*Spin off* Bill of Materials and Cost/Price Reductions of Current Consoles

[paawl]

Regarding the cost of XDR, I was grilling an IBM rep last year, and he showed me contracts from Samsung and one other producer (I can't remember which) which offered to sell XDR during the 2008-2009 timeframe for 17% more than the cost of DDR2 RAM in the same period. That is, the price of the XDR was pegged to the cost of DDR2 from the same supplier. I would imagine that GDDR3 is also more expensive than DDR2 (though I don't know by how much), so I'm sure that XDR and GDDR3 are similar in price. Heck, the XDR may even be cheaper. Why else would Sony and IBM choose XDR over GDDR3 if not for a price advantage?

 

[AlNom]

You might have a good point there. I was under the impression that Sony went for GDDR3 was because RSX wasn't designed for using XDR i.e. it was too "off-the-shelf", (despite some rumoured enhancements compared to G71 (on-die cache)).

Still, I have to wonder if GDDR3 is cheaper considering the larger customer base (PC graphics cards), and the current RAM market. Even if they are a couple dollars cheaper per module (512Mbit), we are considering hundreds of thousands of chips per month.

I wonder when they will shift towards 1Gbit density too.

 

[Arwin]

Why else would Sony and IBM choose XDR over GDDR3 if not for a price advantage?

Because XDR works much better in the multi-processor, multi-bus environment of the Cell Broadband Engine?

 

[Crossbar]

Why else would Sony and IBM choose XDR over GDDR3 if not for a price advantage?

It could be because XDR has the double capacity/data pin, which allows them to go through more process shrinks as it requires less pins attached to the die. Edit: that goes for both the Cell and the XDR RAM.

The XDR memory do also have higer performance than the GDDR3 memory, so you may find that it has a price advantage if you look at the performance/price ratio.

 

[Crossbar]

Regarding the cost of XDR, I was grilling an IBM rep last year, and he showed me contracts from Samsung and one other producer (I can't remember which) which offered to sell XDR during the 2008-2009 timeframe for 17% more than the cost of DDR2 RAM in the same period.

Thanks, that is very interesting indeed. It´s a little unspecific as it doesn´t mention the frequency, but if we assume the two memories have the same working frequency we can make some estimates.

Considering that the average contract price for 512 Mbit DDR2 at 667 MHz is $8.5, that would make the difference 4 * 8.5 * 0.17 = $5.78 extra for the PS3 compared to if it has been equipped with the DDR2 memory.

We can be sure that the GDDR3 memory is more expensive than the DDR2 memory, so it should be fairly reasonable to assume the XDR memory of the PS3 has a premium of less than $4 compared to the memory of the 360.

 

[Heinrich4]

Try this explaination: Sony expected more PS3 sales than they initially achieved, they had about 5 million units shipped from factory in March but didn´t sell 5 million units until late summer, leading to excess supply of PS3s using the 90 nm Cell which they prefered to clear as much of as possible before moving to the 65 nm version and afterwards they kept it in the more expensive models which are currently step by step being discontinued in the PAL-countries and Japan.

The 40 GB model using the 65 nm Cell was in production already in June 2007, those assembly lines provided the 40 GB units that were launched in large numbers in Japan, PAL and US in the fall.

If they plan to start using the 65 nm RSX without introducing a new model with larger/smaller HDD or whatever, i.e. just a new revision of an existing model, then there is no need to build up a large stock before they start selling the model on the market, they just ramp up the production of the new model at the speed they find adequate and let it just blend in among the existing stock on the market. Just like MS didn´t make a big deal of the hdmi equipped Premium-model that was slowly introduced on the market.

Thanx Crossbar for enlight this question,because i dont undertand until now,why sony "wait" to much time to use cell 65nm.

Sales/solds ps3 until first price reduction in july, start to begin change low sales situation, and with next "new revision MB with RSX 65nm" i expect much less time to improve "this new ps3" maybe before march/april.

 

[paawl]

Thanks, that is very interesting indeed. It´s a little unspecific as it doesn´t mention the frequency, but if we assume the two memories have the same working frequency we can make some estimates.

Considering that the average contract price for 512 Mbit DDR2 at 667 MHz is $8.5, that would make the difference 4 * 8.5 * 0.17 = $5.78 extra for the PS3 compared to if it has been equipped with the DDR2 memory.

The XDR was for Cell blades, so it was 800 MHz. The DDR2 was for Opteron blades, so, IIRC, it was DDR2-667, but it might have been DDR2-800 or DDR2-533, whatever IBM was projecting would be the volume memory for dual-processor Opteron/Xeon blades in the 2008-2009 timeframe.

 

[Crossbar]

Can someone in brief terms outline the difference between GDDR3 and DDR3?

