the RDRAM and GDDR) what would the benefit of an extra 100MHz on the GPU be in the "real world" -close enough to negligible that it isn't worth bothering with, surely!

 

[Mintmaster]

psp111, you've never done any 3D coding have you.

A 256bit bus to VRAM is great for GPU benchmarks tests, where you compete to see who can get the highest Triangle and Vertex counts in some artificial mega-detailed static mesh.

No PC GPU today is even remotely bandwidth limited for "Triangle and Vertex counts". 10GB/s is enough to saturate the setup rate of the 7900GTX, even with normals and texture coordinates, and you won't reach this setup rate too often anyway.

In fact, PC parts often store vertex data in system memory so that there's more room and bandwidth for textures.

The PS3 splits the 256bit bus used in the PC part into 2 x 128 bit bus. One to VRAM, and the other via FlexIO to system memory. The same bandwidth is available in the PS3 (more or less) as in the PC version (7900), but is split down 2 paths.

For a game console this is a big win, as it can render directly from dynamically generated geometry or textures in main memory.

On a PC, any dynamic data that's changing per frame (e.g. Physics objects, Streamed data, Decoded movie frames etc) has to be transferred over the PCI express bus (which is max 4GB/s on the latest x16 version, but more likely 2GB/s or less).

Dude, you have no idea what you're talking about. I don't even know where to start. Splitting the bus is a big loss for effective bandwidth.

FlexIO will help texture and vertex bandwidth. The latter is a very small bandwidth user. For texture data, well, not sure how much you'll fit in XDR anyway (GDDR3 has lots of room besides the framebuffer, and XDR holds the OS, game data/code, and possibly vertex data). There's also a tradeoff for XDR texturing.

What's more is that even if you don't texture and have very few vertices, you still don't have enough bandwidth to the GDDR3 to simply draw coloured pixels at the speed RSX is capable of.

 

[Fafalada]

close enough to negligible that it isn't worth bothering with, surely!

I don't think 20% extra speed on shaders would be negligible, rather the opposite.

Splitting the bus is a big loss for effective bandwidth.

Not when you have multiple devices fighting for the same bus.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The best idea would be, to change the bussystem from 128 bit to 256 bit, like in the Geforce 7900 GT. The slow bus with only 22 GB/s is the weakest point in the ps3 architecture. Current PCs have twice the bandwidth.

Increasing the current 'weak' spec is only going to create another weak spec, when something else becomes slow relative to the rest of the system or other systems. How bad is this terrible bottleneck? Looking at the first-gen titles appearing on PS3, when you see what HS is managing, I don't see this relatively low BW is really a problem.

 

[pipo]

I'm slightly leaning towards a slight downclock of RSX for cost reasons alone.

I agree with this.

The Sony I know would publish specs as 'minimum' or something if they are aiming for higher speeds.

But maybe they'll have a surprise in store for us.

 

[Mariner]

Sony have made a point of stating that the PS3 is going to run almost silently haven't they? An internal PSU will mean more heat in the case so perhaps they are downclocking/downvolting the RSX so it runs considerably cooler? Cooler almost always = quieter when it comes to hardware.

 

[expletive]

From a strictly marketing perspective, E3 would have been the ideal time to announce an improved RSX spec change. What better way to calm the geeks at E3 screaming bloody murder over the price than with a faster RSX? I mean, why keep it a secret if its good news? At this point, i think its just as likley that they lowered it for heat, noise, or power consumption as a positive bump. Werent the dev kits VERY loud for awhile? I wonder what was making all the noise and whats come of that part...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I can see sense in letting the price blow over and than follow with an upgrade announcement. With an upgrade announced along with price, they'd cancel each other out. With an upgrade afterwards, the downer of the price has passed and then the upgrade ends up being positive. This was exhibited by Wii successfully. If they had announced the name at E3, that's all anyone would have talked about. But as it was, everyone has laughted off the name and could consider the machine for itself.

Not that I'm saying RSX is getting an upgrade.

 

[Dave Baumann]

High end graphics chips don't really bear much relevence to console graphics - the high end graphics cards are effectively cherry picked, but rarely represent where the yeild is. If we look at G71 the volume is down with the 7900 GT and that has been picked at a speed that few will drop out from in terms of clocks/power/heat (but not defect).

 

[expletive]

I can see sense in letting the price blow over and than follow with an upgrade announcement. With an upgrade announced along with price, they'd cancel each other out. With an upgrade afterwards, the downer of the price has passed and then the upgrade ends up being positive. This was exhibited by Wii successfully. If they had announced the name at E3, that's all anyone would have talked about. But as it was, everyone has laughted off the name and could consider the machine for itself.

Not that I'm saying RSX is getting an upgrade.

Good point, get the most 'bang for their buck' on a spec upgrade, i can see that.

 

[Tars Tarkus]

I wonder if they have enough confidence in their business plan to announce a new clock of 599.99 MHz at TGS.

 

[Urian]

PS3 needn´t to see its processor specs increased.

