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

[xodianbarr]

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.

Im sure there are many reasons why they decided to go AMD / RADEON instead of Intel / Nvidia. But i bet you the decision was made on price. Being a long time connoisseur of consoles i feel justified in pointing out that specs are not the be all and end all. Advertising made the inferior 'Playstation' hugely popular, yet the awesome powerhouse that was the PS3 failed to deliver. Timing, advertising, a good and wide selection of titles, and a good programming engine are what will make / break the PS4, or any other console for that matter. Specs are just more for enthusiasts like us. I wont be buying a PS4 regardless, for numerous reasons. Mostly just because i prefer gaming on a PC. But then, i do like my RTS games!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Im sure there are many reasons why they decided to go AMD / RADEON instead of Intel / Nvidia. But i bet you the decision was made on price. Being a long time connoisseur of consoles i feel justified in pointing out that specs are not the be all and end all. Advertising made the inferior 'Playstation' hugely popular, yet the awesome powerhouse that was the PS3 failed to deliver. Timing, advertising, a good and wide selection of titles, and a good programming engine are what will make / break the PS4, or any other console for that matter. Specs are just more for enthusiasts like us. I wont be buying a PS4 regardless, for numerous reasons. Mostly just because i prefer gaming on a PC. But then, i do like my RTS games!

The PS4 chip is an SOC with stacked DRAM.

AMD has more experience,with making SOCs with large GPU components than any other company,barring IBM.

They also have loads of experience producing GPUs on different types of process nodes,ie, both bulk and SOI processes.

Jaguar is made to be portable between different process types,from the ground up too.

[watercooled]

Price will be a reason, and an important one, but it's by no means the only one. Value for money is a more important metric. The point I'm trying to make is, decisions like this aren't made like 'this one is the cheaper option, stuff everything else'. With the PS3, they could have saved an awful lot of money going for more off-the-shelf POWER cores, but instead they took a huge risk and spent a lot of time and money custom designing something they believed would serve them better. Even this time, there are far cheaper options than what they went with, for CPU, GPU and memory.

However, if they had two similarly-capable options in front of them, and the AMD route offered the best value, then of course they'll be weighted towards it. Some PC 'enthusiasts' might be happy spending three times as much for equal performance, huge companies aren't...

[xodianbarr]

I think you just basically agreed with everything i just said! As with all projects, there are many factors to consider when developing anything. But in the end it nearly always comes down to the money.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I think you just basically agreed with everything i just said! As with all projects, there are many factors to consider when developing anything. But in the end it nearly always comes down to the money.

It also comes down to expertise too. Its AMD experience with APUs,which helped them here ,and the fact that they have had to learn how to use fab technology, from multiple companies,as a fabless company.

Companies like Sony think longterm.

[xodianbarr]

Companies like Sony think longterm.

Agreed. Thats what makes them (in the main) so successful. That and their aggressiveness!

[ZaO]

After the info from Cat I am actually quite excited about these new consoles now I thought the specs were going to be a lot worse based on what I'd previously heard. I'm now just sad that the Playstation controller retains that "Iconic" design, rather than a functional design for anyone that doesn't have small hands. They nailed it pretty good with the 360 controller, other than the D-Pad. Something that Fat American people did which is actually of some use to the world.

[kompukare]

I wouldn't underestimate that the other options (Intel & Nvidia) would not just have been more expensive but fraught with issues of control. Neither Intel or Nvidia are likely be very open to mixing in other IP. And Intel's desire for huge margins is not easily tamed even when it is in their strategic interest: witness the importance with which the new AVX2 (Haswell) instruction are being treated vs the low likelihood of Intel enabling those instruction in Celerons and Pentiums. In fact, AVX1 shows a certain laziness on Intel's part. Strategically they should have enabled some AVX support at a reduced speed but I imagine they found no easy way to do so.

And dealing with Nvidia means having to deal with JHH's ego. While no corporations are benevolent, not having to deal with Mr. Woodscrew must be an advantage.

[Hicks12]

End of the day, this shift in console architecture means PC will get the ports it deserves (mostly), finally we will have multithreaded games! The performance of these consoles is actually pretty solid if you think about it, i wouldnt expect a £300 gpu (7970/680) to be in these systems because power and price is huge, a 7850 equivilant is pretty strong ~£150 but with so much ram it will all add up to a solid long lasting console.

I cant wait for the AMD optimised games, I think we will now see alot of games running better due to optimisation for AMD platforms . Nvidia can suck it, they're terrible for the enthusiast market and third parties so I am glad they lost the sales to AMD, same as the mobile market they're so bad to others its unreal and atleast they didnt get in on the Nexus program!.

[xodianbarr]

Nvidia can suck it, they're terrible for the enthusiast market and third parties so I am glad they lost the sales to AMD, same as the mobile market they're so bad to others its unreal and atleast they didnt get in on the Nexus program!.

I bet you wouldnt say NO! to an Nvidia Geforce GTX Titan though!

[Hicks12]

If it was thrown at me for free I wouldnt say no but at the end of the day if they gave me one for free I would be costing them money . I have said to myself never to buy a mobile device with an Nvidia chip inside and that now extends to the discrete card market, I dislike their practice of cutting others out for no reason and being "closed" when they're part of an open platform .

[xodianbarr]

Cant argue with you there, but being fickle, i just tend to go for the card that offers best performance. Unfortunately, Radeon and Nvidia churn them out so damned quick, its impossible to keep up!

[ajax2061]

the thing that excites me about the next wave of consoles is the fact they are pc hardware based, surly it will make sense now for devs to write games like the do for pc ie make them scale depending on hardware, just with the console versions you wont get to tinker with settings as it will be pre-tweaked

I wont buy a console I like my PC to much, but lets hope that at least now console ports will be very very much improved and no longer held back by console specs

[kalniel]

the thing that excites me about the next wave of consoles is the fact they are pc hardware based, surly it will make sense now for devs to write games like the do for pc ie make them scale depending on hardware, just with the console versions you wont get to tinker with settings as it will be pre-tweaked

I wont buy a console I like my PC to much, but lets hope that at least now console ports will be very very much improved and no longer held back by console specs

Partially. They'll still be coded to take advantage of a few hardware tweak and in particular the unique software stacks that run on consoles, but should the makers/licensors of those things allow, the devs would find it easier to port, not least because the hardware capabilities are more comparable.

[Smudger]

Again with the Console or PC mentality. Lots of people have both. Console for driving/platform games + media centre duties, PC for internetting, FPS and RPG.

[kalniel]

Again with the Console or PC mentality. Lots of people have both. Console for driving/platform games + media centre duties, PC for internetting, FPS and RPG.

I think very few people have both for gaming purposes. Lots of people in the past had a console and then somewhere in the family would be a desktop PC for internet use, but I'd say that's beginning to fall as well as laptops/tablets/smartphones begin to take on that home PC role.