Seeking opinions on AMD based consoles and effect on the desktop.

cageymaru

cageymaru

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Since the XBOX 720 and PS4 are getting 8 core Bulldozer chips, what do you think this will do for desktops? Think we will get more multithreaded software? Or at least better multithreaded software? Since PC gaming is stuck with console ports at least they will be multithreaded now at least. I hope it trickles down to messenger apps such as Skype, cross platform gaming, better web browsers, etc. Intel would benefit from more multithreaded apps also so it's a win in both camps.

What do you think?
 
I seriously doubt the rumors of 8-core Piledriver chips going into consoles. AMD cannot offer their 8-core chips at less than 125w TDP except at extremely low speeds, and 65w from 8 cores is almost impossible. And a 95w CPU combined with a midrange GPU is approaching 150-175w total system power, which is simply out of the question!

Microsoft learned their lesson about power-hungry consoles (RRoD), and will probably try for 100w or less. Their current-shipping model only pulls 90w, and has completely solved their RRoD problems!

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Microsoft will be more than satisfied with just 4 cores and a powerful midrange fully-programmable GCN GPU (say HD 7770 range?). The CPU would still be twice as fast per-core and would feature one more core, making for a sizable upgrade.

As for Sony, they may go with 8 cores, but like last generation we saw no appreciable improvements in games making use of multiple cores - we only saw native ports that relied upon the fast FPUs on their multiple SPEs to deliver better-quality graphical effects than RSX was capable of.

Why would Sony bother with that much CPU power when they could instead spend dollars and heat budget on a more powerful, infinitely more programmable GPU? I think Sony has learned their lesson, and is not about to sacrifice GPU power for CPU this time around. They may be willing to build a higher-power-consumption device (they had no reliability issues with the PS3 being a power hog), but I see them trading-up to an HD 7870 range to one-up the Xbox 720 graphics.

Be careful when you read into these new game system designs predictions. They always assume that all money spent on a design goes into graphics, memory, CPU. Almost none of them taken into account possible new money sinks that could take away from performance-enhancers, like (for example) the Wii-U touchscreen controller, or possibly bundling something like Kinect STANDARD on the 720. Things like these take away from the "faster" hardware pool because the console still has to meet a price point, so this is yet-another reason I say don't expect overboard specifications on these new consoles -they can't afford NOT to include some new gimmicky controller or interface.
 
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They are supposed to run at 1.6 GHz. Kinda sleepy but that's what I believe I read. If you think about it those of us that own Bulldozers can tell you that 90% of the time our cpu's are waiting for something to do because of the fact that the software in general we run is single threaded. If the consoles programmers are bound to 1.6 GHz as their speed then they will have to multithread the software to get appreciable performance out of it.

Now how multithreaded do you need to make software so a 1.6GHz chip performs as fast as a 3.2 GHz chip running single threaded apps is I don't know. But I thought it was interesting to contemplate it. :)
 
The article I read suggested it was 8 jaguar cores.

so its basically an A-series with 8 core apu.

The a10-5800k trinity is 100w, So drop the speed down to 1.6ghz and add 4 cores. Might work out.

Also means we might see a 8 core on the FM2 socket for pc use?

1 core for input, 1 core for sound, 1-2 cores for better AI, 3 cores for rendering? 1 core for back ground tasks?
 
I don't know about the 720 spec, but the ps4 specs published today are for the development kit. This is what devoplers use to emulate the ps4's hardware. the hrdware of the system will be different.
 
Shadohh said:
The article I read suggested it was 8 jaguar cores.

so its basically an A-series with 8 core apu.

The a10-5800k trinity is 100w, So drop the speed down to 1.6ghz and add 4 cores. Might work out.

Also means we might see a 8 core on the FM2 socket for pc use?

1 core for input, 1 core for sound, 1-2 cores for better AI, 3 cores for rendering? 1 core for back ground tasks?
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The Piledriver cores in the A10-5800K and Jaguar cores are very different. While there has been quite a bit of talk to the effect that Jaguar is a nice architecture and the performance comparisons AMD has released thus far look good we really don't know the sort of real world performance we'll see out of it yet. What we can say is that TDP limits on the CPU side shouldn't be a concern at all if they're using Jaguar cores given that they seem optimized for low power usage (<5W in Temash).

