Friday, May 24th 2013
Xbox One Chip Slower Than PlayStation 4
After bagging chip supply deals for all three new-generation consoles -- Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Wii U, things are looking up for AMD. While Wii U uses older-generation hardware technologies, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 use the very latest AMD has to offer -- "Jaguar" 64-bit x86 CPU micro-architecture, and Graphics CoreNext GPU architecture. Chips that run the two consoles have a lot in common, but also a few less-than-subtle differences.
PlayStation 4 chip, which came to light this February, is truly an engineer's fantasy. It combines eight "Jaguar" 64-bit x86 cores clocked at 1.60 GHz, with a fairly well spec'd Radeon GPU, which features 1,156 stream processors, 32 ROPs; and a 256-bit wide unified GDDR5 memory interface, clocked at 5.50 GHz. At these speeds, the system gets a memory bandwidth of 176 GB/s. Memory isn't handled like UMA (unified memory architecture), there's no partition between system- and graphics-memory. The two are treated as items on the same 8 GB of memory, and either can use up a majority of it.
Xbox One chip is a slightly different beast. It uses the same eight "Jaguar" 1.60 GHz cores, but a slightly smaller Radeon GPU that packs 768 stream processors, and a quad-channel DDR3-2133 MHz memory interface, which offers a memory bandwidth of 68.3 GB/s, and holding 8 GB of memory. Memory between the two subsystems are shared in a similar way to PlayStation 4, with one small difference. Xbox One chip uses a large 32 MB SRAM cache, which operates at 102 GB/s, but at infinitesimally lower latency than GDDR5. This cache cushions data-transfers for the GPU. Microsoft engineers are spinning this off as "200 GB/s of memory bandwidth," by somehow clubbing bandwidths of the various memory types in the system.
The two consoles also differ with software. While PlayStation 4 runs a Unix-derived operating system with OpenGL 4.2 API, Xbox One uses software developers are more familiar with -- a 64-bit Windows NT 6.x kernel-based operating system, running DirectX 11 API. Despite these differences, the chips on the two consoles should greatly reduce multi-platform production costs for game studios, as the two consoles together have a lot in common with PC.
Source:
Heise.de
PlayStation 4 chip, which came to light this February, is truly an engineer's fantasy. It combines eight "Jaguar" 64-bit x86 cores clocked at 1.60 GHz, with a fairly well spec'd Radeon GPU, which features 1,156 stream processors, 32 ROPs; and a 256-bit wide unified GDDR5 memory interface, clocked at 5.50 GHz. At these speeds, the system gets a memory bandwidth of 176 GB/s. Memory isn't handled like UMA (unified memory architecture), there's no partition between system- and graphics-memory. The two are treated as items on the same 8 GB of memory, and either can use up a majority of it.
The two consoles also differ with software. While PlayStation 4 runs a Unix-derived operating system with OpenGL 4.2 API, Xbox One uses software developers are more familiar with -- a 64-bit Windows NT 6.x kernel-based operating system, running DirectX 11 API. Despite these differences, the chips on the two consoles should greatly reduce multi-platform production costs for game studios, as the two consoles together have a lot in common with PC.
148 Comments on Xbox One Chip Slower Than PlayStation 4
I don't think MS would be doing this if they didn't think they could make some money off of it.
i'd expect the range to go between 10W-65W, at an educated guess (i dont know what things like kinect will do to power)
Unless you are specially trained super soldier your brain and eyes won't be able to process 120FPS.
Current comparisons show anywhere from a 0% to 400% increase in overhead when rendering a scene.
www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2011/03/16/farewell-to-directx/2
The most common used number is about 25% overhead even on a "clean" gaming only machine as the host OS has threads running and interrupting, fouling caches and memory mismanagement.
So a minimum 25% higher than a 8 core 8GB of truly high speed RAM and perhaps 10% more performance with the new memory architecture? Sure a Ivy with a Titan or a "Ghz" edition with overclocks will beat it, but that isn't the point. The point in the cost for playing a said game and the entertainment factor of it.
www.zdnet.com/valve-linux-runs-our-games-faster-than-windows-7-7000002060/
Linux runs it faster as it can be tweaked more by third parties to reduce the OS overhead, but it will still have some. Both the PS4 and Xbox will have even more benefit in matching hardware and software.
I'll probably wait till they bring out the second model or even a much lower priced one as it be only used for the odd game although it will not be a XBox.
Now that both consoles have x86 hardware there's few reasons to not port games to the PC so hopefully we'll see a big influx of games this time...not that there's a shortage of good games lately anyway.
I dont mean to sound like a troll or anything but i will wait it out and see who has the better exclusives. I have a 360 with probably 40+ games that i need to beat and i think 15+ are Rpgs. lol. I will probably buy another 360 for as cheap as possible just in case if my old system decides to bite the dust.
2560 x 1600 would be pretty sweet for TVs though...
Don't forget there has to be content that is produced in those parameters in order to use those specs ;)
DL-DVI & Optical fTw! :pimp:
One other thing lets not forget that the Xbox 360 and PS3 have notable differences in their visual ability, but were that difference shows its self is when the game devs are willing to take the time to exploit it. Example Uncharted 2, bar none. It is the fact this game took quiet awhile in the lifespan of the consoles life to show up that also supports this. Thus we will have a repeat were game devs must "learn" the platform at first and be willing to. So at first we will see no notable difference between the 2, but when we do the PS4 will shock n' awe us.
Those camera's sound more creepy each time they open their mouths.
IMHO, if SONY wants to do a PS5, they can do it much sooner at this point... seeing as how they probably wouldn't have to worry about compatibility, if they keep on the x86 track that is... and seeing as how PS3 are selling for so little at this time, I can see PS4 either selling at a similar low price or being upgraded to a faster one, with full compatibility, down the road. Same goes for M$ at this point. Because I don't really see hardware price as big as a issue as some people make it out to be... I mean, gawd... we pay so much for the games themselves...
You want me to be technical I'll PM ya a 10 page essay :shadedshu
... and now some speculation: future of pc gaming could be: cpu does AI, physics, and streams over PCI-E bus only changes/differences for dynamic game objects/characters, on GPU diff gets merged with last frame state and general purpose ARM cores issue draw calls crazy fast for all geometry and their positions/rotations already in VRAM prepared by the cpu.
Anyway, about processing power: Wouldn't the connection to Azure cancel this out a bit? That is the part I'm actually almost excited about.