The mid-term future: Sony-Toshiba-IBM....and Nvidia...or... STIN ?

[Megadrive1988]

simple question really. with the development of PlayStation4 which has to already be well underway (PS3 was in development in 1999, 6 months to a year before PS2 launched), what will be the role of Nvidia this time?

Will Sony-IBM-Toshiba just work on a next-generation implementation of the CELL architecture and Nvidia will develop all its GPUs independantly, and on the PSP2, PS4 end, with co-operation with Sony, or will Nvidia be brought into the CELL alliance and will
Sony-IBM-Toshiba-Nvidia build a new class of processor that is both a CPU and GPU ?

somewhat like the route Intel says it is taking with their 'Platform 2015' outline.


If an entire GPU could be combined with a CPU, the transmition times between them could be cut. the entire CPU><GPU external bus could be cut.

The GPU portion might be able to benefit from the far higher clockspeeds of CPUs. but obviously things would have to change.

I'm no engineer. but somehow, I sense that with PS4, Kutaragi and Jen-Hsun will be closer than ever. will this manifest itself on the silicon level as well ?

 

[Nicked]

I have doubts there are firm plans to even use an nVidia chip in PS3. Preliminary work on a PS4 GPU won't begin for at least 2 years - the platform probably won't be out until 2012 at the earliest. I'm fairly confident in stating Sony won't attempt an in-house GPU again (like Jen-Hsun Huang recently stated "The PSP is really one the last 3D devices that will be built inhouse by anybody on the planet"), but they will still evaluate their relationship with nVidia at a further point in time.

As for a 'CPGPU', Vysez posted a thread just the other day about something similar. In all likelyhood theres little chance that an effective solution will become available that is also high-performance and cost-effective in the next few years. With regard specifically to PS4 - its clear that the "next-generation CELL processor" is not going to target this kind of integration. The goals of the trio of companies have been reiterated several times. nVidia isn't included.

 

[Carl B]

I do think that NVidia and Sony are in it for the long run, but I don't think that we'll see a unified chip out of this group of companies though. There's really no incentive for IBM and Toshiba to get behind it in the first place as far as their own research dollars go, and they've already renewed their Cell partnership through 32nm independent of NVidia as it is. Plus, unless they go to the original sort of Visualizer patent concept from back in the day, I don't see how a unified chip would really be competetive. Die area for die area, two discrete processors would be a more capable solution than the would-be single die; the equivelent hardware in a single die compared to what would be possible in two discrete chips would simply be too large. Now, perhaps two of these unified chips in the system in a sort of Cell-glueless setup would address both ideas, but I'm just thinking discrete.

But yeah I see NVidia in it for the long haul with SCE. First of all, we already have their new design contract out there - for PSP2 or something else - and we've got Kutaragi's claims of sitting down with Jen and drawing out a unified roadmap to the future (or whatever).

What I would really expect to see is a future where you see PS4 as improved (or just 'more') Cell and improved NVidia chip. For PSP2, or maybe 3, smaller low-power Cell variant, along with an NVidia chip.

Now, with PSP I can't in my mind reconcile how far they're willing to go to implement B/C - and maybe that's a barrier to NVidia's inclusion - but I think they simply have to go that route at some point.

This does a lot for development on Sony's platforms I feel; it brings forward all the skills and knowledge base of the PS3 gen in a seemless manner, getting around the usual generational bump of learning new architectures, and makes development for the PSP essentially the same as development for the PS3/PS4.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I have doubts there are firm plans to even use an nVidia chip in PS3.

Please, tell me that's a typo!

There won't be an integrated GPU and CPU die in PS4. The chip would be too damned big! Yields would be abysmmal, costs will be insane. I don't think there'll ever be large CPU+GPU either, because to match the performance of two separate dies you'd need a massive chip again.

I can imagine nVidia helping to create a Cell/GPU hybrid type thing, developing the idea of the Visualizer, for future Cell products that is scalable as Cell is. There's been the talk about nVidia working closely with Sony because they 'share a vision'. That'd make a lot of sense, yet woudn't force other Cell products to use it. I think this is more likely to be Sony+nVidia, and not STIN (or NITS :smile: ). We're not hearing nVidia talk about their wonderful vision sharing with Toshiba and IBM!

 

[avaya]

I think Sony's desire for backward compatibility alone mandates the Sony-Nvidia partnership in the long run.

 

[AlNom]

Assuming they're targeting say...32nm for PS4, I don't think there is much room for a hybrid considering the leakage currents and some other issues while increasing the number of SPEs or clockspeed. But two processors one one die ala Xenos and the eDRAM... one would probably run into heat issues fairly quickly with a CPU/GPU package with conventional cooling.

 

[Titanio]

I think Sony's desire for backward compatibility alone mandates the Sony-Nvidia partnership in the long run.

They could achieve backwards compatability without tying themselves to future nVidia chips - AFAIK they'd have every right to include RSX in all future hardware if they wanted.

That said, I think they'll continue the partnership. I think Sony would find it desireable to have both scaleable hardware and software - the closer PS4's dev environment is to PS3's, the better, and that includes nVidia's tools. On the surface, at least, between Cell and nVidia I think they are in a good position to scale things up.

 

[predicate]

I don't know whether they'd go for everything on one chip (it seems to me to be rather pointless) but certainly I'd think that a continued partnership with nVidia could be a good thing.

For a start it will allow them to make PS4 a much more streamlined machine, a la XBox 360. Because MS had IBM and ATi onboard from the get-go, the Xenon/Xenos pairing is much more elegant a solution than Cell/RSX, which seems to be working because of brute force rather than because they're a match made in heaven.

I think Sony will need that level of close CPU/GPU integration on PS4 to remain competitive, because I sincerely doubt that MS will drop it for XBox 3 and they've had a generation worth of hardware design over Sony now to get it right.