AMD-The Master Plan

[R-T-B]

x86 got interesting for consoles, after the companys (Sony & MS) realized that other CPU's are too expensive (just compare starting prices of XB360/PS3 vs XBOne/PS4), and they will most likely stick to that, which automatically rules out Nvidia. Also Nvidia didn't want to do consoles anymore because they thought it doesn't really pay off (which is absolutely true btw). The reason why it COULD pay off for AMD is just, that they gain the upper hand on graphics hardware meaning better optimizations on their stuff, meaning, Nvidia loses the performance war. But yeah that's a long shot, nobody denies that. Everything in these videos is rather theoretic, but interesting nonetheless and I wouldn't call it "unlikely", it has a pretty good chance to happen, with the Zen part being way more likely than Nvidia losing to AMD.

ARM? Too expensive? Nope.

 

[Kanan]

ARM? Too expensive? Nope.

Not strong enough for these game consoles. Is this a joke? Going from PowerPC (IBM) CPUs to Jaguar CPUs was a step down already but ARM? hahaha ... no.

 

[R-T-B]

Not strong enough for these game consoles. Is this a joke? Going from PowerPC (IBM) CPUs to Jaguar CPUs was a step down already but ARM? hahaha ... no.

ARM is not yesterdays ARM. It's already pushing into the server market. Don't underestimate it. It has several multimedia extensions and no reason it could not be scaled to be as powerful as x86 if need be.

And technically, no, PowerPC to Jaguar was a step UP. The powerpc core in the last gen consoles was similar to atom processors, it used in-order execution severely limiting it's abilities.

 

[Kanan]

ARM is not yesterdays ARM. It's already pushing into the server market. Don't underestimate it. It has several multimedia extensions and no reason it could not be scaled to be as powerful as x86 if need be.

I don't. They want powerful yet efficient x86 processors for their consoles now. AMD have it now, and you only have theories "no reason it could not be scaled to be as powerful as x86". Also the deal with AMD is nice, because they get a powerful GPU that way too. The APU package is cheap and powerful enough, ARM can't remotely deliver that product and AMD will soon be a lot better than now too.

And technically, no, PowerPC to Jaguar was a step UP. The powerpc core in the last gen consoles was similar to atom processors, it used in-order execution severely limiting it's abilities.

Technically yes, there is a reason "Cell" CPUs of PS3 were used to build Supercomputers, Atom-CPUs are unable to do that. Also the CPUs of the last gen consoles were pretty good, enabling the consoles to live long. So, yes, the Jaguar CPU is better now, but just because it is newer, it does not relatively spoken have the same performance these older CPUs of Xbox360/PS3 had back then (compared to other CPUs of that time) - everything is relative, still it is a step down. Just wait and see how long the PS4/Xbone will live, a lot of people are since release of those consoles saying how worse they are compared to the predecessors. And that's no wonder, the current consoles are way cheaper and consume less power. But I don't think the current consoles are "better" relatively spoken, they are just better because of newer tech, but Sony/MS could have used much better hardware, what also would have made the consoles expensive again (the "30fps/720p or worse" dilemma comes to mind).

Simply spoken, people want a lot more powerful consoles than now, and you are speaking about ARM CPUs? That's why it's a joke for me. These consoles need strong processors, not overgrown mobile stuff. And Sony/MS want it cheap too ... a APU from 1 company that delivers both CPU/GPU in 1 package is the way to go then. AMD is the only company able to deliver that.

 

[OneMoar]

AMD's master plan is hype,disappoint ;repeat

 

[R-T-B]

I don't. They want powerful yet efficient x86 processors for their consoles now. AMD have it now, and you only have theories "no reason it could not be scaled to be as powerful as x86".

It's already happening. Also ARM has a very decent GPU selection on it's own front. There are already 1440p smartphones and I think 4k is on the horizon if not here.

technically yes, there is a reason "Cell" CPUs of PS3 were used to build Supercomputers, Atom-CPUs are unable to do that.

Intel also had supercomputer plans for Atom, but they scrapped them. Heck, they were even thinking of using them as mini x86 cores in a graphics card at one point. Atom is a horrible example of not being flexible, because honestly it was and only financial motivations killed it.

