Support NeoGAF

[antic604]

Exactly. Sony's upgrade is direct consequence of Microsoft position. If they were confident with their old specs, they wouldn't have gone for the very expensive 8GB version.

I don't think this is so straightforward. It is entirely possible Sony and devs were satisfied with 4GB of speedy GDDR5 even knowing Xbox will have twice as much but slower and only 75% available for games. But from marketing PoV that would be problematic, because for most people more = better, i.e. Xbox > PS4 because it has twice the memory, even if technically it wouldn't translate in any meaningful difference. So, when it turned out that 8GB is possible they did it, bettering Xbox both in speed and usable RAM-space.

Now MS's only hope is to sell Xbox as a 8GB+32MB machine, because - let's face it - a lot of people won't know the difference and obviously 40 > 8

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

Replace 'Nintendo' with 'Microsoft', and 'expensive controller' with 'Kinect 2.0', and your statement coule ring true for the next Xbox design too.

I don't know why or how it became universal truth that a) Kinect is expensive and b) it's considerably more expensive than the camera setup Sony is shipping with the PS4.

 

[JaggedSac]

No that is great, a price breakdown on an unannounced hardware unit with complete ignorance of what is inside.

What price breakdown? I mentioned what it currently costs, and made an assumption about what changed based on rumored specs. How is that different from someone guessing that something will cost $400 at launch? Perhaps whatever is up your ass should be removed.

 

[AgentP]

What price breakdown? I mentioned what it currently costs, and made an assumption about what changed based on rumored specs. How is that different from someone guessing that something will cost $400 at launch? Perhaps whatever is up your ass should be removed.

Forgive my grumpiness, I like data to drive discussion and not wild speculation. The original $50 BOM estimate was not a guess, it was based on a component breakdown. What the current BOM is cannot be estimated without knowing which sensors and what other components are inside.

 

[watership]

I don't think this is so straightforward. It is entirely possible Sony and devs were satisfied with 4GB of speedy GDDR5 even knowing Xbox will have twice as much but slower and only 75% available for games. But from marketing PoV that would be problematic, because for most people more = better, i.e. Xbox > PS4 because it has twice the memory, even if technically it wouldn't translate in any meaningful difference. So, when it turned out that 8GB is possible they did it, bettering Xbox both in speed and usable RAM-space.

Now MS's only hope is to sell Xbox as a 8GB+32MB machine, because - let's face it - a lot of people won't know the difference and obviously 40 > 8

This is pretty much it I think. The number 8 mattered. One had 4 and the other had 8? That would have been a bullet point against sony, even if in the long run, it would have been fine for performance. Microsoft may think that the numbers game doesn't matter, but to many it will. I still remember people 'waiting' for the PS3 that first year the Xbox was out because they wanted the most powerful console.

 

[shinra-bansho]

I don't know why or how it became universal truth that a) Kinect is expensive and b) it's considerably more expensive than the camera setup Sony is shipping with the PS4.

The camera set-up that Sony is shipping, if it is shipping with every PS4, was costed by zomg's bank at $12-20.

Could Kinect 2.0 be cheaper than that? IIRC Kinect was something like a $60 BOM.

 

[Mrbob]

Exactly. Sony's upgrade is direct consequence of Microsoft position. If they were confident with their old specs, they wouldn't have gone for the very expensive 8GB version.

Yes and no. It is true that there was a ram size disadvantage before. What happened for Sony is more that the stars aligned where higher capacity GDDR5 will be available for mass production. So it's a combination of better foresight (picking GDDR5) and a bit of luck. The side benefit is they can offer the best of both worlds now.

 

[GavinGT]

I don't think this is so straightforward. It is entirely possible Sony and devs were satisfied with 4GB of speedy GDDR5 even knowing Xbox will have twice as much but slower and only 75% available for games. But from marketing PoV that would be problematic, because for most people more = better, i.e. Xbox > PS4 because it has twice the memory, even if technically it wouldn't translate in any meaningful difference. So, when it turned out that 8GB is possible they did it, bettering Xbox both in speed and usable RAM-space.

