LowEndTorque
Member
On the topic of power consumption, does anyone know roughly how much power a GTX 580M uses?
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Timothy Lottes: "a 2011 GPU (6970) seems like a possible proxy for nextgen consoles"
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jim-jam bongs
Member
And if you look at the chart I supplied you'll see that, on average, current GPUs are drawing those amounts of power under peak conditions. We can play this game now where you go and count how many are exceeding 400W and then we can argue for hours and pages about whether that number is equivalent to "average" but I don't see much point since my main argument has already been established; that is, that modern GPUs draw a lot of power and generate a lot of heat, so in their current forms are not appropriate for consoles.
Also, I'm not sure who you are but it's nice that you've come to know and love me. I actually feel a bit warm and fuzzy.
Check the chart, it's on this page.
Reallink
Member
Well to be fair, the OG PS1 probably pulled 10-20W, the OG PS2 40-50W, and the OG PS3 200W. Obviously the same has applied to case volume as well. If the new consoles are the same size (or smaller) drawing the same (or less) power, they will be bucking a 20+ year trend. I do agree that it's very unlikely they'll exceed the PS3's phat dimensions and PSU, but it's not entirely out of the question either. For example, I wouldn't be taken completely by surprise if one of them decided to go with a foot print more on the scale of Cable/SAT DVR set tops, or a slime line AVR--especially Sony.
'Modern' can be a 6850 which can draw 120W, or it can be a GTX 580.
A trimmed and targeted 6850 would be a perfect fit for a newer console.
Newer consoles won't have a 200W GPU because it costs too much fucking money and makes no sense. With optimizations and a focus on yields/power draw they could easily have a 65W 6850 equivalent that will handle 1080 60fps. If it's 28nm that much easier and possibly lower.
A trimmed and targeted 6850 would be a perfect fit for a newer console.
Newer consoles won't have a 200W GPU because it costs too much fucking money and makes no sense. With optimizations and a focus on yields/power draw they could easily have a 65W 6850 equivalent that will handle 1080 60fps. If it's 28nm that much easier and possibly lower.
That would be awesome, but in a post-Kutaragi world I don't really see it happening.
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
Now cut that in half again and you have a GPU that has adequate power draw for a console.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
Depends on the card and the software. 300W is about right for a 7970 running Furmark. GPU manufacturer's hate that program. It adds about 50W over normal gaming.
edit: nvm Those were fake numbers. 300 is too much. It's looking like it's around 270W with Furmark.
I should start bookmarking all these posts for the serious servings of crow when next gen consoles release. no way does the most powerful next gen console have a 60w gpu.
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
What are you expecting? The entire console will probably draw 100-120W at launch. I don't see why people expect MORE than a 60W or so GPU, unless you're also expecting more five-ninety-nine US dollar price tags.
LowEndTorque
Member
The 6870 is about the equivalent of the 560Ti.
The 560Ti pretty much already exists in notebooks in the form of the 580M.
I don't see a custom console GPU with roughly the performance of a 6970/580 as being such a big problem regardless of the power consumption arguments that are being made here, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see =)
jim-jam bongs
Member
I too like to ignore things which contradict my preconceptions.
I don't think anyone claimed that this won't be doable. But when the consoles are released the 6970/580 performance level will be ~2 GPU generations out of date in high-end PC GPU terms.
LowEndTorque
Member
Im expecting a typical ms console. Strong gpu, avg cpu with a big ass power brick and a draw of 150-200w. I have no clue what sony will bring.
Doc Holliday
SPOILER: Columbus finds America
Shouldn't you guys be comparing laptop gpus and not desktops?
iamshadowlark
Banned
Investors? Huh? Im pretty sure they both have their own capital for this type of project, especially MS.
as i said before, the power draw and heat output of top-of-the-line chips in 2005 was far more muted than today. efficiency has scaled with time, but the ceiling has become that much higher.
also consider that the 360 was originally intended to be a total gaming powerhouse, a real dragster that frequently whirred and melted itself into oblivion. microsoft's next living room device will be nothing of the kind. it will be an ultra sleek and discreet jack-of-all-trades tv box that will seek to become the iphone of the living room, with gaming as an asset rather than a focus.
you will never see a console with the equivalent contemporary performance of a launch day xbox 360 again.
The 6850 and 6870 are already in notebooks too. They're called the 6970M (~95W) and 6990M (~100W).
The GTX 580M is a solid 100W under load, btw.
