*Sigh* The Inquirer Strikes Again: RSX "Slightly Less Powerful" than 7800

[Colourless]

While PS3 has more than enough system bandwith to satisfy the RSX, the breakdown of the memory itself is a problem. If reading and writing to the backbuffer is taking up most of the bandwith to the GDDR pool then devs would want to put textures into the XDR pool. But that would end up leaving a hell of a lot of the GDDR memory unused. At best I could see devs multi texturing with half the textures in one pool, and half in the other.

It really looks like they are betting on developers using long pixel shaders.

 

[ben6]

Um, the source has NO READING comprehension.

http://img348.imageshack.us/my.php?image=psm4kn.jpg

 

[Slay]

Um, the source has NO READING comprehension.

http://img348.imageshack.us/my.php?image=psm4kn.jpg

this has http://briefcase.pathfinder.gr/download/slaytg/29046/469179/0/psm23vg.jpg

 

[msia2k75]

WTF? This article old, at least one or two month(s) old!

 

[Nicked]

this has http://briefcase.pathfinder.gr/download/slaytg/29046/469179/0/psm23vg.jpg

Well there we have it, confirmed (again) RSX >> 7800. Big surprise.

 

[ben6]

Well there we have it, confirmed RSX >> 7800. Big surprise.

Um, that doesn't matter to me. I just find it funny how one comment can be misconstrued totally differently than what was meant to say...

 

[DemoCoder]

While PS3 has more than enough system bandwith to satisfy the RSX, the breakdown of the memory itself is a problem. If reading and writing to the backbuffer is taking up most of the bandwith to the GDDR pool then devs would want to put textures into the XDR pool. But that would end up leaving a hell of a lot of the GDDR memory unused. At best I could see devs multi texturing with half the textures in one pool, and half in the other.

It really looks like they are betting on developers using long pixel shaders.

Or they are betting on lots of render-to-texture work plus lots of post-processing effects. Can the backbuffer in XDR? It might be the wrong assumption that developers will want it in GDDR. Perhaps they will want rendertargets and backbuffers in XDR so CELL can do post-processing work and the rest of system memory will be filled up with non-graphics related data, and GDDR will contain most of the textures.

I think the assumption of longer shaders however is a good one. It is unlikely that an amortized 1 pixel per clock performance will be achieved, so you don't really need enough backbuffer bandwidth to write 16 pixels per clock.

 

[Inane_Dork]

I hate that all the accusations and rebuttals are done by random posters on the net. You realize you can't trust the first one, which makes you realize you can't trust any of them.

At this point, I just have to say that, whether nVidia said it or not, I don't think it's true.

 

[BlueTsunami]

The Inquirer has more power than they realize (I think i'm giving them to much credit). To link to forums like that (hell..once I step foot in their...I was weary of what was said..just on how it looked) without research or any type of "looking in to" makes you realize how much of a worthless site it is....much like E! and Star Magazine for the Gameing/Tech world.

 

[Carl B]

Well, looks like NVidia's stepped into this themselves, and has chosen to make TeamXbox the vessel for their message. Probably the extreme coverage it was getting there prompted them to make the site the launching point of their clarification campaign.

Clarification article

 

[one]

Well, looks like NVidia's stepped into this themselves, and has chosen to make TeamXbox the vessel for their message. Probably the extreme coverage it was getting there prompted them to make the site the launching point of their clarification campaign.

Clarification article

Sorry, can't resist - PWN3D

 

[Azrael]

Well, looks like NVidia's stepped into this themselves, and has chosen to make TeamXbox the vessel for their message. Probably the extreme coverage it was getting there prompted them to make the site the launching point of their clarification campaign.

Clarification article

Now that I read it, it seem to just be a flaw in the sentence structure and it makes sense now. But, something bothers me about their use of terms. The quote is: "The card's G70 GPU, which is more than twice as powerful as two of NVIDIA's previous top-of-the-line 6800 boards, shares a lot of similar workings with the PS3's RSX chip - only it isn't as fast."