Now MS's only hope is to sell Xbox as a 8GB+32MB machine, because - let's face it - a lot of people won't know the difference and obviously 40 > 8

Mainstream consumers don't give a shit how much RAM is in these machines. It's not like they go to Walmart and choose 360 over PS3 because it has twice the RAM.

 

[Fafalada]

This seems to be accurate right now, as we understand both machines. But why do people and some "insiders" keep saying the PS4 and 720 will be on par with each other? It's very confusing.

The difference between xbox1 and GC was bigger then that(GPU alone was 2-3x faster)and still most of internet "agrees" that they were on par with each other.

 

[Gemüsepizza]

Mainstream consumers don't give a shit how much RAM is in these machines. It's not like they go to Walmart and choose 360 over PS3 because it has twice the RAM.

Xbox 360 does not have twice as much RAM as PS3. And if Microsoft had advertised the 8 GB RAM of the Xbox 3 as an advantage, there would be people who believed it's better than the 4 GB of the PS4, even if it isn't. Now Microsoft can't do that anymore.

 

[onQ123]

I do not think this is happening.

You don't think what is happening? it already happened Sony & MS switched to a AMD SoC with Jaguar cores but it's not 4 it's 8

& the part about the ray-tracer is just an example of the price with the AMD SoC, the thread was about the price of the Xbox 3.

 

[KidBeta]

You don't think what is happening? it already happened Sony & MS switched to a AMD SoC with Jaguar cores but it's not 4 it's 8

& the part about the ray-tracer is just an example of the price with the AMD SoC, the thread was about the price of the Xbox 3.

Well he mentions the wrong API's for one.

And 192 Stream Processors is only 3 CU's in GCN.

 

[Arrogant Menace]

Mainstream consumers don't give a shit how much RAM is in these machines. It's not like they go to Walmart and choose 360 over PS3 because it has twice the RAM.

only people who will care about ram is the developers

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

I don't think this is so straightforward. It is entirely possible Sony and devs were satisfied with 4GB of speedy GDDR5 even knowing Xbox will have twice as much but slower and only 75% available for games. But from marketing PoV that would be problematic, because for most people more = better, i.e. Xbox > PS4 because it has twice the memory, even if technically it wouldn't translate in any meaningful difference. So, when it turned out that 8GB is possible they did it, bettering Xbox both in speed and usable RAM-space.

Now MS's only hope is to sell Xbox as a 8GB+32MB machine, because - let's face it - a lot of people won't know the difference and obviously 40 > 8

You make it sound as if the decision was strictly marketing, and there was no foresight into the actual engineering of the console and the impact an extra 4 GB of GDDR5 would have.

That is absolutely not the case. Sony would not have invested into an extra pool of rather costly RAM just to check off some box.

4 GB of GDDR5 may have been comparable, or even better, than 8 GB of DDR3 + eSRAM, but doubling 8 GB of GDDR5 will most certainly have a substantial impact on what game creators are able to accomplish.

 

[Gemüsepizza]

only people who will care about ram is the developers

You are ignoring that better RAM will produce better graphics. And consumers do care about better graphics.

 

[Arrogant Menace]

You are ignoring that better RAM will produce better graphics. And consumers do care about better graphics.

i don't understand why you keep attacking me in post but ill respond, consumers bought the wii and ps2 they care about graphics for sure.

 

[Gemüsepizza]

I just don't see a reason to downplay the importance of specs. Yes, it wasn't important for the Wii, but it had a very specific target group which is not entirely the same as the target group of the Xbox or Playstation. And I am not sure why you list the PS2, because when it was released it was quite powerful. There were also other important aspects at that time, which helped the PS2 to succed, but which are not really relevant now (being the successor of the market leader PS1, having a massive head start compared to the Xbox).

 

[Y2Kev]

i don't understand why you keep attacking me in post but ill respond, consumers bought the wii and ps2 they care about graphics for sure.

The PS2 had amazing graphics when it came out more than a year before its competitors.

More consumers bought the 360 and PS3 than Wii.

 

[onQ123]

The difference between xbox1 and GC was bigger then that(GPU alone was 2-3x faster)and still most of internet "agrees" that they were on par with each other.

