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[onQ123]

http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/h...ts_corner-IEEE_technical_committee,1-343.html

The IEEE Technical Committee on Microprocessors and Microcomputers holding Hot Chips 24 conference next month.

Focused on "high performance chips", we are expecting plenty of sessions on current technologies, as well as a few interesting updates on upcoming technologies.

AMD will be discussing its current Trinity APU as well as Radeon HD 7970 architecture. Intel will be elaborating on the power management in Ivy Bridge as well as its Medfield Atom Z2460 chip. Much more interesting, however, should be AMD's talks about the Bobcat successor Jaguar as well as die-stacking technology.

Intel has announced a talk about its Knight's Corner many-core architecture as well additional information about the 280 mV IA-32 processor in CMOS that was previously announced at ISSCC 2012. There should also be talk about Intel's vision of a near-threshold processor, as first discussed during IDF Fall 2012.

Intel says this architecture could be 5 to 10 times more efficient than processors used today. On that note, former Intel CTO Pat Gelsinger, now president and COO of EMC, will be on stage as well and offer a talk on cloud technology for big data.

Other news will include the Power7+ chip from IBM, Oracle's 8-socket 16-core Sparc T5 CPU, as well as Fujitsu's 16-core Sparc64 X chip.

Hot Chips is scheduled to take place from August 27 to 29 at Flint Center for the Performing Arts in Cupertino.

 

[GopherD]

If the PS4 has no BC for PS3 games, then the entire PS3 library on PSN will steadily see sales decline. It is in Sony's financial interest to allow for BC so they can continue selling PSN software to new console owners.

Know this, if Sony has ditched BC in PS4 due to the change in architecture, then they will not be able to compete against its rivals that will/do. The console will be dead in the water at launch.

 

[GoofsterStud]

Who's to say that can't ship a $50 expansion that comes with the cell chip and uses software to emulate the rest?

I would be ok with that. I don't want PS3 backwards compatibility anyway. The only exception would be if you could apply FFXA...

 

[onQ123]

Who's to say that can't ship a $50 expansion that comes with the cell chip and uses software to emulate the rest?

I would be ok with that. I don't want PS3 backwards compatibility anyway. The only exception would be if you could apply FFXA...

So you're telling me you wouldn't want to be able to play all the games that you bought on PSN whenever you decide to upgrade to a PS4?

 

[phosphor112]

Know this, if Sony has ditched BC in PS4 due to the change in architecture, then they will not be able to compete against its rivals that will/do. The console will be dead in the water at launch.

Yep. If I can play all of XBLA games out the box for XB3 (which WILL happen) I'd get that over a PS4 with no BC.

 

[i-Lo]

http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/h...ts_corner-IEEE_technical_committee,1-343.html

Stacking hmm... good good.

Also, discussion about 7970's architecture... interesting.

All this is very interesting.

 

[KageMaru]

AFAIK MS do not let programmers bypass DX. Can you provide me some more info, please?

Close to the metal programming is not forbidden. It's widely used.

For example you can program your shaders directly in GPU microcode, you can directly write to ring buffer, you can give GPU pure pointers to fetch data (instead of using DirectX managed objects), etc. Coding in assembler/intrinsics is of course allowed. How else could you write vectorized code (VMX128)? You also need asm/intrinsics for manual cache control. So basically you can't live without asm/intrinsics. VMX and manual cache control are both very much required for performance critical parts of the code.

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1652084&postcount=7

There are other comments and quotes at B3D as well.

Know this, if Sony has ditched BC in PS4 due to the change in architecture, then they will not be able to compete against its rivals that will/do. The console will be dead in the water at launch.

What if Nintendo is the only one to provide BC? They can't win the race on that one feature alone.

 

[GoofsterStud]

So you're telling me you wouldn't want to be able to play all the games that you bought on PSN whenever you decide to upgrade to a PS4?

Don't care, I have a PS3 for that. I would rather have superior hardware or lower price then backwards compatibility any day of the week. If everyone cared about PSN backwards compatibility then everyone would own a PSV.

For the R&D, we could have better hardware. I'll have the better running games.

 

[Triple U]

I said Xenos is as stronger at serial processing as Cell is at Parallel computing, wich is true.My point was to show how weak Cell is at traditional CPU requirements, and why you need something stronger for PS4, not to start a console war.

And that is, of course, why I do not agree at Cell>>>Xenon, because it's not true.

OH god lol.

