Interesting idea, I can certainly see why it would look attractive to console manufacturers.
Could an integrated CPU/GPU provide the performance that a next gen console would require though? I'm somewhat skeptical.
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ATI next gen tapes out
- Thread starter straxusii
- Start date
Interesting idea, I can certainly see why it would look attractive to console manufacturers.
Could an integrated CPU/GPU provide the performance that a next gen console would require though? I'm somewhat skeptical.
I'd agree with your scepticism. Can't see it happening next round.
Plus, the consoles don't even use standard CPUs anyway, most use something from IBM, so even if intel were doing integrated GPUs, it'd mean nothing for consoles unless they opted to use intel CPUs.
Caporegime
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- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 33,188
Where to start, where to start.
Firstly consoles won't use fusion chips even though its looking increasingly likely the "next gen" consoles will use AMD/Intel chips, its just too expensive these days to design a top CPU, Sony will not likely want to spend as much as they did desiging an impossible to program for core thats completely wasted and has no other use at all due to overall complexity and difficulty to manufacture, Cell is dead, Cell 2 is incredibly unlikely and with margins narrowing with a strengthening Xbox market and wanting to make a cheaper overall unit next time as for 3-4 years the Xbox has easily won on price its very likely Sony will go for a cheaper established CPU.
Ok, as for successful Fermi's and 58xx prices, they dont' have anything to do with each other, if they did the 5850 would have been £300 at launch and reduced to £250 to beat the 470gtx, it didn't it was as low as it could cost to increase sales, while still maintaining a small profit, its a VERY expensive chip to make compared to last gen.
The ONLY, and I really mean this, ONLY, singular reason there aren't more 5850's available for £200 is UK customers are happy to pay through the teeth so UK retailers screw them. A competitor sold 5870's at cost to a few lucky forum members, £250, they took no loss, thats how much they cost to retailers, £300 is £50 profit for companies, any more is laughable profit for gouging stores.
I've seen 5870's in stock for £270 this week, and there was a thread on someone ordering a 5970 for £420 and finally getting one delivered. No prices have increased, only retailers realising they can make more.
the ONLY thing that will bring prices down is people decided to not pay over the RRP. Nvidia competition has NO EFFECT on pricing, at all. 48xx series was never once priced against Nvidia cards, on launch of the 4850/4870, cards that were maybe 10% behind the competition, they sold the 4850 at £125, vs a £300 260gtx, and the 4870 at £170, vs a £400 280gtx. If Nvidia were responsible for AMD's pricing, they would have priced them 15% under Nvidia, not 60% under Nvidia pricing.
AMD are pricing their cards according to markets and getting as large sales as possible, thats their driving factor.
As for the golden age of gaming, what utter rubbish, its happened EVERY SINGLE time a console is released. The only difference this time is the period that games are mostly aimed at consoles over PC's is that Vista/DX10 switch took soo long and was so not worth jumping on top of for so long that rather than the normal cycle of maybe 2 years consoles take the lead followed by 2-3 years for the PC, the only difference is a fairly rare, and required massive change to DX spec has held that up to give consoles an extra year or so.
We're only max of 18 months away from a new console, which will end up with a Fermi 2/7850 powered card in, and then games will move on to be faster than any card you can buy right now, can run brilliantly at 1920x1200, we're not far away from a massive leap forward in gaming power required most likely, not further away than ever.
The PS1 has had a decade long lifespan, that doesn't mean its been the top end console for a decade, just that people will use them for a decade before really no one bothers any more for any reason.
Lastly, Deejaycee, what a classically uninformed Nvidia poster.
Firstly, AMD run at 850mhz clocks, Nvidia's top end cards have 1700Mhz shaders on them, though this gen runs at 1400Mhz or so......... really, AMD have the clock speed advantage do they...... really?
As for innovative, AMD brought us DX9, DX10(the real dx 10, Nvidia couldn't provide DX10, missed out half the most important features then had DX10 changed to suit it, while screwing us all), DX10.1, DX11, unified programmable shaders, the push towards a very shader heavy architecture(x1800/x1900), Tesselation, z-compression, they currently trash Nvidia in performance per watt, performance/size, performance/£.
Hard engineering, Nvidia's barely changed its base shader since the 8800gtx, infact really not at all and they weren't too disimilar to the ones from the generation before.
AMD has an innovative and efficient design, space saving and far higher performance/mm^2, its the massively more innovative design. Nvidia's is both brute force in terms of raw horse power and brute force in terms of incredibly basic shaders that are simple and easy shaders. AMD manages to get almost the same performance out of a design thats the best part of 40-50% smaller, any engineer, or anything will tell you extracting more performance out of less of anything, is harder to do.
Firstly consoles won't use fusion chips even though its looking increasingly likely the "next gen" consoles will use AMD/Intel chips, its just too expensive these days to design a top CPU, Sony will not likely want to spend as much as they did desiging an impossible to program for core thats completely wasted and has no other use at all due to overall complexity and difficulty to manufacture, Cell is dead, Cell 2 is incredibly unlikely and with margins narrowing with a strengthening Xbox market and wanting to make a cheaper overall unit next time as for 3-4 years the Xbox has easily won on price its very likely Sony will go for a cheaper established CPU.
