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[Rice-Eater]

And wollan lol. Great memories

WUT? Those two got banned? No wonder I don't see them anymore. Those guys and I were part of a group that migrated to GAF from the IGN boards. I think we all started around the early 2000s at the IGN boards. Oh the memories of discussing new games and fighting off invaders form the GC and Xbox GB lol. I never really took part in system wars stuff that much. I remember Wollan being pretty level headed, but Kittonwy was a true Soulja.

 

[hodgy100]

Or that's what they are doing because its what devs have asked for... Jeez

 

[DocSeuss]

They're a hardware company and this is the first time they haven't developed a unique architecture for their platform. They probably just wanted to make sure their platform was attractive from a hardware perspective so they went with the best specs they could afford. The RAM spec was the one that was the huge boost, the CPU one (if happening) has likely been in the cards based on TDP/yields and would help a lot given that it's a low end CPU.

The cost is batshit insane, though. The "they're a hardware company first" thing just doesn't hold that much water.

 

[Razgreez]

The cost is batshit insane, though. The "they're a hardware company first" thing just doesn't hold that much water.

That doesn't hold much water either, unless you're being melodramatic. The cost, while significant, is likely far from insane.

 

[CaptainFalafel]

Could someone please tell me the price difference between the 2Gb GDDR5 chip and the 4Gb GDDR5 chip. Preferrably what Sonys price is with the component manufacturer.
Because I assume that everyone here knows this seeing how everyone is discussing how expensive this upgrade is...

 

[DocSeuss]

That doesn't hold much water either, unless you're being melodramatic. The cost, while significant, is likely far from insane.

I've heard like... ~$80. Consoles don't start selling well until the $299.99 mark. A portion of that goes to the developers. The processor tends to be around $30 or so. A 500GB HD's another... I don't remember. I think about $30 or so. It's "batshit insane" in the context that I don't see where Sony can make a profit off the hardware.

 

[Nachtmaer]

Could someone please tell me the price difference between the 2Gb GDDR5 chip and the 4Gb GDDR5 chip. Preferrably what Sonys price is with the component manufacturer.
Because I assume that everyone here knows this seeing how everyone is discussing how expensive this upgrade is...

4Gb GDDR5 chips have recently gone into production supposedly. I think it won't be easy to find prices at this point.

 

[mrklaw]

What has Sony running so scared that they're ramping up the RAM and boosting the CPU for?

The costs involved in this mean it isn't something you do out of benevolence, or at the drop of a hat. They're definitely not what you do if you're comfortably ahead of the competition, which previous spec things seemed to indicate.

What are they so afraid of?

perhaps they are better able to get closer to the original requests from developers now that ram chip densities have increased, and they have visibility from initial chips that they have some headroom to increase clockspeeds.

really not rocket science, or any grand conspiracy. So many people make it sound like Sony are running into AMD headquarters with each VGleak article and saying 'make ours better than this!' when the reality is just a natural confluence of budget and technology - both are likely to be similar because thats what tech allows at the money they'll spend and going to the same vendor.

 

[DocSeuss]

perhaps they are better able to get closer to the original requests from developers now that ram chip densities have increased, and they have visibility from initial chips that they have some headroom to increase clockspeeds.

really not rocket science, or any grand conspiracy. So many people make it sound like Sony are running into AMD headquarters with each VGleak article and saying 'make ours better than this!' when the reality is just a natural confluence of budget and technology - both are likely to be similar because thats what tech allows at the money they'll spend and going to the same vendor.

I want to believe the ghost of Kutaragi is responsible

 

[Razgreez]

I've heard like... ~$80. Consoles don't start selling well until the $299.99 mark. A portion of that goes to the developers. The processor tends to be around $30 or so. A 500GB HD's another... I don't remember. I think about $30 or so. It's "batshit insane" in the context that I don't see where Sony can make a profit off the hardware.

A portion of what goes to which developers?

The rest of the post is just melodrama. Until we've seen the full BOM we can only speculate. Going hysterical due to baseless speculation is unwise

 

[Pistolero]

What has Sony running so scared that they're ramping up the RAM and boosting the CPU for?

The costs involved in this mean it isn't something you do out of benevolence, or at the drop of a hat. They're definitely not what you do if you're comfortably ahead of the competition, which previous spec things seemed to indicate.

What are they so afraid of?

Durango secret sauce, obviously.
The drama in your post, man, wow! You've got a fertile imagination.
Let me sketch a more plausible scenario to work with : Sony wanted its architecture to be GDDR5. They started with 2GB and moved to 4 as memory chips became available. Luckily for them, the more favorable market conditions ultimately allowed to go for quadruple the initial amount...
As to why they went with that quantity, well, a large amount of RAM pool with that bandwidth gives you ease of mind and makes sure your console is future-proof. If, down the road, you decided to dedicate a bigger chunk of your resources to non gaming related tasks, you wouldn't do it at the expense of software developement.