The RSX needs a memory with 256 bits bus instead of one with a 128 bits for the MSAAx4+HDR in one pass.

 

[Titanio]

The RSX needs a memory with 256 bits bus instead of one with a 128 bits for the MSAAx4+HDR in one pass.

Needs? I see games right now doing this (well, doing 4xMSAA with HDR, whatever about "in one pass").

From a strictly marketing perspective, E3 would have been the ideal time to announce an improved RSX spec change. What better way to calm the geeks at E3 screaming bloody murder over the price than with a faster RSX?

They inexplicably kept many things "secret" during the conference and/or at E3. But nothing would have quelled the bitching about price, only time will do that. Such "good news" could easily have been lost in the fray so to speak, and written off by many due to the pricing.

Not that I think there's an upgrade coming at all. I don't think there is.

 

[DemoCoder]

High end graphics chips don't really bear much relevence to console graphics - the high end graphics cards are effectively cherry picked, but rarely represent where the yeild is. If we look at G71 the volume is down with the 7900 GT and that has been picked at a speed that few will drop out from in terms of clocks/power/heat (but not defect).

Ah, but console economics are different as well. PC console chips are picked and priced to maximize margin, which is not necessarily the case with consoles. They could 'cherry pick' as long as they can absorb the costs from lower yields. Hell, not too long ago, people were claiming that CELL itself was a cherry pick, with the chip having terrible yields at the current clock.

 

[Rally]

From a strictly marketing perspective, E3 would have been the ideal time to announce an improved RSX spec change. What better way to calm the geeks at E3 screaming bloody murder over the price than with a faster RSX? I mean, why keep it a secret if its good news? .

Good point, but maybe they are not sure at the moment if it was really possible to improve the specs without generating to much heat. Its not a good idea to tell the "geeks" they have improved the specs and later on they must admit it was not possible.

On August there is another gameshow in Germany. Not as big as the E3 but they could make an anouncement like that here anyway. Another possibility would be the Tokyo Gameshow.

I think there is enough time till November to make ans anouncement like this.

Maybe they have also some games ready which uses the improved power and let the PS3 look a lot better in comparison to the XBox 360. A lot of people may not believe Sony if the tell them they would improve the specs without a demonstration.

At this point, i think its just as likley that they lowered it for heat, noise, or power consumption as a positive bump. Werent the dev kits VERY loud for awhile? I wonder what was making all the noise and whats come of that part...

If it was for heat, I think there are other possibilites like making the power supply external or use better fans. It would be no good idea to dissapoint PS3 Fans even more with an announcenment like that.

 

[pipo]

Meanwhile it seems devs know as much as we do: http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3020&Itemid=2

Bloomberg reports that publishers such as THQ and Sega are on edge because Sony hasn't offered up finalized technical specifications for the PlayStation 3.

...

THQ CEO Brian Farrell said that his company decided to forego development of The Sopranos videogame for PS3 because of the lack of final hardware specifications. He said development for the PS3 at this point is "too risky".

...

The big two US publishers, Electronic Arts and Activision, said that they're quite content with the information Sony has provided.

"While we may not have the final, final hardware, we know what the processor's capacity is,'' said Activision CEO Robert Kotick. "We have active development under way."

...

EA president of Worldwide Studios Paul Lee simply said, "We're happy with the development kits."

The concerns surrounding a next generation console launch aren't without precedence, as Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot recollects the Xbox 360 launch.

"We won't be able to take advantage of all the components of the [PS3], but it was the same last year."

So the answer to this thread is: yes.

 

[Gholbine]

PS2 CPU clock was bumped before launch, PSP main memory was also bumped before launch.

I sincerely doubt there's going to be a downgrade, if only because they've already announced a high price, so downgrading any further would cause a lot of further backlash.

 

[EndR]

PS2 CPU clock was bumped before launch, PSP main memory was also bumped before launch.

I sincerely doubt there's going to be a downgrade, if only because they've already announced a high price, so downgrading any further would cause a lot of further backlash.

But it could also mean that they promised too much at last years E3. There has been some hardware change (usb ports, ethernet ports etc) from last year. I don´t know why but I suspect a downgrade of RSX to 500Mhz. Anything but a downgrade would not make sense, financially (which is the most important factor)

 

[slider]

Does clocking a chip higher or lower physically affect the price of the chip? Obviously it'll have knock on effects like implementing the appropriate cooling.

But in terms of actual cost of production I'd be interested to know the difference between, say, 500 and 600Mhz.

EDIT: Ahh, ok. Seeing the post below - obviously it'll affect the yields.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Ah, but console economics are different as well. PC console chips are picked and priced to maximize margin, which is not necessarily the case with consoles. They could 'cherry pick' as long as they can absorb the costs from lower yields.

Margin acceptibility is generally built into the die size thats chosen for consoles. On a console thats already loosing money a clock that is beyond the high point of the yeild curve is unlikely to be picked as you're wasting the majority of the wafer.