blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Cost? ;pLog4Girlz said:Latency?
Cost? ;pLog4Girlz said:Latency?
DopeyFish said:CPU : IBM Power 710
- Architecture : IBM POWER7
- Cores : 6 Core
- Clockspeed : 3.72 GHz
GPU : Custom AMD Radeon HD Graphics
- Configuration : Single Die Dual Core
- Clockspeed : 750MHz
- Daughter Die : Renesas Electronics 100MB eDRAM
RAM : 2GB 512-Bit GDDR5 256GB/s (Unified Memory Architecture)
hmmmmmm
100 MB EDRAM = free AA with no impact. This would be a monster wait a second.... 256GB/s GDDR5??? LOL
edit: wait a second.... *looks at left pane*
well this is bullshit lol
bgassassin said:I know. My point is a 6-core POWER7 is just the 8-core with two cores disabled. Too much wasted die space for a console.
Gaborn said:Even so, I'd be very concerned about the price point of a hexcore system (much less one with a dual GPU). I mean, if we're talking about 2012 NO WAY I believe it. 2013? Maybe.
SegaLeaks said:100MB eDRAM
512-Bit GDDR5 256GB/s
duk said:how some of you guys are liking or disliking anything at the point is very funny
we know 5% of the truth maybe even less, who knows what each core is capable of?
let's wait and see
P90 said:These threads make for great reading now and quoting a few years later to browbeat the posters with wrong predictions. Viva NeoGAF!
...duk said:how some of you guys are liking or disliking anything at the point is very funny
we know 5% of the truth maybe even less, who knows what each core is capable of?
let's wait and see
duk said:What a crock. 100mb edram is a joke and so is the ram.
unless we are looking at 599 all over again
While this is a somewhat common practice on new die processes or for exotic/complex designs ... I don't think it's the case for the POWER7 series. I could be wrong, but it looks to be different parts - http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/rep_ca/0/897/ENUS111-170/ENUS111-170.PDFDrkirby said:It is mainly to increase Yields early on, while it is unneeded die space, it can get the system on the market a lot faster.
Stephen Colbert said:Last week, I picked up 16gbs of DDR3 ram from Newegg for $40 Shipped!
Yes it was a good deal, but this was the retail price! The whole sale cost on that ram was probably half that.
So each 4gb stick costs maybe $5 to produce and the cost of going from 2gb to 4gb would be $2.50. I see no reason to expect anything less than 4gb of ddr3 ram.
If they sell 50 million consoles over the console lifespan, even assuming the ram price doesn't drop further during this time, we're talking about an extra $125 million dollar investment.
That's well worth getting a leg up on competitors knowing that RAM has ALWAYS been the bottle neck for consoles, for every single generation, for the past 30 years.
The only way 2gbs would make sense is if they went with DDR5 or XDR.
Well it is Stephen Colbert.guek said:are...are you being serious?
is this a joke post?
don't feedguek said:are...are you being serious?
is this a joke post?
Lol you're back. Luckily for us BurntPork took over for you while you were away.Stephen Colbert said:Last week, I picked up 16gbs of DDR3 ram from Newegg for $40 Shipped!
Yes it was a good deal, but this was the retail price! The whole sale cost on that ram was probably half that.
So each 4gb stick costs maybe $5 to produce and the cost of going from 2gb to 4gb would be $2.50. I see no reason to expect anything less than 4gb of ddr3 ram.
If they sell 50 million consoles over the console lifespan, even assuming the ram price doesn't drop further during this time, we're talking about an extra $125 million dollar investment.
That's well worth getting a leg up on competitors knowing that RAM has ALWAYS been the bottle neck for consoles, for every single generation, for the past 30 years.
The only way 2gbs would make sense is if they went with DDR5 or XDR.
Stephen Colbert said:Last week, I picked up 16gbs of DDR3 ram from Newegg for $40 Shipped!
Yes it was a good deal, but this was the retail price! The whole sale cost on that ram was probably half that.
So each 4gb stick costs maybe $5 to produce and the cost of going from 2gb to 4gb would be $2.50. I see no reason to expect anything less than 4gb of ddr3 ram.
If they sell 50 million consoles over the console lifespan, even assuming the ram price doesn't drop further during this time, we're talking about an extra $125 million dollar investment.
That's well worth getting a leg up on competitors knowing that RAM has ALWAYS been the bottle neck for consoles, for every single generation, for the past 30 years.