 

[Durante]

what other sacrifices will one have to do you maximize their Titan video card to the fullest? Like would you need a huge PC case?...special looking cooling things? spend extra time monitoring and taking care of the thing?

You can just buy a tiny prebuilt system with one:

The only "sacrifice" is money.

"Final output could be similar to a 680 if final output is capped to something significantly less than what a 680 could output"

This is a rather typical argument. "Disregarding IQ it's almost on par!" Nevermind proper IQ accounting for a massive performance differential.

I've heard like... ~$80.

Well, that's wrong. I think it's unlikely that the difference in cost per system at launch for Sony between 4GB and 8GB is more than $40.

 

[Reiko]

perhaps they are better able to get closer to the original requests from developers now that ram chip densities have increased, and they have visibility from initial chips that they have some headroom to increase clockspeeds.

really not rocket science, or any grand conspiracy. So many people make it sound like Sony are running into AMD headquarters with each VGleak article and saying 'make ours better than this!' when the reality is just a natural confluence of budget and technology - both are likely to be similar because thats what tech allows at the money they'll spend and going to the same vendor.

If a few Gaffers have seen the specs, so has Sony.

 

[bud]

kittonwy will forever live on through this tag.

 

[Erasus]

What has Sony running so scared that they're ramping up the RAM and boosting the CPU for?

The costs involved in this mean it isn't something you do out of benevolence, or at the drop of a hat. They're definitely not what you do if you're comfortably ahead of the competition, which previous spec things seemed to indicate.

What are they so afraid of?

When designing the system and devkits they did not have a final box design = no way of knowing how much ventilation they can have in the final box = downclock the CPU to be sure. Once the final box is designed, they noticed they could afford to clock the CPU higher, adjusting clocks on a CPU that is already locked down and designed is not a big deal. Just increase the multiplier until they where happy.

With RAM I guess they know one of the main complaints with todays consoles is split RAM and lack of RAM, and they could afford to increase it. Roumor has it was Gureilla games that convinced them to increase RAM, just how Epic convinced MS to increase RAM from 256 to 512 in the 360.

 

[Y2Kev]

Wow, high drama and intrigue. Can't wait to watch the PS4 story lifetime movie channel special.

 

[thesuperfunk]

When designing the system and devkits they did not have a final box design = no way of knowing how much ventilation they can have in the final box = downclock the CPU to be sure. Once the final box is designed, they noticed they could afford to clock the CPU higher, adjusting clocks on a CPU that is already locked down and designed is not a big deal. Just increase the multiplier until they where happy.

If Sony had really gone all out with the devs in mind then you would have thought form would have followed function.

 

[aganu]

Wow, high drama and intrigue. Can't wait to watch the PS4 story lifetime movie channel special.

Narrated to you by the exquisite voice of Mark Cerny.

 

[mrklaw]

Narrated to you by the exquisite voice of Mark Cerny.

he reminded me of prof brian cox

"look at all of these pixels. Billions and billions of pixels, all obeying the laws of physics. Its amazing"

 

[dragonelite]

he reminded me of prof brian cox

"look at all of these pixels. Billions and billions of pixels, all obeying the laws of physics. Its amazing"

Dam you now i have to rewatch those brian cox series on The wonderful "Something" still have to finish Morgan freeman narrated Through the black hole series it like god is talking to you.

 

[DeFiBkIlLeR]

downclock the CPU to be sure.

But they didn't downclock it, 1.6Ghz is the standard speed for the Jaguar, the Pc versions will launch @1.6 & 1.8Ghz.

They would have just sat down and tested to see if they could increase to 2Ghz without needing extra volts and cooling, if such a speed increase came at no cost (or very little), there would no reason not to do it.

All AMD CPU's can run at higher speeds than what they come out of the factory at, my old Phenom II was rated @3.1Ghz with 1.35vlts, and could overclock to 3.6Ghz without any extra power or cooling required, only when you went past 3.7 did it need extra.

 

[thesuperfunk]

he reminded me of prof brian cox

"look at all of these pixels. Billions and billions of pixels, all obeying the laws of physics. Its amazing"

I wasn't the only one then!

 

[tusken77]

he reminded me of prof brian cox

"look at all of these pixels. Billions and billions of pixels, all obeying the laws of physics. Its amazing"

Ha, very true.

 

[THE:MILKMAN]

he reminded me of prof brian cox

"look at all of these pixels. Billions and billions of pixels, all obeying the laws of physics. Its amazing"

Mark Cerny reminds me of someone but I can't think who it is. For me though, Michael Denny sounds much closer to Prof Brian Cox.

