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IGN rumour: PS4 to have '2 GPUs' - one APU based + one discrete
- Thread starter gofreak
- Start date
yawn. If you're not gonna even read my post, I might as well do a jig and dance and say what ever I like.
that old!
kidfresh718
Member
lol i did read ur post my iphone wasnt bringin up the image when i went to the last page.. n4g is always late smh
From liolio's mention of the 6-8 cores (if you had bothered reading the entirety of his post instead of cutting it to pieces).
What? He's just referring to the shitty IPC achieved on the PPCs. You're reading way too much into things that aren't there.
And stop misquoting. bkilian isn't the one who mentioned 256-bit busses.
jeff_rigby
Banned
bkilian was defending the possible use of a Jaguar CPU as well as a 256 bit Memory buss in a next generation console. Who first mentioned this is irrelevant, in the defense of a possible use one can indicate more support or just being a good devils advocate for a position taken by another. I find it hard to understand how I can misquote using cut and paste. The reader may misunderstand the context in cites taken out of a thread, this is I think your issue with my post. I did not read more into the cites than are there, perhaps I should be more cautious in setting up the context for cites.
The Memory wall is an issue for next generation as memory speed has not kept up with the demands of multiple CPUs and next generation is going to support 4K video and higher with infinity view and later with 4K and possibly 8K TVs during the life of the PS4.
There is no next generation memory (XDR2) for the PS3's XDR. Trinity has two DDR3 memory interfaces to support 128 bit wide memory (thanks for correcting me). The AMD video card used as an example by bkilian had 4 DDR3 memory interfaces to support 256 bit memory and was not over priced. The trend is to even more cores needing even faster memory for both GPU and CPU.
3D stacked memory will be the answer to this but many think it won't be available in time for next generation game consoles. Since 3D stacked memory will be eventually cheaper how can Sony design a SOC and GPU that can take advantage of this in a future refresh? There are multiple way including the 256bit buss mentioned. I found reference to AMD pushing memory suppliers for faster memory (GDDR5 differential) and Hynix mentioning they were providing GDDR5 differential memory to AMD as well as future plans (2-3 years from 2011) to provide HBM High Bandwidth Memory which is essentially 3D stacked with mention of both low power and high power versions, variable width and # of stacked wafers.
CPU performance is another issue as the trend is to use more CPU rather than more powerful GPUs (your cite=> later generation Xbox games were CPU bound and Epic's comments on next generation). bkilian defending the possible use of a Jaguar by stating it's Instructions Per Clock cycle are higher than last generation PPC and "Decent performance" when even I know that decent CPU performance is not enough for next generation begs the question what does the rumor of Sony removing 4 more powerful CPU cores and replacing them with 2 Jaguar cores mean? The context was 6-8 Jaguar cores mentioned by liolio not Bobcat as stated by Blazkowicz. I'm guessing now that Blazkowicz knows Bobcat performance as it's been out for a year and there is information available for it while Jaguar is a relative unknown which bkilian felt comfortable defending but Blazkowicz did not feel comfortable using in his post.
I removed all BY3D cites in the post as they add little to the discussion here other than BY3D is also discussing these issues sometimes ahead and sometimes behind NeoGAF.
jeff_rigby
Banned
Two days later in this thread on BY3D and my take is confirmed.
Still, no-one on BY3D is doing research to find out if Memory on logic or 3D stacked memory will be available for inside the SOC nor are they looking for faster than GDDR5 memory. All seem confirmed for 2012-2013 with 3D stacked at the outside 2014. More than 2 3D stacked memory wafers (on top of each other) is said to wait for 2015 (want to keep the heights of all chips 2.5D attached to the SOC substrate nearly the same height). The 2 gig PS4 rumors might support 2 1 gig 3D memory wafers inside the SOC. (all including memory on logic can be 2.5D attached to Substrate)
If the Developer rumors of 2 Gig GDDR5 are true then SOC to second GPU will not be a PCIe buss but will be a unified memory (one memory pool) GDDR5 buss. Also since we will have 2 GPUs and minimum 2 X86 CPUs as well as accelerators accessing this same memory, it will need to be very fast. Sony patent calls for memory transfer speeds out of the 4 module 1PPU4SPU of 35 GB/sec (Sony patent Dec 2010 was for 2PPUs and 16SPUs, that may/probably has changed to AMD X86 APU (2 Jaguar X86 CPUs + 300 GPU math elements) which is essentially the same performance), with several other CPU-GPUs using the same buss as well as display I/O like Infinity view I expect the requirements for memory speed inside the SOC to be even higher. Memory on logic in the SOC (80-100 meg) can reduce the load on the memory outside the SOC (The MMUs and logic in the SOC take care of this transparently). If the second GPU is going to be outside the SOC due to heat or size issues then 3D stacked memory inside the SOC would still require a memory buss to the second GPU. If 3D stacked memory in quantity is expensive or not available then 100Meg or so 256-512 bit wide ram inside the SOC with 2 Gigs of GDDR5 256 bit buss external connected to the second GPU seems likely. A later refresh might include 3D stacked memory inside the SOC (replacing the differential GDDR5 or 265 bit GDDR5) as well as moving the second GPU inside the SOC when smaller die sizes reduce size and heat.