Ok, as for successful Fermi's and 58xx prices, they dont' have anything to do with each other, if they did the 5850 would have been £300 at launch and reduced to £250 to beat the 470gtx, it didn't it was as low as it could cost to increase sales, while still maintaining a small profit, its a VERY expensive chip to make compared to last gen.
The ONLY, and I really mean this, ONLY, singular reason there aren't more 5850's available for £200 is UK customers are happy to pay through the teeth so UK retailers screw them. A competitor sold 5870's at cost to a few lucky forum members, £250, they took no loss, thats how much they cost to retailers, £300 is £50 profit for companies, any more is laughable profit for gouging stores.
I've seen 5870's in stock for £270 this week, and there was a thread on someone ordering a 5970 for £420 and finally getting one delivered. No prices have increased, only retailers realising they can make more.
the ONLY thing that will bring prices down is people decided to not pay over the RRP. Nvidia competition has NO EFFECT on pricing, at all. 48xx series was never once priced against Nvidia cards, on launch of the 4850/4870, cards that were maybe 10% behind the competition, they sold the 4850 at £125, vs a £300 260gtx, and the 4870 at £170, vs a £400 280gtx. If Nvidia were responsible for AMD's pricing, they would have priced them 15% under Nvidia, not 60% under Nvidia pricing.
AMD are pricing their cards according to markets and getting as large sales as possible, thats their driving factor.
As for the golden age of gaming, what utter rubbish, its happened EVERY SINGLE time a console is released. The only difference this time is the period that games are mostly aimed at consoles over PC's is that Vista/DX10 switch took soo long and was so not worth jumping on top of for so long that rather than the normal cycle of maybe 2 years consoles take the lead followed by 2-3 years for the PC, the only difference is a fairly rare, and required massive change to DX spec has held that up to give consoles an extra year or so.
We're only max of 18 months away from a new console, which will end up with a Fermi 2/7850 powered card in, and then games will move on to be faster than any card you can buy right now, can run brilliantly at 1920x1200, we're not far away from a massive leap forward in gaming power required most likely, not further away than ever.
The PS1 has had a decade long lifespan, that doesn't mean its been the top end console for a decade, just that people will use them for a decade before really no one bothers any more for any reason.
Lastly, Deejaycee, what a classically uninformed Nvidia poster.
Firstly, AMD run at 850mhz clocks, Nvidia's top end cards have 1700Mhz shaders on them, though this gen runs at 1400Mhz or so......... really, AMD have the clock speed advantage do they...... really?
As for innovative, AMD brought us DX9, DX10(the real dx 10, Nvidia couldn't provide DX10, missed out half the most important features then had DX10 changed to suit it, while screwing us all), DX10.1, DX11, unified programmable shaders, the push towards a very shader heavy architecture(x1800/x1900), Tesselation, z-compression, they currently trash Nvidia in performance per watt, performance/size, performance/£.
Hard engineering, Nvidia's barely changed its base shader since the 8800gtx, infact really not at all and they weren't too disimilar to the ones from the generation before.
AMD has an innovative and efficient design, space saving and far higher performance/mm^2, its the massively more innovative design. Nvidia's is both brute force in terms of raw horse power and brute force in terms of incredibly basic shaders that are simple and easy shaders. AMD manages to get almost the same performance out of a design thats the best part of 40-50% smaller, any engineer, or anything will tell you extracting more performance out of less of anything, is harder to do.
still too slow though and fermi is making it worse, if we get southern islands in 2010 ill forgive them but atm outside of crossfire theres still nothing to really pummel crysis or metro no matter how much you spend, still on 1GB of ram bleh maybe im greedy lol.
as posted above about the 5970 at £420 i saw that and its tempting but i despise xfire and microstutter.even with that its still goes to 35fps in crysis
as posted above about the 5970 at £420 i saw that and its tempting but i despise xfire and microstutter.even with that its still goes to 35fps in crysis
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Drunkmaster, I was only making some general comments about numerous generations of cards. Only my opinion so no need to get so excited about it. Sorry if I caused offence 
I thought amd cores run much faster than nvidia cores? Same for the memory?
I didn't realise ati brought us dx, I thought it was Microsoft. Also, we all know the fermi architecture is better at tesselation than ati. That's why ati are so eager to get new cards out.
Chill man
I thought amd cores run much faster than nvidia cores? Same for the memory?
I didn't realise ati brought us dx, I thought it was Microsoft. Also, we all know the fermi architecture is better at tesselation than ati. That's why ati are so eager to get new cards out.
Chill man
come on - with exception of Metro
most of the current games run smooth as silk on the last gen cards - I run Just Cause 2, Battlefield Bad Company 2 etc all at 1900x1200 with most settings maxed out, and AA enabled, and get 40fps pretty solidly - all on a 4890 - which you can buy for what 110 ?
