Opus Angelorum
Member
Fixed.
VGLeaks rumor: Durango CPU Overview
- Thread starter DieH@rd
- Start date
Fixed.
It seems like these disappointing rumors just don't end for MS..
The last time I read a Durango spec thread that got GAF excited was the Chinese leak.
Both PS4 and the next Xbox are based on the same identical AMD APU technology.
All the differences so far depend on a single element: the memory system.
Microsoft wanted to have a lot of memory capacity for their non gaming ambitions and in the design stage they thought they could only achieve that with DDR3. Sony initially settled with a lower capacity thinking that bandwidth was more important for games and 4GB was enough so they designed the system around GDDR5.
To overcome the bandwidth limitations of DDR3 while keeping the die size of the APU the same, Microsoft had to swap a few compute units and ROPs in the GPU for 32MB of embedded memory.
For all the other purposes it's absolutely realistic to think that AMD is providing the same APU.
Honestly I think that Microsoft might be a bit angry and frustrated internally at the moment for the fact that right at the last minute thanks to the introduction of 4Gbit GDDR5 modules, 8 GB of GDRR5 have become feasible at a reasonable cost, so this fact has a bit invalidated their design approach.
But at this stage there's nothing they can do if they want to release their product in 2013, still they'll enjoy a cheaper BOM because of DDR3 vs GDDDR5 and that could offset the financial burden of the inclusion of Kinect 2 in every console.
All the differences so far depend on a single element: the memory system.
Microsoft wanted to have a lot of memory capacity for their non gaming ambitions and in the design stage they thought they could only achieve that with DDR3. Sony initially settled with a lower capacity thinking that bandwidth was more important for games and 4GB was enough so they designed the system around GDDR5.
To overcome the bandwidth limitations of DDR3 while keeping the die size of the APU the same, Microsoft had to swap a few compute units and ROPs in the GPU for 32MB of embedded memory.
For all the other purposes it's absolutely realistic to think that AMD is providing the same APU.
Honestly I think that Microsoft might be a bit angry and frustrated internally at the moment for the fact that right at the last minute thanks to the introduction of 4Gbit GDDR5 modules, 8 GB of GDRR5 have become feasible at a reasonable cost, so this fact has a bit invalidated their design approach.
But at this stage there's nothing they can do if they want to release their product in 2013, still they'll enjoy a cheaper BOM because of DDR3 vs GDDDR5 and that could offset the financial burden of the inclusion of Kinect 2 in every console.
Kazuma Kiryu
Member
if people really believe that there's gonna be a massive overhaul to the specs of these consoles...they're going to be disappointed.
Maximilian E.
AKA MS-Evangelist
Basically, only MS first party and perhaps EA, seems to know what are the real specs.
MS did change a bit their ways regarding who knows what.. and well.. this is the outcome..
at least, this is what I heard..
MS did change a bit their ways regarding who knows what.. and well.. this is the outcome..
at least, this is what I heard..
oldergamer
Member
It seems like these disappointing rumors just don't end for MS..
This is the same rumor we've been getting for a while. All Vgleaks is doing is splitting it up into individual articles.
ionicbluebird
Member
But there's no mention of the CU count in the Kotaku leak.
GPU is different as well as the Memory
And they would mention it if it was majorly different.
Also bkillian on b3d who worked on Durango, said 12 CU's.
Maximilian Kolbe
Member
For the history record of GAF it maybe a good news for MS
It seems like these disappointing rumors just don't end for MS..
amstradcpc
Member
still special sauce?. If ESRAM is 1,5 billion transistors forget about changes. ESRAM + 7770 + cpu is the size of a GTX 680. Or they go for something big like titan or this is what it is.
GPU is different as well as the Memory
Well yeah other stuff helping the GPU dealing with DDR3 is also exclusive. I was referring to the basic building blocks, the Jaguar cores and Radeon cores.
Osiris
I permanently banned my 6 year old daughter from using the PS4 for mistakenly sending grief reports as it's too hard to watch or talk to her
Pretty much my thinking 100%
On the CPU front the APU's are near identical, stock Jaguars scaled to 8 cores, AMD have said that there is some Sony IP in the PS4's Jaguar derivative, but I'm not expecting much if anything different to what is laid out above for the Durango CPU.
But we have the TF performance figures which give us a good indication of the number of CU's:
PS4 GPU: 18 CU's providing 1.84 TF's
Durango GPU: 12 CU's providing 1.23 TF's
(1.84 / 18) x 12 = 1.23
Anyone expecting anything different to this is kidding themselves.
