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[Biggzy]

When people say GCN talking about these processors, are they referring to the Gamecube?

Are they still using gamecube architecture in their processors?

Graphics Core Next is AMD's latest GPU architecture. Both the PS4 and Durango are based on this.

 

[TheOddOne]

They only money hat the good franchises

That... wasn't the point. Both sides moneyhat like hell.

 

[phosphor112]

I hope thats your real avatar because it tricks me into thinking whatever were talking about is a poignant discussion between two learned men.

Yeah its me. Got my cardigan on too. ;]

 

[BruceLeeRoy]

That... wasn't the point. Both sides moneyhat like hell.

I know it wasn't your point I was being cheeky.

Yeah its me. Got my cardigan on too. ;]

You sir are bad ass. My avatar is really me as well. Don't let the intense stare fool you. Though I have been heavily pursuing
the power of the GLOW and perfecting the martial arts poetry of motion that is Bruce Lee I also do a lot of crossword puzzles
and dabble in a bit of star gazing at night.

 

[BladeoftheImmortal]

Graphics Core Next is AMD's latest GPU architecture. Both the PS4 and Durango are based on this.

smh lol



GCN = Graphics Core Next. It's AMD's latest GPU technology.

Thanks, I was wondering this whole time when reading these threads what the hell that referred too.

It made the "How many Gamecubes is this...?" jokes that much more enjoyable.

 

[QaaQer]

How long do you think it takes to produce a console, I'm curious.

Because right now you are saying it takes less then 7 months to completely redesign the GPU and fix all the bugs and get it rolling :/.

probably a rhetorical question but..

Richard Leadbetter wrote that in the fastest moving segment of the consumer electronics industry, the smartphone market, designs have to finalized 18 months before street date at a minimum. If sept-oct is the 720's release date, 18 months before that would be around feb of last year. And remember that 18 months if for phones, console production would probably need more time.

 

[mysteriousmage09]

Yeah its me. Got my cardigan on too. ;]

Made me think of this lol

 

[Karak]

I know it wasn't your point I was being cheeky.



You sir are bad ass. My avatar is really me as well. Don't let the intense stare fool you. Though I have been heavily pursuing
the power of the GLOW and perfection the martial art poetry of motion that is Bruce Lee I also do a lot of crossword puzzles
and dabble in a bit of star gazing at night.

I have met Bruce Leeroy and you sir are no Bruce Leeroy hahahahaha

SHONUFF!

 

[coldfoot]

6 transistors 1 byte
49.152 transistors 1 Kbyte
50.331.648 transistors 1 Mbyte
1.610.612.736 transistors 32 Mbytes that is near 1,6 billion transistors. Nvidia GTX 680 is 3,5.

The size will depend on the density used. At more density more heat and more difficult to fab.

They are NOT using 6T ESRAM, that would be insane and pointless. They're using 1T ESRAM (which really is EDRAM) like the wiiU

 

[BruceLeeRoy]

I have met Bruce Leeroy and you sir are no Bruce Leeroy hahahahaha

SHONUFF!

HAHA! Damn you Karak

 

[phosphor112]

You sir are bad ass. My avatar is really me as well. Don't let the intense stare fool you. Though I have been heavily pursuing
the power of the GLOW and perfecting the martial arts poetry of motion that is Bruce Lee I also do a lot of crossword puzzles
and dabble in a bit of star gazing at night.

Hahaha. Well thanks. Fun post too.

Thanks, I was wondering this whole time when reading these threads what the hell that referred too.

It made the "How many Gamecubes is this...?" jokes that much more enjoyable.

Not enough duct tape to make a PS4 out of gamecubeslol.

Made me think of this lol

Oh lawd. Hahaha

 

[derFeef]

What's going on!

*Looks at 60 minutes of exclusive gameplay for AC: Black Flag for the PS3*

Well, damn you Microsoft.

OMG Sony going 3rd party.

 

[beast786]

What's going on!

Why should we answer to you?

 

[Donnie]

They are NOT using 6T ESRAM, that would be insane and pointless. They're using 1T ESRAM (which really is EDRAM) like the wiiU

Source? If its really just DRAM with latency improvements like 1T-SRAM (or pretty much any current eDRAM) then its extremely misleading to call it eSRAM. Which certainly wouldn't be pointless but perhaps a bit insane yes.

 

[artist]

I wonder if this is still based on the docs from last year?

 

[MightyHedgehog]

Source? If its really just DRAM with latency improvements like 1T-SRAM (or pretty much any current eDRAM) then its extremely misleading to call it eSRAM. It wouldn't be pointless to use SRAM, insane maybe It certainly always sounded like overkill IMO for render targets.

You're asking for trustworthy sources when discussing unconfirmed rumors?

 

[Jadedx]

I wonder if this is still based on the docs from last year?

It is, but for some reason people here think that it's impossible to upgrade the specs, even though ms did it last gen, and sony not only changed their ram size but also the cpu from steamroller to jaguar.

 

[Donnie]

You're asking for trustworthy sources when discussing unconfirmed rumors?