Gamecube

• Graphics processing unit:
• 162 MHz "Flipper" LSI (co-developed by Nintendo and ArtX, acquired by ATI)
• 180 nm NEC eDRAM-compatible process
• 8 GFLOPS
• 4 pixel pipelines with 1 texture unit each[15]
• TEV "Texture EnVironment" engine (similar to Nvidia's GeForce-class "register combiners")
• Fixed-function hardware transform and lighting (T&L), 20+ million polygons in-game[18]
• 648 megapixels/second (162 MHz × 4 pipelines), 648 megatexels/second (648 MP × 1 texture unit) (peak)
• Peak triangle performance: 20,250,000 32-pixel triangles/s raw and with 1 texture and lighting
• or 337,500 triangles a frame at 60 fps
• 8 texture layers per pass, texture compression, full scene anti-aliasing[18]
• 8 simultaneous hardware light sources, up to 32 software light sources
• Bilinear, trilinear, and anisotropic texture filtering
• Multi-texturing, bump mapping, reflection mapping, 24-bit z-buffer
• 24-bit RGB/32-bit RGBA color depth

Xbox

• GPU and system chipset: 233 MHz "NV2A" ASIC. Co-developed by Microsoft and Nvidia.
• Geometry engine: 115 million vertices/second, 125 million particles/second (peak)
• 4 pixel pipelines with 2 texture units each
• 932 megapixels/second (233 MHz × 4 pipelines), 1,864 megatexels/second (932 MP × 2 texture units) (peak)
• Peak triangle performance (32pixel divided from filrate): 29,125,000 32-pixel triangles/s raw or w. 2 textures and lit.
• 485,416 triangles per frame at 60 frame/s
• 970,833 triangles per frame at 30 frame/s
• 8 textures per pass, texture compression, full scene anti-aliasing (NV Quincunx, supersampling, multisampling)
• Bilinear, trilinear, and anisotropic texture filtering
• Similar to the GeForce 3 Ti500 PC GPU in performance

This doesn't look like 2-3X faster to me.

 

[Arrogant Menace]

The PS2 had amazing graphics when it came out more than a year before its competitors.

More consumers bought the 360 and PS3 than Wii.

The original xbox was much more powerful then the PS2 at the time, if graphics truly mattered regardless of dates the xbox should have dominated that generation easily.

im assuming you're combining 360/PS3 sales? if so yes they did. they're still far behind the 100million so far may be able to achieve that down the road during next generation.

 

[Manmademan]

The original xbox was much more powerful then the PS2 at the time, if graphics truly mattered regardless of dates the xbox should have dominated that generation easily.

im assuming you're combining 360/PS3 sales? if so yes they did. they're still far behind the 100million so far may be able to achieve that down the road during next generation.

the ps3 and 360 are both virtually guaranteed to sell over 100 million, especially since bc appears to be out of the question. both have plenty of room to pricedrop and are still reasonably strong Sellers while the Wii is dead.

it's entirely possible we'll see the Wii end up second or even third place overall by the time the 360 and ps3 are EOL

 

[eastmen]

The PS2 had amazing graphics when it came out more than a year before its competitors.

More consumers bought the 360 and PS3 than Wii.

The dreamcast also had amazing graphics when it came out more than a year before the ps2.

 

[ascii42]

The dreamcast also had amazing graphics when it came out more than a year before the ps2.

And if Sega wasn't so broken at the time, it probably would have been successful.

 

[Sounddeli]

I don't think MS pulled these guy from IBM to put out weak system. At least I hope not

Principal Architect SOC at Microsoft, updated linkedin profile (the A2/BGQ, Prototyping Ray t racing etc)

http://oi49.************/3539q3k.jpg
http://oi47.************/2yydted.jpg

Some Interesting patent from him

http://oi46.************/jg79jo.jpg
http://oi50.************/25tkdoj.jpg
http://oi49.************/2ql7axt.jpg
http://oi50.************/rk68ec.jpg
http://oi46.************/zvdb34.jpg
http://oi50.************/2gtnr79.jpg

 

[Baconsammy]

The original xbox was much more powerful then the PS2 at the time, if graphics truly mattered regardless of dates the xbox should have dominated that generation easily.

im assuming you're combining 360/PS3 sales? if so yes they did. they're still far behind the 100million so far may be able to achieve that down the road during next generation.