"A non-tradional CPU is not so great at traditonal computing"

This guy.

 

[onQ123]

Don't care, I have a PS3 for that. I would rather have superior hardware or lower price then backwards compatibility any day of the week. If everyone cared about PSN backwards compatibility then everyone would own a PSV.

For the R&D, we could have better hardware. I'll have the better running games.

I think PS4 will have BC

just like at Vita it has BC without using PSP parts.


& PS3 games are made using PSGL API which is a modified version of OpenGL so they shouldn't have to use the same hardware to run the software nextgen , shouldn't it just be a case of using better hardware that support PSGL & the PS3 OS?

 

[Chun-Li On A Bike]

They don't need PS3 BC, but ALL PSN games people have purchased should transfer over..

PS1, PS2, Neo Geo, ALL PSN titles that aren't PS3

Payday, Journey - Everything. Hope they have a solution or they will scare people away from new PSN PS4 games.

 

[DemonCleaner]

regarding BC via gaikai. would that mean, i had to buy games i allready own on a physical disc all over again? what a genius business model..

 

[CLEEK]

They don't need PS3 BC, but ALL PSN games people have purchased should transfer over..

PS1, PS2, Neo Geo, ALL PSN titles that aren't PS3

Payday, Journey - Everything. Hope they have a solution or they will scare people away from new PSN PS4 games.

Wait, are you suggesting that Journey isn't a PS3 game?

NeoGeo and PS2 Classics are effectively PS3 games too, as they build to run on a PS3 based emulator.

Unless the PS4 contains BC hardware or emulates the PS3, you'd just be left with PSone games and Minis, and the majority of games available on PSN would not work.

 

[Argyle]

OH god lol.

"A non-tradional CPU is not so great at traditonal computing"

This guy.

Yeah, I don't even know what that means (Xenon better at serial computing vs. Cell). So if you stripped the SPEs from the Cell and dropped two of the three cores on the Xenon CPU to remove the parallelism you would end up with...pretty much the same thing? If your code is single threaded it is basically going to run about the same on either CPU. (There might be like a single digit %age difference in favor of the Xenon, just because the L2 cache is bigger, but shared between all three cores...but since you are idling the other two...)

(Anyone can read this book to see that they are almost the same chip: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0806531010/?tag=neogaf0e-20)

I think he called me out because my actual, real-world experience didn't match up with his preconceived notions...crazy.

 

[Graphics Horse]

Unless the PS4 contains BC hardware or emulates the PS3, you'd just be left with PSone games and Minis, and the majority of games available on PSN would not work.

I doubt PS2 or other already emulated games will cause a problem for the PS4, especially not Neo Geo. But PS3 is a worry, I wonder if anything will come from that add-on concept.

 

[Brad Grenz]

Yep. If I can play all of XBLA games out the box for XB3 (which WILL happen) I'd get that over a PS4 with no BC.

Really? Are you sure?

What if the next Xbox is significantly more expensive? What if it is significantly less powerful? What if the PS4's exclusive game lineup looks way better? If Sony can tilt everything in their favor but BC, I doubt the ability to keep playing games you've already played will hold you back!

 

[cartman414]

http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/h...ts_corner-IEEE_technical_committee,1-343.html

Reads a little like an old article. Wasn't Knights Corner already dubbed Xeon Phi?

 

[nelsonroyale]

BC should be in there, but its not a big deal for me, since I already have a PS3. If its between BC or extra horse power I would easily choose the latter. However, I dont think it would be a good move on Sony's part to exclude it.

 

[Lovely Salsa]

I'm guessing next PS will release next year? If not, then the specs are disappointing to say the least

 

[Canis lupus]

If PS4 dont have retail BC, then it should atleast have psn BC. Not being able to play + games would suck.

 

[Durante]

I'm always surprised that people still champion the idea that Cell was somehow a bad architecture. Have you not followed the development of the hardware landscape since it was released? High performance computing is dominated by Cell-like architectures at this point. Both having dedicated user-managed scratchpad memories and using a large number of simple cores with large SIMD units are entirely validated as hardware design strategies at this point.

Just stop it already. Stop this fanboy shit and talk about the damm subject, ok? I will not reply another attack from now on..

I like how you
a) call people fanboys that disagree with you while bringing up entirely reasonable points
b) claim to be wanting to talk about technology, while spreading misinformation about just that technology
c) become indignant and adopt a "take my ball and go home" attitude when that is pointed out to you

I've actually programmed for Cell by the way.