Brad Grenz
Member
The complete 360 design leaked in 2004 and the only things that changed were the RAM amount and clockspeeds.
amstradcpc
Member
It could be the sound DSP.
HollovVpo1nt
Banned
I'm not disappointed by the rumor, I'm disappointed in the specs portrayed by the rumor. Microsoft has a history in customising SoC's and they're pretty good at it. They've hired a bunch of top SoC designed from all over the industry. I wouldn't know why they would go stock Jaguar.
DeFiBkIlLeR
Banned
looks like the Xbox division has been taken over by the accountants and 20' something hipsters who like dancing in front of the TV and still think waggle control is cool.
It is ironic that if Microsoft did go with GDDR5 and not DDR3 we would have have probably got two consoles from Sony and Microsoft that would have been, for all intents and purposes, the same console.
This is not necessarily true. I doubt Durango will be that much cheaper to produce than the PS4. Microsoft early on wanted a lot of RAM and DDR3 looked like the way to get it for a reasonable cost. The rumors are that Sony were originally going with 2GB of GDDR5 and probably, quite rightly, got a lot of moans from developers, so they increased it to 4 and took the cost hit. They seem to have gotten lucky that 4gb chips are going into mass production so they took it. Of course these are just rumors, but if that Killzone demo really was only developed on 1.5 GB of VRAM memory then it is telling.
Maximilian Kolbe
Member
When Don Mattrick,Phil Spencer and Phil Harrison become accountants?
gaming_noob
Member
Pushing Allard and Moore out of the Xbox project will be MS' downfall.
Maximilian Kolbe
Member
Did Kotaku article mentioned how much TFs?
Even accounting for their difference in memory implementation, I have no doubts code will be easily transferred between the machines.
Oh my.
dead monkey uk
Member
Better be careful with this kind of talk after the 8GB Sony reveal. Plenty more Crow available
DeFiBkIlLeR
Banned
Better be careful with this kind of talk after the 8GB Sony reveal. Plenty more Crow available
Well after the 8Gb reveal, I think we can be certain of one thing, it sure isn't going to be more powerful than the PS4.
Unless you want all that Kinnect bullshit..
ionicbluebird
Member
Not in the latest leak from Kotaku. All it says is 800MHz GPU.
And it doesn't mention how powerful it, because they have already mentioned it.
oldergamer
Member
Something doesn't add up with these rumors/leaked specs.
If Sony is using faster parts and significantly more expensive memory, then how is it all these recent rumors are saying that ps4 will cost less then the next xbox? What else is in the 720 that would make is more expensive then PS4?
It's not going to be kinect 2 packed in, from what i understand they took the motor out of the camera and some of the processing chips. If kinect only cost 50 dollars to manufacture on for 360, it's likely to cost close to that for newer tech with increased resolution. This alone is probably less expensive then the ram in the ps4. Something in the 720 is making it more expensive then ps3 to the point of MS Rumored to subsidize the cost by getting people to signe up for 2 or 3 years of xbox live.
Anyway what I'm getting at is the rumors of the specs, and rumors of price, totally contradict each other. Unless there's something else we don't know about in the system, as again these vgleaks specs we have been told are one year old. What's missing from this equation?
[ sorry late edit. ]
If Sony is using faster parts and significantly more expensive memory, then how is it all these recent rumors are saying that ps4 will cost less then the next xbox? What else is in the 720 that would make is more expensive then PS4?
It's not going to be kinect 2 packed in, from what i understand they took the motor out of the camera and some of the processing chips. If kinect only cost 50 dollars to manufacture on for 360, it's likely to cost close to that for newer tech with increased resolution. This alone is probably less expensive then the ram in the ps4. Something in the 720 is making it more expensive then ps3 to the point of MS Rumored to subsidize the cost by getting people to signe up for 2 or 3 years of xbox live.
Anyway what I'm getting at is the rumors of the specs, and rumors of price, totally contradict each other. Unless there's something else we don't know about in the system, as again these vgleaks specs we have been told are one year old. What's missing from this equation?
[ sorry late edit. ]
i thought they said some sony shit in the APU, not the cpu, the cpu itself is this same 8 core jag
PS4 won't be cheaper than the new xbox.
ionicbluebird
Member
Perhaps, perhaps not.
