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Fermi benchmarked against consoles?

E

Eocene

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 21, 2004
Messages
446
I'm not trying to start a flamewar here.. I'm just wondering how Core i7 + Fermi compare with the top consoles out right now. I tried looking for benchmarks but could not really find anything. It seems consoles have kept up pretty nicely... though I don't own one so I'm not sure if that is really true. I mean, just the video card alone costs as much as any console. Then again, consoles are all about games....
 
yeah there has been sooo many console vs pc discussions here, and it all went down to personal preference
 
The OP is talking about performance. THAT ISN'T a matter of personal choice. This generation of consoles if SO BADLY outdated that it's a funcking joke. Not saying that consoles don't have their place, but they aren't even good toys compared to top of the line PC hardware these days.
 
If you mean an apples to apples comparison, I don't really see the point. Most cards released in the last few years would be CPU limited at console resolutions/settings. The difference with PC gaming is you are able to boost the resolution and image quality far beyond what consoles are capable of.
 
Yeah, I mean performance wise, I'm not trying to figure out which one is "better". I suppose knowing what PC the PS3 and XBOX360 compare to would give an estimate of how they measure up against the latest hardware.
 
go look up xbox screen shots and compare them to a pc. pc is a definate win. the best console as far as "picture" goes is proably the PS3 only because it has a blue ray drive. this allows sony game makers to write more info on the disk, therefore allowing them to add more complex details, but even them if i play borderlands on the pc vs console, the console looks like a super nintendo compared to the pc

if you google xbox vid car or ps3 vid card many people compare the xbox card to a gtx 7800 and the ps3 to a gtx 7800

now look at benches for the gtx 7800 and compare to the gtx 470 or HD 5870

just a side note though:
even if hte console companies were to release the 4th generation, they would still not compare to current pcs. sony or microsoft would not be able to sell an xbox for 900 dollars (i7 core and hd 5870 with 2 gig of ram ish) no one would buy it.
 
Corban227 said:
go look up xbox screen shots and compare them to a pc. pc is a definate win. the best console as far as "picture" goes is proably the PS3 only because it has a blue ray drive. this allows sony game makers to write more info on the disk, therefore allowing them to add more complex details, but even them if i play borderlands on the pc vs console, the console looks like a super nintendo compared to the pc

if you google xbox vid car or ps3 vid card many people compare the xbox card to a gtx 7800 and the ps3 to a gtx 7800

now look at benches for the gtx 7800 and compare to the gtx 470 or HD 5870

just a side note though:
even if hte console companies were to release the 4th generation, they would still not compare to current pcs. sony or microsoft would not be able to sell an xbox for 900 dollars (i7 core and hd 5870 with 2 gig of ram ish) no one would buy it.
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the xbox 360 is comparable to an HD2600XT basically.. since the gpu is made by ATI.. but for the resolutions that consoles use you dont need an amazing gpu to play games.. but in the end it really is the resolution of these console games that make them look as bad as they do then stack on to that the fact that consoles dont use true AA like you see on PC.. they use an edge bluring effect to make the edges look smoother so you dont see the jagged edges..

to add to your side note.. there really is no reason for consoles to match PC's.. they are in 2 totally different catagories.. especially when you consider the fact that the PS3 and 360 were in development for 2 years.. that means even before they were released they were using out dated hardware.. then on top of that the generation of that console has to survive 3-4 years before the company can make a profit(minus sony since they will never make any profit off the ps3) you can really use high end parts.. you can compare this to the server market as well.. low speed, low power but will last for ever because of it.. the only way consoles can ever match a PC is when you can upgrade the internal parts.. but if they allowed that, could you really call it a console? because technically it would just be a computer running a modified OS and then it would also slow down the developement of games because there are so many variables in hardware being used which is why they dont allow it now..
 
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Well technology approximately doubles every 18 months, the 360 has been around about 4 1/2 years now, in that time technology speed will have doubled almost exactly 3 times, so 2x2x2, that's a factor of 8x faster.

Some comparisons

Memory Bandwidth
Xbox 360 = 22.4Gb/sec
GTX 480 = 177.4Gb/sec (x7.92)
HD 5970 = 256Gb/sec (x11.42)

GPU performance
Xbox360 = 240 GFLOPS
GTX 480 = 1350 GFLOPS (x5.625)
HD 5970 = 4640 GFLOPS (x19.3)

The numbers in brackets are how much greater than the Xbox360 each part is. You can see that a stock 5970 has over 11x more memory bandwidth and nearly 20x more floating point calcualtion power. This ignores both Crossfire/SLI configurations which provide nearly double this kind of power, and also disregards overclocking which in the case of the 5970 is a significant performance increase.

Note: I realise that memory bandwidth and GFLOP computation are not strict measures of performance but it is a good indication of what the GPU is capable of.
 
