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IGN rumour: PS4 to have '2 GPUs' - one APU based + one discrete

Diablos

Member
1gb VRAM is more than enough for 1080P and some nice AA on PC's, don't know why you think that's not enough for consoles.
In 2012, yes, that might be fine. Do you really think that by the middle of PS4's lifespan people won't be wishing they added more vram? Games will get better and require more resources, 1GB of vram will prove to be a bottleneck at some point (which is always the case with gaming, but the question is if it will come to soon).
 

Dyno

Member
Yeah this gen getting into PC gaming looks too good to pass up. It's the only console that inspires.
 

Azure J

Member
One thing to keep in mind, if this is what's being reported, this is only targets for whatever version of kits are out at current. Be prepared for a GPU part heavily divorced/customized from this (baseline) for straight gaming purposes.

brain_stew also brings something interesting to light.
 
PS4 and Xbox Next specs are sounding pretty underwhelming. Looks like Wii U wont be that left behind as a lot of folks think it will be. This could be another PS2, Xbox and GCN generation. 3 major consoles with comparable specs.
 

Diablos

Member
4GB is a logical choice right now for a machine that really has to run one intensive application at a time. What do you think they'd use to fill 8GB of RAM with? Would you want to wait 5 minutes for the game to load until that much RAM is filled up with data?
Yeah yeah, I remember people saying the same thing about PS3's main memory, and then a couple years later everyone was wishing they at least put another 256-512MB in. That's all I'm saying; what seems more than practical now may prove to look like an oversight in just a couple short years.
 

Globox_82

Banned
PS4 and Xbox Next specs are sounding pretty underwhelming. Looks like Wii U wont be that left behind as a lot of folks think it will be. This could be another PS2, Xbox and GCN generation. 3 major consoles with comparible specs.

lol talk about ignorance. Do you even read gaming news? A couple of devs saying that WiiU is bellow PS360, some on par, some sligthyl better. In short WiiU is current gen console.

No matter what you think of nexbox and PS4 if rumors are true, they are still going to be next gen devices, unlike wiiU. Of course in therms of power.
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
They're probably describing development hardware. There's no way that any console will have a literal desktop GPU in there anyway.

If the target was SI, though, why not...just put a SI in there? It's not something they have to try and emulate.

I also dunno why they just wouldn't go with a vanilla Kaveri if this was the performance target - that would be a much simpler, and probably ultimately cheaper route to the same or better performance as these two together.
 

Ryoku

Member
PS4 and Xbox Next specs are sounding pretty underwhelming. Looks like Wii U wont be that left behind as a lot of folks think it will be. This could be another PS2, Xbox and GCN generation. 3 major consoles with comparible specs.

If this is true (speaking of relative performance of the next-gen consoles), then it might be closer than PS2/GCN/Xbox.
 

tapedeck

Do I win a prize for talking about my penis on the Internet???
So we have gone from Wii U being 2-4x as powerful as Xbox 360 to it being less powerful than Xbox 360 and PS3 to PS4 being more powerful than Xbox 720 to PS4 being much less powerful than Xbox 720 to PS4 being about as powerful as Xbox 720.

Got it.
 
Can the APU GPU be used for non-graphics work ? If so, it would address one of my concerns, which is to handle natural input while doing heavy graphics work.

A VLIW5 GPU like the one included in this APU isn't going to be well suited to GPGPU code. The 7670 isn't a SI/GCN GPU either, it's VLIW4 based, that just doesn't add up for me.
 
lol talk about ignorance. Do you even read gaming news? A couple of devs saying that WiiU is bellow PS360, some on par, some sligthyl better. In short WiiU is current gen console.

No matter what you think of nexbox and PS4 if rumors are true, they are still going to be next gen devices, unlike wiiU. Of course in therms of power.

Ignorance? Yea lets talk about ignorance. For every dev that says that Wii U specs are below ps360, i can find you a dev that says otherwise. Dont try and throw the ignorance crap at me when all you seem to be doing is selective reading.
 

Globox_82

Banned
Ignorance? Yea lets talk about ignorance. For every dev that says that Wii U specs are below ps360, i can find you a dev that says otherwise. Dont try and throw the ignorance crap at me when all you seem to be doing is selective reading.

then I recommend you reread entire comment, not just first sentence.
 

Wazzim

Banned
Developers would disagree vigorously with you.
Well then I encourage them to make more PC exclusive games.

In 2012, yes, that might be fine. Do you really think that by the middle of PS4's lifespan people won't be wishing they added more vram? Games will get better and require more resources, 1GB of vram will prove to be a bottleneck at some point (which is always the case with gaming, but the question is if it will come to soon).
If they do fine with the shitty specs of the current consoles then they'll do fine with these specs.