There is also the likely possibility that Sony/Microsoft or both have added some custom silicon to their systems which will make them not directly comparable to the type of performance you'd see on PC out of similar parts.

In particular the rumors/leaks thus far suggest Microsoft has done that. What I'm trying to say is that we really don't know yet what all we're looking at with next-gen consoles, ask again once more information is available, maybe as early as March or as late as June.

defaultluser said:
As for Sony, they may go with 8 cores, but like last generation we saw no appreciable improvements in games making use of multiple cores - we only saw native ports that relied upon the fast FPUs on their multiple SPEs to deliver better-quality graphical effects than RSX was capable of.

Why would Sony bother with that much CPU power when they could instead spend dollars and heat budget on a more powerful, infinitely more programmable GPU? I think Sony has learned their lesson, and is not about to sacrifice GPU power for CPU this time around.
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The most recent discussion I've seen suggests Sony isn't sacrificing either and based on rumored paper specs at least the PS4 (Orbis) should be a lot stronger than Durango. That being said some developers and individuals who claim to have industry sources suggest they're a lot closer in performance than the approx. 1/2 Teraflop gap the rumors/leaks indicate.
 
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The rumor is Jaguar cores not Bulldozer :).

And hardware is different but if it is x86 why worry about it there so many tools available these days and whatever needs to run fast needs to be optimized anyway ;)

Let me put it in another perspective, Sony and MS (whatever hardware they pick) are not going to waste their time on things that won't work. That AMD has an advantage in certain aspects has to be very interesting for Sony and MS, I don't think they picked AMD due to charity.
 
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If the cores are Jaguar, it's possible that the power consumption of 8 could be low enough. But we'll have to reserve the performance estimates until real hardware is available.

Jaguar is not expected to be a performance juggernaut, so I would not expect an amazing performance increase per-core over the Xbox 360 CPU (clocked twice as fast with SMT). SMT on Atom was enough to bring speeds to about the same as Brazos on multithreaded loads at the same clocks, and if this comparison is accurate an 8-core Jag would only be roughly twice as fast as the current Xbox 360 CPU.

Estimates for Jaguar have been 15% higher per-core general performance (integer), and a bit higher FPU performance. This is not enough to get excited about.
 
8 low clock speed Jaguar cores could be relatively low power. At Hot Chips last year, AMD's presentation of Jaguar is supposed to offer a 15% improvement in IPC vs Bobcat and a hint of low clocked power may come from the specs of the dual core Temash SoC (5W, not sure if TDP or some other design spec) supposedly coming out later this year. It's very possible that 8 low speed Jaguar cores could use in the 15-16W TDP range, particularly if made on a 20nm process.

I'm not convinced about the x86 choice either. Remember when it was supposedly Trinity going into the PS4? :p Plus, considering the new ARM hires/religion at AMD, it could mean that this 8 core chip is more along the line of a Cortex A15/A50-series model.

Microsoft is introducing the next Xbox later this year, so the other half of the rumor seems pretty unlikely. That console's processor likely finished design and testing a year ago, at least. It's not using some chip (Jaguar) barely being introduced later this year. :p
 
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The new hires at AMD won't have any influence on already decided products. The only things they can tweak are chips scheduled for ~3 years down the road. So this is certainly x86 if it's AMD. AMD's ARM shenanigans are currently restricted to 64-bit A53/A57+SeaMicro fabric dense microservers.

But, yea, 8 low clocked jaguar cores would certainly be able to fit within a low TDP range. The Kabini models range from 9-25W and most of that TDP is chewed up by the GPU and not the CPU. In a console the design likely wouldn't be an APU due to yield issues - large single die makes less sense than two smaller dies. If it's a Jaguar-based chip then it'll probably be 8 jaguar cores and a separate die for the GPU, probably GCN (2.0?), and maybe some eDRAM or stacked memory.

To answer the OP's question, it depends. The consoles will probably utilize Jaguar rather than Bulldozer/Piledriver/Steamroller so to fit within a smaller power budget. If it is Jaguar based then the similarities between the consoles and traditional gaming desktop CPUs will end at the ISA level.

