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TRUTHFACT: MS having eSRAM yield problems on Xbox One

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hackdog

Banned
could someone clarify how underclocking the gpu would improve sram yields?

Well not all chips produced will run reliably at the highest speeds.
As you lower the speed a greater % of chips will run reliably.

Intel used to do it where the fastest chips wouold get marked as their top performing chips and have higher clocks while some would run at lower speeds and sell cheaper.
 

kortez320

Member
I've seen a couple people say this is hard to believe. Just to shed a bit of light on the situation this happens all the time in tech. The GTX 670 for example is a cut-down 680 released basically to maximize yields. I think even the Titan is a cut down Tesla. Cores are disabled on CPUs all the time. Intel/AMD release chips all the time that are the exact same just with a few hundred mhz tacked on because either the process matured a bit or sometimes just some chips can take it and some can't.

Again no inside knowledge on any of this but it's not anything that doesn't happen to basically every line of CPU/GPU ever created.

I also almost feel bad for Microsoft. Seems like they tried to be forward thinking and it bit them in the ass. Kind of what happens though when you try to future proof anything.
 
Since I'm in the OP, I might as well say that I completely stand by what I said and feel the person that informed me of this is as reliable as it possibly gets on the Xbox One. I feel a source doesn't get more accurate than this.

If it turns out wrong, feel free to perma ban me. Although, if I'm wrong, which I really, really doubt, I throw myself on the mercy of the court.

Who am I kidding? Gaf? Mercy? Still, I take full responsibility for what I said, and I absolutely stand by it. :)

Reiko 2nd.
 
Not really. MS went with cheap ddr 3 ram and a larger die for edram. As the die size decreases with each micron drop they are able to fit more chips on a wafer .


While sony's die will also get smaller their ram GDDR wont go down in price as quickly since its mostly used in video cards and the ps4 itself will be the main driver of cost reduction. Lets also not forget that they are using a cutting edge density.

Sony is most likely going to be stuck with the same amount of gddr chips for the majority of this generation.
How about the idea of them switching to DDR4 later on? Would that work?
 
MS is trying to take on Google, Apple, Sony, Netflix and tons of other companies with Xbox One. They've invested in cloud computing, Xbox Studios, Kinect, etc. Their scope is fucking massive. Their hardware has to account for all these goals and ideas. Sometimes things can get out of your control and lose their way a bit in the process.

They should have focused then. Isn't that what happened to Sony with the PS3? A lack of focus can make your product look like it does nothing well. Microsoft should have seen these results coming a mile away. It's Business 101 (I was taught this in BA of marketing for crying out loud).
 
Since I'm in the OP, I might as well say that I completely stand by what I said and feel the person that informed me of this is as reliable as it possibly gets on the Xbox One. I feel a source doesn't get more accurate than this.

If it turns out wrong, feel free to perma ban me. Although, if I'm wrong, which I really, really doubt, I throw myself on the mercy of the court.

Who am I kidding? Gaf? Mercy? Still, I take full responsibility for what I said, and I absolutely stand by it. :)

Well,good luck then
 

teh_pwn

"Saturated fat causes heart disease as much as Brawndo is what plants crave."
I've seen a couple people say this is hard to believe. Just to shed a bit of light on the situation this happens all the time in tech. The GTX 670 for example is a cut-down 680 released basically to maximize yields. I think even the Titan is a cut down Tesla. Cores are disabled on CPUs all the time. Intel/AMD release chips all the time that are the exact same just with a few hundred mhz tacked on because either the process matured a bit or sometimes just some chips can take it and some can't.

Again no inside knowledge on any of this but it's not anything that doesn't happen to basically every line of CPU/GPU ever created.

I also almost feel bad for Microsoft. Seems like they tried to be forward thinking and it bit them in the ass. Kind of what happens though when you try to future proof anything.

Those days are over. With Intel you can have any CPU you want, so long as it's 3.5 GHz. K series OC to 4.2 GHz bare minimum (horribly rare bad luck), typically 4.4 GHz it seems with Haswell due to cheap cooling + extra heat from voltage controller.
 

guek

Banned
I thought the gpu downclocking/esram issues were separate points. That was how I read the OP, I dunno.

Well that's why I'm confused about whether or not the sram issues could be solved by downclocking like some people seem to be saying

Well not all chips produced will run reliably at the highest speeds.
As you lower the speed a greater % of chips will run reliably.

Intel used to do it where the fastest chips wouold get marked as their top performing chips and have higher clocks while some would run at lower speeds and sell cheaper.

But like I said, would that be the appropriate move if the problem is specifically with sram yields?
 

hackdog

Banned
I've seen a couple people say this is hard to believe. Just to shed a bit of light on the situation this happens all the time in tech. The GTX 670 for example is a cut-down 680 released basically to maximize yields. I think even the Titan is a cut down Tesla. Cores are disabled on CPUs all the time. Intel/AMD release chips all the time that are the exact same just with a few hundred mhz tacked on because either the process matured a bit or sometimes just some chips can take it and some can't.