I found this strange and something to ponder. Why the shift in terms here? They could have used "powerful" in both instances and made the issue clearer, but instead they used "faster". Now why would they do this? Perhaps it is because the RSX still may not be more (or even as) powerful than the 7800, but because it will be higher clocked it will be, technically, "faster". Perhaps they are not even sure of the final specs and saying it's "faster" is a safer statement if it turns out to have only 16 or 20 pipes vs. the 7800GTX's 24, ends up being less powerful.

 

[MechanizedDeath]

There wasn't even a need for a correction. This "news" flew in the face of what has been said by Kirk, Sony execs and some devs. It was nonsense from the start, and should never have had the legs it did. That and apparently, not many people know who Red Cloak is. He posts on a certain forum (besides Evil Avatar) and is...uh...less than trustworthy. Live and learn. PEACE.

 

[Carl B]

@Azreal: True, the emphasis on speed rather than power does still leave room for debate on the subject. I just wish the actual specs would get announced sometime soon to put it all to rest.

 

[mckmas8808]

I found this strange and something to ponder. Why the shift in terms here? They could have used "powerful" in both instances and made the issue clearer, but instead they used "faster". Now why would they do this? Perhaps it is because the RSX still may not be more (or even as) powerful than the 7800, but because it will be higher clocked it will be, technically, "faster". Perhaps they are not even sure of the final specs and saying it's "faster" is a safer statement if it turns out to have only 16 or 20 pipes vs. the 7800GTX's 24, ends up being less powerful.

Wow some people just don't want to let it go. What you said about the not sure about final specs stuff is probably true though.

 

[BlueTsunami]

Sorry, can't resist - PWN3D

That made me laugh...alot....Its funny to see a big company like Nvidia intervene in this. This story must have been HUGE!.....and this all originated from one forum post!!! the power of one, one voice...can be very very big....I find that very cool and bad...

 

[one]

Now that I read it, it seem to just be a flaw in the sentence structure and it makes sense now. But, something bothers me about their use of terms. The quote is: "The card's G70 GPU, which is more than twice as powerful as two of NVIDIA's previous top-of-the-line 6800 boards, shares a lot of similar workings with the PS3's RSX chip - only it isn't as fast."

I found this strange and something to ponder. Why the shift in terms here? They could have used "powerful" in both instances and made the issue clearer, but instead they used "faster". Now why would they do this? Perhaps it is because the RSX still may not be more (or even as) powerful than the 7800, but because it will be higher clocked it will be, technically, "faster". Perhaps they are not even sure of the final specs and saying it's "faster" is a safer statement if it turns out to have only 16 or 20 pipes vs. the 7800GTX's 24, ends up being less powerful.

I think you should discuss it with the writer at the PSM who chose 'fast' rather than mull over it.

 

[Azrael]

@Azreal: True, the emphasis on speed rather than power does still leave room for debate on the subject. I just wish the actual specs would get announced sometime soon to put it all to rest.

Yep, it will be nice to be able to analyze the PS3 specs like can be done with the X360's.

 

[Diesel2]

Now that I read it, it seem to just be a flaw in the sentence structure and it makes sense now. But, something bothers me about their use of terms. The quote is: "The card's G70 GPU, which is more than twice as powerful as two of NVIDIA's previous top-of-the-line 6800 boards, shares a lot of similar workings with the PS3's RSX chip - only it isn't as fast."

I found this strange and something to ponder. Why the shift in terms here? They could have used "powerful" in both instances and made the issue clearer, but instead they used "faster". Now why would they do this? Perhaps it is because the RSX still may not be more (or even as) powerful than the 7800, but because it will be higher clocked it will be, technically, "faster". Perhaps they are not even sure of the final specs and saying it's "faster" is a safer statement if it turns out to have only 16 or 20 pipes vs. the 7800GTX's 24, ends up being less powerful.

You shouldn't spend so much time reading into things. Perhaps they made a statement, which they didn't think would be scrutinised down to grammar or "shifting of terms".

 

[Bohdy]

Lets see if this works the other way around...

This is from a forum post by a Team Xbox admin:

In their correction statement to us [TeamXbox], nVidia admitted that the RSX is in fact approximately 3.5x the power of the 7800GTX, and features significant architectural improvement.

Quick, someone call the Inq!

Joke post!