Original Xbox wasn't really out long enough to dominate anything prior to Microsoft immediately shutting it down and shutting down a bunch of studios that were making games for it.

 

[Mr.Wreckless]

You are ignoring that better RAM will produce better graphics. And consumers do care about better graphics.

Are you counting a higher resolution as better graphics? Thats the most you will get out of 3rd party developers. The general populace isnt going to care about a small bump in resolution.

 

[googleplex]

The dreamcast also had amazing graphics when it came out more than a year before the ps2.

The PS2 had better graphic s then the Dreamcast. Whats your point.

 

[ascii42]

I don't think MS pulled these guy from IBM to put out weak system. At least I hope not

Principal Architect SOC at Microsoft, updated linkedin profile (the A2/BGQ, Prototyping Ray t racing etc)

http://oi49.************/3539q3k.jpg
http://oi47.************/2yydted.jpg

Some Interesting patent from him

http://oi46.************/jg79jo.jpg
http://oi50.************/25tkdoj.jpg
http://oi49.************/2ql7axt.jpg
http://oi50.************/rk68ec.jpg
http://oi46.************/zvdb34.jpg
http://oi50.************/2gtnr79.jpg

Use a different image host, like imgur

 

[Kazuma Kiryu]

The PS2 had amazing graphics when it came out more than a year before its competitors.

More consumers bought the 360 and PS3 than Wii.

i've seen this argument before. "the xbox and the gamecube had better graphics!", it's like people have forgotten (or didn't even live through that time) why that was. the ps2 had a 1 to 2 year head start (depending on the region) against the xbox and the gamecube. it steamrolled the dreamcast and by the time the competitors showed up, no one stood a chance.

 

[Reiko]

The PS2 had better graphic s then the Dreamcast. Whats your point.

Horrible IQ in 98% of it's games though compared to Dreamcast.

 

[antic604]

Mainstream consumers don't give a shit how much RAM is in these machines. It's not like they go to Walmart and choose 360 over PS3 because it has twice the RAM.

Yeah, because it doesn't.

 

[antic604]

You make it sound as if the decision was strictly marketing, and there was no foresight into the actual engineering of the console and the impact an extra 4 GB of GDDR5 would have.

That is absolutely not the case. Sony would not have invested into an extra pool of rather costly RAM just to check off some box.

4 GB of GDDR5 may have been comparable, or even better, than 8 GB of DDR3 + eSRAM, but doubling 8 GB of GDDR5 will most certainly have a substantial impact on what game creators are able to accomplish.

Sure 8GB will improve things, no doubt there. But if going by the rumours Sony initially wanted to have only 2GB and then upped that to 4GB at the request of devs, then probably - technically! - that was the optimal and sufficient amount.

I'm happy they did it, but frankly I think the effect of this will be bigger on the marketing side (nullifying Xbox' advantage) rather than on performance

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Sure 8GB will improve things, no doubt there. But if going by the rumours Sony initially wanted to have only 2GB and then upped that to 4GB at the request of devs, then probably - technically! - that was the optimal and sufficient amount.

I'm happy they did it, but frankly I think the effect of this will be bigger on the marketing side (nullifying Xbox' advantage) rather than on performance

Nonsense.

I doubt Sony only wanted to have 2GB and then kept moving the target.

RAM specs were always a moving target based upon financial feasibility of GDDR5 being available in sufficiently high quantities.

If 4 extra GBs didn't confer substantial technical benefits, they wouldn't have increased the BOM of the console by $50 just to check off a marketing box. All developers have been screaming for that much RAM (Epic, Crytek), anyway.

 

[antic604]

Nonsense.

I doubt Sony only wanted to have 2GB and then kept moving the target.

RAM specs were always a moving target based upon financial feasibility of GDDR5 being available in sufficiently high quantities.

If 4 extra GBs didn't confer substantial technical benefits, they wouldn't have increased the BOM of the console by $50 just to check off a marketing box. All developers have been screaming for that much RAM (Epic, Crytek), anyway.