The only way 2gbs would make sense is if they went with DDR5 or XDR.
Drkirby said:It is mainly to increase Yields early on, while it is unneeded die space, it can get the system on the market a lot faster.
Thunder Monkey said:Well it is Stephen Colbert.
It's on a single die so it isn't much physical space. The reason it's done is to improve yields ... CELL did this (there's a redundant SPE).bgassassin said:?
I'm confused how that relates to what I said.
Stephen Colbert said:Last week, I picked up 16gbs of DDR3 ram from Newegg for $40 Shipped!
Yes it was a good deal, but this was the retail price! The whole sale cost on that ram was probably half that.
So each 4gb stick costs maybe $5 to produce and the cost of going from 2gb to 4gb would be $2.50. I see no reason to expect anything less than 4gb of ddr3 ram.
If they sell 50 million consoles over the console lifespan, even assuming the ram price doesn't drop further during this time, we're talking about an extra $125 million dollar investment.
That's well worth getting a leg up on competitors knowing that RAM has ALWAYS been the bottle neck for consoles, for every single generation, for the past 30 years.
The only way 2gbs would make sense is if they went with DDR5 or XDR.
There is:Stephen Colbert said:Yes I'm serious.
16gbs of ram for $40. It was a frontpage deal on slickdeals for a full day.
Given how cheap ram has gotten, there is no good reason for using 2gbs of ddr3 ram. Ideally, they will use much faster ram, but if not and they do go with ddr3, there is absolutely no excuse why it would be a paltry 2gbs.
*facepalm*Stephen Colbert said:Yes I'm serious.
16gbs of ram for $40. It was a frontpage deal on slickdeals for a full day.
Given how cheap ram has gotten, there is no good reason for using 2gbs of ddr3 ram. Ideally, they will use much faster ram, but if not and they do go with ddr3, there is absolutely no excuse why it would be a paltry 2gbs.
Raistlin said:It's on a single die so it isn't much physical space. The reason it's done is to improve yields ... CELL did this (there's a redundant SPE).
That said, are you sure that's really the case with POWER7? I thought the 710 Express use different parts for the different core counts. I mean what is the 4-core variant? An 8-core with 4 redundant (unused) cores?
I wouldn't think that architecture has yield issues requiring redundancy. It's been in mass production for a while, and uses a mature die process (45nm).
Stephen Colbert said:Yes I'm serious.
16gbs of ram for $40. It was a frontpage deal on slickdeals for a full day.
Given how cheap ram has gotten, there is no good reason for using 2gbs of ddr3 ram. Ideally, they will use much faster ram, but if not and they do go with ddr3, there is absolutely no excuse why it would be a paltry 2gbs.
Why would MS branch away from unified memory pools when the past two Xboxes have used that architecture?specialguy said:Once again, it's not in the topic title, but it's likely a 2GB DDR3 and 2GB GDDR5 VRAM scenario.
Aren't they priced accordingly though?bgassassin said:To answer your question(s), yes. From what I remember the 4-core and 6-core versions of POWER7 are just the 8-core with disabled cores.
I'm sure you remember how the die shot looks. If we numbered the four columns of two cores 1-4 going left to right. Either 2 or 4 (can't remember which) is disabled for the 6-core while both 2 and 4 are disabled for the 4-core.
That's why the mentioning of yields threw me off because that's what the paper I found said was done (and it took a couple months to find an official one). In other words they don't make any other variation but the 8-core.
With the die size of the POWER7 being 567mm^2 and they only disable cores, I don't see a straight up POWER7 being used.
claviertekky said:Why would MS branch away from unified memory pools when the past two Xboxes have used that architecture?
Right, and that is an assumption you make after a generation that ended up with a victory for the absolute weakest console.Stephen Colbert said:You can make more money with more successful console with 4gbs of ram than you can with a less successful console with 2gbs of ram.
MS would have made less money if they stuck with 256gbs of ram as originally planned because their games would have looked like absolute trash compared to the likes of Uncharted 2/Killzone 2/GoW 3 and their sales would have suffered for it.
Stephen Colbert said:You can make more money with more successful console with 4gbs of ram than you can with a less successful console with 2gbs of ram.
MS would have made less money if they stuck with 256gbs of ram as originally planned because their games would have looked like absolute trash compared to the likes of Uncharted 2/Killzone 2/GoW 3 and their sales would have suffered for it.
Stephen Colbert said:Yes I'm serious.
16gbs of ram for $40. It was a frontpage deal on slickdeals for a full day.