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AVX+SSE will make the most difference along with being x86-derived. That should make for easier "ports." The GPU will make the biggest difference and could perhaps see AMD getting an inherent advantage over nVidia simply due to similarities in architecture between the console and their consumer products. The move to DX11 will also help immensely will multi-threading as the API raises the bottom end. We're not going to be seeing anymore dual-threaded CPU-limited DX9 games like Skyrim. Also remember that developers are going to tweak and optimize their code specifically for console hardware, so if your desktop behaves similarly you could stand to benefit from that. Just by how much is a question we can't answer until we see benchmarks and devices in person :D
 
Both the PS3 and Xbox 360 already had multiple cpu cores. The new consoles will not make any difference with respect to that. Also, from the most recent reports I've seen, the 720 will not be using bulldozer processors, but it will still be an IBM Power PC architecture, AMD will only be designing the graphics side of things.

cageymaru said:
Since the XBOX 720 and PS4 are getting 8 core Bulldozer chips, what do you think this will do for desktops? Think we will get more multithreaded software? Or at least better multithreaded software? Since PC gaming is stuck with console ports at least they will be multithreaded now at least. I hope it trickles down to messenger apps such as Skype, cross platform gaming, better web browsers, etc. Intel would benefit from more multithreaded apps also so it's a win in both camps.

What do you think?
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Particleman said:
...from the most recent reports I've seen, the 720 will not be using bulldozer processors, but it will still be an IBM Power PC architecture, AMD will only be designing the graphics side of things.
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If you're reading reports that say IBM will still be providing the next gen CPUs, then they're reports that you've written yourself.
 
Centauri said:
If you're reading reports that say IBM will still be providing the next gen CPUs, then they're reports that you've written yourself.
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+1

Seriously, absolutely NOTHING I have read indicates anything about PC Power chips from IBM.
 
There are two or three routes both Sony and Microsoft can take in regards to their new console:
  1. Expensive, hot, and backwards compatible.
    • Powerful, high-frequency, multi-core POWER-based or PPE-based (Cell, Xenon) processor for backwards compatibility. (POWER6 or POWER7 processor, with Power ISA v.2.03 or higher.)
    • High-powered GPU of the most recent generation (Radeon HD 7000) or older (HD 6000)
    • Large amounts of RAM (greater than 4GB) and/or expensive type of RAM (XDR or XDR2)
    • Small amount of eDRAM for cache or fast RAM for GPU.
  2. Expensive,semi-hot, semi-power efficient, dual hardware for backwards compatibility.
    • Same as above.
    • Secondary processor and lower-powered GPU (AMD APU?) for OS, low powered applications (music streaming/playback, video playback, video streaming, small games and apps)
  3. Reasonably affordable, not-so-hot, power efficient.
    • Low frequency (1.6GHz according to rumors), multi-core Jaguar-based processor.
    • Reasonable amount of RAM (2GB or 4GB total).
    • Mobile-based GPU (Radeon HD 6000M or 7000M based on rumors)
    • Small amount of eDRAM for cache or fast RAM for GPU.
    • With or without a lower powered GPU for physics or low powered applications and games. (Based on PS4 rumors.)
Given the economy, market conditions in regards to desktop PCs, mobile devices, and consoles, and past history of both PS3 and 360 consoles regarding bricking and overheating, if Microsoft and Sony has any common sense, I don't think they'd want a repeat of an expensive, hot console.

Their bean counters (and investors/shareholders) would probably advice them of the same thing.
 
It's a little unfair to call the Cell or Xenon power hungry in the latest iterations, mostly due to using far more modern manufacturing processes (which new consoles would also use) and higher integration. The Jasper Xbox 360, with a 250GB hard drive, only uses in the 80W-90W range (from the wall) while playing games, and the PS3 has seen a similar drop in power consumption.

While Nintendo aimed kind of low with its specs for Wii U, it's not really in the same category as the next generation consoles, which are not going to be constrained to a 35W power budget (IIRC, Nintendo says the console can consume 60W-ish at full tilt, but current games top out around 33W).