Nope... higher mid range in the future... that's what we are suppose to get... if MS aims for the same spot
iamshadowlark
Banned
Well sony just revealed like last week that they are going for a SoC at 28nm. They also want some dsp so I would expect some form of cell too.
Yes. It's much easier to relate to a desktop GPU though and you have similar comparisons like what KJack posted below.
Right, just speeds down and you have a 65W part and optimization makes up for the rest to bring consoles to a doable 1080 60fps.
I'm confused as to why the 300W GPU powerhouses are being mentioned. It's only if you think the next generations of consoles will be some kind of insane powerhouses that blow out PCs today. I would think parity with a 6850 / GTX 460 would be a targeted goal.
PS1 and prior didn't really need any active cooling. That started with the PS2 and cooling was a large concern with the 360 and PS3. As loud as both of these consoles were, their coolers failed to cool them properly and resulted in very high failure rates. The only way to properly cool these consoles is to have big coolers and big fans. Do you really think we'll see a console significantly bigger than the PS3 in the near future?
That's been my guess for a while.
I don't think the PS3 and 360 successors will be relative powerhouses like their predecessors. I think they'll be a lot more restrained in terms of power requirements and cost this time around.
And it will be custom design, so it'll take even less power.
Doc Holliday
SPOILER: Columbus finds America
Question to the techies. How does not having to deal with pcie, dual monitor ports, and other pc standards affect gpu size?
-ImaginaryInsider
Member
Given how well the 360's design worked out for MS, minus RROD, I don't see a majorly different approach, imo a 100 watt next-gen offering at launch seems insanely conservative.
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
Not a big difference, the bulk of the die is taken up by the actual cores/shaders. Interface connection should be pretty small, and still existent on a console die, just different. And I don't remember how ports work, but I'm pretty sure those aren't handled on the actual GPU die.
Edit: Unless you're asking about the physical size of the video card versus a console GPU, but that's not a proper comparison. In a console the GPU is a single chip soldered to the main board, while the GPU in a PC is pretty much a PC in and of itself. This is a GTX 460 die (and it's worth noting this is "big":
Of course the console GPU when it's all said and done will probably be closer to this size:
The discussion started because someone asked why no one expects the upcoming consoles' GPUs to be on-par with high-end PC GPUs around the time of launch, even though the 360's GPU was (to some extent). And the answer to that is the disparity in power consumption between high-end PC GPUs then and now.
Negligible.
very little. i'd say that 80% of a card's mass is purely to do with cooling, and even so, if you shoved it in a console sized case it'd still fry.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
The prediction from many people is that next gen console launch games will shit on current games running on a high end PC, and the power to do that has to come from somewhere.
Ok
I strongly disagree with that opinion.
Consoles will get nice 1080p + 60fps games and hopefully PC ports get better because of it.
What I'd really like to see are improvements in environments, physics, and interactivity more so than graphics.
Aizu_Itsuko
Member
360 was a 299/399USD console and it draw ~180W under load.
PS3 (which would have been much cheaper if it wasn't for certain design decisions) was a little over 200W under load.
Depends on their goals, but usually power consumption goes up, not down.
bigtroyjon
Member
Might want to read your own links. People are perfectly happy to purchase the current software.
Some people think GPU customization and 'optimization' of the hardware is some holy grail in this thread. Customization helps a bit in choosing transistors a bit more effectively for a specific box. It does not allow manufacturers to circumvent the laws of physics and create a GPU that uses much less power or is much smaller than its desktop equivalent (or 'proxy') or is much more powerful than a low power component. It helps only a little bit, but definitely not enough that it makes reasoning about this with PC components useless.
A GTX460 would be a big upgrade compared to what we have now.
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
Yeah, I meant relatively. When people are talking about 6970s, 580s, and 7870s, those are are pretty significantly faster, even more so in a closed box like consoles.
I don't think some people realize just how big of an upgrade to a 460-like part would be. I seriously don't think many console gamers would be disappointed in that leap.
Sleepy Buddha
Member
Aren't the PS3 and 360 GPUs roughly equivalent to NV 8600GT? If so yeah, a 460 or better yet a 560 level GPU on a console would be big upgrade. And the move to 28nm could allow either cooler parts or more powerful for the same TDP.
You do realize once they move to DX11 or sm of that level that a lot of the problems of the DX9 era will disappear? Closed box advantages are becoming smaller and smaller as pc tech software and hardware evolve.
specialguy
Banned
Closed box has less to do with it than lack of high end PC development. PC's have a lot of power but nobody really develops anything to take advantage of them. 2007 Crysis really remains the last PC targeted high budget game.