Yes, the CPU in xbox 360 and PS3 was decent for it's time, but in-order execution is arguably more crippling than you think. It wasn't very potent despite marketing. Heck, it couldn't even run linux well. It got by because game logic back then was mostly shooters: ie there was little.

Of course this is all theory and I could be totally wrong on the "they could use ARM" logic. I'm just arguing they COULD, not that they will. Arguing about the future is silly anyhow.

 

[RejZoR]

This guy kinda has a point. AMD has been striving for multi-threading since years ago. They always put more effort into making more cores over more performance per core. Then they launched Mantle which benefits more from more cores over single core performance. Then they secured console business, forcing developers to cater to their ways of doing stuff. They have multi-core CPU's, they made multi-threaded future via API. And if they can make more smaller CPU's and GPU's and just stack them together, they'll have higher yields, resulting in higher margins.

Navi is the final stage and if they'll do it right, they can become the biggest force in gaming industry. However, if they mess it up, they can go the route of 3dfx which was also chasing multi-GPU setups, but was most likely just way ahead of time and market just wasn't ready for it, that's why VSA100 didn't catch on as Navi might in the future. There are certainly interesting times ahead in gaming.

 

[EdInk]

Nvidia has rammed Jupiters cock in AMD's arse by releasing cards stronger than their predecessors. This 'master plan' has been reset AGAIN. AMD's saying hey we'll release cards that'll potentially give you 390x performance using far less power. Anyone with a 390X already has enough juice for it. Nvidia says hey we've released cards stronger than the previous generation and still use less power. PC enthusiasts/gamers are mostly performance heads. Nvidia is aggressive and almost forces you to upgrade. For $380 MRSP you can get Titan X performance. Until Polaris is released and performance tested, my money will be on Nvidia's givings.

AdoredTVs analysis is compelling but AMD won't have an edge with this perf/watt strategy with mediocre performing cards.

AMD just seem to under-deliver. Fury X was dubbed the 980ti killer. We all know how that went down. Now it's DX12 and Async compute with several DX12 games being very poor ports at launch. Not saying it's AMD fault, the odds just stack against them with these results. Can AMD really deliver this time?

With Nvidia reportedly being able to implement async compute, one of AMD's aces' gone. Now what? Nvidia won't sit back and fold their arms when vega and 'scalable' Navi come to play.

If AMD's story is we need to make less performing cards on smaller dies to have more profit margins, I'll buy an AMD card again

 

[RejZoR]

You missed the entire point of his videos. Price performance was what was needed to secure console market. Which AMD secured entirely, including upcoming Nintendo console. Basically AMD has to just stay afloat till Navi. Then they will most likely dominate even the PC market. Which is why NVIDIA was lately focusing on other things like supercomputing and automotive tech, because in a way they are preparing to what's going to happen. Of course, for the sake of us consumers, I hope it'll never happen, but on the other hand AMD shouldn't sink because that would give Intel a total domination on CPU and also GPU end as far as PC is concerned. There were some rumors about Samsung being interested in AMD so that might be the other option, but like i said, rumors only.

 

[ASOT]

AMD late technology,late release...

 

[Vayra86]

I sure nvidia thought it would not be worth while, although if they did take the consoles on it would of crippled amd more than they are already.

I have not checked the time line but it might be why nvidia started game works to counter amd console control.

Nah. Gameworks is older than that.

Nvidia was approached for the consoles, but didn't like the margins MS and Sony had to offer. AMD had no real choice and less of a problem with lower margins, because they were already building APU's and at the time they desperately needed revenue to keep things afloat.

This guy kinda has a point. AMD has been striving for multi-threading since years ago. They always put more effort into making more cores over more performance per core. Then they launched Mantle which benefits more from more cores over single core performance. Then they secured console business, forcing developers to cater to their ways of doing stuff. They have multi-core CPU's, they made multi-threaded future via API. And if they can make more smaller CPU's and GPU's and just stack them together, they'll have higher yields, resulting in higher margins.

Navi is the final stage and if they'll do it right, they can become the biggest force in gaming industry. However, if they mess it up, they can go the route of 3dfx which was also chasing multi-GPU setups, but was most likely just way ahead of time and market just wasn't ready for it, that's why VSA100 didn't catch on as Navi might in the future. There are certainly interesting times ahead in gaming.