Well, OK - live in your idealistic world. But for companies like these it is often much more important to match perceived advantage of the competitor so that they don't look crippled when directly compared by clueless people. In the end, only 5% of console owners cares about LoD distance, type of texture filtering, full-res alpha buffers, quality of SSAO, etc. It's been 6-7 years in this gen and I still see people saying X360 has twice the RAM of PS3, so yeah - bullet points are more important than you make them out to be.

 

[BladeoftheImmortal]

All I know is that Just Cause 3 is going to rock on this setup.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Well, OK - live in your idealistic world. But for companies like these it is often much more important to match perceived advantage of the competitor so that they don't look crippled when directly compared by clueless people. In the end, only 5% of console owners cares about LoD distance, type of texture filtering, full-res alpha buffers, quality of SSAO, etc. It's been 6-7 years in this gen and I still see people saying X360 has twice the RAM of PS3, so yeah - bullet points are more important than you make them out to be.

The bullet points really are not important. Most people do not understand what all is involved, and ultimately the end result is what matters to consumers. They may not understand or care about the technical advantages of more RAM, but they will notice a different in-game. And that's why Sony went with it - to give developers the most resources to create fantastic looking games that consumers will notice.

 

[antic604]

The bullet points really are not important. Most people do not understand what all is involved, and ultimately the end result is what matters to consumers. They may not understand or care about the technical advantages of more RAM, but they will notice a different in-game. And that's why Sony went with it - to give developers the most resources to create fantastic looking games that consumers will notice.

Well, let's agree to disagree here. I'm not saying people will browse sales presentations before deciding the purchase, but it would be really easy for MS to plant the idea of "twice the memory" in general public's consciousness, translating into the simple notion of "2x better" which is easily passed along. 95% won't scrutinize direct video feeds looking for PS4 IQ advantages and for all intents and purposes - for them - the games will look indistinguishable regardless of the platform.

So, when 8GB became possible technically & financially they did it to nullify the marketing advantage, even if technically it will not improve performance in meaningful ways.

 

[scently]

Gamecube




Xbox



This doesn't look like 2-3X faster to me.

He is a dev so I expect he knows what he is talking about. Besides you are comparing two different architectures in this case with different implementation and all that. The saying "numbers don't say everything" couldn't be more appropriate in this case.

 

[Maximilian Kolbe]

Use a different image host, like imgur

I think that's what he wanna post
http://i.minus.com/i1AIFVnypdQ0j.jpg
http://i.minus.com/ivyfkRPqNCpS0.jpg
http://i.minus.com/i1tzz3ZinzNqT.jpg
http://i.minus.com/ifBRTZZZgw8Gz.jpg
http://i.minus.com/id4T0Uzz7bff5.jpg
http://i.minus.com/ibjD0SaTweBRZj.jpg
http://i.minus.com/iO84Jgkt98jzF.jpg
http://i.minus.com/iSvpaVTtCkDqS.jpg

 

[shinra-bansho]

Somewhat random question but...

I recall reading that more expensive variant of DDR3 would be needed to achieve 68GB/s for the main RAM pool.

What kind of cost would be plausible?

 

[Panajev2001a]

Well, let's agree to disagree here. I'm not saying people will browse sales presentations before deciding the purchase, but it would be really easy for MS to plant the idea of "twice the memory" in general public's consciousness, translating into the simple notion of "2x better" which is easily passed along. 95% won't scrutinize direct video feeds looking for PS4 IQ advantages and for all intents and purposes - for them - the games will look indistinguishable regardless of the platform.

So, when 8GB became possible technically & financially they did it to nullify the marketing advantage, even if technically it will not improve performance in meaningful ways.

If consumers see that some games do not hit your platform, or get much worse reviews and/or look noticeably worse, or arrive much later on your platform (see Skyrim DLC, even though Bethesda is not blameless here, not at all)... consumers will notice that. So, making sure developers do not have weird bottlenecks, do not have to invest too much to exploit your fully custom architecture, or much weaker specs than the competition is good for the platform holder, it is good for developers, and good for gamers.