Again no inside knowledge on any of this but it's not anything that doesn't happen to basically every line of CPU/GPU ever created.

I also almost feel bad for Microsoft. Seems like they tried to be forward thinking and it bit them in the ass. Kind of what happens though when you try to future proof anything.

Very true. But is it something that should be happening this close to launch? I really don't know myself as I've never made a console and I doubt that anyone who has will come on here to tell us.
 

jayu26

Member
Well this should solve the problem
xboxwatercooler.gif
 

teh_pwn

"Saturated fat causes heart disease as much as Brawndo is what plants crave."
Completely redesign the board?

Console revs basically do this already. As long as it has the same effective performance with different hardware revs for firmware/OS to read and handle differently it shouldn't matter.
 

i-Lo

Member
If the problem really forces their hands to down clock the GPU then I wonder if we can trust what will be shown in real time at e3.
 
With these rumored changes to the hardware happening so close to launch, I'm suspicious we're going to see some version of RROD yet again. Microsoft showed last gen they don't really care if the boxes break, they care more that they sell them and reach critical mass with their installed base.
 

eastmen

Banned
How about the idea of them switching to DDR4 later on? Would that work?

who ms ? it could work I guess , they'd have to make sure the latancy and bandwidth are the same if not better to get it to work.

I don't see why they would. DDR3 will be produced for a good while and will only get cheaper as they go. stacked ram could allow them to cut chip count in half and ddr 3 would most likely get some of the first love on those designs since its used in so many systems and seems to be the leading ram in pcs / tablets / phones for the next few years. DDR 4 will come in at the high end most likely the end of 2014
 

Gorillaz

Member
Whats going on with Microsoft?

We have been hearing rumours about the next xbox years before we heard anything about the PS4 to the point "people in the know" started to get concerned Sony was far behind and potentially missing 2013 then BOOM! things start to get announced and it turns out MS is the one who is a mess and Sony has secretly had its shit together this whole time and was just waiting to pounce.

I mean whoever launches the cheapest will probably still win in the end so a slight difference in power wont really matter but its just weird MS seems to be having so much trouble when they should be the ones who know what they are doing.

Because Sony barely told there own people what was going on half of the people that were "in the know" most likely were viral marketer's for MS
 

mr_nothin

Banned
Didn't a previous rumor as such required mod verification of some sort?

thuway has given out a fuck-ton of insider info. He would have been banned a long time ago if he wasnt already verified. Tons of ppl have brought this up already and he's still here.

Same with proelite
 

IceBreak

Banned
Sony fans rejoicing in this are doing so at their own peril. A less powerful Xbox One potentially means less powerful PS4 games for developers who start on the lowest common denominator and port up.
 

clav

Member
Probably more likely a problem that making the ESRAM is too costly for an acceptable price on a massive scale. A lot of wasted chips than usable ones.

Don't see where the clocks fit in. Someone trying to start something out of nothing.
 
Console revs basically do this already. As long as it has the same effective performance with different hardware revs for firmware/OS to read and handle differently it shouldn't matter.

but can they afford to now ? That'd mean not launching this year.

Sony fans rejoicing in this are doing so at their own peril. A less powerful Xbox One potentially means less powerful PS4 games for developers who start on the lowest common denominator and port up.

where do you see people rejoicing here ?
 
How would the flops decrease work? Wouldn't that SEVERELY mess up Turn 10 and other developers currently making games on the Xbox One?


I don't want to believe these rumors, mostly because they're not coming from (in my opinion) any legitimate/credible sources. Taking it all with a grain of salt and hoping for the best.


If it is true, oh well. :/ Still pre-ordering and buying an Xbox One day one, to play Forza.
 

flash ban

Banned
This is what I was worried about when it was revealed the Xbox One has an external power supply. Obviously it's external to help with heat issues because the box looks big enough to house an internal one.

wow, for real? unbelievable.
Would be crazy if Sony shipped 2x or 3x as many PS4s as MS shipped Xbone because of supply issues.

or 10x.
I don't buy that whole 800-900 gflops rumour. That's barely 3 times the raw power of the PS3. I know the new architecture is also more efficient but still a very minor gap.
If it's closer to 800 that's more like 2x.
AMD already confirmed 28nm
where? and where did some sources get the 40nm number?
I don't see them delaying or underclocking it because of this. Yields get better with time. They might end up with supply problems in the first year though. Or maybe even increase the price a bit.
what if they've already had to increase the price, and the yields were still unacceptable?
 
D

Deleted member 8095

Unconfirmed Member
OP has a link to another site saying the same stuff.

I'm not saying it's false, but if you're talking about that link to a page that looks like it was made on Geocities circa 1997, come on.
 

prwxv3

Member
having inferior multiplats would be pretty disastrous for the xbox brand. The 360 is the de facto console for most multiplatform games especially for the US. And even when the games are pretty much the same on both consoles there is still a widely accepted notion that the 360 version is always better. Anything could happen though.
 

flash ban

Banned
Sony fans rejoicing in this are doing so at their own peril. A less powerful Xbox One potentially means less powerful PS4 games for developers who start on the lowest common denominator and port up.

or more 60fps games as developers haven't used all the performance for assets.
 
