News - Just Cause dev claims “PS4 will out-power most PCs for years”

[watercooled]

Well that was an...err...interesting read!

A summary would be something along the lines of 'trolls deeply unhappy because next £300 console is not shipping with £1500 worth of hardware, and are raging after deliberately misinterpreting a quote'.

Back in PS2 days or earlier, people never really attempted to compare specs to PCs as they looked confusing and scary, but now we're seeing PC-looking specs, everyone is an expert. It has shared memory like my Pentium IV-era Celeron on-board video processor had so it's going to be awful! Right?

[ZaO]

Saying "Most PC's" is sorta clever. He didn't say "Gaming PC's" because he'd get laughed at. But it's a way of wording it that will sell it to people who are clueless about computer hardware, making them think it's an amazing feat in technology. Which I imagine is the majority of console only gamers. In a sense, what he said is likely to be true when you think of the average household web browsing machine which is probably what "Most PC's" are. But that's not much of a statement to be honest. We all know that PC's (even with lesser optimization) will beast that thing very quickly. As with every console generation I've ever known. And I'm going back to the 80's here.

Does anyone know the specs of the gpu and what it's currently comparable to btw? I heard these "Next Gen" consoles were shipping with budget gpu's like the 6670 or something anyway?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Does anyone know the specs of the gpu and what it's currently comparable to btw? I heard these "Next Gen" consoles were shipping with budget gpu's like the 6670 or something anyway?

In pure hardware specs it is based on the HD7970M,which uses the Pitcairn GPU found in the HD7850(1024 shaders) and HD7870(1280 shaders). It has 1120 shaders and is in pure hardware terms is halfway between them. The system also has 8GB of DDR5 RAM with 176GB/s bandwidth shared between the CPU and GPU. To put in context the desktop HD7850 and HD7870 cards have around 153GB/s bandwidth and something like a Core i5 2500K has around around 20GB/s of available bandwidth,so unlike the PS3 the GPU is not limited by bandwidth or RAM quantity.

[ZaO]

In pure hardware specs it is based on the HD7970M,which uses the Pitcairn GPU found in the HD7850(1024 shaders) and HD7870(1280 shaders). It has 1120 shaders and is in pure hardware terms is halfway between them. The system also has 8GB of DDR5 RAM with 176GB/s bandwidth shared between the CPU and GPU. To put in context the desktop HD7850 and HD7870 cards have around 153GB/s bandwidth and something like a Core i5 2500K has around around 20GB/s of available bandwidth,so unlike the PS3 the GPU is not limited by bandwidth or RAM quantity.

Thanks man. Good info Well that thing will obviously do much better than the PC equivalent. But I don't see it outdoing any gaming PC's. That's quite cool to know it's not all that weak of a gpu though. It might not be a bad console. I wonder what the new Xbox is shipping with...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The CPU is a 8 core jobbie based on the AMD Jaguar X86 quad core SOC. The quad core Jaguar SOC is clock for clock around the same as a SB ULV Core i3 in CB11.5 from leaked scores. It is also not an in-order CPU like the ones used in the previous consoles. So it might be around the level of a 2GHZ SB Core i7(without Turbo) as it is meant to be running at 2GHZ.

The CPU and GPU are actually integrated into one SOC,probably making it the most powerful AMD SOC ATM. It also seems that interposer technology is used,as Amkor is involved in some way.

The PS4 looks a great console,and more importantly will give multi-platform games a kick up the backside,in terms of visuals.

Imagine,the next Fallout or Elder Scrolls after the online one,but with better image quality and greater scope,ie,more varied environments!!??

The PC versions,should look great!!

Thanks man. Good info Well that thing will obviously do much better than the PC equivalent. But I don't see it outdoing any gaming PC's. That's quite cool to know it's not all that weak of a gpu though. It might not be a bad console. I wonder what the new Xbox is shipping with...

Rumours strongly indicate,multiple SOCs with a possible Crossfire setup. The CPU is meant to be be POWER based.

Of course,it is only rumours.

[xodianbarr]

The system also has 8GB of DDR5 RAM

- No it doesnt. It has 8GB of 'GDDR5' RAM. DDR5 does not exist. Believe me when i say this - if it really was DDR5, it would make the PS4 very much more impressive.

[kalniel]

- No it doesnt. It has 8GB of 'GDDR5' RAM. DDR5 does not exist. Believe me when i say this - if it really was DDR5, it would make the PS4 very much more impressive.

Cat knows, it will have just been a typo.

[xodianbarr]

Ah, ok.

[Bhavv]

Except that my 5 year old X58 PC with an I7 980, 12 Gb Ram, and a recent GTX 680 is already more powerful than all of the next gen consoles.

Amount of ram is meaningless for performance, and the 8 Gb GDDR5 on the PS4 is shared for both VRAM and DRAM use. Arguably the only thing 'weak' about gaming PCs in comparison is the lack of dedicated VRAM, but the amount of that which you need depends more on your resolution.

[xodianbarr]

Amount of ram is meaningless for performance.

Amount of RAM is everything to performance. Why do think the top cards have more of it? In a PC a dedicated graphics card wont utilise system RAM, so system RAM is not important to graphics (though it will aid your CPU if its handling Phys-X processes), but onboard Graphics RAM is vital. 8GBs of shared RAM should be plenty enough for what is essentially a games machine with a cut down purpose built operating system, and if it utilises even half of that, it will still be supplied with more memory than most dedicated cards have available in todays' market.