I don't think there is genuinely much reason to get hte current gen cards hence I'm waiting fot he next gen of DX11 cards
don't get me wrong I'm normally a serial upgrader but haven't felt the need yet to go for any of the current range of graphics cards
Well to be fair, when Microsoft designed the Xbox 360, they had no choice but to use 2 separate contracts since ATI were still an independent company then. Now that they are part of AMD they could offer a very competitive platform for a new console, whether it's a fusion design, two chips on one package, or a separate CPU/GPU. Same goes for Intel who if the rumours are correct are pushing VERY hard for a console design win with Larrabee.
Of course it's all up in the air, i'm just speculating, but the further away the launch is, the more likely i think we are to see a true hybrid design. Once the smaller processes are nailed down, there is no reason you couldn't fit a very powerful GPU and CPU on the same package/die. That represents a big cost saving for Microsoft/SONY who made much bigger losses on the last gen hardware than they would have wanted. I would be surprised to see a new set of consoles in 18 months though i have to say.
Drunkmaster, I was only making some general comments about numerous generations of cards. Only my opinion so no need to get so excited about it. Sorry if I caused offence
I thought amd cores run much faster than nvidia cores? Same for the memory?
I didn't realise ati brought us dx, I thought it was Microsoft. Also, we all know the fermi architecture is better at tesselation than ati. That's why ati are so eager to get new cards out.
Chill man
You say sorry then follow it with more crap in bold & being Pedant as well.
1) DX takes 2 to tango, you need the hardware for DX as well & ATI had it first which does not take a genius to work out what DM was taking about.
2) you have been told about the clocks speed & yet you say the same error again because you don't understand how they work.
3) tessellation being faster on the NV card had nothing to do with your original statement that people are replying to & simply does not matter because all that matters is that both brands run tessellation at acceptable levels in games that matter which there is only DIRT2 being any good game wise, so there is no urgency for ATI to get a card out because of tessellation performance.
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Jeez, why so much hate on here?
Back OT, I agree with buckster, the sooner the 6xxx cards come out and ati can also offer strong tesselation performance may result in game devs bringing dx11 goodness to games. Without the games, the hardware is pointless. If dirt2 is the best devs can do then this whole gen of cards is pointless. Let's hope crytek can give us the goods noticed that unigine is also licensed to a few games. So here's hoping!
If ati time it well, the 6xxx may come out just when there are some games that really use dx11 how it was intended
Back OT, I agree with buckster, the sooner the 6xxx cards come out and ati can also offer strong tesselation performance may result in game devs bringing dx11 goodness to games. Without the games, the hardware is pointless. If dirt2 is the best devs can do then this whole gen of cards is pointless. Let's hope crytek can give us the goods
noticed that unigine is also licensed to a few games. So here's hoping!If ati time it well, the 6xxx may come out just when there are some games that really use dx11 how it was intended
Jeez, why so much hate on here?
Back OT, I agree with buckster, the sooner the 6xxx cards come out and ati can also offer strong tesselation performance may result in game devs bringing dx11 goodness to games. Without the games, the hardware is pointless. If dirt2 is the best devs can do then this whole gen of cards is pointless. Let's hope crytek can give us the goods
If ati time it well, the 6xxx may come out just when there are some games that really use dx11 how it was intended
Again confusion that if DX11 is used then you must somehow use tessellation.
You agree with buckster, but your comment has no correlation to his points as he is not saying anything what you have.
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Welcome to OCUK graphics section, it is ridled with ardent ATI supporters. They do sometimes try and come across neutral, but when pushed they soon crack.
Its nothing to do with ATI & all to do with facts or trying to stick to them.
You see the same issues of discussion even on the same brand, look at how many times you see Intel users arguing over what Intel CPU is better for this & that ect...
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lol is that your your finest contribution to this thread...
OT, ATI are doing well with their current 5000 cards, they have no need to rush out news cards because in all honesty the competition is just not there, they still hold the performance crown with the 5970 and they have a full assortment of DX11 cards for all budgets and performance areas.
lol is that your your finest contribution to this thread...
OT, ATI are doing well with their current 5000 cards, they have no need to rush out news cards because in all honesty the competition is just not there, they still hold the performance crown with the 5970 and they have a full assortment of DX11 cards for all budgets and performance areas.
Rumour has it that the hybrid cards they're working on have multiple intentions.
Beat out the competition outright, and to increase their yields.
It takes tweaks and respins to better the yields, so it makes sense for them to use it as an opportunity to bring something new out instead of simply tweaking Cypress GPUs purely to increase yields.
Well that's how I'd see it any way, they're gonna have to start trialing their upcoming tech anyway.
the point being that last gen cards can run current games even with reasonably good IQ.
If I was on a 4xxx I probably would not bother with this gen but my trusty old 8800GTS is showing it's age
my mates 280 is still doing well and he is skipping this gen
I'm beginning to agree! Not been on here long and only joined as I'm gonna be getting my new rig entirely from OCUK
I'm sure it's no coincidence that it seems to be overly pro-nVidia people who say this.
The same way that the same overly pro-nVidia people believe the GTX470 and GTX480 to be worth buying.
