PS4 to increase performance lead over XBox One

[GhostRyder]

AMD Jaguar is meant to compete with Intel Atom processors. Skylake doesn't just crush Jaguar, it black holes it.
SuperPi Core i7-6700K: 8.643 seconds
SuperPi Athlon 5150: 31.606 seconds

PS4 basically has two of those 5150 chips so assuming it scales linearly (which it doesn't) let's halve the number of seconds: 15.803 seconds compared to 8.643 seconds (82.8% difference, 8 cores versus 4 cores, 1.6 GHz versus 4.0 GHz, DDR3 versus DDR4).

But that's not the point, the point of the Jaguar chips inside those machines are to be low power core crammers that don't cost much. Programmers for games can get much closer to the metal and have less to worry about so they don't need as much power and only need better GPU's to take advantage of the power. The problem with this generation is the GPU's were cheap for what they were shooting for (1080p 60) which is where a lot of the problems are. If we threw in some more serious GPU power, the cores would at least be enough for the games to come out all at 1080p 60. Even if they put an i7 5960X in those machines they would not have much more to work with overall (We might see some improvements but I don't see enough to make a huge difference if it did).

I edited because Bobcat is not as efficient as Jaguar and dual core (E-350) versus 8 core (two Athlon 5150). I wish I could find more benchmarks for the Athlon 5150.

Microsoft and Sony won't go Intel because Intel wants too much money and can't provide a good GPU.

Yea, the are going to stick with AMD for the next generation as well (Which is supposed to be coming sooner than expected from all the talking). Intel can't make an iGPU worth much and Nvidia can't make a CPU worth much as well. Separating out the chips and using two manufacturers means two different contracts and relying on separate companies to provide enough chips to satisfy.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

The CPU is not "closer to the metal," only the GPU. I wouldn't be surprised if PS4 uses something like Mantle while XB1 may have had a preliminary version of Direct3D 12. CPUs have been given explicit instructions (assembly) since forever.

 

[GhostRyder]

The CPU is not "closer to the metal," only the GPU. I wouldn't be surprised if PS4 uses something like Mantle while XB1 may have had a preliminary version of Direct3D 12. CPUs have been given explicit instructions (assembly) since forever.

I was not specifically aiming that "Closer to the Metal" statement only at the CPU's. The CPU's have less on their plates running the PS4 and XB1 versions of the OS. It would always be better to have more, but they really need better GPU's before anything else. Honestly they should have waited 1 more year and let us sit on the Xbox 360 and PS3 to give us a better generation. They were asking for this stuff at a certain power envelope a bit to early to make these consoles what they should have been. The consoles handle things pretty well as is but they clearly are already hitting walls very fast compared to the last generation which took years before they were hitting any barriers.

 

[NC37]

We can all only hope that MS and Sony have a new console ready by the end of next year. 3 years is long enough for these obsolete things.

They have to. The NX is coming. You can bet for sure that Nintendo is gonna likely go with a Zen based build. That is going to completely outclass the PS4 and Xbone.

What will be interesting is to see how everyone will react. Consumers won't be happy that just bought current gen thinking it would last as long as last gen. The next gen consoles will have to be backwards compatible. No question about it. But I wonder if we'll see the return of upgradeable consoles. It would be nice deal if they offered an upgrade program. Send your PS4 in and get PS5 innards for say even half the price of a new console. That would be a deal. Easy way to suddenly have a massive userbase without having to sell new consoles. M$ could do it easily with how big the Xbone is. So much wasted space.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I wouldn't be surprised if PS5 and a sequel to Xbox One debut late next year or early 2017 just to take advantage of 14/16nm GPUs/CPUs. They might be exactly the same in almost every regard except those two so they can run games at 1080p without croaking.

 

[Steevo]

I believe the programmers can utilize the hardware better than they already have if they have access to it all, and program for more parallel threading with fewer dependencies both in the primary game threads and in real time rendering by using some pre-cooked data and caching it and or using the CPU cores to setup coarse geometry since its all HMA.

 

[Flogger23m]

I wouldn't be surprised if PS5 and a sequel to Xbox One debut late next year or early 2017 just to take advantage of 14/16nm GPUs/CPUs. They might be exactly the same in almost every regard except those two so they can run games at 1080p without croaking.