I strongly doubt this is the actual order of things, and I also think you/we overestimate AMD's planning capabilities.

Multithreading and reducing draw calls within the API is quite inevitable. Using those CPU cores is a no-brainer for gaming. I don't buy the story that AMD pushed MS into the multi threading within DX12. Nonsense. We had all been looking at and experiencing the limitations of the API for years already (tons of games that saturate that one core and run like shit, tons of games that bottleneck on draw calls). But gaming on its own is not a big enough market. The real reason DX12 got boosted forward is VR. Every tech company invested big in VR, and DX12 is the API for Windows (One Windows - all devices) to enable VR on all devices that run the OS. DX12 comes from the same company that now develops Hololens and has been working actively on pushing stuff like Kinect. Microsoft has always wanted a next gen physical product to sell, probably ever since X360, and these are all attempts at this.

In the meantime, we see IPC gains stalling and CPU performance gains stagnating. The only logical next step is to push multithreading within (and outside of) games. Before now, this simply wasn't needed as CPU cores got stronger along with GPU cores. We are now departing from that, slowly but surely. Outside of gaming, multithreading is already the norm for any HPC application. Overall there is no real choice to make here, multi threading and 'more cores' are an inevitable move forward. The only real choices within that, is how you do it - and within thát, AMD has taken nice steps that nobody else did, wanted or could. It is just the path of engineering that AMD chose for, opposed to Intel's path of ever improving perf/watt and IPC over adding cores to extract performance from a part.

So, I would rather conclude that it is necessitythat forced AMD's hand, MS's hand, and everbody else's. The first principle of performance gains is always economics. If there is no business case, there is no reason to increase performance. VR is that business case. Mobile is that business case. Portability (laptops, tablets, etc.) is that business case. The desktop just tags along for the ride. Polaris further supports that idea by focusing on perf/watt before perf increases.

Also, keep in mind that multithreading and many-core technologies may be portable to ARM, which is a growth market.

 

[medi01]

Not strong enough for these game consoles. Is this a joke? Going from PowerPC (IBM) CPUs to Jaguar CPUs was a step down already but ARM? hahaha ... no.

ARMs are underrated. A couple of points about them:
1) Formidable Perf/watt all the way
2) Amazingly cheap (to a point, that Anand said, hey, even if Intel grabs 100% of the market, revenue/income would still be laughable by its standards)

But it's a different architecture, harder to write PC to console cross-platforms and, yes, no big enough chip is available at the moment.

Nvidia was approached for the consoles, but didn't like the margins MS and Sony had to offer.

That's a myth, at best.
Or please link some reputable source for it.

Lower margins is no big deal, remember Celerons (and nv cards too) in previous consoles.
nVidia doesn't have APUs.
Intel has APUs with rocking CPU and sucky GPU.
And in gaming, GPUs are more important (kinda obvious, but people keep forgetting about it)

AMD had great all round solution with very solid GPU and, wait for it: BEST perf/watt CPU at that point (according to Anand).

Going x86 is a HUGE step forward for Sony/Microsoft for a number of reasons:
1) No more crazy investments into hardware (4+ billion wasted on Cell, which most developers hated and hardly anyone besides Sony studios could fully utilize)
2) Compatibility. And I mean it. Backward compatibility. Right there. Out of the box. Oh, and half cycle upgrades too. Heck. PS4k is coming. More powerful. Compatible. Fuck it, PS5 might come like that, with games that would continue to run on PS4k (but not on slower PS4). Nice.
3) Easier cross-platform development for game developers

Bottom line: AMD objectively has best product for this market.

I don't buy the story that AMD pushed MS into the multi threading within DX12.

While "push for" is a wrong word in this context, AMD has historically had good ties with Microsoft.
Microsoft forced Intel to go AMD64.
That move effectively killed Itanium.
nVidia kept pushing for OpenGL as far as it could (and, effectively, helped Microsoft to kill it off with "only me ME, MY API EXTENSION, IT'S ALL MINE, MINEEEEEE!")

