I was talking hardware.
*spin* Devs Showing Games on PC/Console HW
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Similarly, xbone doesn't seem to be pushing any envelopes there either.
Frankly, I'm still surprised to hear any issues with overheating considering the rather mild clock and spec. Especially when factoring in the size of the case and heatsink/fan.
I still can't believe they decided to put 6T ESRAM on the apu eating up all that space... Ugh! But I digress.
Well hopefully they won't have supply issues like xb360 where 6 months in it was still difficult to find.
/OT
Yeah, 32 MBs of SRAM is very conventional...
True, this one part is unique (I stated as much: "6T SRAM ...ugh!"). Not sure it was the smartest way to use the die budget, but I suppose this will be sorted out shortly.
But yeah, 16mb cache on bulldozer, so this 32mb SRAM isn't exactly earth shattering. Nothing like the forward looking design on xb360.
So doubling isn't a difficult thing? If the biggest single chip ever so far was 2 billion transistors, you say MS rolling out a new 4 billion transistor chip wasn't earth shattering? Or if the fastest GPU to date was 1 GHz, you'd say a 2 GHz GPU would be no big deal?
Unless you regard the whole AMD+MS+fabricators consortium as being pretty incompetent, it's quite obvious that whatever manufacturing issues are being faced are because of technical problems. And if they're having problems, it's likely because it's a difficult thing to make, for whatever reason. If it's not hard to make, there won't be any supply issues, obviously.
The only alternative, which is the one you are trying to make a case for, is that XB1 isn't a hard system to make, a simple SOC, and any thermal issues and manufacturing issues are because MS and friends are just botching the whole thing.
Unless you regard the whole AMD+MS+fabricators consortium as being pretty incompetent, it's quite obvious that whatever manufacturing issues are being faced are because of technical problems. And if they're having problems, it's likely because it's a difficult thing to make, for whatever reason. If it's not hard to make, there won't be any supply issues, obviously.
The only alternative, which is the one you are trying to make a case for, is that XB1 isn't a hard system to make, a simple SOC, and any thermal issues and manufacturing issues are because MS and friends are just botching the whole thing.
A case could be made for that.
Considering we have not heard a word regarding ps4 apu being difficult to manufacture or overheating. And yet, ps4 apu has 18CU's (instead of 12) and the same 8 core jag running at the same speed.
So yeah, at this point, it's quite reasonable to second guess the decision to put 32mb of 6T SRAM on the die.
Regarding the impressiveness of putting 32mb of ESRAM on die ... I'd be impressed if it were offering something never seen before... as Sony said, they entertained the idea of going this route but with a TB/s bandwidth.
As is, it just seems to be a foolish waste of die space considering what could have been done.
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But not 32 MBs ESRAM, suggesting that if anything is proving problematic - a view shared with the fact no-one has ever used such massive SRAM before (and your reference Bulldog has an 8MB largest unified SRAM cache, a quarter the size of XB1's SRAM).
The question of whether SRAM is a good choice or not is orthogonal to whether MS and friends are incompetent in making the chips and supplying devs.
Furthermore, Dave's view is that the hardware situation is better now than XB360's at this same point in its life. If so, MS is a little ahead of the game. Sony are just doing very well this time around, mostly because they aren't doing anything different. PS3's reveal at E3 was all smoke and mirrors with zero hardware to show and lots of prerendered 'concept vids'. I honestly don't understand all the fuss regards XB1's current state, except maybe among kids who haven't followed hardware launches before and don't appreciate how hard it is.
Edit:
Without specifying a capacity, so it's no point of reference. If you want to compare MS's real product to plans that were dropped as infeasible, how's about you pick something a little more adventurous like memory hypercube or raytracing processors.
I didn't think my view on the subject was a controversial one. In fact, I believe you stated something similar in response to the rather anemic 32mb EDRAM:
Shifty said:
eDRAM, not SRAM. eDRAM has been proven to 64 MBs, and now even 128 MBs with Intel. But now I'm getting lost with your meandering points, which just seem to be an array of general complaints against MS regardless of whether it's to do with demo units or not.
So just to clarify, in your opinion
1) MS choosing 4x the largest single unified SRAM array ever is nothing special
2) MS having difficulty making these chips is just them being rubbish
3) MS having a better hardware showing this E3 than they had for XB360's reveal E3 doesn't count for anything
The point about Sony's is going too OT so I'll remove that.
COPS N RAPPERS
Regular
hmmmm, It seems the PCs that were running xbox one games are treated as devkits by microsoft.
Microsoft PR manager -
Michael Wilford -
http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Mi...-GTX-PCs-E3-Were-Xbox-One-Dev-Kits-56834.html
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I have to say though still, they went over budget on the devkits. And i don't see how they could believe that using those PCs, will translate to a matched performance on the XB1. were talking a level of difference here between the leaks.
Microsoft PR manager -
Michael Wilford -
http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Mi...-GTX-PCs-E3-Were-Xbox-One-Dev-Kits-56834.html
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I have to say though still, they went over budget on the devkits. And i don't see how they could believe that using those PCs, will translate to a matched performance on the XB1. were talking a level of difference here between the leaks.
The beating can't stop until the dead horse doesn't look like a horse anymore.
like a sausage?
(((interference)))
Veteran
Sausage pizza pie with extra special sauce...
It means PS4 is less difficult to make for Sony's production partners.
1) yes, it is "special" in the console space, just as going with a 18cu array is the largest ever in an apu. The latter is actually bringing higher performance though.
2) We don't know. Doesn't IBM produce SRAMS this large for their server chips? And if Intel decided not to go SRAM for their graphics-assist-scratch-pad, perhaps there is a good reason to avoid it.
3) Sure, hopefully they won't have shortages 6 months out like they did for xb360. But I already said that.
Sorry, I just see little reason to be admiring their design decisions on xbone. It would be like getting excited because Sony was able to reduce the size of a 5.25 floppy disc into a 1mm diameter disc small enough to fit in your fingernail and due to this fabulous breakthrough, they decided to abandon bluray and ship all games via this fabulous new breakthrough manufacturing technology. Is it impressive? I suppose. Useful? Not so much.
Perhaps if MS went with Edram @ 64mb+ off-chip, they wouldn't need to be demoing on pcs at this point, and would likely have more room on their apu to go with 18+cu. But hey, what do I know? Heck, what does intel know? What does Sony know? You get my drift...
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