I just read the article below and was wondering if it may give some hints of the price of GDDR3 memory.

DDR3 price premium over DDR2 to shrink to 10% in 2H

Amid Intel's aggressive push to supporting DDR3-powered platform, DRAM makers are working with the processor giant to advance their volume production schedules in the hope that the joint effort will result in a less than 10% price gap between DDR3 and DDR2 in the second half of 2008.

Some DRAM makers believe that DDR3 will grow its role more obviously in 2008, after seeing DDR2 remain the mainstream memory standard for several years. The relatively high price premium of DDR3 over DDR2 so far has however discouraged PC OEMs to migrate. The price gap should shrink more noticeably this year, they projected, due to the aggressive push by Intel.

The DRAM makers expect some PC vendors will be subsidized by Intel to migrate to DDR3-based platforms, and this should help encourage the entire industry to migrate accordingly. They noted that some PC vendors will only introduce DDR3-based systems in the second half of the year. About 30% of new PCs shipping worldwide will be powered by DDR3 in the fourth quarter of 2008, they estimated.

DRAM makers, who have already seen growing consumer interest in DDR3, will also count on DDR3 production to free them from the stiff DDR2 pricing environment. As DRAM makers are expect to speed up their pace over DDR3 production, the price premium between the two standards of memory is expected to shrink to 10% in the second half of the year, the DRAM makers commented.

In the memory backend production sector, Taiwan packaging and testing houses are also ready for the memory standard migration. In the packaging segment, backend production houses do not have to upgrade their equipment as both DDR2 and DDR3 are packed in fine pitch ball-grid array (FBGA) form.

http://www.digitimes.com/bits_chips/a20080123PD213.html

 

[Carl B]

Can someone in brief terms outline the difference between GDDR3 and DDR3?

I just read the article below and was wondering if it may give some hints of the price of GDDR3 memory.


http://www.digitimes.com/bits_chips/a20080123PD213.html

GDDR3 has more in common with DDR2 than it does DDR3, and DDR3 is the more expensive of the two (GDDR3 vs DDR3) at the moment. The GDDR specs exist outside of the JEDEC standards, but obviously the same fabrication technology is applied to both... so generally when the standard DRAM market has been saturated - as it has recently - GDDR prices have also dropped as capacity is shifted to its production. Beyond these consoles though, GDDR3 (and 4 and soon 5) really is a graphics card only thing.

 

[Squilliam]

I think its apropriate to revive this one.

Does anyone have any idea how much the Jasper refresh for the Xbox360 should reduce the cost of the silicon and even better the overall bill of materials?

AFAIK - The jasper refresh is a shrink of pretty much every piece of silicon in the Xbox360 barring the CPU which has already been shrunk.

As a bonus - does anyone know the cost differences between a 20gb and a 60gb HDD in the 2.5inch category?

How much do you think, adding wireless would cost?

 

[Crossbar]

I have no idea about the cost of Jasper but thanks for bumping this thread, there was along time since I checked this site.

So the price of 2GB of flash memory has reached below $4 now, will be interesting to see how far it has to go before it will be viable as a cost reduced HDD replacement in some low end model of the PS3.

The the average contract price for 512 Mbit DDR2 at 667 MHz is at about $1.2. Given the correlation between DDR2 and GDDR3 for the PS3 according to paawl it is crazy there isn´t more VRAM in the PS3 at this point in time (if I neglect the fact that the GDDR3 memory would need to be 1 Gb chips which still are pretty rare ).

Anyway those prices will sure help the cost reduction of all consoles.

 

[assen]

So the price of 2GB of flash memory has reached below $4 now, will be interesting to see how far it has to go before it will be viable as a cost reduced HDD replacement in some low end model of the PS3.

Will it be competitive as transfer speeds? AFAIK flash has some pretty horrible write characteristics, and it takes expensive support circuitry to make it competitive (we researched using SSD drives in our build process).

 

[Rangers]

The the average contract price for 512 Mbit DDR2 at 667 MHz is at about $1.2. Given the correlation between DDR2 and GDDR3 for the PS3 according to paawl it is crazy there isn´t more VRAM in the PS3 at this point in time (if I neglect the fact that the GDDR3 memory would need to be 1 Gb chips which still are pretty rare ).

Huh? Consoles work on the model of providing the best fixed hardware possible (at reasonable cost) at a given time. And they're not upgradable, otherwise you leave millions of prior owners behind as well as splinter the userbase.

That's like like lamenting why didn't Xbox 1 have more than 64 MB of memory in 2005 at the end of it's life cycle..

 

[Crossbar]

Will it be competitive as transfer speeds? AFAIK flash has some pretty horrible write characteristics, and it takes expensive support circuitry to make it competitive (we researched using SSD drives in our build process).