Reads a little like an old article. Wasn't Knights Corner already dubbed Xeon Phi?

Yeah, it will be sold as Xeon Phi. And hey look, it consists of lots of SIMD-heavy cores on a ring bus!

 

[thuway]

I'm always surprised that people still champion the idea that Cell was somehow a bad architecture. Have you not followed the development of the hardware landscape since it was released? High performance computing is dominated by Cell-like architectures at this point. Both having dedicated user-managed scratchpad memories and using a large number of simple cores with large SIMD units are entirely validated as hardware design strategies at this point.

People are salty because the Cell / Bluray combo caused-

1. $599
2. The Fall of PlayStation from its meteoric throne
3. Component cost and real estate that was better spent on a more powerful GPU or more RAM.

However, I agree with you. Also, this poster has some serious denial issues.

 

[PandaL]

People are salty because the Cell / Bluray combo caused-

1. $599
2. The Fall of PlayStation from its meteoric throne
3. Component cost and real estate that was better spent on a more powerful GPU or more RAM.

However, I agree with you. Also, this poster has some serious denial issues.

And bad multiplatform ports for PS3, especially MP games.

 

[CLEEK]

If PS4 dont have retail BC, then it should atleast have psn BC. Not being able to play + games would suck.

Retail and PSN games are the same thing though, from a BC / emulation perspective. If it can play one, it can play the other. Unless the PS4 doesn't come with a Blu-Ray drive.

 

[seventynine]

Retail and PSN games are the same thing though, from a BC / emulation perspective. If it can play one, it can play the other. Unless the PS4 doesn't come with a Blu-Ray drive.

Where has this misconception come from I wonder? Not least because PSN games include full retail titles.

 

[specialguy]

Yeah, it will be sold as Xeon Phi. And hey look, it consists of lots of SIMD-heavy cores on a ring bus!

So clearly, Sony should get one of those for it's next console (lol)

Anyways, from this little bit of googling, Xeon Phi looks like the carcass of Larrabee. It even comes on a PCIE card

Looks closer to a GPU than CPU. Even said to be competing with Nvidia GK110. Not sure you really want a GPU as your CPU, that was half the problem with Cell.

High performance computing is dominated by Cell-like architectures at this point

I have no idea if thats true (unless you just mean GPU's?), but if so, why isn't it just dominated by Cell instead of "cell like architectures" meaning "not Cell"? Hmmmm...

 

[Melchiah]

Consoles are not the playfield for implementing untested, expensive new technolgies.

You mean like Cell and Blu-ray?

And emotion engine?

And Xenos?

 

[phosphor112]

What if Nintendo is the only one to provide BC? They can't win the race on that one feature alone.

I think nintendo alone is at a huge disadvantage for having a "whoknowswhat" online system. It's not tried and tested like XBL and PSN. Their software lineup will likely only include VC and what little the eShop has to offer. I think Nintendo is going to be in for a surprise (in a bad way) but that's another subject.

Really? Are you sure?

What if the next Xbox is significantly more expensive? What if it is significantly less powerful? What if the PS4's exclusive game lineup looks way better? If Sony can tilt everything in their favor but BC, I doubt the ability to keep playing games you've already played will hold you back!

Yes, I am sure. I missed out on a lot of XBL games because my original 360 died. And I'd hate to have all my PSN games go to waste if I got a PS4. I'd rather get the new Xbox and play my PSN games that I have (I have a lot...).

If PS4 dont have retail BC, then it should atleast have psn BC. Not being able to play + games would suck.

You can't have one without the other. It's impossible. PSN PS3 games are still... PS3 games...

 

[Melchiah]

Dear god man, just shut it. You single handedly derailed this freaking thread. Make a new thread about how cell sucks dick if you want but keep it out of here.

Yeah, he should probably read the FAQ:

Don't derail threads
Forums generally operate differently from chatrooms. While NeoGAF is faster moving than most, and some threads on Off Topic Discussions cover a more general set of topics, it is still best to keep within the perimeters of a discussion. Posting in a manner that would shift the subject of discussion to something completely unrelated to the thread's core discussion point is not welcome.

 

[onQ123]

So clearly, Sony should get one of those for it's next console (lol)

Anyways, from this little bit of googling, Xeon Phi looks like the carcass of Larrabee. It even comes on a PCIE card

Looks closer to a GPU than CPU. Even said to be competing with Nvidia GK110. Not sure you really want a GPU as your CPU, that was half the problem with Cell.