Not a chance. 5 years minimum. I'd imagine Microsoft will be hurrying up a bit due to their poor sales. The NX has essentially no player base for modern games. It will take a while to catch on. You'll be looking at a PS4 with 3+ years of games VS NX with launch titles. I think most people will just wait 2-3 more years for a PS5.

 

[RCoon]

I wouldn't be surprised if PS5 and a sequel to Xbox One debut late next year or early 2017 just to take advantage of 14/16nm GPUs/CPUs. They might be exactly the same in almost every regard except those two so they can run games at 1080p without croaking.

You usually get a few new iterations of current consoles when the current chip is re-manufactured on any new process. Everytime you see a Slim or Elite version of a console, very often it comes with the same chip on a smaller node process. Come 14/16nm, we'll probably start seeing new versions of the PS4 and Xbox One, attempting to take advantage of the lower power envelope.

It still disappoints me that consoles in 2015 have to upscale to 1080p though.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

You usually get a few new iterations of current consoles when the current chip is re-manufactured on any new process. Everytime you see a Slim or Elite version of a console, very often it comes with the same chip on a smaller node process. Come 14/16nm, we'll probably start seeing new versions of the PS4 and Xbox One, attempting to take advantage of the lower power envelope.

It still disappoints me that consoles in 2015 have to upscale to 1080p though.

Xbox One more than PS4 on the upscaling. Ps4 seems to be doing 1080p natively relatively well.

 

[Ferrum Master]

I can actually see happening a PS4 Plus version, with beefed up specs...

 

[medi01]

I edited because Bobcat is not as efficient as Jaguar and dual core (E-350) versus 8 core (two Athlon 5150). I wish I could find more benchmarks for the Athlon 5150.

Microsoft and Sony won't go Intel because Intel wants too much money and can't provide a good GPU.

Wrong.

To quote anand:

In its cost and power band, Jaguar is presently without competition. Intel’s current 32nm Saltwell Atom core is outdated, and nothing from ARM is quick enough. It’s no wonder that both Microsoft and Sony elected to use Jaguar as the base for their next-generation console SoCs, there simply isn’t a better option today. As Intel transitions to its 22nm Silvermont architecture however Jaguar will finally get some competition. For the next few months though, AMD will enjoy a position it hasn’t had in years: a CPU performance advantage.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6976/...wering-xbox-one-playstation-4-kabini-temash/5

Let alone the GPU.

They have to. The NX is coming. You can bet for sure that Nintendo is gonna likely go with a Zen based build.

NX is rumoured to launch in 2016 ("dev kits distirubted in Oct 2015"), which is way to early for Zen.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/nintendo-nx-news/


Although it is likely to be AMD again:
http://wccftech.com/amd-making-processor-nintendo-nx/

Also note that GPU in Wii U is AMD.

 

[Zakin]

If anything comparing it to Silvermont further concludes it's IPC levels. Not to mention they likely just wanted it for reasons said before, likely far cheaper investment, and easier to implement.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

You usually get a few new iterations of current consoles when the current chip is re-manufactured on any new process. Everytime you see a Slim or Elite version of a console, very often it comes with the same chip on a smaller node process. Come 14/16nm, we'll probably start seeing new versions of the PS4 and Xbox One, attempting to take advantage of the lower power envelope.

It still disappoints me that consoles in 2015 have to upscale to 1080p though.

I don't think that will hold true this time. They're going to want GPUs that can handle 1080p without scaling and the huge jump to the lower process can get that. I think they will do the die shrink and keep selling the same products at reduced cost but I think they'll be quick on its heels to push out 1080p consoles. They did what they did for the same reason why AMD and NVIDIA cards are ridiculous now: the industry has been on 28nm far too long.

Wrong.

To quote anand:


http://www.anandtech.com/show/6976/...wering-xbox-one-playstation-4-kabini-temash/5

Let alone the GPU.

Meet Core i3-3115C. Same power consumption as Athlon 5150 (25w) at a much faster clockspeed (2.5 GHz versus 1.6 GHz). Intel could have MCM'd those to make a quad-core processor (8 threads) that slaughters Jaguar but, again, why would Intel cut a deal with Microsoft and Sony? Intel doesn't need/care about the pittance of cash it would generate. Additionally, Intel can't offer a competent GPU (came in 2014 and lets not forget the licensing issues Intel would encounter) where AMD can.


