Sony's Mark Cerny discusses why the PS4 will use an x86 architecture

[davislane1]

Why are you even comparing PC with consoles? You can compare console with console but not with pc.

Whenever you mention consoles on the Internet it brings out everyone who wants to measure & compare their rigs.

 

[captaincranky]

Whenever you mention consoles on the Internet it brings out everyone who wants to measure & compare their rigs.

I thought that's what the bath houses of New York City were for......

 

[davislane1]

I thought that's what the bath houses of New York City were for......

You've gotta play in the minors before you can play in the bigs.

 

[Guest]

To be fair, that's an incredibly expensive computer you just specced.

 

[captaincranky]

To be fair, that's an incredibly expensive computer you just specced.

Well, like Tatu always used to say to Mr. Roarke's guests, "welcome to fantasy island"......

 

[Guest]

I'd like to ask why are you comparing what would be a $2,000+ gaming PC to the PS4 which speculation says might be in the $300-$500 range?

Have you ever used an AMD APU? They are not crap nor are they underpowered. They meet a price point and market segment by fusing a decent GPU with a decent CPU.

AMD haters never cease to amaze me. Synthetic benchmarks are not the end-all be-all of comparisons between architectures.

 

[captaincranky]

I'd like to ask why are you comparing what would be a $2,000+ gaming PC to the PS4 which speculation says might be in the $300-$500 range?

Have you ever used an AMD APU? They are not crap nor are they underpowered. They meet a price point and market segment by fusing a decent GPU with a decent CPU.

AMD haters never cease to amaze me. Synthetic benchmarks are not the end-all be-all of comparisons between architectures.

So who is comparing a $2000.00 computer to a Play Station? I think it was a new member at the 1st or 2nd post. We've moved on, so should you.

Our "Newcomer in Training" rank, is just barely past that of "Guest", but at least we have a screen name to blame when things go sideways....And do have a nice day...

 

[Guest]

Sunny87 comparing PS4 to a crazy spec PC lol as others have said that PC you mention is nowhere near $400....doesn't take a rocket scientist to know PC will always outstrip a console for tech power. Simple as that. BUT not everyone has a gaming rig and certainly not for 400 sheckles.

Regarding the point of PS4 vs PC efficiency - *all things being equal* - did you forget that with PS4 it's pretty much got a 1:1 line from the game code to the hardware itself and back out to the user...meaning it doesn't have to keep a heavy OS load running in the background and tons of different unrelated processes as well, so basically it doesn't have to go through Windows and drivers software before reaching the end user unlike on a PC. Doesn't make a difference if you're running a Geforce 660TI or Radeon HD 7870 but it will make a difference if your whole rig costs $400-$500 and compare that under Windows to the PS4 version of say Watch Dogs.

 

[Guest]

"I'd like to see the PS4 try and outperform a Haswell CPU and 2x GTX960 graphics card combo or titan sli with 16GB DDR3 1866MHz memory...competes with a gaming PC my bum! edit: GTX690 sorry"

--> OMG, you're very funny comparing high-end pc with gaming console. And if I were you, I'll be using LGA 2011 processor instead Haswell (LGA 1150) when using 2x GTX 690

 

[Guest]

"Oh you're so funny, refuting facts without any kind of evidence. Or without a brain for that matter."

Probeme wrong then. In a console running a HAL is unnecessary, No need to call for DirectX calls; just write the hardware registers, OS is minimal and most of the time is dormant.Windows put a heavy burden in the system.

Hashwell is not there yet out in the wild but much of their silicon is dedicated to cache, irrelevant if main memory is fast, and GDDR5 is fast, very fast.

As general purpose chip Hashwell need to dedicate most of the pipeline to out of order execution,branch prediction, atomization of the uOPS, Data stalls,Data length adjustments, Flushing, etc.

Nothing of that is needed in the PS4 console, Binaries are optimized at compile time; all they need to do execute the threads fast as possible.And this is a true 8 core design, no shared decoder like the AMD FX line or Intel HT grimmick.Even the 8-cores FX won or be in line with ivy bridge at heavy multithreading loads.And those where modules not true cores like the bobcat witch is even capable of out of order execution inside each thread.

At the PS4 you get 8 finished in-line instructions per each clock cycle and never get a unnecessary pipeline stall.Intel can only 4 and even those don`t come from any particular thread.Problematic when simulating physics,fluid flow or dynamic destructive environments.The next gen gaming hallmarks.

If Hashwell can underclock to PS4 levels could be probed, PS4 APU can beat it, when running optimized code

 

[Guest]

Which GPUs are you referring to? I thought Nvidia is planning to use Unified Memory technology for upcoming GPUs (discrete) in the near-future.

Well Radeon 6000 series has "hyper memory" that uses unused ram to achieve "up to 2gbs ram" ... at least the lower to mid end cards do.

 

[Nebuijin]

"Cerny also touched on the system?s unified architecture with 8GB of GDDR5, suggesting that it could help the PS4 trump a gaming PC in hertz-for-hertz performance. He said it was something that developers wanted so they delivered. As he explained, a PC with 8GB of GPU memory would only be able to share about 1 percent of that memory on any given frame. It all comes down a limitation of the speed of PCIe, he noted.

The GPU and CPU in the PS4 are on a single, custom chip created by AMD that is similar to an AMD APU. The memory isn?t on the same chip but a 256-bit bus lets it access RAM at 176GB/s, eliminating any sort of bottlenecks. He said the strategy was simply to use GDDR5 memory and make sure it had plenty of bandwidth."

One great big fart!! What **** is this guy talking?

A:Unified memory = on board graphics in my eyes = saving money
B:Gaming PC's now have PCI-E3.0 graphics cards with 384 Bit-memory bus.
CC's have more GPU power and better CPU's, APU's suck *** especially AMD APU's
D:Sony went x86 to save money no other reason

I'd like to see the PS4 try and outperform a Haswell CPU and 2x GTX960 graphics card combo or titan sli with 16GB DDR3 1866MHz memory...competes with a gaming PC my bum!

GTX690 sorry

Sure you logic wonder, of course the PS4 cant compete with this... but thats nothing you could actually compare, since the PC-rig would costs 4-5 times the money, and comes only with a few additional FPS. Also 16 GB Ram is buII$hit, you dont need that unless you render CGI gfx, or play 4 games simultaneous.

 

[cliffordcooley]

since the PC-rig would costs 4-5 times the money, and comes only with a few additional FPS.

You must not be comparing, while games are being played at the same resolutions. If I paid 4-5 times that of a PS4, I'd expect a few extra FPS while playing at least twice the pixel count.

 

[davislane1]

Sure you logic wonder, of course the PS4 cant compete with this... but thats nothing you could actually compare, since the PC-rig would costs 4-5 times the money, and comes only with a few additional FPS. Also 16 GB Ram is buII$hit, you dont need that unless you render CGI gfx, or play 4 games simultaneous.

PC Master Race types generally don't do well with platform comparisons. They're like the quasi auto enthusiasts who would point out that a Miata is an inferior vehicle because it has less horsepower and torque than a 911 Turbo.