I do think both MS and Sony have learned lessons about power and reliability (well, maybe not Sony :p). And I also think MS will use an updated multi-core PPC processor, and a (modern) upper mid-range GPU (custom AMD GCN). Will it be a 80-90W console? Probably not. The lifespan of the console will need to last several years and likely go through multiple cost cutting revisions. Initial power consumption won't please everyone, but it's not really an overriding concern to most gamers.
 
pxc said:
It's a little unfair to call the Cell or Xenon power hungry in the latest iterations, mostly due to using far more modern manufacturing processes (which new consoles would also use) and higher integration. The Jasper Xbox 360, with a 250GB hard drive, only uses in the 80W-90W range (from the wall) while playing games, and the PS3 has seen a similar drop in power consumption.

While Nintendo aimed kind of low with its specs for Wii U, it's not really in the same category as the next generation consoles, which are not going to be constrained to a 35W power budget (IIRC, Nintendo says the console can consume 60W-ish at full tilt, but current games top out around 33W).

I do think both MS and Sony have learned lessons about power and reliability (well, maybe not Sony :p). And I also think MS will use an updated multi-core PPC processor, and a (modern) upper mid-range GPU (custom AMD GCN). Will it be a 80-90W console? Probably not. The lifespan of the console will need to last several years and likely go through multiple cost cutting revisions. Initial power consumption won't please everyone, but it's not really an overriding concern to most gamers.
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That's true, the older ones were pretty power hungry. The newer ones though, thanks to better manufacturing and process nodes, got more efficient.

But, like you said, you have people like my friend that wouldn't mind if the console was power-hungry. He wants a powerful console that would best the 360 and PS3 from either company.

However, economics and market trends will probably decide that.

If anything, if they want to keep backwards compatibility, both consoles need a POWER-based or PPE-based processor. No exceptions. Absolutely no way an X86-based AMD APU will run a 360/PS3 game without emulation, unless they go the dual-hardware route like the first gen PS3.
 
8 core Jaguar for both is pretty much confirmed at this point I thought.
 
Centauri said:
It is.



We're close enough to launch that we're beyond the bullshit rumors phase - Dev kits are out in force and they're pointing very clearly toward specific hardware configurations.
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Got pics of those dev kits?
 
Darakian said:
Got pics of those dev kits?
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Any information regarding the dev kits are coming out of NeoGAF and VGLeaks. (Obviously.) That and you have a company like Nvidia stating that the days of customized hardware for consoles are gone because of the economics of it all. Expect the next consoles to use off-the-shelf parts.

It seems nearly confirmed because even a few developers such as id Software and a couple others are mentioning that the next consoles will not be doing anything revolutionary or be not that much more powerful than the previous ones.

A lot of the dev kits are pointing towards an 8 core processor of some kind, AMD-based GPU, 4GB of RAM (8GB of RAM for dev units), and both will have Bluray discs (or if in Microsoft's case, BD for games only, no Bluray movie playback).

A PPE-based/POWER-based processor doesn't sound too feasible if you're looking at it from an economics perspective. An affordable unit using off-the-shelf parts or based on consumer computer components seem more economically feasible.

(Edited.)
 
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You can't rely on cheap die shrinks anymore. Die shrinks are now extremely expensive and provide diminishing returns as well. Unless you're selling cutting edge hardware for high margins, it's just not worth it from a business perspective to take that risk and jump on a fresh node. nVidia and AMD can get away with jumping to modern node (they were among the first to use TSMC's 28nm bulk), but they also suffered from supply constraints, and in the case of nVidia, yield issues as well. Where AMD and nVidia made it viable by selling those things at monstrous prices (~$500) and relying on binning to salvage the rest, these console parts are on razor thin margins with no binning and are meant to be cheap. Building a big and powerful console and then waiting for the die shrinks in the following couple of years just isn't going to work anymore. It worked with the old consoles, but the new age of the expensive foundry and wafers is going to slap them across the mouth if they try it again.

Likewise, you can make the same argument for the Power/Xenon architecture. It's a custom design that costs a lot of money and chews through quite a bit of power. Given that MS and Sony are targeting these as more than just game consoles and more of gaming HTPC things, it doesn't make sense to stick with the Power ISA. There would be overhead to account for as well as time and money invested into porting stuff over. Frankly, it's just easier to drop backwards compatibility than it is to do that, particularly if you're going over to an extremely popular ISA with developer familiarity and a wide selection of off-the-shelf stuff to tack onto it.