Sony and Microsoft should wait for 3D stacked memory and have to wait for a new full HSA GPU which won't be ready till late this year. All could take advantage of SOC efficiencies to release early @ 32nm but for 28nm, Full HSA GPU, 3D stacked memory and the economies in the Consortium building block 3D stacking they must release nearly a year after WiiU.
Didn't think of this until now but a Full HSA GPU and 3D stacked memory are key to next generation support and are the limiting factor in a release date. A SOC design with some HSA efficiencies and GDDR5 speed memory (multiple DDR3 controllers and 4 banks or more of interleaved DDR3) has been possible and with such a design, redesign to support lower die size as well as economies using the consortium building blocks can be implemented in the near future but 3D stacked memory and HSA GPU could not be incorporated later as they drastically change how the next generation game consoles will be designed and massively impact it's performance.
Talk in BY3D about the number of Compute units and relative CPU and GPU performance do not take into account the impact of 3D stacked memory (2X) and prefetch by CPU for GPU (2X) (requires the 2014 design GPU). There is overlap between the two so the total increase in performance is going to be less, I'd guess below 3X total, this is something professionals should be talking about but probably can't because of NDAs. Obvious also is the clock speed of GPUs can/should be higher and fewer GPU elements would be needed which should increase yield and reduce price.
So talk about the performance difference between WiiU which can have none of the efficiencies above and Xbox 3 or PS4 which can, only using comparisons using current GPUs and CPUs is missing the point. Also assuming performance is going to be disappointing using the same logic is also missing the point.
Still, no-one on BY3D is doing research to find out if Memory on logic or 3D stacked memory will be available for inside the SOC nor are they looking for faster than GDDR5 memory. All seem confirmed for 2012-2013 with 3D stacked at the outside 2014. More than 2 3D stacked memory wafers (on top of each other) is said to wait for 2015 (want to keep the heights of all chips 2.5D attached to the SOC substrate nearly the same height). The 2 gig PS4 rumors might support 2 1 gig 3D memory wafers inside the SOC. (all including memory on logic can be 2.5D attached to Substrate)
If the Developer rumors of 2 Gig GDDR5 are true then SOC to second GPU will not be a PCIe buss but will be a unified memory (one memory pool) GDDR5 buss. Also since we will have 2 GPUs and minimum 2 X86 CPUs as well as accelerators accessing this same memory, it will need to be very fast. Sony patent calls for memory transfer speeds out of the 4 module 1PPU4SPU of 35 GB/sec (Sony patent Dec 2010 was for 2PPUs and 16SPUs, that may/probably has changed to AMD X86 APU (2 Jaguar X86 CPUs + 300 GPU math elements) which is essentially the same performance), with several other CPU-GPUs using the same buss as well as display I/O like Infinity view I expect the requirements for memory speed inside the SOC to be even higher. Memory on logic in the SOC (80-100 meg) can reduce the load on the memory outside the SOC (The MMUs and logic in the SOC take care of this transparently). If the second GPU is going to be outside the SOC due to heat or size issues then 3D stacked memory inside the SOC would still require a memory buss to the second GPU. If 3D stacked memory in quantity is expensive or not available then 100Meg or so 256-512 bit wide ram inside the SOC with 2 Gigs of GDDR5 256 bit buss external connected to the second GPU seems likely. A later refresh might include 3D stacked memory inside the SOC (replacing the differential GDDR5 or 265 bit GDDR5) as well as moving the second GPU inside the SOC when smaller die sizes reduce size and heat.
Sony and Microsoft should wait for 3D stacked memory and have to wait for a new full HSA GPU which won't be ready till late this year. All could take advantage of SOC efficiencies to release early @ 32nm but for 28nm, Full HSA GPU, 3D stacked memory and the economies in the Consortium building block 3D stacking they must release nearly a year after WiiU.