LOL but I have a feeling that the SOC will be heading in the same direction as the Xeon Phi with the CPU using fast memory like the GPU.

 

[phosphor112]

LOL but I have a feeling that the SOC will be heading in the same direction as the Xeon Phi with the CPU using fast memory like the GPU.

Off topic, and don't take offense, but your picture reminds me of hip hop gamer... lol

 

[onQ123]

Off topic, and don't take offense, but your picture reminds me of hip hop gamer... lol

Why? we look nothing alike.

 

[phosphor112]

Why? we look nothing alike.

When HHG first started off he had that tank top and do-rag thing going on. In basically all of his videos. Then he like.. upgraded to random jerseys and stuff.

But yeah, in the face, you two look nothing alike.

EDIT: Also, he had a CRT for a while. Did game reviews with it lol.

 

[i-Lo]

Here is something interesting. Take a look at this review (Club 3D Radeon 7850 1GB Royal Queen reviewed by techPowerup)

Now it's all well and good that we are all asking for 2GB VRAM at least for the sake of slowing obsolescence. However, all things being equal given that people here are predicting (incl. me) that most of the next gen titles will run at 1280X720 (at minimum, no more sub hd stuff) the review indicates no real advantage with current gen games. Are we expect the true next gen titles on next gen engines to be so memory intensive as to having 2GB (VRAM) will be a must to survive the next 6-7 years?

 

[mrklaw]

Yes.

That pc GPU has a bunch of main PC RAM backing it up, so you can stream large worlds into the GPU memory for rendering. On a console you only have what you have. IFA think you could manage with 1GB ram on the GPU backed up with eg 4GB main ram for buffering/streaming data. But it seems that everyone wants unified memory for some reason, so in that case I think 2GB could be limiting

 

[specialguy]

Here is something interesting. Take a look at this review

Now it's all well and good that we are all asking for 2GB VRAM at least for the sake of slowing obsolescence. However, all things being equal given that people here are predicting (incl. me) that most of the next gen titles will run at 1280X720 (at minimum, no more sub hd stuff) the review indicates no real advantage with current gen games. Are we expect the true next gen titles on next gen engines to be so memory intensive as to having 2GB (VRAM) will be a must to survive the next 6-7 years?

720p is arguably sub hd itself (though of course theres no real definition of HD) (and many, even most current gen games run at 720P).

The PS4 as target specs dictate, should have no problem moving to 1080P. I dont comment as much on Durango just cause it seems "weird". But 192 GB/s bandwidth on PS4, plus 1.8 teraflops GPU, yeah it should be almost tailor made for 1080P.

The interesting question to me is if devs, almost regardless how much power they have, will end up focusing on better gfx at 720p rather than slightly lesser gfx at 1080p. Overall though I feel the Ps4 target specs has plenty of power and we will see a move to 1080p with that system.

Also, 2GB Vram seems to be the lowest possible for next gen. It's only 4X this gen, and historically you see an 8X increase depending.

So yeah, 2GB would be the absolute minimum I'd expect, not some hard target to hope for.

 

[StevieP]

regarding BC via gaikai. would that mean, i had to buy games i allready own on a physical disc all over again? what a genius business model..

Yes it is

I think nintendo alone is at a huge disadvantage for having a "whoknowswhat" online system. It's not tried and tested like XBL and PSN. Their software lineup will likely only include VC and what little the eShop has to offer. I think Nintendo is going to be in for a surprise (in a bad way) but that's another subject.

The future iteration of Nintendo EShop will have no profit targets and gives developers 15% more profit compared to all other competing platforms including iTunes

 

[mugurumakensei]

Also, 2GB Vram seems to be the lowest possible for next gen. It's only 4X this gen, and historically you see an 8X increase depending.

So yeah, 2GB would be the absolute minimum I'd expect, not some hard target to hope for.

uh 2GB VRAM is 8x this gen. The PS3 had 256 MB VRAM and 256 MB general purpose ram. The XBox 360 had 512 MB of RAM that could be used as VRAM or general purpose ram. It was mostly used for general purpose ram. It's why Skyrim had a few less issues cause it used more than 256 MB of the XBox 360's ram pool.