What I'm interested in is what sort of GPGPU we're going to get from these things. The former consoles lacked anything resembling decent compute for physics, but with AMD's HSA and raw throughput of GCN, things could get really interesting ;)
 
From SA: http://www.media-server.com/m/acs/4824c6606a426216d1dd7227edc3aead

In the Q4 conference call Rory mentioned that their semi-custom embedded APUs will amount to 20% of their revenue by Q4 2013, he also said that the design wins will appear sometime in 2013 and that the revenue contribution will ramp up till it reaches 20% at the end of the year.

While the AMD people were avoiding to say the term "gaming console" they openly answered the questions about gaming consoles by giving out this 20% figure and mentioning that the semi-custom APUs are passing validation right now and that the deals are still confidential.

So apparently AMD has console win(s) and since they are talking APUs then it is both CPU and GPU. The question now is if they have both consoles or only one of them?

Here is the web cast
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http://ir.amd.com/mobile.view?c=74093&p=quarterlyearnings#/mobile.view?c=74093&v=200&d=2&id=4880149


Charlie summed it up http://semiaccurate.com/forums/showpost.php?p=176242&postcount=4
 
I was asking for pics as a some sort of proof simply because these rumours, no matter how repeated they may be, are simply rumours. APUs do make a lot of sense for consoles, but without proof, you cannot say console X has chip Y or whatever.
 
Darakian said:
I was asking for pics as a some sort of proof simply because these rumours, no matter how repeated they may be, are simply rumours. APUs do make a lot of sense for consoles, but without proof, you cannot say console X has chip Y or whatever.
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If you trust VGLeaks, the only picture they have is a mid-tower sized PC for "Durango" (Xbox Next/720).

It boots up into a customized UI that says Durango on the screen. Other than that, there's nothing else.

Well, there are talks that game developers have already gotten these dev kits already for some months now. Even a company like id Software is remarking how these new consoles aren't apparently that much more powerful than the current gen ones or offer anything revolutionary. A few other developers mentioned at CES or another trade show share the same sentiments. That and Nvidia as I mentioned above consider that the next consoles will no longer have customized hardware like the Xenon CPU or CELL processor because of the costs of it all. The next consoles would have to use off-the-shelf parts.

Actual dev kits are probably locked up tighter than a barrel of finely aged brandy I guess. (Bad example, but yes.)

So, the idea that these consoles are using AMD APUs of some kind and an AMD GPU is probably closer to truth given the rumors so far. Thus, it's not surprising then if developers remark that the next consoles aren't much more powerful than the current gen 360/PS3.
 
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I believe that the customized hardware is on the way out and CPU strength was never a high priority of consoles. IIRC someone got ubuntu on the xbox 360 and benched it to be similar to an athlon 64 (not sure of core count or speed). That said, the idea of x86 still seems far fetched to me. I am very curious to see what comes out and I am hoping for x86 in hopes of highly hackable boxes :)
 
Darakian said:
I believe that the customized hardware is on the way out and CPU strength was never a high priority of consoles. IIRC someone got ubuntu on the xbox 360 and benched it to be similar to an athlon 64 (not sure of core count or speed). That said, the idea of x86 still seems far fetched to me. I am very curious to see what comes out and I am hoping for x86 in hopes of highly hackable boxes :)
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Yup.

Though not comparable, when looking at a smartphone or even the Vita, their CPU and GPU is not as powerful as a desktop or laptop GPU, yet they are able to pump out graphics comparable to a PS2 or Xbox game. Then again, these games are usually rendered to a 1280x800 or 1024x800 screen, rarely 1080p screen.

So, a 1.6GHz CPU should be more than enough. A mobile level or desktop level mid-range GPU will probably pump out graphics just slightly better or much better than the current 360 and PS3. That and considering the fact these consoles will have more exposure to the actual hardware than a gaming PC does, the next gen console games should be comparable to a desktop PC game with medium-high to high settings at 1080p.
 