We have the info from MS documents that state eSRAM, that much isn't unconfirmed or rumour. Now MS may be misusing the term, but if someone's going to make that claim so fervently don't you think they should have a source first?

I mean IMO eDRAM has made more sense from the beginning. But right now the factual info we have says eSRAM.

 

[Router]

I wonder if this is still based on the docs from last year?

I'd say so. I don't think anyone has gotten their hands on anything newer since then.

 

[gaming_noob]

Overall, how do these rumors compare to the Chinese "leaks"? What did the 384-bit hint mean?

 

[coldfoot]

Source? If its really just DRAM with latency improvements like 1T-SRAM (or pretty much any current eDRAM) then its extremely misleading to call it eSRAM. Which certainly wouldn't be pointless but perhaps a bit insane yes.

I think they're using a new technology by some company that AMD bought that is 1T but calls itself ESRAM. Using 6T eSRAM on a concole would be horrible design and a horrible way to spend your silicon budget and no self respecting designer would accept that. Instead of 6T eSRAM, you can include like 15-20 more CU's in the same die area.

 

[Jadedx]

Overall, how do these rumors compare to the Chinese "leaks"? What did the 384-bit hint mean?

Those rumors were called fake when the vgleaks rumors came out, but I'm inclined to believe that they are real now considering how old these documents are.

 

[MightyHedgehog]

We have the info from MS documents that state eSRAM, that much isn't unconfirmed or rumour. Now MS may be misusing the term, but if someone's going to make that claim so fervently don't you think they should have a source first?

Let me ask you a question about rumors. Do we have substantiated and current confirmation of any of what is discussed in full detail? The talk is all about old high-level overviews and cobbling together lots of other sources' corroborations or contradictions.

 

[coldfoot]

384-bit hint means 12 GB DDR3 with 102 GB/s bandwidth. Highly unlikely as it would drastically increase motherboard costs and make the ESRAM somewhat redundant.

 

[Osiris]

Overall, how do these rumors compare to the Chinese "leaks"? What did the 384-bit hint mean?

Chinese leaks?

Do you mean the ridiculous fiction posted by misterx?

Because if so, believing anything posted by him is setting yourself up for extreme disappointment, those specs had no basis in any reality.

 

[Miles Quaritch]

Very reliable, as per Beyond3d forum folks (assuming they're the same person).

Not very going on the leaks.

So which is it? One is obviously wrong. Could VGleaks be wrong? Perhaps relaying very old information?

 

[Miles Quaritch]

probably a rhetorical question but..

Richard Leadbetter wrote that in the fastest moving segment of the consumer electronics industry, the smartphone market, designs have to finalized 18 months before street date at a minimum. If sept-oct is the 720's release date, 18 months before that would be around feb of last year. And remember that 18 months if for phones, console production would probably need more time.

So the PS4 won't be out until late 2014 considering they are still tinkering, or am I misunderstanding something?

 

[gaming_noob]

I got my answers, thanks guys.

 

[Osiris]

So the PS4 won't be out until late 2014 considering they are still tinkering, or am I misunderstanding something?

Do you not understand the difference between tinkering on the fringes of a design (i.e. replacement of 2Gb chips with 4Gb chips) and full scale architectural changes / changes to the APU?

One is nothing like the other.

 

[Miles Quaritch]

Do you not understand the difference between tinkering on the fringes of a design (i.e. replacement of 2Gb chips with 4Gb chips) and full scale architectural changes / changes to the APU?

One is nothing like the other.

Obviously not, which is wgy my post doubled as a question. Thanks for the snarky reply though.

 

[Pug]

So which is it? One is obviously wrong. Could VGleaks be wrong? Perhaps relaying very old information?

The leaks could be wrong, If they are from early last year, but Edge seems to think they are ligit and they have a source who backs up these leaks. All I would say is Bilikan over on B3D did say he had seen the spec lated last year (nov or dec I can't remember) but he didn't give an indication if they were different from what being leaked at the moment.

 

[AgentP]

We have the info from MS documents that state eSRAM, that much isn't unconfirmed or rumour. Now MS may be misusing the term, but if someone's going to make that claim so fervently don't you think they should have a source first?

I mean IMO eDRAM has made more sense from the beginning. But right now the factual info we have says eSRAM.

Lots of talk here.

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=62921&page=2

 

[Jburton]

So the PS4 won't be out until late 2014 considering they are still tinkering, or am I misunderstanding something?

Bolting on another 4 gig RAM chip onto a board that already has the interface capable of running it is simple, especially compared to implementing new features into a CPU.

Designing custom silicon in terms of CPU / GPU is a long process, that is what Leadbetter is referring to.

 

[Miles Quaritch]

The leaks could be wrong, If they are from early last year, but Edge seems to think they are ligit and they have a source who backs up these leaks. All I would say is Bilikan over on B3D did say he had seen the spec lated last year (nov or dec I can't remember) but he didn't give an indication if they were different from what being leaked at the moment.

Thanks, so the double CPU claims are likely spurious. I really need to stop believing these comments from 'insiders'.