 

[specialguy]

uh 2GB VRAM is 8x this gen. The PS3 had 256 MB VRAM and 256 MB general purpose ram. The XBox 360 had 512 MB of RAM that could be used as VRAM or general purpose ram. It was mostly used for general purpose ram. It's why Skyrim had a few less issues cause it used more than 256 MB of the XBox 360's ram pool.

Well, of course I'm looking at it as a UMA/VRAM pool, and considering the PS3 to have 512MB of VRAM (it basically does, since you can texture from XDR) and 360 as well.

And I dont think 360's 512MB was mostly used for general purpose RAM.

If you have 1GB of VRAM and then some system RAM, that might be a different story. I dont think that's what OP meant though. I'm going on rumors of PS4 having 2GB of UMA RAM.

 

[i-Lo]

regarding BC via gaikai. would that mean, i had to buy games i allready own on a physical disc all over again? what a genius business model..

Not if Sony enables a full migration of profile from PS3 to PS4. It would mean your download history would be intact at which point they'd have sync up the purchase records with Gaikai servers enabling you to play the games for which you've already paid.

 

[El_Chino]

www.thisisxbox.com/360/new-microsoft-job-hints-retail-next-gen-xbox-in-production-stage/ Are we close to production ladies and gentlemen?

 

[cartman414]

So clearly, Sony should get one of those for it's next console (lol)

Anyways, from this little bit of googling, Xeon Phi looks like the carcass of Larrabee. It even comes on a PCIE card

Looks closer to a GPU than CPU. Even said to be competing with Nvidia GK110. Not sure you really want a GPU as your CPU, that was half the problem with Cell.

That's because it is a GPU. They simply decided to attach the Xeon moniker, as it is targeted towards the same market.

And incidentally enough, it is essentially what became of Larrabee.

 

[teh_pwn]

That's because it is a GPU. They simply decided to attach the Xeon moniker, as it is targeted towards the same market.

And incidentally enough, it is essentially what became of Larrabee.

Eh, I don't think it's for video acceleration if that's what you're talking about. It's designed for many core light weight vector processors. I think certain applications can be rewritten for this if it makes sense for it and perform much faster, or it can use the main CPU, or a combination. It's Intel's response to using a GPU as a coprocessor for non-gaming applications. It's not for games. Probably more stuff like encoding/decoding, research, data manipulation.

Deploying a normal application without a specific compiler to utilize the new instruction sets = SHIT performance. Who cares how many FLOPs it can do total if you're using 1 of some 10+ cores that roughly have intel atom performance.

I think it's also high power. Not suitable for consoles.

Hardware backwards compatibility is irrelevant. The money lost to adding hardware to support it would demand the average owner to buy a dozen games to break even, and Sony is hurting really fucking bad right now. Software emulation maybe.

 

[cartman414]

Yeah, I remember now. Compute tasks, basically. Still though, it's functionally a GPGPU.

 

[jeff_rigby]

www.thisisxbox.com/360/new-microsoft-job-hints-retail-next-gen-xbox-in-production-stage/ Are we close to production ladies and gentlemen?

From your cite and using a link to the actual job listing:

Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business is revolutionizing entertainment. IEB has a rich set of entertainment products like Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Zune Marketplace, and more with a highly active and engaged customer base. Our newest innovation, Kinect, has sold over 19 million units since its launch in November of 2010. The set of services making up the Xbox Live cloud is optimized around social, casual and hardcore gaming, and modern entertainment experiences. We're fun. We're social. We're interactive. And, we're growing!
The Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Information and Services (MSCIS) Finance team is growing rapidly. We're hiring for the future - looking for a senior Finance professional to provide leadership and financial expertise.

Close to production.....maybe, for sure everything is being setup for an expansion in every department. Remember accessories and services are in there too so on-going even after production is started. Remember 800 million new internet connected platforms by 2016.

The rest of the article is quoting SimiAccurate about the 10,000 32nm SOI wafers manufactured by IBM Dec 2011 for Microsoft and assuming 10,000 Xbox720 developer platforms. Charlie at SimiAccurate thinks maybe 5 million chips but maybe a low yield of 50,000 good chips. I think yields are good, (You don't produce 10,000 wafers at $5,000 each to test a process that IBM has been working on for 4 years and testing @32 for some time. New FAB equipment is needed for 32-28-20 but prototypes have been in IBM's hands for some time.)

Both Global Foundries and IBM are now producing the same chips. They are 32nm SOI with/may have eDRAM on the same silicon and since IBM is making them too, most likely PPC CPUs.

