Rumor: Xbox 3 = 6-core CPU, 2GB of DDR3 Main RAM, 2 AMD GPUs w/ Unknown VRAM, At CES
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chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
What's the benefit on two GPUs on the same die? Since GPUs (or at least PC GPUs) are already entirely parallel what benefit do you get from having two of them instead of one big one?Elios83 said:
I know nothing about how PowerVR GPUs work or how they compare to AMD/NVidia.
dgrdsv
Member
Why would they use R700 derrivative in a devkit if there are newer GPUs avialable, a couple generations further? The only reason is because Wii U will have some R700 derrivative (most probably not RV770 as that would be a little too conservative but some R700-based core on 40nm -- something like Cypress/Radeon HD 5800). Plus I'm going off the rumours and comments that Wii U's GPU isn't that advanced -- it'll handle today's graphics (hopefully 360/PS3's and not Wii's) at 1080p but that's it. I'm expecting much more than that from the next generation graphically.DCKing said:
They could but it'll still need to be customised for console environment. I was doing some "guesstimations" and concluded that Wii U may have 2 or 4 POWER7 cores in one CPU chip which isn't bad for current time and compared to Wii but it's far from what's possible with simplier PowerPC or ARM cores on current production tech (soon you'll be able to buy a smartphone with 4 ARM cores; a stationary home console should certainly be able to go higher than that).DCKing said:
They're quite powerful but more difficult to use. Going with POWER7 means that your system will be easier to program for but in the long run (consoles are long living products) you may get much more perfomance from 4+ PPC or ARM cores in the same transistor budget and for a console hardware that's a win. Look at Cell.DCKing said:
Depends on how you define "better". If "cheaper to design and easier to program for" -- you take 2-4 POWER7 cores, cut some cache off it and you're ready. If "expensive to design almost from scratch and having much more peak power in the end" then any PowerPC or ARM-based multicore will be better than any POWER7-based CPU. Last time both MS and SCE designed their CPUs almost from scratch and prefered higher peaks to easier programmability. Nintendo took what IBM had to offer while maintaining compatibility with GCN. I don't see why they'd change their approaches in the next generation. From all the rumours it seems that Nintendo is planning to do something similar for Wii U -- take an already avialable POWER7 design with almost no R&D costs (since most of R&D was done by IBM for their servers while designing POWER7 in the first place). What are the chances that MS and SCE will go the 360/PS3 route and spend more R&D/design money on making some unique CPUs for Xbox3/PS4? I'd say that they're pretty high.DCKing said:
It'll still cost some bucks to make and thus it's cost ineffective solution.DCKing said:
Not at all. POWER7 should be binary compatible with both GCN and Wii CPUs since all of them are based on the same PowerPC ISA. They may have to use some light software emulation for older titles but all in all Wii U should just be 100% BC with Wii (and GCN since Wii is already that).DCKing said:
MS was out of losses on HW quite early and made a lot of these losses back selling overpriced accessories (which was the plan). PS3 was a HW clusterfuck on so many levels that it's not a surprise that SCE is still having a loss on it but that doesn't mean that PS4 should be the same clusterfuck. If designed right and with proper business model they can have a loss for a year and return to profitability after that. The main sign of where SCE is going with PS4 is Vita -- a brilliantly designed hardware that doesn't cost too much to consumers while being way ahead of it's competition tech-wise. I do believe that PS4 will follow the same route.DCKing said:
brotkasten
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There's no such thing as "enough RAM".Wazzim said:
Agent Ironside
Member
Lets not go full blown retard. The current 360 has 512MB of memory. Going to 2gb is a very healthy upgrade considering what they've been able to squeeze out of the 512mb.
Memory chips are veeeery cheap these days, I think it would be a excellent time to build new consoles.
Memory chips are veeeery cheap these days, I think it would be a excellent time to build new consoles.
I never get why consoles always seem to have impressive CPUs when announced (ie if true, 6 cores is more than most PC processors currently, most are dual or quad core), but the consoles seem to have a low amount of RAM (2gb vs most people having 3gb or more in PCs these days).
