News - Playstation 4 'Orbis' rumoured to feature next-gen AMD Fusion APU

[abaxas]

Sod the tech.

Does it have good games you want to play? If so, click add to basket.

[csgohan4]

why don't they use Intel chips?? or do they have a contract with AMD?

[watercooled]

AMD's APU is a better solution for consoles, not least because of the more programmable GPU.

[rm19]

So the PS4 will have an AMD x86 quad CPU w/integrated GPU and a beefy dedicated 7970 GPU? I like this a LOT. This semi conventional PC setup will let developers sort of hit the ground running and we'll see lots of PC/PS4 optimized games maybe even ports of PC games that were never considered for consoles. This is huge. I'm glad Sony has decided to forgo the temptation to create some needlessly complex, theoretically powerful, hyped up architecture in favor of something that is tried and tested.

I do hope they go for 4GB or more to make a full raster 1920x1080 resolution and 4XAA easy to achieve. The PS3 had a pathetic 256MB of VRAM and as a result, Grand Theft Auto 4 on the PS3 ran at an equally pathetic 640p resolution and short draw distances.

Lastly, I've noticed that I haven't had to upgrade my PC quite as often as in the past and my old Radeon 5870 still runs pretty much any game I throw at it so it's possible that by the time the PS4 comes out, its 7970 will still be considered a fast card and plenty powerful enough for devs to make beautiful 1080p 60fps games for a long time.

[watercooled]

RISC doesn't imply needlessly complex (it's actually simpler than x86 in most ways), theoretically powerful (in-order RISC chips run very close to theoretical performance when programmed properly, as consoles will be), nor hyped-up (the Cell was a very powerful CPU in certain applications). If we always stuck with tried and testes stuff, we'd never make any progress. However I understand what you're talking about, the Cell was relatively complex to program for and like a lot of consoles relied on very different execution to an x86 CPU, paired with a relatively underpowered GPU.

AA can be relatively easy on consoles when certain 'extras' like eDRAM which is used on the 360 and allows AA with next to no performance impact. And the vast majority of console games are rendered way below the bragged-about resolutions, and are upscaled, the Xbox having a better hardware upscaler (I've gone into detail before and you can read about it easily enough).

[HSK]

I can sort of see the losses made in producing the PS3 and the risk taken by Sony in essentially pushing blu-ray player out to the masses (Sony playing a big part in Hollywood, owning production houses, films in general). It would be bad for them to go down this route now...streamlining would be key, implementation, production, development etc.

[Cyberburnout]

I agree with the 7970m idea but would that be enough to push the next generation of games? Maybe AMD is making a special full 7970 on a smaller die and slightly slower clock speed just of the ps3. Ths would answer the questions about power consumption, heat and the horse power to push full HD games with 3d.

[Hicks12]

Well i think with the bluray it wasnt to much of a gamble they knew DVD components on consoles was an important factor and the next step was a HD content filled disc, if it was just sony who came up with BluRay id say it was a massive gamble but its funny, there are like 12 members and at the time it was ~7 - 10, believe walt disney is one of the biggest which is why it paid off .

I guess if you look at it another way, Sony has made a loss again and again they cant keep doing what they're doing so they are aiming big, the age old debate of WHICH CONSOLE IZ BETTOR? First and most important (when trying to compare...) is graphics, if they're better then they will just have to rely on their game library which isnt hard when your hardware is simple to port and code on, low risk essentially

[Dareos]

You'd think if they wanted to end up at the top of the league in terms of consoles they would have picked a better codename than Liverpool

[watercooled]

Edit: My bad, poor interpretation.

[Brewster0101]

I would like it to be true as it would mean PC gaming would get much better ports . However i cant see this happening, to have an APU would likely add ~£100 if you include the ram and motherboard so thats already £400 (including the discrete card), extra like £5 for flash storage then £30 for HDD and add on the casing probably another £30 and psu? £40 with that much power needed and again you have a bluray drive ~£30... controllers another £25 each so we are looking at ~ £585 already!?
(

No disrespect Hicks but your cost prices are way off.
Production cost of a motherboard, APU, Memory won't be any more than £150, £30 for 1TB hard drive (maybe less by 2013) , casing will
literally be £10 and probably £10 for PSU , bluray is only like £15, Packaging £5, controllers will be £15 x 2 or so
Total @ £235
Leaving alot for GPU , considering that when these go into production it will be for millions, the costs will be low - the production line will be custom made for the project.

Sony can't take a financial hit on the PS4 like they did with the PS3, they financially can't do it.

[Hicks12]

No worries but ill be keen to point out i did that in a extreme rough AND if you read the first pricing i said the memory motherboard and apu would be £100 (less than what you said ), but the gpu being £300 depending how amd do their cost cutting then it could ~£200? So £300, HDD aint cheap atm but you agree with my estimate of £30 , casing depends entirely on how its made but yes that was a complete oversight on my part, i forgot consoles are 90% plastic! £10 sounds fair for mass, PSU im not so sure because your thinking here if its a decent spec then you will need something alot stronger and reliable than a £10 job, maybe £20 - £30 sounds more reasonable or im just being thick. Bluray id say your probably right again didnt account for possibly little casing used etc, maybe £20. Controllers, not sure but sure £15.

So £410 with packaging, sounds more reasonable really IF they do it ofc , but i cant see it dropping in price for atleast a year or two its just not possible so i can see a fairly long loss leader and make up for games.
So

[Zanny]

I would not be surprised by a fusion platform from Sony and an Intel / AMD platform from M$, but don't oversell the graphics hardware. I expect something along the lines of a 7870 in both systems exclusively because both companies are hurting on venture dollars and don't have the security to bank on software sales down the line to drastically undervalue the consoles at release.

They also have no reason to have graphics cards capable of running beyond 1080p right now. While 4k resolution is on the horizon, the first screens haven't even hit market yet, and it will be half a decade for them to get down to reasonable prices anyway, and then it would be another half decade until half of people even have those screens in house, and there is a significant diminishing return on pixel density at distance at play here.

[Kushan]

It's all but confirmed that both Xbox3 (really don't like the 720 moniker) and PS4 will be using AMD Fusion chips of some sort, apparently at least the Xbox ones have already taped out.

Source? Last I heard, the next Xbox CPU was looking to be from IBM again, durango or something?

[watercooled]

IIRC it was SemiAccurate, but while I've been searching for it, it looks like you could be right about IBM. However, there are also rumours of AMD using IBM's fabs so even if IBM are producing it, it could still be an AMD x86 chip. I thought what I'd read about it being AMD was pretty recent, but I might have had a couple of recent articles open in tabs and assumed that was too. Still, as I've said all along, I didn't expect either console to switch to x86, let alone both, for reasons I mentioned earlier.

[Jedibeeftrix]

"The site's sources have stated that the chip's codename is 'Liverpool', a quad-core AMD APU based on the firm's upcoming 'Steamroller' processor core design, which will be produced on a 28nm fabrication process and clocked at 3.2GHz. Paired with a GCN-based on-die GPU, Liverpool is likely to be one of the firm's first APUs to feature support for heterogeneous computing and, as such, the PlayStation 4 is expected to utilise a unified memory structure"

This I can entirely believe, indeed i suggested it 18 months ago, but any additional GPU is likely to be 7870 based.