It can´t be that bad can it? What was your benchmark? I mean it is starting to become pretty common in some laptops. How fast it is also depends on the type of Flash memory and how you arrange it.

On the PS3 it would probably be soldered on the mainboard.

 

[Crossbar]

Huh? Consoles work on the model of providing the best fixed hardware possible (at reasonable cost) at a given time. And they're not upgradable, otherwise you leave millions of prior owners behind as well as splinter the userbase.

That's like like lamenting why didn't Xbox 1 have more than 64 MB of memory in 2005 at the end of it's life cycle..

Well I said it is crazy at this point in time, about $5-$6 more would buy you twice the size of the video memory, which would be really nice from the games point of view.

To some degree I agree with the sentiment of your post about consoles fixed hw etc. even though Ken Kutaragi promised otherwise, but he is gone now.

However, I don´t buy the "Splintering userbase" argument, it doesn´t seem to be big problem for the PC gamers.

 

[AlphaWolf]

However, I don´t buy the "Splintering userbase" argument, it doesn´t seem to be big problem for the PC gamers.

Because PC gaming is so much more successful than console gaming? You think games like Crysis didn't suffer (lose sales) from the scaling issues?

The advantages of fixed hardware has already stolen a large number of the PC gamers.

 

[Crossbar]

Because PC gaming is so much more successful than console gaming? You think games like Crysis didn't suffer (lose sales) from the scaling issues?

The advantages of fixed hardware has already stolen a large number of the PC gamers.

I think piracy was their largest problem. As probably is for PC games overall, except subscription games like WoW.
Edit: Id and Epic claim piracy pushed them to go multiplatform.

Anyway shame on Crytek if their game didn´t scale well with the hardware.

 

[AlphaWolf]

I think piracy was their largest problem. As prabably is for PC games overall, except subscription games like WoW,

Anyway shame on Crytek if their game didn´t scale well with the hardware.

I don't buy into piracy being a huge issue, that's just publisher speak for We needs the DRM and its all your fault. Many of the pirates are never buying the product anyway.

Many people just don't want the hassle of upgrades. And its not just a hassle for the consumer, its an extra cost for the manufacturer and developers. A cost they pay whether people buy the upgrade or not.

Edit: Id and Epic claim piracy pushed them to go multiplatform

And I'd say Halo and GTA sales numbers caused them to go multiplatform.

 

[dobwal]

Many of the pirates are never buying the product anyway.

That may be true for music but that might not be true for gaming. Pirating music is as easy as 1,2,3. I could train a grandmother in 5 minutes on how to pirate music.

If you pirate games its more than likely you're more than just a casual gamer as hitting the download button to getting to a title screen of pirated game is more involved. Casual gamers aren't the core group of people pirating gamers. Its the more hardcore gamers who would more than likely purchase the games that they are pirating if the pirating option wasn't available especially for high profile titles.

However, the main reason why console gaming is more popular than PC gaming is because of ease of use. Scaling or fixed hardware isn't the problem. Its the degree of knowledge of running games on a PC thats problematic to the market. Consoles don't require you to know its specs nor do they require involved installations taking 15 minutes and up. Nevermind, the keyboard with all its buttons being the standard method of input and game controllers aren't as plug and play friendly as console controllers. Console are just more user friendly. Hence higher sales. Hence the attraction and the current trend of PC devs moving to console development.

 

[AlphaWolf]

If you pirate games its more than likely you're more than just a casual gamer as hitting the download button to getting to a title screen of pirated game is more involved. Casual gamers aren't the core group of people pirating gamers. Its the more hardcore gamers who would more than likely purchase the games that they are pirating if the pirating option wasn't available especially for high profile titles.

There's nothing remotely hard about pirating games (at least once someone has done the hard work of uploading and cracking it), it's a large community. Just because they download and play the games doesn't mean they'd be willing or able to shell out $50 for it.

I'm not doubting that there is some, but ask some pirate how many games he has downloaded and then ask him how much money (and or time) he has to spend on games. It just throws the numbers out of whack.

I neither condone or approve of piracy, but I find it laughable when publishers/developers come up with these massive numbers of pirates playing their game like they actually think that money was all there to be had.

Anyway that's probably enough OT discussion.

However, the main reason why console gaming is more popular than PC gaming is because of ease of use. Scaling or fixed hardware isn't the problem. Its the degree of knowledge of running games on a PC thats problematic to the market. Consoles don't require you to know its specs nor do they require involved installations taking 15 minutes and up. Nevermind, the keyboard with all its buttons being the standard method of input and game controllers aren't as plug and play friendly as console controllers. Console are just more user friendly. Hence higher sales. Hence the attraction and the current trend of PC devs moving to console development.

You don't think fixed hardware reinforces ease of use?