They can be:
WiiU silicon = 3 later model PPC out of order CPU with AMD GPU and 32 meg eDRAM on one Silicon wafer
Xbox 360 refresh with eDRAM, CPU and GPU on the same silicon (Takes Xbox 360S 2010 refresh forward from 45nm and integrates more on the SoC and adds low power + 16 meg Flash drive).
PS3 Series 4000 adds 16 meg Flash but still Wireless G. PS3 is seriously behind Xbox refresh technology because Cell is hard to take below 45nm. Catch-up all at once to Xbox refresh technology?

But are not likely to be Xbox 720 as it's too soon to have the rumored more efficient later model GPUs or be at 28nm.

I provided a cite that rumors the same company that is producing the Xbox 360 created a manufacturing line to QC & QA test the product made with the Chip manufactured by IBM for Microsoft and also did consumer testing (March 2012). This has to be a new Xbox360...how do you do consumer testing when there are no games available and I assume incomplete OS software (to consumer acceptance level).

IF Xbox 720 then 6X Xbox360 performance is going to be a stretch and PS4 should be nearly twice as powerful if it is a 2014 release. IF the chip produced by IBM for Microsoft Dec 2011 (SimiAccurate) is not for Xbox 720 then the assumption Xbox720 is PPC may also be in error. Xbox 720 may be X86 like the PS4 is rumored to be. Much of the Xbox720 speculation has been driven by Charlie at SimiAccurate and his guesses. I had an email conversation with him and my impression is there is no insider source. His guesses were good for Jan 2012 information but we should be questioning his assumptions now.

This thread up on NeoGAF at 6:30 this morning First Xbox 3 Devkit leaks, 8 Core Intel CPU, nvidia GPU, More than 8GB RAM . Then if Charlie at Simi-accurate is correct about the rest, Xbox is getting a refresh and it was taped out Dec 8, 2011 and both GloFlo8 and IBM are making the same chips. That's in excess of 5 million, who knows.....Again, very cheap, advanced features or a combination....Same in the Digitimes Rumor, 20 million the first year for PS3 (Digitimes said PS4 released in 2012 which like the Xbox rumor must be this generation refresh.

As to the Intel Nvidia combination in the Xbox 720....I highly doubt this, More likely it's Jaguar CPU and AMD GPU.

 

[onQ123]

I haven't been following the thread but my roommate works with AMD/ATI. I know that he worked on something related to Wii you last year, the PS4 and now he just moved on to something related to the next Xbox.

As of what I've talked to him or heard, though they are doing project on the PS4 as well as the next Xbox, supposedly the Xbox project is on higher priority compared the PS4 and that they are developing something unique for it.

As for the PS4, he says that the CPU is made by AMD as well. Something that was developed couple of years ago, optimized and being used for the PS4.

Let me know if you guys have any questions and I can pass on to him, see if he can answer stuff.

I am not sure if I can post this stuff here and him getting into trouble for it, if true, I shall take down the post.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=37352658&postcount=1240

Alright guys, got some information for you guys.

The PS4 AMD project called as Thebe. Previously it used to be based on Themesto and Callisto based chips but now that has been revised. They moved on to a chip called Jaguar replacing the Streamroller. They moved on to TSMC 28nm solution from the 32, which the streamroller is.

The whole thing basically is APU solutuion, they made the changes considering the 10 year product life cycle and to keep the initial product costs at minimum.

As of now it is called as the Thebe Jaguar project or TH-J.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=37364710&postcount=1265

Oh shit, should I be taking that information down or is it alright? I was just asking him and he told me first hand.

Also, I just saw some specification for the next Xbox thing, mostly codenames and all. Bobcat, Jaguar. Jaguar which is apparently advanced and it is also being used in the next Xbox project called as Kryptos.

So looks like there are 2 Jaguar CPC's (Core plus cache) with 4P/2MB. Clocked at 1.6Ghz(~1.25V).

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=37365190&postcount=1269

_____________________________________________________


now that their is reports that the Xbox 3 is using a 8 Core Intel CPU & nvidia GPU I think you need to ask your friend a few more questions.

