PS4 has 8 GB OF GDDR5 RAM

HyperionX said:
Because it's a totally crazy thing to do. It's straight out of Ken Kutaragi's book.

No skin off my back, but don't be shocked if PS4 launches at 499-599 again and no one ends up using the 8GB of RAM meaningfully through its entire life.
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Dude. This is just laughable. They will use the RAM and they will use it good. Enjoy the FUD talk but 8GB RAM is the best thing to ever happen; ever.
 
enzo_gt said:
For the more technically inclined in this thread: Is or will the blu-ray drive speed prove to be a bottleneck for RAM we have to work with here? Is 8GB overkill?
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I dunno about it being overkill or not, but based on my understanding yeah the Blu-ray drive and the hard drive for that matter will be bottlenecks.
 
I honestly think the 8B GDDR is a last minute move to absorb any perceived advantage Microsoft would claim while launching its marketing campaign...It's overkill for the kind of GPU they are packing.
 
enzo_gt said:
For the more technically inclined in this thread: Is or will the blu-ray drive speed prove to be a bottleneck for RAM we have to work with here? Is 8GB overkill?
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Mandatory installs will resolve any such issue.

HyperionX said:
You sure? I'd imagine they'd ask for more on just about anything, but probably for more cheaper RAM first, and certainly for a beefier CPU/GPU before going all the way to 8GB of GDDR5 RAM.
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Mark Rein said it between the lines himself to Geoff in a post launch interview.
 
They had me at 8GB of GDDR5... HOLY FUCK...!
That is batshit crazy!

Day 1 here. Shit, i'm probably gonna buy a vita as well (wonder if there will be a PS4 / Vita bundle)
 
i-Lo said:
Mandatory installs will resolve any such issue.
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Exactly, this is what i have been trying to say. Be like the 360 and have the option to install your games. And also make sure the ps3 supports the read/write speeds of ssd. It worked for skyrim and rage to reduce loading times and texture load times.
 
i-Lo said:
I really do not think 8GB GDDR5 UMA existed for commercial consumption that year.
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Well I didn't think he actually meant 8GB of GDDR5. I thought he was more referring to a PC that matches the PS4 in performance. So it would have taken a very beefy system back in 09.
 
-Pyromaniac- said:
doubt it
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what makes you so sure? the HDD is to slow to write it raw, so the last couple of minutes (15 was in rumor) have to be either compressed hard (which takes a lot of resources) or kept in memory (which also costs a lot of resources).

I don't see how it doesn't have a huge impact on the memory and/or CPU when it's basically a "on the fly" permanently enabled by default, fraps-esque recording utility.
 
Someone had to push the console tech barriers this round. It's either RAM, GPU or CPU power, and I guess the devs decided pretty clearly. Mark Rein certainly did.
 
HyperionX said:
As I explained above, even HDDs will have trouble filling up 8GB in a timely fashion.
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It's not like the HDD is going to be emptying and refilling the entire RAM cache every cycle. It will work the same way PCs have been doing for years.

I'm trying to find out exactly what he'd said.
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When asked about the 8GB by Geoff, Mark Rein, with a big smile, said that only devs could appreciate it and that the elemental demo was love letter to hardware makers to which only had replied so far.
 
Zukuu said:
I don't see how it doesn't have a huge impact on the memory and/or CPU when it's basically a "on the fly" permanently enabled by default, fraps-esque recording utility.
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They said it's a dedicated encoder / decoder chip so it probably sits on the pipeline and doesn't use much effort. Think of having a Haupage DVR type thing built in. If anything I'd worry about it having an impact on the HDD while loading levels or something. Should be minor though.
 
TheExodu5 said:
The unified memory is the real clincher here. I wonder if PC ports will have to be hindered in any way as our CPUs don't have access to memory nearly that fast.
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No,

CPUs need far less bandwidth than GPUs, an i7 gets extremely diminishing returns past 20 odd GBs of RAM bandwidth.
 
TheD said:
No,

CPUs need far less bandwidth than GPUs, an i7 gets extremely diminishing returns past 20 odd GBs of RAM bandwidth.
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Actually, I think the diminishing returns, at least with DDR3, are almost at any point (because most people probably only have support for like 14GB/s or something.)

I think anandtech did a benchmark test with different DDR3 modules, from 1333 to 18-something.

There wasn't really that much difference in any applicated, as far as I remember. For CPUs, the modern limitation for most people is probably the amount of RAM...

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6389/gskill-tridentx-review-2x4gb-at-ddr32666-c111313-165v

This kind of does it.

10% increase from going from 1333 to 2666, it seems, except for winrar, which actually had a pretty big difference.
 
Hypothetical time: Would you rather have this 8GB architecture, which I'm going to assume is still pulling directly from a 2.5in/5400rpm HDD, or 4GB ram + a 32gb high speed SSD cache and the same quality of HDD?
 
i-Lo said:
It's not like the HDD is going to be emptying and refilling the entire RAM cache every cycle. It will work the same way PCs have been doing for years.
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Then what's wrong with just having 3-4GB, if you won't refill the entire thing every cycle?