One benefit the consoles have over PCs is that they're all exactly the same. Console software doesn't have to be written in a way that's compatible with both i7's and P3's, HD5870's and 6600GT's, etc. PC software has to be a bit generic to account for all the possible options available in a PC, whereas a console developer knows exactly how much CPU, RAM, and GPU everyone will have, so they can write their code to exactly match that hardware.
 
Corban227 said:
go look up xbox screen shots and compare them to a pc. pc is a definate win. the best console as far as "picture" goes is proably the PS3 only because it has a blue ray drive. this allows sony game makers to write more info on the disk
Click to expand...

I think the OP was more interested in a hardware comparison because once you get into screenshots and such the water gets a lot muddier. I own a PS3 and 360 and its usually actually pretty hard to find out which is the better version for a particular game. On average though the 360 version of a game is better looking than the PS3 one. The most common reason for this is because the 360 is easier to program for and has better developer support and toolsets and because that version tends to sell better. Bluray isn't a very big advantage right now, there arn't many PC games that require a 60Gig install. It can be an advantage with games that can use the space, the best example being Final Fantasy XIII, which has a lot of cut scenes. The quality of a PC version could vary quite a bit on a game that would have all three versions so that you could compare, its possible that it was a super lazy port and the textures are the same as the console version.

Corban227 said:
even if hte console companies were to release the 4th generation, they would still not compare to current pcs. sony or microsoft would not be able to sell an xbox for 900 dollars (i7 core and hd 5870 with 2 gig of ram ish) no one would buy it.
Click to expand...

All consoles (with the exception of Nintendo sometimes) are sold at a lost at first and for most of there lifespan. Console makers get a pretty huge bulk discount on parts too, they arn't building just one or two. The best comparison would probably be with the original xbox since its probably the console that is the closest to a computer. At launch you could not have bought a computer with comparable parts for near the price of the console at. Console makers also love to be stingy with the Ram. A triple core 3.2ghz PowerPC processor like in the 360 would not have been cheap in 2005.

sirmonkey1985 said:
but in the end it really is the resolution of these console games that make them look as bad as they do then stack on to that the fact that consoles dont use true AA like you see on PC.. they use an edge bluring effect to make the edges look smoother so you dont see the jagged edges.
Click to expand...

I think AA is the big difference, the reason that screenshots of console games look so much better is because either they are from a nonplayable mode (like the replay in a racing game) or have been processed after capture. I've was never really that bothered by aliasing but now that I play console games on a
 
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rally9x said:
I own a PS3 and 360 and its usually actually pretty hard to find out which is the better version for a particular game. On average though the 360 version of a game is better looking than the PS33 one. The most common reason for this is because the 360 is easier to program for and has better developer support and toolsets and because that version tends to sell better.
Click to expand...

I think technically the PS3 has overall slightly better system specs, but I hear the SDK is a massive pain in the arse to build games with so inherently they're going to be less optimised.

Still it's an amuzing argument to watch from the standpoint of a top of the line PC owner, because when considering the total available processing power as a scale with something like the Wii at the low end to an enthusiast PC at high end, the difference between the PS3 and Xbox360 is way less than 1% xD
 
The PS3 is very good at "Preprocessing Images" but not very good at the more often used "postprocessing". This goes back to my comment earlier that the PS3 was not supposed to even have a video card at first. The processor is capable of doing several things that normally only a special chip or video card could do but by doing it on the processor first its possible to need less memory (and like I said console makers like to skimp on memory and the PS3 has very big problems here). It is also possible to create filters to do some nice effects. The effects that need to be post processed such as blurring, anti-aliasing are difficult to do well on the PS3. I have also heard that this lack of post-processing power makes it more difficult to model certain real life objects (like skin).
 
no comparison here. I honestly don't think that the next ps3 or xbox 360 will be as fast the current highend gpu's. ofcourse the games are more optimized for consoles since the configurations are largely the same.
 
curious why do they like to skimp on memory? Wouldn't it have been better to go with a big amount of cheap ram like ddr2 or ddr1 at the time? Same thing with the processors couldn't they just license it like apple does with the core 2 duos? That way they wouldve saved on r&d?
 
Consoles are old news. We've been over this. One is equiv to a X1900 and the other a 7800/7900.
 
techpriest said:
curious why do they like to skimp on memory? Wouldn't it have been better to go with a big amount of cheap ram like ddr2 or ddr1 at the time? Same thing with the processors couldn't they just license it like apple does with the core 2 duos? That way they wouldve saved on r&d?
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Mainly because consoles don't have an major OS running while games are playing so less memory is needed.
 