Osiris
I permanently banned my 6 year old daughter from using the PS4 for mistakenly sending grief reports as it's too hard to watch or talk to her
The GPU has already been widely detailed, see here for the performance figures.
Do the same calculation for the PS4 GPU with it's expected 18 Shader Cores:
Yea I highly highly doubt the PS4 to be cheaper or even the same price as the 720. Definitely gearing towards more expensive price.
oldergamer
Member
thats also 12+ months old info, we dont really know anything as to the current specs
I don't think this is likely, we have no indication its been changed.
Well thats about right, for a dev kit shipping a month ago. Information for 11 months ago would have been produced 8/9 months ago. Consoles don't happen magically it takes time.
APU is the primary difference - you remove 6 CUs and 16 ROPs, does that give you enough space to put in 32MB esram and keep the same APU size, or do MS need a bigger one (= lower yields, higher cost)
I expect the ram in the PS4 is still quite a lot more expensive overall though.
Maximilian Kolbe
Member
He is talking about Kotaku article
dead monkey uk
Member
Yeah there was talk of AMD selling the APU for retail minus the extra Sony tec. I am afraid I am no expert, but would it not be possible for MS or Sony to overclock the CPU in the final console?
Brad Grenz
Member
Well, if the Durango APU is actually using SRAM for the 32MB of embedded memory as many people insist, that means it's probably bigger and more expensive to manufacture than the PS4 APU, despite being less powerful. Second, they supposedly added new chips for processing to Kinect 2 rather than removing them. So that should be substantially more expensive to manufacture than the PS4 stereo camera (assuming both are bundled). So those two things could largely offset the additional cost of the GDDR5 memory in the PS4. I wouldn't assume PS4 is cheaper to make. I think they will be very close to the same cost to manufacture.
DeFiBkIlLeR
Banned
Christ, it makes me cringe to think that this console is being gimped by the need to include Kinnect at all costs.
It's the same situation as the WiiU, gimp the performance to pay for a useless gimmick i-pad lite controller.
Totally fucked up priorities that could only come about by a division run by suits.
It's the same situation as the WiiU, gimp the performance to pay for a useless gimmick i-pad lite controller.
Totally fucked up priorities that could only come about by a division run by suits.
AdventureRacing
Member
I kinda hope it is underpowered (even though i don't want that). It's kind of interesting to see how next gen will turn out if that's the case.
zomgbbqftw
Banned
Microsoft have added 32MB of SRAM to their APU die, it makes it significantly larger than the PS4 APU and will be difficult to cool (see Xenos in 360). ESRAM is also not a cheap addition since it is an expensive shortcut to ultra high bandwidth the likes of which is usually only possible GDDR5 RAM.
Also, it is likely that even with the addition of the SRAM NXTBX will be cheaper to produce as a box than PS4, but the PS4Eye is a very, very cheap piece of kit while Kinect 2.0 probably isn't. Most here are assuming that Kinect 2.0 will be included with every NXTBX which erodes any price advantage MS may have on the box itself.
Which processing chips are those? If memory serves the original kinect had those removed already. People are definitely overlooking the significant cost of incorporating eSRAM though.
Realistically these consoles will probably be very similar in manufacturing and consumer cost
HardtopMental1
Banned
All these rumors are bullshit and just press bumps for various sites. Truth is no one actually knows what msoft is doing besides most of their R&D points to all custom chips from ibm and amd especially their cpus that point to micro opposite gates like the xenon that which hints at backwards compatibility so i suggest people stop posting all these junk and just wait till its unveiled. here are sources point to different things also theres rumors of x86 x64 blah blah no one has any accurate proof of shit.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multim..._Produce_Chips_for_Next_Gen_Xbox_Rumours.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multim...k_OS_Multi_Core_x86_and_Large_Hard_Drive.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multim..._Produce_Chips_for_Next_Gen_Xbox_Rumours.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multim...k_OS_Multi_Core_x86_and_Large_Hard_Drive.html
ionicbluebird
Member
Basically the Kotaku article was supposed to be the updated specs article.. DaE had been hinting at an upgrade leading up to it. What we got however was a lack of important information... no TF rating, and no CU count, just 800MHz, so we are still technically in the dark in relation to those two items.
Now I'm not saying an upgrade was or is likely but it seems we'll have to wait a little bit longer to find out the truth.
Now I'm not saying an upgrade was or is likely but it seems we'll have to wait a little bit longer to find out the truth.