Didn't think of this until now but a Full HSA GPU and 3D stacked memory are key to next generation support and are the limiting factor in a release date. A SOC design with some HSA efficiencies and GDDR5 speed memory (multiple DDR3 controllers and 4 banks or more of interleaved DDR3) has been possible and with such a design, redesign to support lower die size as well as economies using the consortium building blocks can be implemented in the near future but 3D stacked memory and HSA GPU could not be incorporated later as they drastically change how the next generation game consoles will be designed and massively impact it's performance.
Talk in BY3D about the number of Compute units and relative CPU and GPU performance do not take into account the impact of 3D stacked memory (2X) and prefetch by CPU for GPU (2X) (requires the 2014 design GPU). There is overlap between the two so the total increase in performance is going to be less, I'd guess below 3X total, this is something professionals should be talking about but probably can't because of NDAs. Obvious also is the clock speed of GPUs can/should be higher and fewer GPU elements would be needed which should increase yield and reduce price.
So talk about the performance difference between WiiU which can have none of the efficiencies above and Xbox 3 or PS4 which can, only using comparisons using current GPUs and CPUs is missing the point. Also assuming performance is going to be disappointing using the same logic is also missing the point.
Apophis2036
Banned
Wow you guys certainly know your stuff.
Im a dumbo unfortunately.
Could you break it down if any leaked info is available.
PS4 - CPU (manufacturer / number of cores / speed) - GPU (FLOP power) / Amount of Ram.
720 - CPU (manufacturer / number of cores / speed) - GPU (FLOP power) / Amount of Ram.
If anyone knows the Wii U GPU FLOP number that would be great also.
Thanks a lot if anyone replies
.
Im a dumbo unfortunately.
Could you break it down if any leaked info is available.
PS4 - CPU (manufacturer / number of cores / speed) - GPU (FLOP power) / Amount of Ram.
720 - CPU (manufacturer / number of cores / speed) - GPU (FLOP power) / Amount of Ram.
If anyone knows the Wii U GPU FLOP number that would be great also.
Thanks a lot if anyone replies
.
Proelite
Member
Wow you guys certainly know your stuff.
Im a dumbo unfortunately.
Could you break it down if any leaked info is available.
PS4 - CPU (manufacturer / number of cores / speed) - GPU (FLOP power) / Amount of Ram.
720 - CPU (manufacturer / number of cores / speed) - GPU (FLOP power) / Amount of Ram.
If anyone knows the Wii U GPU FLOP number that would be great also.
Thanks a lot if anyone replies
Latest info.
PS4
CPU: AMD SOC. 4 core
GPU, 1.8 teraflops, 1152 SPUs at 800 mhz.
RAM: 2GB of unified ram
Xbox
CPU: IBM (possibly AMD) extremely powerful
GPU: 1.5 teraflops GPU
RAM: 4-8 GB of DDR3, 1-2GB of video
Wii-U
CPU: IBM
GPU: 0.5-1.0 teraflops
RAM: 1.5-2 GB
Tarin02543
Member
thanks for the run down.
Is the 16 core cpu for xbox3 still alive or has that been shot down already?
Proelite
Member
The sentiment is that the 720 will emphasize CPU processing power over GPU power.
Apophis2036
Banned
And on what do you base these specs exactly? Do you know something we don't or are you just spit-balling.
Proelite
Member
Thanks a lot mate
Why so little Ram in PS4 compared to Xbox 3 ?.
I think third parties screamed for more ram and MS gave into the pressure. In addition, I am speculating that Kinect data, app data, and OS data is going to consume a large amount of the system ram.
Sony decided to spent their budget on a better GPU.
Thanks a lot mate
Why so little Ram in PS4 compared to Xbox 3 ?.
Beside the high probability of SoC (APU) for PS4 the rest are pretty much all up in the air. When it comes to GPU it comes down to acquiring more power with as little wattage as possible.
And as for the RAM it is quite uncertain. The speculation has been that whereas MS may opt for a larger amount of RAM, it may end up being GDDR3 (same as this generation).On the other hand Sony may be heading for GDDR5. The caveat is that even though its faster than GDDR3, individual chip density of GDDR5 is half that of GDDR3, meaning it would require twice as many chips as GDDR3 on the motherboard to be at par. And this apparently complicates the motherboard design and may be detrimental to its reliability in the long run.
Proelite
Member
Comments made by reliable members both on Neogaf and Beyond3d.