 

[KimonoNoNo]

How would they even test for parity? Would devs have to submit the PS4 version to MS for them to test? There's also the question of if everything has to be identical or if it just has to be close enough.

I wonder: Did sony go around asking developers to mandate parity this gen? The answer is NO. Otherwise we would not have seen the tremendous number of games that were slightly and some mostly better on 360.

Just to be clear, I was replying to a post arguing that MS could/would demand that 3rd parties not optimize their games for PS4. I was pointing out that it would be impossible for MS to enforce such a thing.

 

[tipoo]

Why not? It seems way easier that way.

For one, because it doesn't scale linearly, it can work on 8 things with its clock speed of 2GHz, not one thing at 16GHz. And two because GHz are a meaningless measurement outside of the same architecture, saying it "has" a certain number of GHz in total is completely meaningless and pointless to say, same thing happened last time with people saying the Cell "had" 22.4GHz. It's meaningless.

And a processor doesn't "have" GHz, it runs at that clock speed.

 

[Saberus]

Mark Cerny reminds me of someone but I can't think who it is. For me though, Michael Denny sounds much closer to Prof Brian Cox.

Don't know if you where around back then, but he looks like one of Dana Carvey from SNL characters (The Church Lady).. lol

 

[tipoo]

Why stop there?

how about 1 core at 16GHz

Hottest Console on the market!

Half a core at 32! A quarter at 64GHz!

*console will require an in-house nuclear reactor to run. Players will be burned to a crisp instantly*

 

[-Amon-]

My God, I miss those days :/
Freakin Wollan and Kittonwy got banned

I really miss them too.

 

[NemesisPrime]

That's what I'm wondering.

PS4 already had an advantage with 4GB GDDR5
They already have an advantage with current specs.

We have no idea what the specs really will be on next xbox. Maybe Sony knows something we don't? Or maybe they just have money to burn?

 

[Crimson_Gold]

We have no idea what the specs really will be on next xbox. Maybe Sony knows something we don't? Or maybe they just have money to burn?

Or Sony wanted to provide developers with the platform they were asking for. We will see if this move was worth it 2-3 years down the line I'm sure.

 

[Y2Kev]

We have no idea what the specs really will be on next xbox. Maybe Sony knows something we don't? Or maybe they just have money to burn?

Provided you could manage the heat requirements, why does overclocking something you already bought increase costs?

 

[ascii42]

Provided you could manage the heat requirements, why does overclocking something you already bought increase costs?

Reduced yields is the only other concern, really.

 

[tipoo]

Provided you could manage the heat requirements, why does overclocking something you already bought increase costs?

They have to make sure each chip can stably operate at 2GHz, which means more chips have to be thrown out as they fail, which means higher per-working-chip costs as the yield percentages are lower.

 

[coldfoot]

Why stop there?

how about 1 core at 16GHz

Hottest Console on the market!

He has a point. One core @16 GHz is better from a developer's perspective than 8 cores @ 2GHz. It's just not physically possible though, hence why we have multiple cores.

 

[onQ123]

For one, because it doesn't scale linearly, it can work on 8 things with its clock speed of 2GHz, not one thing at 16GHz. And two because GHz are a meaningless measurement outside of the same architecture, saying it "has" a certain number of GHz in total is completely meaningless and pointless to say, same thing happened last time with people saying the Cell "had" 22.4GHz. It's meaningless.

And a processor doesn't "have" GHz, it runs at that clock speed.

I thought code could scale linearly across the SPEs


so 6 SPE's at 3.2GHz could actually be like having 1 SPE that's 19.2GHz

150 GFLOPS

 

[UntoldDreams]

I thought code could scale linearly across the SPEs


so 6 SPE's at 3.2GHz could actually be like having 1 SPE that's 19.2GHz

150 GFLOPS

Highly parallel workloads can be run all at once but not linear workloads.

Classic Example:
9 women can make 9 babies in 9 months.
9 women cannot work together to make 1 baby in 1 month.

EDIT: That being said a lot of graphics and AI calc can be run in parallel

 

[FatalMuzza]

What has Sony running so scared that they're ramping up the RAM and boosting the CPU for?

The costs involved in this mean it isn't something you do out of benevolence, or at the drop of a hat. They're definitely not what you do if you're comfortably ahead of the competition, which previous spec things seemed to indicate.

What are they so afraid of?

Unnanounced Wiiu memory expansion cartridge? Not sure, speculating.

 

[Derrick01]

Narrated to you by the exquisite voice of Mark Cerny.