[kalniel]

Well RAM tends to be an either/or thing. You either have enough, or you don't. Having more than you need doesn't improve performance in the usual measures (fps). But having enough means that you can use better textures, more objects in the world, do more stuff etc. and developers generally love that.

[xodianbarr]

@ Kalniel - Agreed. But the amount you need would depend on the game you play. The more graphically intensive the game, the more RAM will be utilised. I've heard the argument plenty of times about much you should have in a system (i'm talking about system Ram now) and though people consistently say you don't need lots of it, the fact is, it depends what you're doing with your system. I have 16GB's of DDR3 @ 2.4 GHz, and i've already managed to max it. So how much is too much?

[george1979]

its sad the intel fanboys are raving up and down this thread.


this is a big thing ; but because it doesnt say `i5` doesnt mean its bad.....

Agreed, I use an Intel chip but I am really pleased the new consoles are using AMD silicon. The way things were going I was starting to worry for AMDs survival but hopefully this will give them a much needed boost. Christ knows the last thing we need is an Intel monopoly.

[xodianbarr]

Agreed, I use an Intel chip but I am really pleased the new consoles are using AMD silicon. The way things were going I was starting to worry for AMDs survival but hopefully this will give them a much needed boost. Christ knows the last thing we need is an Intel monopoly.

Cant argue with that, but you know they're only doing it to keep down the price right?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Typo on my part,it would be GDDR5,as not even the DDR4 specification has been finalised!!Oops!!

Also,as I have pointed out the PS3 was bandwidth and RAM limited. 512MB of total RAM in the XBox360 and PS3 was not really a decent amount even then,and they used 128 bit memory controllers too,which was worse for the GPU. The XBox360 had eDRAM which helped to a degree though.

The 8GB of shared RAM is a good idea. Look at the HD7870 and a load of other gaming cards. They have 2GB of GDDR5. To put this in context,a more linear PS4 FPS game could dedicate a decent amount of RAM to the GPU ,so that high resolution textures could be used. Alternatively, a free roaming game like Fallout,or Elders Scrolls,would probably use lower resolution textures,but OTH could load more of them into the RAM. That would mean,less likelihood of loading screens,etc.

The negativity around the PS4 is illogical,as it means multi-platform games will be given a kick up the backside,and they will look better,and have greater scope. Borderlands,Fallout or Elders Scrolls on steroids,would probably be awesome.

I am unlikely to buy a PS4,but I look forward to the changes it will help usher in for multi-platform games.

Hardcore computer hardware enthusiasts should stick to their hobby of buying hardware and stop whinging so much.

Amount of RAM is everything to performance. Why do think the top cards have more of it? In a PC a dedicated graphics card wont utilise system RAM, so system RAM is not important to graphics (though it will aid your CPU if its handling Phys-X processes), but onboard Graphics RAM is vital. 8GBs of shared RAM should be plenty enough for what is essentially a games machine with a cut down purpose built operating system, and if it utilises even half of that, it will still be supplied with more memory than most dedicated cards have available in todays' market.

Well RAM tends to be an either/or thing. You either have enough, or you don't. Having more than you need doesn't improve performance in the usual measures (fps). But having enough means that you can use better textures, more objects in the world, do more stuff etc. and developers generally love that.

Exactly!

[watercooled]

Except that my 5 year old X58 PC with an I7 980, 12 Gb Ram, and a recent GTX 680 is already more powerful than all of the next gen consoles.

Amount of ram is meaningless for performance, and the 8 Gb GDDR5 on the PS4 is shared for both VRAM and DRAM use. Arguably the only thing 'weak' about gaming PCs in comparison is the lack of dedicated VRAM, but the amount of that which you need depends more on your resolution.

How much did you spend on that system? (Rhetorical, obviously.) And it's not 'a 5 year old system' with a 680. The 680 alone costs more than it's reasonable to expect people to pay for a console - as people keep saying, over and over, it's not reasonable to expect £1500 worth of hardware in a ~£300 console-sized console.

As people also keep saying, shared RAM is a largely positive thing for several reasons, including dynamic allocation depending on the game's requirements and unified addressing. Having plenty of RAM gives developers more headroom. RAM size isn't the only important factor, but it quickly becomes a massive problem if you don't have enough. 512MB total wasn't great even on release for current consoles, and AFAIK the 360 nearly launched with 256MB total, but Epic worked hard to prove how much of a difference 512MB could make.

Cant argue with that, but you know they're only doing it to keep down the price right?

It just isn't that simple. A few fanboys (not having a go at you here BTW) seem to be spreading nonsense about AMD being chosen because Intel is too high-end or something, as they can't fathom how this uber low-end budget brand could be chosen over their supreme i5. True, Intel like huge profit margins and AMD are likely more flexible on price, but they're also likely far more flexible in terms of implementation/custom IP blocks (which they've been talking about for some time now), not to mention their GPU/APU/compute experience which is hugely beneficial in the PS4. To make AMD out as some fall-back for people who can't afford Intel is utter nonsense.

OTOH, an x86 system of some sort should be far cheaper than another risky, massively expensive, custom uArch like Cell, if that's what you mean?