ShuttleLuv said:
Consoles are old news. We've been over this. One is equiv to a X1900 and the other a 7800/7900.
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This is correct. I looked it up recently. The consoles are so far outstripped that any comparison is pointless. Consoles will never be more powerful than PC computers, unless you factor certain tasks such as the PS3 for stream processing, but GPU's are so far ahead now in that respect as well.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
to add to your side note.. there really is no reason for consoles to match PC's.. they are in 2 totally different catagories.. especially when you consider the fact that the PS3 and 360 were in development for 2 years.. that means even before they were released they were using out dated hardware..
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The 5870 took over 2 years to develop. The PS3 and 360 were not using outdated hardware on launch. It was all pretty new designs, it was just all targeted at midrange performance. You can't put a $400 video card in a $600 console and make money. Instead they use something mid range. If Microsoft released a new console today, it would probably have a GPU similar to the 5770.
 
techpriest said:
curious why do they like to skimp on memory?
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Its something developers has complained about for a long time now


Besides RAM being fairly expensive I'm guessing that the fluctation in ram prices has something to do with it too. Being stuck with having to put an 8-10 gig harddrive in every original Xbox hurt Microsoft quite a bit as they actually went up in price as time went by. It would be potentially devastating if say 40 dollars worth of ram ended up costing them 120 dollars a couple of years down the road when they expect it to be cheaper. Sony has removed things such as usb ports and memory card readers, items that in bulk probably cost them less than a dollar. In the case of harddrives they can at least advertise or sell larger capacity drives now.

Ram also tends to be a less "sexy" stat than a fast processor or huge harddrive. I'm guessing quite a few more people know the amount of and clockspeed of the processors in the 360, ps3, and wii than know the amount of ram and video memory.
 
The OP:

Its not a fair test since console ports often are almost akin to emulations were there's a reasonable performance hit by poorly coded console ports, you could try testing the speed difference between your current PC and a console via trying to copy the settings correctly.

You'd just need to pick a title available on a given console and on your pc. Try running a game like GTAIV and lower your resoultuion down to about 866x640 set most of the detail settings to between medium to low, realistically and turn the AA setting to at most 2xAA as rarely to consoles use over 2xAA. Sometimes 4xAA and turn off AF almost completely or to around 4x depending on the title. At THAT point, try running the game and seeing what kinds of fps you get. Since that's really what console's run games at. When the box says '1080p' it just means it will upscale the graphics to 1080p but the native resolution of most games on the ps3 or xbox 360 are between 620p to 720p. A lot of xbox 360 games don't meet the minimum resolution to be consider high definition which is a bit sad.

You'll probably find your PC does substantially better than xbox 360 and is more than likely cpu limited at such low resolutions. Playing at slow resolutions is almost unfair to your video card b/c its capable of doing so so much more. Its like hiring an NHL Player for the day to play with both his legs together and both arms tied to his ankle.

The sooner we get a DX11 or DX12 feature set console, the better off we'll be as PC gamers as a lot more games coming out will feature DX11 support as opposed to today's 'inbetween DX9 and DX10' titles.

rally9x said:
Ram also tends to be a less "sexy" stat than a fast processor or huge harddrive. I'm guessing quite a few more people know the amount of and clockspeed of the processors in the 360, ps3, and wii than know the amount of ram and video memory.
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The amount of people your talking about in either group is really small. The Wii has sold around 14 million units? I suspect less than 0.0001% can tell you the clockspeed of the processor and I think the amount of ram in the wii probably isn't that measureably higher if its even higher.

The people who know about the amount of ram in the Wii might be a higher percentage but only because its easier to guess increments of ram than GHz. A lot of people might guess "umm 256? 512?" as those numbers might be the ones from the last pc they bought. As opposed to "umm 1.6ghz? or 1.3ghz?" Heck, a lot of people probably don't even remember the term Mhz from the general population.
 
LOL at question!!!!! Let me get my 5 year old pc out of the dumpster, itstall a 7900gtx, and beat out a new console.
 
WBurchnall said:
Its not a fair test since console ports often are almost akin to emulations were there's a reasonable performance hit by poorly coded console ports, you could try testing the speed difference between your current PC and a console via trying to copy the settings correctly.

You'd just need to pick a title available on a given console and on your pc. Try running a game like GTAIV and lower your resoultuion down to about 866x640 set most of the detail settings to between medium to low, realistically and turn the AA setting to at most 2xAA as rarely to consoles use over 2xAA. Sometimes 4xAA and turn off AF almost completely or to around 4x depending on the title. At THAT point, try running the game and seeing what kinds of fps you get. Since that's really what console's run games at. When the box says '1080p' it just means it will upscale the graphics to 1080p but the native resolution of most games on the ps3 or xbox 360 are between 620p to 720p. A lot of xbox 360 games don't meet the minimum resolution to be consider high definition which is a bit sad.
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In the case of PS3 titles it's probably worse for ports, but the Xbox360 is very close to a PC, it's built off the DirectX multimedia API which was originally created for use in windows operating systems. The Xbox360 is basically a very slightly specialised PC in it's hardware, all it's main technology is derived from the PC architecture.

Most of the consoles struggle to output even the low end 720p HD resolution (1280x720) with a lot of the more demanding games being 640p. Often the texture budgets are very low or the scope of levels are limited with frequent loading. This is why games like Bioshock 2 look so utterly rubbish on the PC with ultra low resolution textures, the consoles simply cannot cope with this level of detail.
 
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