He could lecture me on american government and I would sit there as focused as I could be. I know he's busy but he has to be the presenter for Sony at the big shows from now on.

 

[FatalMuzza]

Durango secret sauce, obviously.
The drama in your post, man, wow! You've got a fertile imagination.
Let me sketch a more plausible scenario to work with : Sony wanted its architecture to be GDDR5. They started with 2GB and moved to 4 as memory chips became available. Luckily for them, the more favorable market conditions ultimately allowed to go for quadruple the initial amount...
As to why they went with that quantity, well, a large amount of RAM pool with that bandwidth gives you ease of mind and makes sure your console is future-proof. If, down the road, you decided to dedicate a bigger chunk of your resources to non gaming related tasks, you wouldn't do it at the expense of software developement.

Wait...wait...Sony completely ignores the competition?? You may have something there. Such arrogance. Explains their phenomenal decline in the electronics industry.

 

[tapedeck]

The GeForce Titan would generally smack it around, as long as everything fit into the 6gb onboard and the PCI Express bus connecting it to the system didn't bottleneck the rendering. (And presuming you had a fast enough CPU and rendering code that is clever or lucky enough to avoid the other problems with the PC like API or OS overhead.)

You're talking about comparing a video card that alone has 288 GB/s bandwidth, 4.5 teraflops, and a 250 watt power budget against the entire PS4 system. The PlayStation is gonna get creamed.

Yeah re-reading my post, its a very dumb (and kind of useless) comparison. I just wonder how long the real world performance of PS4 will hold up against PC GPUs of the next few years.

 

[sono]

More and bigger yes.

My main gripe with PS3 this gen was that it releases too much heat.

If my bedroom is cold I warm it up by putting my 60G triple on at night.

 

[Eideka]

Yeah re-reading my post, its a very dumb (and kind of useless) comparison. I just wonder how long the real world performance of PS4 will hold up against PC GPUs of the next few years.

If you are talking about multiplats, the only point of comparison that makes sense in a PC-PS4 perspective then I'd wager that a 2012 high end GC like a 7970/GTX680 will already trump it.

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

What is causing Sony to up their specs?

From a business point of view, you'd think that their chief concern would be getting to market first/early.

Not sure if these bumps in spec (obv if the rumour is true) jeopardize that a little.

 

[Wynnebeck]

Wait...wait...Sony completely ignores the competition?? You may have something there. Such arrogance. Explains their phenomenal decline in the electronics industry.

jimcarrey.GIF

What are you even talking about?

 

[tapedeck]

If you are talking about multiplats, the only point of comparison that makes sense in a PC-PS4 perspective then I'd wager that a 2012 high end GC like a 7970/GTX680 will already trump it.

Im talking about real world graphics performance, not specs and yeah including 3rd party ports. Id wager that the stuff we will see from PS4 in the next year or two will hold its weight against whatever comes out on PC, maybe thats foolish but I think people are really underestimating this system. Im talking out of my ass of course, we'll really see whats what at E3.

 

[awa64]

jimcarrey.GIF

What are you even talking about?

Sony's electronics divisions--especially TVs, but pretty much linewide--are in the crapper. And it's largely due to their assumption that they can charge a premium based on having the name "Sony" attached to their products, when Samsung is making something nearly as good for half the price.

 

[Eideka]

Im talking about real world graphics performance, not specs and yeah including 3rd party ports. Id wager that the stuff we will see from PS4 in the next year or two will hold its weight against whatever comes out on PC, maybe thats foolish but I think people are really underestimating this system. Im talking out of my ass of course, we'll really see whats what at E3.

Well, I don't know why you would bring up PS4 exclusives in a PS4-PC comparison....Since you can't be sure if they would run as well on a similarly powerful PC. Hence why in my opinion 3rd parties are where it's at if you want to mesure real world performance between the two platforms.
Will the PS4 run Watch Dogs as well as a GTX680 powered PC ? I'm not expecting that, but I could be proven wrong.

If PC exclusives really take advantage of the PC hardware then I think you are vastly underestimating the next batch of graphic cards.
Star Citizen looks more impressive than anything shown on PS4 so far in my opinion.

 

[USC-fan]

Anyone legit hinting or confirming this?

 

[belvedere]

WUT? Those two got banned? No wonder I don't see them anymore. Those guys and I were part of a group that migrated to GAF from the IGN boards. I think we all started around the early 2000s at the IGN boards. Oh the memories of discussing new games and fighting off invaders form the GC and Xbox GB lol. I never really took part in system wars stuff that much. I remember Wollan being pretty level headed, but Kittonwy was a true Soulja.

Kittonwy and I hailed from the IGN and GS forums back when he used to be EvilTaru. Ah the nostalgia lol.