I suspect NX is going to be just a hair faster than PS4 but generally speaking, much the same. Until the process improves, console hardware is pretty much at a dead end.

 

[LightningJR]

NX is rumoured to launch in 2016 ("dev kits distirubted in Oct 2015"), which is way to early for Zen.

Wouldn't it be interesting if it has some kind of HBM implementation.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

It would be but I don't think HBM will be cheap enough to enter the console space in 2016. I think GDDR5X came along too late for NX but I suspect the next generation will see either GDDR5X or HBM2 (depends on supply for both).

 

[medi01]

Meet ... slaughters Jaguar ...

AMD itself has CPU cores that "slaughter" Jaguar (not only now, it had it back then, 1-2 years before PS4/Xbone launch)
Missing the point you are.

And there is Carrizo, same 28nm chip:

Improvements over Jaguar

• 19% CPU core leakage reduction at 1.2V[11]
• 38% GPU leakage reduction
• 500 mW reduction in memory controller power
• 200 mW reduction in display interface power
• Chassis temperature aware turbo boost[12]
• Selective boosting according to application needs (intelligent boost)
• Support for ARM TrustZone via integrated Cortex-A5 processor
• Support for DDR3L-1866 memory[13]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puma_(microarchitecture)#Improvements_over_Jaguar

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Core i3-3115C is 22nm. Jaguar and i3-3115C were both available in 2013.

 

[tabascosauz]

@medi01 you quote the wrong sources my friend. You don't need to cherry pick Anand articles from pre-Silvermont days to try to prove that Jaguar is as strong as you think it is. 32nm Saltwell was basically the first time Intel ever made it into a phone with SGX540 on the GPU side of things in the Razr i. That was 2012. Now we're past Silvermont and onto Cherry Trail and you think Atom is still the weak little thing it was back then?

Remember the Celeron J1900? Remember how it ousted the 5350 in IPC? It certainly wasn't around when they wrote that article on Anand. Fast forward to 2015 and we are about to have new competitors in the embedded ITX market from Intel. From AMD? Absolutely nothing past the same ol' Jaguar in the 5350. Those are also some very tasty numbers regarding efficiency but I'm not seeing anything regarding performance. The only thing we've seen of Carrizo(-L? I think?) is a budget part (A6 or A8 I can't remember) in a low-end notebook that displayed some pretty disappointing performance compared to Kaveri.

IPC improvement this and efficiency improvement that. Jaguar is still an inferior core. Its heritage lies in CPU architectures that can't stand up to Bulldozer and its revisions.

 

[Vayra86]

This won't change much if anything at all in terms of actual game performance. Jaguar is underpowered, current console GPU's are underpowered, and the differences are negligible.

Worst console gen in history.

 

[Estaric]

It still disappoints me that consoles in 2015 have to upscale to 1080p though.

That is pretty sad all things considered.

 

[GhostRyder]

Xbox One more than PS4 on the upscaling. Ps4 seems to be doing 1080p natively relatively well.

Not exactly, neither of them do much 1080p action as most are 900p and below. Very few titles do actual 1080p 60 on either console with PS4 having a few more. But truthfully I can't tell much of a difference between 900p and 1080p (Though I have never seen it side by side).

You usually get a few new iterations of current consoles when the current chip is re-manufactured on any new process. Everytime you see a Slim or Elite version of a console, very often it comes with the same chip on a smaller node process. Come 14/16nm, we'll probably start seeing new versions of the PS4 and Xbox One, attempting to take advantage of the lower power envelope.

It still disappoints me that consoles in 2015 have to upscale to 1080p though.

Yea I think there is a new version of both in the works currently though I can only see an Xbox ONE slim and would find it funny if they managed to make the PS4 much smaller.

Not a chance. 5 years minimum. I'd imagine Microsoft will be hurrying up a bit due to their poor sales. The NX has essentially no player base for modern games. It will take a while to catch on. You'll be looking at a PS4 with 3+ years of games VS NX with launch titles. I think most people will just wait 2-3 more years for a PS5.