Since RAM is a lot cheaper than a high end CPU, I thought it'd be one of the most cost-effective areas to increase. I guess there's a lot of customisation with it being a console though, does that add significantly to the cost of the RAM?
Since RAM is a lot cheaper than a high end CPU, I thought it'd be one of the most cost-effective areas to increase. I guess there's a lot of customisation with it being a console though, does that add significantly to the cost of the RAM?
There's definitely a point where you'll start to see diminishing returns relative to what you want to use it for, though. That said, I can't think of any Windows game that isn't horrendously un-optimized that takes up more than 1.5GB of RAM.brotkasten said:
@PaulLFC: A lot depends on architecture, but quad and hex core CPUs will be even more common by the time this thing comes out.
But the power of a CPU isn't solely determined by the numbers of cores. If there anything planed with ARM that can compete with years old PC parts? Smartphones might have quadcores next year, but they will still be considerably behind 5 year old Core 2 Duo's in performance.
Agent Ironside
Member
Orayn said:
Indeed. I suggest some of you PC gamers take a look at your memory usage during a game. If you're over 4gb of total usage id be VERY surprised.
RurouniZel
Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
These specs seem believable for a 2012 release. I wonder how Wii U will compare. Probably less, knowing Ninty.
TriangularDuck
Member
Dudes on the internet commenting on rumored specs obviously know more than hardware architects and engineers who are paid massive amounts of money to create a console that works well and is relatively future-proof. I have no doubt that the 360's successor will be good to go for at least the same amount of time that the 360 has been around.
Agent Ironside
Member
itsgreen said:
Well I think the progression of the amount of memory needed for PC's is slowing down, many people along with myself have been running 4GB of memory for years now, with no real need to upgrade yet, unless you're running some specialized program that requires it, which is rare.
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
Interesting stuff.It all depends on what kind of GPU(s) it would be though.
Also, why do so many people say 2GB is little. Don't you realize the games still have to load into that RAM, and if the console had 4GB of it, what kind of optical media (because let's face it, there will have to be an optical media in 2012) you think is fast enough to fill 4GB of RAM without you waiting 5 minutes for a game to load?
Also, why do so many people say 2GB is little. Don't you realize the games still have to load into that RAM, and if the console had 4GB of it, what kind of optical media (because let's face it, there will have to be an optical media in 2012) you think is fast enough to fill 4GB of RAM without you waiting 5 minutes for a game to load?
You are just begging for a RROD response here, so I'll have to be the one who gives it o you.TriangularDuck said:
Agent Ironside said:
Ram use in pc's has slowed down because of the rise of consoles with dx 9 level gpus .
A developer isn't properly going to use 8 to 16 gigs of ram and graphics cards with 2 gigs of ram when their bread is buttered with systems using a total of 512 megs of ram.
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
That actually makes a lot of sense, since I doubt a GPU can use a memory controller/scheduler the same way a GPU can. I wouldn't be surprised to see something like that then.Elios83 said:
Still not sold on this rumor, slow DDR3 RAM is totally unrealistic. And a hexacore CPU seems superfluous.
Para bailar La Bomba
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Oh, really?!?!?!??!??!?!?!?!eastmen said:
No way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks, Tips, i didn't know that!
Quicksilver4648
Member
If those specs are real then it does look like a 2012 release. But, if they intend to launch a new console in 2013 (which I still believe) then the RAM needs to be upped to 4GB. Consoles are all about longevity and they need to have room for future game design. Also, I do realize that most high end PC games now use <2GB RAM when running. However, who knows what will be happening in 2016.
Agent Ironside
Member
I work in a PC repair shop and I always find it entertaining when people come and say "I need 8GB because I'm going to be gaming" This happens ALL the time. I think the big PC manufactures have corrupted peoples thinking when it comes to memory, they're selling home PC's with 8GB of memory, which is absolutely absurd. Its simply a selling point, that's it, the bigger the number, the better it sounds, and memory is cheap.