 

[Vayra86]

Going x86 is a HUGE step forward for Sony/Microsoft for a number of reasons:
1) No more crazy investments into hardware (4+ billion wasted on Cell, which most developers hated and hardly anyone besides Sony studios could fully utilize)
2) Compatibility. And I mean it. Backward compatibility. Right there. Out of the box. Oh, and half cycle upgrades too. Heck. PS4k is coming. More powerful. Compatible. Fuck it, PS5 might come like that, with games that would continue to run on PS4k (but not on slower PS4). Nice.
3) Easier cross-platform development for game developers

Bottom line: AMD objectively has best product for this market.

I would easily say that going x86 isn't just a huge step forward for Sony and MS, it is a huge step forward for gaming as a whole, but also for gaming in relation to VR, and gaming specifically on a Windows OS.

All of these are helped by the adoption of x86 because of its portability. Portability = greater margins = more products = more competition. To see x86 as the default for VR as well, is a godsend for (PC) gaming. Also, the console is starting to look more and more like a regular gaming PC, different configs and all, which will push game development to greater scalability in quality settings. It becomes impossible to do a one trick pony with regards to IQ settings so the barrier to provide and support full 'PC' settings is lower.

EDIT: offtopic bs removed

 

[RejZoR]

Eventually they could add settings, so if the game is compatible, but console doesn't have enough grunt, decrease details quality and you'll able to play it on older console. Microsoft and Sony basically only care about games sales because that's what really brings in money, hardware itself is more or less just a loss they have to provide in order to then sell games. And if they can get people to pay money for new games and still run them on old consoles, that's even better for them (no R&D needed for next gen hardware, but they still collect same money from games).

 

[spectatorx]

English is not my native language, my english is far from perfect but... i watched these videos just for sex!
This reveals that this guy is german or other similar language speaker.

 

[medi01]

Nvidia has rammed Jupiters cock in AMD's arse by releasing cards stronger than their predecessors.

What on earth are you talking about.
Higher clock after a node shrink is somehow surprising to anyone, eh?

Chart by GF:

 

[Kanan]

It's already happening. Also ARM has a very decent GPU selection on it's own front. There are already 1440p smartphones and I think 4k is on the horizon if not here.



Intel also had supercomputer plans for Atom, but they scrapped them. Heck, they were even thinking of using them as mini x86 cores in a graphics card at one point. Atom is a horrible example of not being flexible, because honestly it was and only financial motivations killed it.

Yes, the CPU in xbox 360 and PS3 was decent for it's time, but in-order execution is arguably more crippling than you think. It wasn't very potent despite marketing. Heck, it couldn't even run linux well. It got by because game logic back then was mostly shooters: ie there was little.

Of course this is all theory and I could be totally wrong on the "they could use ARM" logic. I'm just arguing they COULD, not that they will. Arguing about the future is silly anyhow.

As others said, the x86 is just too sexy, to back away from it. They will stay with AMD or with x86 at least.

The CPU of XB360 was easier to program for, the "Cell" processor was way more complex. It wasn't very potent? That's simply wrong information. The same consoles have a long evolution period behind them, just compare old games of XB360/PS3 to the ones now. They scaled excellent and had strong enough hardware to do so. For example GTA 5 was nothing short of excellent on XB360 (played it myself), it had really good graphics, compared to GTA 4 on the same console and I was astounded by it a lot, wondering where these graphics come from, because it only has a old 4 Core / SMT CPU and a GPU with only 48 shaders! It's nothing short of astounding. I think you are underestimating the old consoles a lot, also reading it by your statement comparing such expensive and powerful CPUs as the "Cell" to a weak and cheap "Atom" processor. Again: the Cell processor (8 cores, 2 deactivated for higher production gains) was so strong that you could build efficient supercomputers with it. Same with Playstation 2, btw. and it's RISC chip. The Xbox360 has a derivative of the Cell CPU in it, with 4 cores + SMT and somewhat higher clocks.
Btw I'm still not sure if these Jaguar Cores are stronger or weaker than the old Cell CPUs, but I can tell you, they are a lot cheaper than the old ones. What drives the new consoles are the GPUs and the GPUs alone (by 90%). Also the 18 times or more higher amounts of Ram, let's not forget that.