It's this or it's a $500 console.
 

Alchemy

Member
My only guess would be having a secondary weaker GPU built specifically for handling image post processing like AA so there is some universal image quality standards for the system. Otherwise... what the hell is the point?
 

Lord Error

Insane For Sony
This almost sounds like AMD had tons of 6670 parts they wanted to get rid of, so they sold them to Sony and MS for peanuts. :p (I know that's not how it works)

Aside from texel and pixel rate, a 6670 is pretty close to a 9800GT in terms of performance. That alone should give you an idea of how much more powerful that card is compared to current-gen consoles. A 6670/7670 also uses a lot less power than the 9800GT.
Yeah, was it whole 2 times more powerful? It was so long ago it's hard to remember :p Watch out arrogant cynics, our eyes might fall out from so much power blasted into them!

Also, if I'm reading that Anand's review right, framerate goes down in most games when crossfire is enabled between the two?
 

Ryoku

Member
lol talk about ignorance. Do you even read gaming news? A couple of devs saying that WiiU is bellow PS360, some on par, some sligthyl better. In short WiiU is current gen console.

No matter what you think of nexbox and PS4 if rumors are true, they are still going to be next gen devices, unlike wiiU. Of course in therms of power.

Since we still know little to nothing about the GPU of the Wii U, I don't know what to take of these anonymous rumors. Literally, some are saying it's weaker than current-gen, some are saying it's on-par with current-gen, and some are saying that it's noticeably greater than current-gen. You really can't just pick out what you are hoping for or what you just simply "think" is the most likely scenario. I'd wait until E3.
Going off of the early rumors of the Wii U being based off of a RV700 card, this could range from a 4830 to a 4870. Even at the level of a 4830, a 6670/7670 is not very different aside from being able to dish out more performance at higher resolutions and better AA (I'm expecting a standard of 720p next-gen, according to these rumors).
 
So we have gone from Wii U being 2-4x as powerful as Xbox 360 to it being less powerful than Xbox 360 and PS3 to PS4 being more powerful than Xbox 720 to PS4 being much less powerful than Xbox 720 to PS4 being about as powerful as Xbox 720.

Got it.


IT HAS BEGUN!!!!

MK7SC01.jpg




^_^
 

Diablos

Member
It's this or it's a $500 console.
So giving the PS4 8GB of main ram and 2-4GB of vram is going to make it $500? Really?

RAM is so cheap today it's ridiculous... might as well take advantage.

And if it uses a desktop x64 quad core chip there's no way it's going to be anywhere close to $500 unless they put 64GB of DDR5 in. With the amount of money they'd save by going with AMD, they can more than likely afford to put more/faster memory in.
 
They're probably describing development hardware. There's no way that any console will have a literal desktop GPU in there anyway.

If they are then the 7670 makes no sense either. It's a modern product yet based on an older architecture. A dev kit based on a 7670 would be a recently produced piece of hardware, if a change in development hardware happened so recently then why not switch to a SI GPU at that point?

Heck, the 7670 is just a rebadged 6670 for all intents and purposes, why would a rebadged card ever be used in a dev kit?
 

wsippel

Banned
lol talk about ignorance. Do you even read gaming news? A couple of devs saying that WiiU is bellow PS360, some on par, some sligthyl better. In short WiiU is current gen console.

No matter what you think of nexbox and PS4 if rumors are true, they are still going to be next gen devices, unlike wiiU. Of course in therms of power.
Actually, if this rumor is true and early Wii U rumors are true, Wii U and PS4 would be nearly indistinguishable in term of power.
 
the APU alone would deliver a better experience than current-gen consoles. IIRC, the APU kicks the shit out of the 360+GPU.

With the 7670, im sure it'll operate fast enough in crossfire to at least run something along the lines of Samaritan, or you can use the 6550HD to run PhysX or AI Scripts.

My question is whether the APU will be enough to 'emulate' Cell.
 

Globox_82

Banned
If this card is selling for 70-80 usd for the consumers. Then it must cost much much less for Sony/MS to purchase them. And how much will it cost year and a half from now?

What was the buying price for RSX and Xenon back in the day, anyone knows how much Sony/MS were paying?

I have hard time believing it will hold for 7 or more years...
 

Shikoro

Member
"Up to" 1GB of VRAM is disappointing (to say the least) for a product that's being developed in 2012...

If the VRAM is that low, what's the main memory going to be? 3GB? LOL. Come on Sony, RAM is cheap... if last gen taught MS and Sony anything it should be that you can never have enough memory, and unlike a leet CPU (which Orbis may not even have, thus making it all the more inexpensive), it really does not cost much to add more. Go into next gen with what seems like a reasonable amount (i.e. 8-16GB main, 2-4GB VRAM), because by the end of its lifespan, it won't be anything.