You should've checked out the Wii U thread. My theory is they used an RV770 because it has a GDDR3 memory controller, and it has the power they wanted. It needed a GDDR3 memory controller because it seems they're using the Xbox 360 CPU in devkits as well.dr_rus said:
More cores doesn't mean more power. There's a point at which it is not useful anymore (Amdahl's Law) and there aren't any more tasks to thread out. Fast multicore POWER7 > many simple parallel cores. It simply doesn't get faster than POWER7 at this point.dr_rus said:
Every chip is customized. I agree. No chip in the history of gaming has not had its roots in some other application. Cell (and PPE) came as close as you get as something new, and that didn't even turn out that great. At the moment, there's nothing in the works that I know of that rivals high-end x86 and POWER7 in performance. That was not the case last gen.dr_rus said:
POWER7 is similar to, but not backwards compatible with the old PowerPC G3 architecture used in Wii and GC. The CPU in the Wii/GC had some customizations that would need to be ported over. Furthermore, the GameCube and Wii GPUs have a peculiar shading solution that is not easy to emulate. Then there's some fast timed caches, microcode here and there, as well as a funky sound system. I actually think there's no way Nintendo is going for software emulation. Less than 100% BC is unacceptable to them, and I think for many of the Wii buyers as well.dr_rus said:
We'll see. If the hardware is not cheaper, I do think that they might aim to cool things down some more.dr_rus said:
CitizenCope
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east of eastside
Banned
ARMv8 hardware is powerful enough for a next gen console..
ARMv8 hardware is not expected in products until 2015 though, w/ Nvidia Denver being an exception. The only way it would be available by 2013-14 if MS has secretly been working on a custom ARM 64-bit chip with somebody (AMD?).
ARMv8 hardware is not expected in products until 2015 though, w/ Nvidia Denver being an exception. The only way it would be available by 2013-14 if MS has secretly been working on a custom ARM 64-bit chip with somebody (AMD?).
Discotheque
Banned
I think this gen I might go Xbox this time. Depends what exclusives occur of course but I'm kind of getting tired of Sony's first party developers.
It better have a BluRay drive though.
It better have a BluRay drive though.
H_Prestige
Banned
Do people not realize that this system has VRAM? The 2GB is just main RAM, which is more than enough for games.
specialguy
Banned
Agent Ironside said:
Err, Crysis 2 hi res texture pack for one that I know of, already recommends 8GB of RAM.
All it takes is one game you cant "max" at 4GB (EG, the aforementioned Crysis 2), and that's good enough to practically obsolete it in the eyes of the PC hardcore. 4GB may currently be "enough", but I certainly wouldn't build a new gaming PC with only that much.
And I do agree that console ports are certainly holding PC back, otherwise they'd be using much more RAM.
Mr. Pointy
Member
A couple of things.
- As previously mentioned, 2 GPUs could mean a set up much like the current Xenos chip in the 360, a main GPU for usual graphics grunt work and a secondary GPU for anti-aliasing / frame buffering.
- The 6-core CPU sounds like POWER7 or an upgraded Xenon.
- I don't know why MS are going split main RAM / VRAM. That would just give their console the same bottleneck as the PS3.
Rebel Leader
THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
bangai-o said:
Random acess memory?
To randomly acess a program?
Any random GAFer could say that RROD is bad, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who could actually solve the underlying problem themselves. Balancing motherboard design with your parts' cooling needs and the thermal expansion of the heatsinks and associated clips is no easy task, especially with the wide variety of conditions the console might experience depending on how it's used.Lord Error said:
AllIsOneIsNone
Banned
Memory is pretty damn cheap nowadays, no way they're going with 2gb. I looked to see what the ram for a pc was back in 05 and found it was around 512 mb-1gb ddr1 average, right on par with a 360 (or lower even). Not a tech head, but the fact that you can get 8 gigs of ddr3 for under 50 bucks, I see no way of going under 4gb. What a waste of a hex cpu and 2 gpu's that would be.
Lord Error said:
It will come with optical media, but it doesn't matter because I think I can safely predict that NO next gen system will come without pre-loading to HDD in form of a more or less mandatory install/copy of the disk. ..And with a possible SSD solution you could load 2GB of data in a couple of seconds.
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