 

[onQ123]

He is a dev so I expect he knows what he is talking about. Besides you are comparing two different architectures in this case with different implementation and all that. The saying "numbers don't say everything" couldn't be more appropriate in this case.

Unless he made a game on the Xbox that showed that the GPU was 2 - 3X faster than the Gamecube him being a dev doesn't change much.

 

[El_Chino]

I think that's what he wanna post
http://i.minus.com/i1AIFVnypdQ0j.jpg
http://i.minus.com/ivyfkRPqNCpS0.jpg
http://i.minus.com/i1tzz3ZinzNqT.jpg
http://i.minus.com/ifBRTZZZgw8Gz.jpg
http://i.minus.com/id4T0Uzz7bff5.jpg
http://i.minus.com/ibjD0SaTweBRZj.jpg
http://i.minus.com/iO84Jgkt98jzF.jpg
http://i.minus.com/iSvpaVTtCkDqS.jpg

Interesting....

 

[GenericUserName]

I recall reading that more expensive variant of DDR3 would be needed to achieve 68GB/s for the main RAM pool.

What kind of cost would be plausible?

By "the more expensive variant" they probably mean 2133< MHz frequency. The issue is finding out exactly which one. THere's a pretty big price difference between 2400 MHz (PC3-19200) and 2800 MHz (PC3-22400).

 

[Sounddeli]

Thanks to Alfred Jodl for the help with the links

This is something to consider!

Principal Architect SOC at Microsoft, updated linkedin profile (the A2/BGQ, Prototyping Raytracing etc)

Some Interesting patent from him

 

[CLEEK]

He is a dev so I expect he knows what he is talking about. Besides you are comparing two different architectures in this case with different implementation and all that. The saying "numbers don't say everything" couldn't be more appropriate in this case.

With the Xbox/CG comparisons, the CG had nothing of the scale of Halo CE, let alone Halo 2. Games busting at the seems with fancy lighting, effects, best in class AI, draw distance etc. But on the other hand, I'd say F-Zero GX was the best looking game of the gen.

Different architectures, suited for different games. This time round, the Durango and PS4 have the same architecture, just with the PS4 stronger in all areas.

So I can't see how there can be cases where the Xbox is better at something (games related) than the PS4, as anything the Durango can do, the PS4 can do better.

If the Xbox rumours are true, I still have absolutely no idea what real world difference, if any, there will be between them. I can't wait to find out.

 

[shinra-bansho]

With the Xbox/CG comparisons, the CG had nothing of the scale of Halo CE, let alone Halo 2. Games busting at the seems with fancy lighting, effects, best in class AI, draw distance etc. But on the other hand, I'd say F-Zero GX was the best looking game of the gen.

Different architectures, suited for different games. This time round, the Durango and PS4 have the same architecture, just with the PS4 stronger in all areas.

So I can't see how there can be cases where the Xbox is better at something (games related) than the PS4, as anything the Durango can do, the PS4 can do better.

If the Xbox rumours are true, I still have absolutely no idea what real world difference, if any, there will be between them. I can't wait to find out.

Well, audio apparently.

But I think people are even less likely to notice that than any visual disparity. Humans are innately visual creatures.

 

[les papillons sexuels]

With the Xbox/CG comparisons, the CG had nothing of the scale of Halo CE, let alone Halo 2. Games busting at the seems with fancy lighting, effects, best in class AI, draw distance etc. But on the other hand, I'd say F-Zero GX was the best looking game of the gen.

Different architectures, suited for different games. This time round, the Durango and PS4 have the same architecture, just with the PS4 stronger in all areas.

So I can't see how there can be cases where the Xbox is better at something (games related) than the PS4, as anything the Durango can do, the PS4 can do better.

If the Xbox rumours are true, I still have absolutely no idea what real world difference, if any, there will be between them. I can't wait to find out.

If, the rumors are true then...

 

[KidBeta]

If, the rumors are true then...

Which given the amount of different sources, and people, who have been saying the same thing they most likely are.

 

[Galacticos]

Well, audio apparently.

But I think people are even less likely to notice that than any visual disparity. Humans are innately visual creatures.

people will notice.