Going with 2 or 3GB of main memory, for example, would be about as bad as giving PS3, say, 96MB of main memory last gen... it's just not kosher.
Joke post?

So we have gone from Wii U being 2-4x as powerful as Xbox 360 to it being less powerful than Xbox 360 and PS3 to PS4 being more powerful than Xbox 720 to PS4 being much less powerful than Xbox 720 to PS4 being about as powerful as Xbox 720.

Got it.
Right on spot. :D

Anyway, this is really getting ridiculous. Sony can't go with such a configuration just because... well, because it just sucks. They have to do better than that. :/

With the 7670, im sure it'll operate fast enough in crossfire to at least run something along the lines of Samaritan, or you can use the 6550HD to run PhysX or AI Scripts.
LOL no

My question is whether the APU will be enough to 'emulate' Cell.
LOL no
 
And I STILL don't get the proposed benefit of asymetrical dual-gpus. Not really sure what the attraction would be for Sony or MS with this kind of set up.

Would it make sense if the lesser gpu were used to drive the display of a tablet controller?
*shudder
 

Lonely1

Unconfirmed Member
If they are then the 7670 makes no sense either. It's a modern product yet based on an older architecture. A dev kit based on a 7670 would be a recently produced piece of hardware, if a change in development hardware happened so recently then why not switch to a SI GPU at that point?

Heck, the 7670 is just a rebadged 6670 for all intents and purposes, why would a rebadged card ever be used in a dev kit?
What's the closes SI GPU to a 6670 in performance?
 

AndyD

aka andydumi
Sony Steamstation, basically confirmed.

They would have my money on day one. Let me play my steam library, my PSN library and have a 4k bluray player (dont even need PS3 disc BC).

A playstation partnered steambox would be a knockout machine.

Sadly I think Microsoft will beat Sony to the punch with Steam integration.
 
Its just rumors why are yall taking so seriously like its concrete info lol.

Because there are legitamite leaks out there. It helps to weed out the implausible ones. IGN have some legitamite sources but the frustrating thing is that they themselves are completely clueless when it comes to hardware and unable to weed out the trash, so they end up publishing a lot of rubbish while often breaking exclusives.
 

Kinan

Member
This would be rather underwhelming, really. One can forget about 4K altogether and real FullHD would be at least as challenging for devs as HD is now, or even worse. :p Hopefully not true.
 
the APU alone would deliver a better experience than current-gen consoles. IIRC, the APU kicks the shit out of the 360+GPU.

With the 7670, im sure it'll operate fast enough in crossfire to at least run something along the lines of Samaritan, or you can use the 6550HD to run PhysX or AI Scripts.

My question is whether the APU will be enough to 'emulate' Cell.


No way. Just no.
 

DCKing

Member
If the target was SI, though, why not...just put a SI in there? It's not something they have to try and emulate.
There is no SI chip available that isn't way more powerful than the Turks chip yet. If this is the first of targets they have, they have to match the power somehow. The GPU could be replaced whenever smaller SI chips are available, just like that Xbox Next GPU.

Just trying to explain how this could be true. IGN had a pretty good track record in being factually correct (but piss-poor in reporting) last generation.
 

Diablos

Member
Yes.
Console RAM is very different from PC RAM dude. Did you really think that they'd push 8gb of
B-brand $49 RAM sticks in the PS4 and go with it?
Why not? They're basically using the same kind of AMD APU you can find on newegg for $179 with slightly better graphics. Next gen consoles are basically looking like mini PC's at this point.

And no, I don't think they're just going to pop in memory sticks ordered from your favorite retailer. Just trying to make the case that RAM in general is cheap these days, even higher performance stuff compared to a few years ago; with all the money they'll be saving by using an inexpensive x64 CPU, I'm sure they can absorb the cost of a decent amount of high performance memory without jacking up the price to PS3 launch day madness.
 

Lord Error

Insane For Sony
Would it make sense if the lesser gpu were used to drive the display of a tablet controller?
*shudder
Better that than having them both enabled in crossfire, so they make the game run slower than the dedicated GPU alone (I'm still not sure if I'm reading Anad's charts correctly on this, because it's bewildering if true)

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4476/amd-a83850-review/6

*edit* Nope, I'm not wrong, text confirms it. Drop seems to happen in DX9 games only though.
 
So how long until Epic and whatnot start complaining. Or will they start backtracking on what they expect first. Because this isn't as big as they had hoped I'm figuring from some of the posts actually dropping knowledge? Unless I'm reading wrong.
 
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