If the rumors are true and both consoles use essentially the same internals it will be interesting to see what happens to third party exclusives. I imagine that if there are few/no technical limitations we'll see more paid exclusives and few if any other third party exclusives.
 
Darakian said:
If the rumors are true and both consoles use essentially the same internals it will be interesting to see what happens to third party exclusives. I imagine that if there are few/no technical limitations we'll see more paid exclusives and few if any other third party exclusives.
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It's going to all boil down to APIs though and money. Lots of money.

It's already a given that the next Xbox is going to use DirectX 10 or 11.1 equivalent API. PS4 is most definitely going to be Open GL 4.x. So, graphics should be very comparable or nearly equivalent. Sony would use GCC and/or C/C++ and Microsoft is most definitely .NET, C/C++ and/or C#. Developers shouldn't complain though regarding how one console is more difficult to program for than the other, which was pretty common in regards to the PS3. That and some developers seemed lazy to even bother porting a game properly to the PS3.

Therefore, console-to-PC ports shouldn't be that hard to do at all. Going to an x86 processor should help more in that area.

Money, of course, in the end will be a big determining factor. We all know by now that Microsoft will definitely pay developers for three months to one year exclusives to certain games, and that's affected not only PS3 users but PC gamers as well. So, if there is very little difference in hardware, then we'll probably see more paid exclusives for either console to give them an advantage, but mainly on the next Xbox.

But, if one console goes PPE-based/POWER-based and the other does not, we'll probably see similar situations between the 360 and PS3:
  • Complaints that one console is more difficult to program for.
  • Paid exclusives (mostly by Microsoft).
  • One console is more expensive to develop for than the other.
  • One console gets shafted on games, along with PC gamers.
 
octoberasian said:
So, the idea that these consoles are using AMD APUs of some kind and an AMD GPU is probably closer to truth given the rumors so far. Thus, it's not surprising then if developers remark that the next consoles aren't much more powerful than the current gen 360/PS3.
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Particularly given that some version of the APU rumors have been circulating for ages with little variation. Note that console power is relative though, 8 years of IPC improvements alone should do plenty of nullify any frequency disadvantage on the CPU side, nevermind that they're OOE this time around and using more "real" cores.

After all, when the last consoles were taped out AMD X2s were on top of the world (and still better than what shipped in PS/360) and even AMD has managed to double or more than double IPC since then.
 
Darakian said:
If the rumors are true and both consoles use essentially the same internals it will be interesting to see what happens to third party exclusives. I imagine that if there are few/no technical limitations we'll see more paid exclusives and few if any other third party exclusives.
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It is a win win either way, they have enough hardware to sell the software , that is their business model, sell hardware cheap and cash on games.

The easier it is to port the better the games will get.
 
Runningflame570 said:
Note that console power is relative though, 8 years of IPC improvements alone should do plenty of nullify any frequency disadvantage on the CPU side, nevermind that they're OOE this time around and using more "real" cores.
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I think people on these boards give too much credit to magical, mystical terms like OOE.

The only reason you see improvement with OOE is because there is enough decode bandwidth, but the CPU itself cannot schedule enough operations to fill the execution pipelines available. You use Instruction Level Parallelism to get more single-threaded performance by filling those unused units.

The AMD Brazos/Jaguar is a dual-decode, dual-issue architecture just like the Intel Atom, and the CPU of the Xbox 360. The only difference between these two is the in-order/out-of-order nature. Intel and Microsoft take advantage of Thread-Level Parallelism to help keep the pipelines full, and in multithreaded workloads it works almost as well as AMD's OOE engine. In simpler processors like these, there's more than one way to get the performance you desire.

See here a comparison between Atom and the AMD E-350:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/328?vs=110

The E-350 toasts the atom in single-threaded and some multi-threaded (better ILP), while in tests with better TLP the Atom improves on or even exceeds the E-350. This is why I say: don't just label the Brazos/Jaguar architecture as "worlds faster" just because it's OOE. You can make a pretty-respectable in-order CPU if your software can make use of SMT!

Assuming Microsoft's developers can leverage SMT, that means Each Jaguar CPU will offer less throughput, so the overall performance increase will only be around 2-3x.
 
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