Maybe at a minimum, but already they are talking of replacing them because they are just not what they had hoped for. They chose to make the consoles at a bad time with such low cost and power consumption to avoid and potential chance of failures (Like the RROD for Xbox or the issue on PS3 that I cannot remember its name currently).

It would be but I don't think HBM will be cheap enough to enter the console space in 2016. I think GDDR5X came along too late for NX but I suspect the next generation will see either GDDR5X or HBM2 (depends on supply for both).

I would expect at least GDDR5 but it may not be to late for GDDR5X if they really want it. Its not really over until the console goes into final stages and starts being mass produced so we can always hope.

The Jaguar cores are not holding the consoles back (Albeit they are not helping a lot), its the GPU's that are holding them back. Even if we stuck something like a 5960X inside we would not see much of an improvement in the games except maybe more physics effects and stuff like that. I doubt we would see any changes in games resolutions from it.

 

[Estaric]

The only thing attractive to me about Consoles over PC is the price

 

[mastrdrver]

Meet Core i3-3115C. Same power consumption as Athlon 5150 (25w) at a much faster clockspeed (2.5 GHz versus 1.6 GHz). Intel could have MCM'd those to make a quad-core processor (8 threads) that slaughters Jaguar but, again, why would Intel cut a deal with Microsoft and Sony? Intel doesn't need/care about the pittance of cash it would generate. Additionally, Intel can't offer a competent GPU (came in 2014 and lets not forget the licensing issues Intel would encounter) where AMD can.

Please show me power at the wall numbers. AMD 25W is not the same as Intel 25W.

The problem with the consoles is that they're limited at how much power they can pull from the plug. They have to make a design that's not going to kill itself if it bakes in its own heat. There's only so much power you can draw to make such a design.

To put it another way, how much more power are you drawing to get a faster IPC with the Intel CPU and is it worth it? The licensing is going to be higher with Intel driving up the cost of making the console, and for what? A xx% increase in performance? What kind of performance increase do you gain from keeping the power draw the same? This was the reason I think they went with AMD instead of Intel. Given the power limit they were targeting, the extra cost from an Intel licensing did not out weight the performance increase given, thus I'm willing to bet that it was minuscule.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

They went with AMD because AMD could provide a complete package (GPU, CPU, and custom memory set up) for cheaper than anyone else (because AMD is desperate for business). If you look at the link, i3-3115C was going for over $200 by itself. Intel could have made a deal with console manufacturers to sell it for much less but Intel isn't desperate for their business where AMD is. They have no reason to make such an offer.

 

[Vayra86]

Please show me power at the wall numbers. AMD 25W is not the same as Intel 25W.

The problem with the consoles is that they're limited at how much power they can pull from the plug. They have to make a design that's not going to kill itself if it bakes in its own heat. There's only so much power you can draw to make such a design.

To put it another way, how much more power are you drawing to get a faster IPC with the Intel CPU and is it worth it? The licensing is going to be higher with Intel driving up the cost of making the console, and for what? A xx% increase in performance? What kind of performance increase do you gain from keeping the power draw the same? This was the reason I think they went with AMD instead of Intel. Given the power limit they were targeting, the extra cost from an Intel licensing did not out weight the performance increase given, thus I'm willing to bet that it was minuscule.

I'm sorry, but this is total and utter BS. Power budget is not limited in a console, it all depends on how you build it because a console is just a custom PC with a special box around it. Given the size of both console boxes, it was very feasible to put more power into it. The ONLY reason for the chosen solution for this console gen, is cost. This console gen is the very first one where the baseline was that the actual production cost of the console would not exceed the sale price, and both MS and Sony succeeded in this. By comparison, the Xbox, Xbox 360, PS1, PS2 and the PS3 had a production price tag that was generally higher than the sale price. The original PS3 also had a much higher power budget.

MS and Sony went shopping and Nvidia asked too high a price, so they went with AMD. AMD at the time was also moving to their custom chip design department and marketing it actively, which is no coincidence of course. And we all know that when we buy in bulk, we get a better price. AMD being able to combine production of CPU/GPU in an APU solution was therefore hard to beat. The high volume required on these mass produced chips enabled AMD to keep their running costs under control. Win/Win. The consumer/gamer is the only loser in this little game.