Fact is anyway, these consoles should seize to exist. They are a pest for the PC users. Why own a limited environment PC like the XBOne/PS4 if you can have a proper one for the same money? It's just because it's easier and for the games. But it would be better, if these consoles wouldn't exist and just everything be a normal PC instead. Better for everyone. They can still do the software stuff, they can still do exclusive community, but it would be a lot better if it would be on normal PCs, because then, PC users are not the ones being handicaped by bad ports and missing exclusive games of the so called "consoles" (that are just exclusive PC's now).

 

[R-T-B]

The CPU of XB360 was easier to program for, the "Cell" processor was way more complex. It wasn't very potent? That's simply wrong information.

It wasn't. Period. First off, both CPUs were both PowerPC so programming for them is not the issue, it's learning how to mulithread (the CPU in the PS3 had more cores). But the bottom line is single threaded performance of the CPU on which they were based was equivalent to a in-order version of the PPC970, or Powermac G5, on which they are mostly based. In other words, it was about as a good as a pentium 4, because it lost it's edge due to their dismissal of the importance of out of order execution. This made them quite weak on a per core basis.

 

[Kanan]

It wasn't. Period. First off, both CPUs were both PowerPC so programming for them is not the issue, it's learning how to mulithread (the CPU in the PS3 had more cores). But the bottom line is single threaded performance of the CPU on which they were based was equivalent to a in-order version of the PPC970, or Powermac G5, on which they are mostly based. In other words, it was about as a good as a pentium 4, because it lost it's edge due to their dismissal of the importance of out of order execution. This made them quite weak on a per core basis.

Maybe so, but doesn't change the fact that these CPUs were/are still very potent, don't ignore my other arguments.

 

[R-T-B]

Maybe so, but doesn't change the fact that these CPUs were/are still very potent, don't ignore my other arguments.

I'm not trying to ignore anything. They have a hard time doing general purpose tasks. They are good at handing things off to the GPU and doing predicable game logic but that's about it. Heck, I ran linux on one of these for a bit. They are not potent... and I can at least speak firsthand about the 360 chip for sure.

 

[Kanan]

I'm not trying to ignore anything. They have a hard time doing general purpose tasks. They are good at handing things off to the GPU and doing predicable game logic but that's about it. Heck, I ran linux on one of these for a bit. They are not potent... and I can at least speak firsthand about the 360 chip for sure.

Not potent compared to the Xbone/PS4 CPUs, or compared to what? Well at least I think they were potent back when they were released - now is a whole other story.

 

[R-T-B]

Not potent compared to the Xbone/PS4 CPUs, or compared to what? Well at least I think they were potent back when they were released - now is a whole other story.

Yeah I'm talking now more than then. For then they were fine for what they did and then some. At any rate I didn't mean to drag this so offtopic, it's really all theory and useless debate anyways so I'm going to drop here so I don't upset a mod... lol

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I think he's right. The more DX12 titles come out, the more clear NVIDIA is at a huge disadvantage. Quantum Break, Ashes of Singularity, and Hitman come to mind.

NVIDIA failing to fully comply with DX11 is coming back to bite them--massively.

 

[R-T-B]

NVIDIA failing to fully comply with DX11 is coming back to bite them--massively.

Maxwell and above are fully DX11.1/11.2 compliant, even the weird optional parts.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

As I said, none of NVIDIA's cards are fully compliant with DX11. They accept the commands but they don't execute them how they were intended to be executed by Microsoft (asynchronously). AMD has for sure done it properly since HD 7###.

Async shaders are the path forward for GPUs. AMD and Microsoft knew that years ago but because NVIDIA never implemented it correctly, developers didn't use it. Now that AMD has the console market and developers want to access every drop of performance from those consoles, AMD cards get a massive boost from it while NVIDIA suffers. Developers literally have to go back and stupefy their code to run on NVIDIA's archaic architecture. Most simply won't/don't elect to. It's NVIDIA's own damn fault for cutting corners.


Semi-off-topic: AMD can/has made ARM processors too. Future AMD processors may have both (e.g. for developing/testing ARM programs from an x86 environment). They could even use the ARM subprocessors an ultra-low power mode. Microsoft has no qualms against supporting mixed-mode ARM architecture (see Windows RT) so they'll likely back AMD in any ARM endeavors they undertake. Universal Windows Platform could take off on ARM mixed processors.