 

[jeff_rigby]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=37352658&postcount=1240



http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=37364710&postcount=1265




http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=37365190&postcount=1269

_____________________________________________________


now that their is reports that the Xbox 3 is using a 8 Core Intel CPU & nvidia GPU I think you need to ask your friend a few more questions.

you forgot to add bgassassin's post;

Originally Posted by jbug617:

One of the big console guys from AMD just left for Nvidia recently.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/briancaulfield/2012/07/24/key-console-player-leaves-amd-for-nvidia/

Feldstein’s group has also locked up a spot in the next generation XBox and PlayStation, which have yet to be unveiled; as well as Nintendo’s next-generation Wii U, which was first unveiled last year. The work with Sony is known inside AMD as ‘Project Thebes.’

That's the same name that sweetvar26 gave

I haven't been following the thread but my roommate works with AMD/ATI. I know that he worked on something related to Wii you last year, the PS4 and now he just moved on to something related to the next Xbox.

As of what I've talked to him or heard, though they are doing project on the PS4 as well as the next Xbox, supposedly the Xbox project is on higher priority compared the PS4 and that they are developing something unique for it.

As for the PS4, he says that the CPU is made by AMD as well. Something that was developed couple of years ago, optimized and being used for the PS4.

Let me know if you guys have any questions and I can pass on to him, see if he can answer stuff.

I am not sure if I can post this stuff here and him getting into trouble for it, if true, I shall take down the post.

"Alright guys, got some information for you guys.

The PS4 AMD project called as Thebe. Previously it used to be based on Themesto and Callisto based chips but now that has been revised. They moved on to a chip called Jaguar replacing the Streamroller. They moved on to TSMC 28nm solution from the 32, which the streamroller is.

The whole thing basically is APU solutuion, they made the changes considering the 10 year product life cycle and to keep the initial product costs at minimum.

As of now it is called as the Thebe Jaguar project or TH-J."

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=37364710&postcount=1265

Good catch bgassassin & onQ123, this confirms several points:

1) PS4 will have 8 Jaguar cores and AMD GPU
2) Xbox 720 is AMD X86 and AMD GPU

and then also:

Xbox Durango and Playstation Orbis have both changed recently...

Durango -> "I don't know the name"
4 Power7 cores + 2 ARM cores(2010) -> 4 AMD Jaguar cores(2012)
48+16 VLIW4 SPs(2010) -> 1920 GCN SPs(2012)

Orbis -> Thebe-Jaguar
4 AMD Steamroller cores(2011) -> 4 AMD Jaguar cores(2012)
128 GCN SPs(2011) -> 1920 GCN SPs(2012)
(year) is the date it was changed to...

Sony's version will be optimized for SonyGL 3.0/OpenGL 4.2
Microsoft's version will be optimized for DirectX 11.1

The Jaguar SoC for both consoles will not be the same as the Jaguar SoC for consumers.
AMD Jaguar vs Sony/Microsoft Jaguar
H1 2013 vs H1 2014
LP-DDR3/DDR3 vs DDR4(estimated clock is 2133 MHz 10-10-10-20 1.2v)
For x86 consumer markets vs specialized versions tweaked for each company
HSA 3/4ths vs HSA Complete

CU of 18 was rumored for PS4 GPU (32 CU=2048 SPs according to AMD) Add 0 to SPs mentioned above. Jaguar is usually 4 jaguar CPUs/packages 2 packages = 8 Jaguar CPUs and 4 packages = 16 Jaguar CPUs. There is slight disagreement here with 8 jaguar CPUs rumored which would leave 2 HSA Multi-processor compatible Xbar slots free.

 

[Triple U]

Oh wow 8-core CPU design similar to i7. So believable.

 

[nelsonroyale]

Surely things have changed...why would sony go with a 32 bit processor in this day and age?

 

[McHuj]

CU of 18 was rumored for PS4 GPU (32 CU=2048 SPs according to AMD) Add 0 to SPs mentioned above. .

If you had 1920 stream processors clocked at ~500MHz, you'd have 1.92 Tflops of raw performance. Close to the target of what 1.8 was mentioned earlier.

I've seen cases before (granted this was a 65nm and for a DSP), where power numbers were much better for the case of 2X the cores at half the clock vs half the cores at 2X the clock (going more parallel at a slower clock was better for power consumption)

We could be seeing the case of AMD experimenting with different chip configurations to optimize power for about ~2Tflops of performance. 30 CU's @ 500 MHz = 1.92 Tflops. 18 CU's at 800 MHz = 1.843 Tflops.

Even though the performance is about the same, I would expect the bigger chip to have lower power numbers, perhaps they could even use an 28LP process for better leakage. Economics of the larger die maybe an issue, but the overall system maybe better off.