When asked about the 8GB by Geoff, Mark Rein, with a big smile, said that only devs could appreciate it and that the elemental demo was love letter to hardware makers to which only had replied so far.
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I've found the video. He did not specify the type of memory to be used. He also mentioned that he expected the console to be a mass market priced device. That may not be the case if he knew that 8GB of GDDR5 could potentially drive the price to equal or above PS3 launch prices.

Of course, if Sony can do this cheaply, all the power to them. I'm not saying 8GB is a bad idea, just not at the price and relative utility compared to other things they could have done.
 
HyperionX said:
Then what's wrong with just having 3-4GB, if you won't refill the entire thing every cycle?



I've found the video. He did not specify the type of memory to be used. He also mentioned that he expected the console to be a mass market priced device. That may not be the case if he knew that 8GB of GDDR5 could potentially drive the price to equal or above PS3 launch prices.

Of course, if Sony can do this cheaply, all the power to them. I'm not saying 8GB is a bad idea, just not at the price and relative utility compared to other things they could have done.
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Sony disagrees. I think they are striking a very good balance.
 
Remember when Bill said, that there will never be the need of more then 1MB space?

That's how the statement "there is no need for 8GB" sounds like.
 
DerpButter said:
Hypothetical time: Would you rather have this 8GB architecture, which I'm going to assume is still pulling directly from a 2.5in/5400rpm HDD, or 4GB ram + a 32gb high speed SSD cache and the same quality of HDD?
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SSDs are rock cheap lately. Put a 128GB or even 256GB SSD in its place, no HDD at all, and that will be a more realistic trade off for 8GB of GDDR5 RAM + 2.5" HDD. I personally think that's a way better and more balanced machine.
 
HyperionX said:
Then what's wrong with just having 3-4GB, if you won't refill the entire thing every cycle?
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Uhm, that's not how RAM is really used.

I mean, technically, the amount of data you get out and put in a given cycle is very small (like, cacheline size, so maybe 32-64 bytes at max?)

EDIT: that was per core, so, I guess you could tecnically read from memory, given different lines, 8x that number, maybe. Depends on MC and the memory spec, I guess.\

Anyway, the reason we have RAM in the first place is because no one in their right minds wants to access HDDs. They're really slow.
 
Zukuu said:
what makes you so sure? the HDD is to slow to write it raw, so the last couple of minutes (15 was in rumor) have to be either compressed hard (which takes a lot of resources) or kept in memory (which also costs a lot of resources).

I don't see how it doesn't have a huge impact on the memory and/or CPU when it's basically a "on the fly" permanently enabled by default, fraps-esque recording utility.
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I think you're just overestimating greatly how much RAM this stuff takes up.
 
Zukuu said:
the question is how much the "share" feature will need. I think that will cost a lot of memory to keep running in the back ground. I fear that feature to be honest, it'll probably just soak up to much resources.
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They said it would have a dedicated CPU for audio/video encoding/decoding.

Correct me if I'm wrong but couldn't this sort of system be tied directly to the output pipeline and encode directly to the hard drive?

If they do need to keep the gameplay buffer in the ram it depends on the encode format and bit rate. If they saved a 8Mbps video stream it would presumably use 900MB of ram for 15 mins.
 
Jake Tower said:
Pretty sure RAM (vRAM) allows higher resolution textures to be used. Since this is unified RAM, that could be a big difference.

Any just maybe with that much RAM, next gen Mass Effect will have enough memory to store animations for players to roll *and* holster their weapons.
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Did they doubled TMU's too? I guess not, so no better textures for you.

Btw, animations are pretty much inexpensive, memory wise.

This is like those market store crappy builded PC's, having tons of VRAM on low end GPU's. You won't have better graphics just because it have more RAM. I guess Sony put in there just for anything else. Or maybe only marketing. RAM is not that expensive. Much less standarised and mass produced one, not exotic shit like XDR.

A mid tier GPU like that would be maxed out at 1~1'5GB. So expect another use for it other than graphics. The power is just not there.
 
zoku88 said:
Actually, I think the diminishing returns, at least with DDR3, are almost at any point (because most people probably only have support for like 14GB/s or something.)
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Errr...

I am not sure what you mean by that.

Programs if they need more RAM bandwidth will use it.
 
-Pyromaniac- said:
I think you're just overestimating greatly how much RAM this stuff takes up.
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I didn't know the info below. then everything is fine and dandy. It would take a lot of ram if they kept 1080p 60FPS (partially) unencoded in the memory.

Nafai1123 said:
They said it would have a dedicated CPU for audio/video encoding/decoding.

Correct me if I'm wrong but couldn't this sort of system be tied directly to the output pipeline and encode directly to the hard drive?

If they do need to keep the gameplay buffer in the ram it depends on the encode format and bit rate. If they saved a 8Mbps video stream it would presumably use 900MB of ram for 15 mins.
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If we have 6GB GDDR3 for games alones I'll be a more then happy Batman.
 
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