Bolting on another 4 gig RAM chip onto a board that already has the interface capable of running it is simple, especially compared to implementing new features into a CPU.

Designing custom silicon in terms of CPU / GPU is a long process, that is what Leadbetter is referring to.

I see, thanks for the detailed reply.

 

[AgentP]

Thanks, so the double CPU claims are likely spurious. I really need to stop believing these comments from 'insiders'.
.

That rumor was that they used 256-bit AVX (right acronym?) instead of the Jaguar's 128-bit. This technically means twice the FLOPS from those units. Of course those are not general purpose, they are SIMD units like the SSE .

Suitable for floating point-intensive calculations in multimedia, scientific and financial applications (integer operations are expected in later extensions)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Vector_Extensions

The reason this rumor took hold I believe is that somebody reminded people that MS did a similar change to the 360 IBM CPU.

 

[Miles Quaritch]

That rumor was that they used 256-bit AVX (right acronym?) instead of the Jaguar's 128-bit. This technically means twice the FLOPS from those units. Of course those are not general purpose, they are SIMD units like the SSE .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Vector_Extensions

The reason this rumor took hold I believe is that somebody reminded people that MS did a similar change to the 360 IBM CPU.

Thanks for the extra details. It seems like an odd thing to get wrong though, unless it was all just BS, but he's apparently a well respected member on Beyond3D.

I don't know what to think any more.

 

[AgentP]

Thanks for the extra details. It seems like an odd thing to get wrong though, unless it was all just BS, but he's apparently a well respected member on Beyond3D.

I don't know what to think any more.

I'm not sure it is wrong, that change would be microscopic compared to the size of the SOC and might be able to be made after the doc was published. We are talking about a small part of the CPU core.

 

[meta4]

Edit never mind.

 

[clutch.as.it.gets.]

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.

Don`t forget the GPU gab. Both have a GPU from AMD, but MS opted for a considerably weaker one. It´s not just the RAM.

 

[artist]

Aegies was saying the CPU was modified in the Durango. I wonder what happened.

 

[Ushae]

After the surprising PS4 specs, we could expect anything from Durango.

I expect 2 versions. The first being a set top box style console abke to play the more casual and XBLA type games. The second console will be a more direct competitor to the PS4 performance, targeting core players. Playing our 'AAA' games.

 

[Crimson_Gold]

After the surprising PS4 specs, we could expect anything from Durango.

I expect 2 versions. The first being a set top box style console abke to play the more casual and XBLA type games. The second console will be a more direct competitor to the PS4 performance, targeting core players.

But how would developers approach this? Would there be coding on the game that would determine which model the player has and then perform from there? Seems to add more problems to me

 

[The Abominable Snowman]

After the surprising PS4 specs, we could expect anything from Durango.

I expect 2 versions. The first being a set top box style console abke to play the more casual and XBLA type games. The second console will be a more direct competitor to the PS4 performance, targeting core players. Playing our 'AAA' games.

Nah. Microsoft is gunning for that marketshare space Nintendo has left. They got to be.

In which case, specs don't matter as much.

 

[ascii42]

After the surprising PS4 specs, we could expect anything from Durango.

I expect 2 versions. The first being a set top box style console abke to play the more casual and XBLA type games. The second console will be a more direct competitor to the PS4 performance, targeting core players. Playing our 'AAA' games.

Unlikely, might as well use the 360 for that purpose.

 

[Neander]

But how would developers approach this? Would there be coding on the game that would determine which model the player has and then perform from there? Seems to add more problems to me

Perhaps they've been working on a scalable architecture? Games would be compatible with both, but perform differently depending on model used? It's not impossible and if I'm not mistaken they've hinted at something like this.

 

[Crimson_Gold]

Perhaps they've been working on a scalable architecture? Games would be compatible with both, but perform differently depending on model used? It's not impossible and if I'm not mistaken they've hinted at something like this.

Wouldn't be shocking, but I can see this being more of a problem than an asset in the long term.

 

[Killing_Joke]

I wonder if "Durango" even exists! Why is every single rumor based off year old info?

Is it too early to get good dev kit leaks/pictures?

 

[JohnnySasaki86]

Its really interesting that theres still no mention of the word "Jaguar" anywhere in vgleaks article. Does anyone else find this odd?

 

[Miles Quaritch]

I wonder if "Durango" even exists! Why is every single rumor based off year old info?

Is it too early to get good dev kit leaks/pictures?

Beta kits were apparently sent to developers this week if we're to believe thuway. My guess? They haven't, the lack of any new info suggests it didn't happen/thuway was bullshitting.

 

[THE:MILKMAN]

I wonder if "Durango" even exists! Why is every single rumor based off year old info?

Is it too early to get good dev kit leaks/pictures?

In the comments of this article, VGleaks state the info isn't one year old. They previously also stated their PS4 info was only 1.5 months old.

Its really interesting that theres still no mention of the word "Jaguar" anywhere in vgleaks article. Does anyone else find this odd?

The Durango GPU article also uses a non-AMD/GCN naming scheme. I assume this is just a Microsoft thing.