Not really. MS went with cheap ddr 3 ram and a larger die for edram. As the die size decreases with each micron drop they are able to fit more chips on a wafer .


While sony's die will also get smaller their ram GDDR wont go down in price as quickly since its mostly used in video cards and the ps4 itself will be the main driver of cost reduction. Lets also not forget that they are using a cutting edge density.

Sony is most likely going to be stuck with the same amount of gddr chips for the majority of this generation.
I see it it going the opposite. Sony's simpler die design should get cheaper faster and GDDR5 has more room to go down. DDR3 can't get much cheaper without being free.
 

Biker19

Banned
Sony fans rejoicing in this are doing so at their own peril. A less powerful Xbox One potentially means less powerful PS4 games for developers who start on the lowest common denominator and port up.

...I wouldn't exactly count on that. Maybe for some 3rd party publishers/developers, but most of the others are very big & keen on pushing out more better graphics for their games (like Capcom & Square-Enix).
 

kortez320

Member
Those days are over. With Intel you can have any CPU you want, so long as it's 3.5 GHz. K series OC to 4.2 GHz bare minimum (horribly rare bad luck), typically 4.4 GHz it seems with Haswell due to cheap cooling + extra heat from voltage controller.

I'm not sure what you are saying. The entire Piledriver/Bulldozer line is the exact same chip with modules added/subtracted and clock speeds changed.

Overclocking has nothing to do with what I was saying.

Also there is no way MS could change to DDR4 at this point.

And another thing the DDR3 they are using isn't cheap. It's actually pretty fast for DDR3 at 2133mhz. Not GDDR5 speeds mind you but it's decent RAM.
 
thuway has given out a fuck-ton of insider info. He would have been banned a long time ago if he wasnt already verified. Tons of ppl have brought this up already and he's still here.

Same with proelite
I'm talking about Senjutsu who is also involved in this ban bet of some sort. Both are contradicting each other.
 

teh_pwn

"Saturated fat causes heart disease as much as Brawndo is what plants crave."
but can they afford to now ? That'd mean not launching this year.



where do you see people rejoicing here ?

I'm talking about taking a loss now and reving hardware next year. Of course Microsoft can afford it. But this Frankenstein of non-standard PC/GPU hardware was a really, really bad idea.

If they knew it was going to be this bad, they probably would have just gone with a 4 GB DDR3 and 6 GB GDDR5 split pool. Expensive? Sure, but if they are so hell bent on emphasizing always on software that needs low latency RAM, then this is the cheaper way to do it. It's the more scalable way to do it with hardware revisions.
 

Sandfox

Member
Sony fans rejoicing in this are doing so at their own peril. A less powerful Xbox One potentially means less powerful PS4 games for developers who start on the lowest common denominator and port up.

Haven't we heard that its easier to develop for the PS4 or something to that effect? For all we know the Xbox One could just get downgraded versions of games developed for the PS4.
 

teh_pwn

"Saturated fat causes heart disease as much as Brawndo is what plants crave."
I'm not sure what you are saying. The entire Piledriver/Bulldozer line is the exact same chip with modules added/subtracted and clock speeds changed.

Overclocking has nothing to do with what I was saying.

I bolded Intel, not AMD.
 
Sony fans rejoicing in this are doing so at their own peril. A less powerful Xbox One potentially means less powerful PS4 games for developers who start on the lowest common denominator and port up.

Wouldn't first-party games kicking the shit out of multiplatform titles even more be something worth rejoicing over?

I doubt MS would allow themselves to miss the holiday season just to keep the same hardware performance.
 
I'm not saying it's false, but if you're talking about that link to a page that looks like it was made on Geocities circa 1997, come on.

A site that conveniently showed up with this news right around the time it showed up in the thread. I mean, maybe I'm just naturally skeptical, but anybody on this forum could have seen the thread and then put up something like that. I sometimes ask myself how in the world people manage to find these obscure sites from out of nowhere right when some new development emerges.
 

prwxv3

Member
Sony fans rejoicing in this are doing so at their own peril. A less powerful Xbox One potentially means less powerful PS4 games for developers who start on the lowest common denominator and port up.

Anything can happen but things are much different then the PS3 and Xbox 360 multiplatform situation.
 

mintylurb

Member
Sony fans rejoicing in this are doing so at their own peril. A less powerful Xbox One potentially means less powerful PS4 games for developers who start on the lowest common denominator and port up.

Well, most multi-platform x360 games still ended up looking and/or running better than the ps3 counterpart so ps4 games should be ok.
 
Developers want to show their game in the best light. That means showing a PC version or PS4 version first.

PC version is always the demo version so nothing changes there. I'm just expecting developers to target the lowest common denominator or try to find some middle ground. If the Xbox One is 800-900 Gflops, that's damn near a full TF difference. I just don't see developers not building more towards X1 than PS4.
 
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