And besides, I'm not aware of any lessening of the advantages of targeting a fixed spec. I find that claim dubious.
And besides, I'm not aware of any lessening of the advantages of targeting a fixed spec. I find that claim dubious.
higherARC05
Banned
And you know this cause you work at Microsoft?
What makes you say anything as dumb as saying the Next XBOX won't focus on gaming as its prime feature? Baseless claims i read.
It's not exactly an unsupported claim. Microsoft has been moving in that direction for a few years now.
If you expect the 360 successor to be as cutting edge as the 360 was at the time, then expect their new console to be twice of the size of the original 360. I just don't think that's going to happen.
We wont see anything less then GCN from AMD.
I also think we will see something around radeon 7970 performance in the console. Its a first gen 28nm part and has alot of stuff that a console wouldn't need.
Also i believe we will see 40 or 50 MB edram buffer in the next xbox which will make up for the vram speed diffrences
I also think we will see something around radeon 7970 performance in the console. Its a first gen 28nm part and has alot of stuff that a console wouldn't need.
Also i believe we will see 40 or 50 MB edram buffer in the next xbox which will make up for the vram speed diffrences
Why ? The 360 was drawing close to 200w at launch.
Want to see something cool ?
Anand tested the 7970 with system specs listed
I7 3936 @ 4.3ghz
EVGA X79 SLI
Samsung 470 240GB ssd
16 gigs of ddr 3 1867
The 7970 with that complete system is only 100w off the mark of last gen consoles .
Now remember the CPU has a 1GHZ overclock on it and is a 130W TDP by itself at default speeds that chip carrys a 80W diffrence over the i5 2500k with the same hardware.
YOu also have a power hungry motherboard with a ton of features that wont be required in a console .
I think they can easily get 7970 performance in a 200w box . 200w puts it right were the 360 was at launch.
How willing they are to do this depends on how close 22nm is from the consoles launch. If the console hits in 2012 and 22nm is schedualed for 2013 or the console hits in 2013 and 22nm is schedualed for 2013 then i see no reason why ms wouldn't take advantage even if initial chips are on 28nm
I dont really see why we would need edram. I dont really follow edram technology, but X360 edram has transfers similar to 7970 GDDR 5 on 384bit bus.
I would love to have 4gb of GDDR5 shared for whole console in next-gen systems.
Why ? The 360 was drawing close to 200w at launch.
Want to see something cool ?
Anand tested the 7970 with system specs listed
I7 3936 @ 4.3ghz
EVGA X79 SLI
Samsung 470 240GB ssd
16 gigs of ddr 3 1867
The 7970 with that complete system is only 100w off the mark of last gen consoles .
Now remember the CPU has a 1GHZ overclock on it and is a 130W TDP by itself at default speeds that chip carrys a 80W diffrence over the i5 2500k with the same hardware.
YOu also have a power hungry motherboard with a ton of features that wont be required in a console .
I think they can easily get 7970 performance in a 200w box . 200w puts it right were the 360 was at launch.
How willing they are to do this depends on how close 22nm is from the consoles launch. If the console hits in 2012 and 22nm is schedualed for 2013 or the console hits in 2013 and 22nm is schedualed for 2013 then i see no reason why ms wouldn't take advantage even if initial chips are on 28nm
That's 200W above current consoles at launch. The PS3 and 360 launch systems drew just under 200W under load.
If we reach 22nm in time, sure, but that's doubtful since NVidia has extended their projected release to 2014.
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
They won't use 22/20nm, at least not at launch. Even assuming it's ready yields likely won't be high enough yet. And there's no way you can magically cut down a 250W part and fit it in a closed box just because it's a closed box.
6970 performance is already seriously reaching. No way we see 7970.
Bigger bus means more RAM chips, meaning more expensive boards, and that means it's hard to cost-cut later. We'll probably see 128 bit GDDR5, or XDR RAM. No reason to have a huge 50MB eDRAM pool though. Anything more than 32MB is overkill as a framebuffer. In fact 24MB is probably all they would need.
McHuj
Member
I don't think you'll see a 384-bit bus in console. I/O is a significant contributor to power. I think they can get a similar performance with a smaller bus and edram, but at a much lower power.
Why ? The 360 was drawing close to 200w at launch.
The 7970 with that complete system is only 100w off the mark of last gen consoles .
391 - 200 = 191, not 100.
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