Both the 720 and PS4 target specs are in flux, which also means that "sources" always has a way out. Mawhahahahaha.
Apophis2036
Banned
Thanks for the replies guys.
The Xbox 3 specs looks mental !, 1500 FLOPs is a GTX 580 is it not ? and if it comes with even 4GB of Ram, is this not going to be another 599 US dolla console ?.
The Xbox 3 specs looks mental !, 1500 FLOPs is a GTX 580 is it not ? and if it comes with even 4GB of Ram, is this not going to be another 599 US dolla console ?
.phosphor112
Banned
Lol. And how would all that RAM fit?
Proelite
Member
I would assume it would have to be split memory. 4GB of DDR3 is easy on 8 ram modules. Maybe they'll have an even higher density DDR3 chip by next year?
CPU has a 256 bit bus to its 4-8GB memory pool. GPU has 128/256 bit bus to its 1-2GB memory pool.
It's far more believable than a unified 4GB GDDR5 pool.
phosphor112
Banned
8? Just.. how.. the board complexity would be nuts. Maybe they'll have higher chip densities? I don't know.. but that seems a little unnecessary.
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Come on. 8GB of RAM is incredible overkill and would push the cost of the system to the moon. No way it's more than 4.
Sony is planning a 2013 release for the successor to its PlayStation 3 console, people familiar with the matter said
While Sony will stick to disk drives in its next PlayStation, the company is expected to change some aspects of the console. One of the latest prototypes uses microprocessors and graphics technology made by Advanced Micro Devices Inc.people familiar with the matter said. Sony currently relies on a technology called the Cell chip, which was developed jointly with International Business Machines Corp. IBM and Toshiba Corp.The move would also end a long-running partnership with Nvidia Corp for graphics chips.
AMD and Nvidia spokesmen declined to comment.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303640104577436261084921778.html
While Sony will stick to disk drives in its next PlayStation, the company is expected to change some aspects of the console. One of the latest prototypes uses microprocessors and graphics technology made by Advanced Micro Devices Inc.people familiar with the matter said. Sony currently relies on a technology called the Cell chip, which was developed jointly with International Business Machines Corp. IBM and Toshiba Corp.The move would also end a long-running partnership with Nvidia Corp for graphics chips.
AMD and Nvidia spokesmen declined to comment.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303640104577436261084921778.html
Proelite
Member
i was flabbergasted as anyone when I saw 8GB. Maybe it's dev kit specs? I am sure things will become clearer next year.
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Yeah, I'd expect 4 at maximum, unless MS is really looking to repeat the Sony mistake with the PS3.
Proelite
Member
I don't think extra 4GB of DDR3 and a more complex motherboard will add to the BOM as much as Cell and Blue-ray did, but it's probably harder for cost reductions later.
4GB DDR3 + 1-2GB Video Ram is batshit insane and way more than I would have expect.
AstroNut325
Member
I still think 4GB of GDDR5 is on the low side. Especially if the consoles are meant to sustain until 2018/2019!
Glorified G
Member
Unless MS plans to put in a new media drive that costs more than their cpu & gpu combined, they won't make the same mistake as Sony did with the ps3.
funkystudent
Member
I totally see Sony and MS playing a game of chicken when it comes to RAM.
If MS is going to at least 4 gigs now and Sony is at 2 and the 3rd parties are yelling at them then maybe Sony will up it to 4 ... maybe MS will then jump to 8 or 6.
I think there is enough info out there we can kind of see where the next xbox is heading but I still haven't heard enough on the ps4. If it is really targeting 2013 then sony are doing a heck of a job being hush hush about it compared to Microsoft. I have heard of 3rd party developers with 720 dev kits but I haven't heard about 3rd parties with next gen PS hardware.
Then again if the ps4 is just a Onlive box that plugs into your Ethernet then that would explain things.
If MS is going to at least 4 gigs now and Sony is at 2 and the 3rd parties are yelling at them then maybe Sony will up it to 4 ... maybe MS will then jump to 8 or 6.
I think there is enough info out there we can kind of see where the next xbox is heading but I still haven't heard enough on the ps4. If it is really targeting 2013 then sony are doing a heck of a job being hush hush about it compared to Microsoft. I have heard of 3rd party developers with 720 dev kits but I haven't heard about 3rd parties with next gen PS hardware.
Then again if the ps4 is just a Onlive box that plugs into your Ethernet then that would explain things.
4 - 6GB is what I always expected from next gen consoles up until we started hearing stories about them low balling the specs this time around.