Given how cheap ram has gotten, there is no good reason for using 2gbs of ddr3 ram. Ideally, they will use much faster ram, but if not and they do go with ddr3, there is absolutely no excuse why it would be a paltry 2gbs.
How did you come up with this conclusion or are you trolling?specialguy said:I dont know. I'm not saying they are. But it's in the rumors that are the topic we're in. So I'm just speculating on if they were real.
Unless you're implying it will have DDR3 only, which is probably impossible. As I mentioned, even GDDR5 is pushing it and will likely require EDRAM.
EDRAM has it's own problems though, mind you. Besides costs, it doesn't work well with deferred rendering and generally robs you of programing flexibility. All equal it's better/simpler to go with GDDR5 and 256 bus unified pool, but that may be off the table because of 256 bus.
EDRAM is a very common feature in consoles for a reason, but again all equal you'd rather not have it.
Eteric Rice said:16 gigs would probably cause heat issues.
People need to get over the idea that specs need to increase 100X every generation. It's not happening anymore.
Raistlin said:Aren't they priced accordingly though?
You're not losing transister budget or TDP to unused cores?
DopeyFish said:it's plausible. however GDDR5 doesn't exist in that speed afaik
that's operating at the same bandwidth as the EDRAM in the Xbox 360 (iirc) which would mean... this thing would absolutely slaughter PCs without blinking
Moore's law says that capabilities double every two years. So it's not unreasonable to ask that 7 years later, the consoles be 8 times more powerful.
teh_pwn said:Every 18 months it doubles, and it has. It won't hold true in 20 years, but it did in the last 7 years, so 25.4x. Then consider software improvements. DX11 is more efficient at doing legacy DX functions by a lot if I recall.
Gaborn said:Frankly, it's madness. I mean, 6 core isn't even PC Standard yet. Traditionally there is a lag between consoles and PC gaming. I really, really really really really doubt this. It's nice wishful thinking though.
teh_pwn said:It's about to be standard. Speculation is that Ivy Bridge will be a modest improvement in performance per clock cycle, slightly higher clock frequencies, and i5/i7 moving to 6 cores. It's basically sandy shrunk to 22nm. The Sandy Bridge E stuff coming out is 6 core now, and AMD bulldozer is 8 core. And hell, PS3 is 8 core.
Keep in mind the next tick of Intel's release cycle will be replacing Ivy around the next console launches, and that will be a huge jump in performance.
eastmen said:Yea I'm not going to do that .
I think your missing the fact that the art is already created at high resolution and is then reduced in quality for the consoles.
The art work is already being made. Costs would not be very costly they would barely move in terms of cost.
Stephen Colbert said:Yes I'm serious.
16gbs of ram for $40. It was a frontpage deal on slickdeals for a full day.
Given how cheap ram has gotten, there is no good reason for using 2gbs of ddr3 ram. Ideally, they will use much faster ram, but if not and they do go with ddr3, there is absolutely no excuse why it would be a paltry 2gbs.
So awesome! haha.. I love the pre next gen phase where the pie in the sky numbers start leaking. Would be awesome if these were true but the cost would be outrageous.Lonely1 said:
What are they then lol.Angelus Errare said:PS3 is 1 PPU 7 SPUs, SPUs aren't cores.
Not textures that's for damn sure.
/PC gamer
Stephen Colbert said:Where the hell did I ask for 16gbs of ram. Reread my post.
My point is that ddr3 ram is cheap as fuck right now. The rumor says that the next Xbox uses 2gbs of ddr3 ram. I'm just pointing out that would be idiotic to do, given how cheap ram is.
No one is expecting specs to increase 100x. What we are expecting is that they follow moore's law.
Moore's law says that capabilities double every two years. So it's not unreasonable to ask that 7 years later, the consoles be 8 times more powerful.
Thunder Monkey said:2 gigs of XDR as main unified system RAM, modern CPU, and 2010 low wattage GPU.
Boom! Next-gen Xbox that eclipses anything you see on the PC today. But like every console ever on release day, is nowhere near as brute force powered as a top of the line PC.
But then again they don't have to be.
I was making a point.eastmen said:why would they use a 2010 gpu ?
AMD already has 28nm gpu's in the pipe using a brand new design , they should be out in the next few months .
It would be silly for MS to go with anything less than this. Remember the xbox 360 recieved a fully custom chip from ati and i doubt they would give amd a 2 year old low end gpu.