Curiously, if PS4 ends up having (nearly) the same amount of RAM as its competitor coming out at least one whole year earlier, will the GDDR5 (instead of 3) and allegedly better CPU and GPU be enough to actually yield visibly large advantage over Wii U (and justify the time gap)?
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Nothing will really add to the cost like Blu-ray did, but we're still talking a decent hike in price unless they sell at a loss.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
I expect 3-6 gigs as the range depending on split or unified pool for MS.
Unified? The top end I could see them putting in there is 3 gigs of GDDR5. Yes that potentially severely increases board complexity, but it wouldn't be the first time they did so. 6 gigs in a split pool. A small cache of GDDR5, with a huge bank of GDDR3.
Unified? The top end I could see them putting in there is 3 gigs of GDDR5. Yes that potentially severely increases board complexity, but it wouldn't be the first time they did so. 6 gigs in a split pool. A small cache of GDDR5, with a huge bank of GDDR3.
2GB GDDR5 + 4GB GDDR3? Can a board be design that way?
Thunder Monkey
Banned
I can never remember but is GDDR5 limited to 512MB a chip? Or is it still 256MB? If 512MB you could do your 2 gigs GDDR5 and 4 gigs of GDDR3 in as little as eight chips i-Lo. If I'm wrong that number goes up exponentially and makes it less and less likely.
gundamkyoukai
Member
You guys are crazy MS having 4 GB of DDR3 and 2GB of DDR5 would make the board so complex is not even funny.
If you going to add some many ram chips you could well as go for 3 to 4 GB of DDR5 and call it a day .
If you going to add some many ram chips you could well as go for 3 to 4 GB of DDR5 and call it a day .
Thunder Monkey
Banned
8 chips in the first model 360. 8 chips here unless I fuxored up.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
16gigs of DDR3?Since you guys seem to like high numbers rather than speed, what if one of the console manufacturers decided to practically shop at Newegg and buy a large amount of said slower type of memory? I asked this in jeff_rigby's thread but in a less comical fashion
Devs could manage, even with the very high latency. PC oriented developers would be in heaven. Though at that point all of your games will need to be stored on your HDD. That slow of RAM coupled with slow disc read speeds equals some truly epic load times.
I'd still rather see a purely console design based on speed and low latency.
After some research, I must say that finding out about density isn't easy at all and the last I saw the number of RAM chips on graphics card would indicate that it's still 256MB.
That said, it'll be interesting to see what happens when Radeon HD 7990 comes out with 6GB GDDR5. It'll be mind boggling to see the card design possess 24 chips on it. Either that or perhaps it'll be the first to feature 512MB density chips (resulting in 12 chips laid out over the board).
Now here's the thing (and I am a computer HW novice): If a board the size of a gfx card can feature that amount of GDDR5 (256MB density) chips then will 4 GB (16 chips) really cause an out of this world complication to a comparatively larger motherboard for PS4?
gundamkyoukai
Member
Last time i check DDR 5 only comes in 256 size so your talking about 8 chips already without counting the DDR3 ram .
Since you guys seem to like high numbers rather than speed, what if one of the console manufacturers decided to practically shop at Newegg and buy a large amount of said slower type of memory? I asked this in jeff_rigby's thread but in a less comical fashion
Why must you mention NewEgg
Also on the topic of speed vs higher amount i rather they go with faster ram any day of the week .
Exactly right
Why must you mention NewEgg
Because it's practically the proposition I'm asking you guys about (a shitton of slower higher-latency memory vs a smaller pool of fast low-latency memory).
As most of you guys already know, you can't have a large pool of GDDR5 for example, because the memory densities aren't yet there to support such an endeavour without a ludicrous motherboard. Slower memory types don't have as much of an issue with that.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
This is why I put the qualifier "if I fuxored up" in there. I was initially thinking 1 gig GDDR5 and 5 gigs GDDR3. If they really are going for a split pool I'd expect more RAM chips to be used purely for higher total overall. Otherwise you'd just be better suited for a smaller unified pool. Most of the game world though (and here's the catch) would be designed to fit into that smaller faster pool. You could have things streaming in and out of the slower pool as a giant cache, but at some point it just becomes redundant.
If they want to go just for size, they could get a unified pool of 8 gigs GDDR3 under the same chip budget of the first 360.
Or they could go for something with insane speed like a unified pool of GDDR5. At 256MB a chip you're top end would be 2-3 gigs at the maximum. And that's with 8-12 RAM chips on the board.
phosphor112
Banned
Anyone thinking they'll have more than 4 is nuts...