AMD CPU speculation... and expert conjecture

[sarinaide]

I have heard just rumors, the sources are good but they do not give anything more than showing the cookie jar. Kaveri iGPU's wise, the top end iGPU's will feature higher speed integrated GDDR5 and come in quad and hexcore veriants, also on lower voltage parts. The lower end iGPU's will feature low clocked GDDR5. Some stories is that AMD's iGPU with GDDR5 is capable of the unrestrictive bandwidths needed. Talk of the top end part achieving the same bandwidth as the HD7790 just released around 80-90GB\s. AMD is intending its APU's along with the soon to be spec released HD8600 sea islands parts which on rumor the HD8670/90 are both comparible to the HD7790, very similar performance. That will basically offer consumers $200 and under Chip +GPU options with Dual Graphics/Crossfire support.

ddr5 ! 😱
source ? i need recipie of their cookies 😛 or atleast all the cookies of their jar we can share them😀 (50% for you and 50% for me and rest for others 😗 )

arey they (amd) going to skip ddr4 or they are going for something like side port memory on motherboard or seperate slot for ddr5 with ddr3/4 as main memory (means more pins and availability of ddr5 modules will be an issue) ?

hd7790 performance with an igpu ! 🙁 my hd6770 is not feeling well now 🙁 even at 1000/1400mhz clocks (gpu/mem)

imo
they (amd) needs to improve efficiency of their imc of apu/cpu/gpu instead of increasing native supported speed
even their graphics cards are bad in memory bandwith efficiency, i only got 70GB/s bandwidth after an overclock of 4x1440 mhz from 4x1200mhz on gpu memory on my hd6770 in sandra benchmark
and if they can achieve >80% efficiency then they can easily provide much more performance without any other major change

Some of the internet leaks or rumours:

1) the CPU will continue to support DDR3 until DDR4 becomes the standard in which case the CPU part will have support for DDR4.

2) The iGPU component will have exclusive usage to the integrated GDDR5, for graphics bandwidth is king.

Some of the implementations;

1) SoC design with 1GB of GDDR5 integrated onto the SoC, this seems the most likely.
2) Graphics card style Chips on PCB, since we know AMD's steamroller arch makes reference to multiple processor addon support this is very feasible.
3) Hybrid RAM, one half GDDR5 the other side is DDR3/4

Current APU's are only able to achieve 20-40GB/s bandwidth depending on DDR3 used, this was very similar to GDDR3 limitations and the move to GDDR5 has seen now up to 350gb/s. Another thing is GDDR6 is soon also to be out and it appears another avenue for AMD to feed its iGPU some potent bandwidth. Testing DDR3 1066 going to 1866 yield around 50% improvement. For the iGPU component alone AMD needs the bandwidth. for the CPU side improving the IMC is more fundamental.

 

[griptwister]

Y'all Hear about BF4 running on the Malta GPU? 😀

Also, De5_Roy, "Spectacular Flop" I was ROFLing.

 

[de5_Roy]

Y'all Hear about BF4 running on the Malta GPU? 😀
Also, De5_Roy, "Spectacular Flop" I was ROFLing.

fx may be a success. but it's sales are so top secret that No One talks about it. not even in quarterly conferences or in earnings reports.
since no news on new chips....
AMD announces SKY, the new cloud gaming line
GDC 2013: Shock of the year, AMD nails marketing
http://semiaccurate.com/2013/03/27/amd-announces-sky-the-new-cloud-gaming-line/
i admit, i didn't pay attention until s/a pointed out the details. kudos to amd. i hope to see more of this in the future.
AMD teases us over the HD7990
http://semiaccurate.com/2013/03/27/amd-teases-us-over-the-hd7990/
AMD Delivers Unified Gaming Strategy at GDC 2013
http://www.techpowerup.com/182037/AMD-Delivers-Unified-Gaming-Strategy-at-GDC-2013.html

 

[Cazalan]

NVidia announced last week that their Volta GPU (after Maxwell) will use stacked DRAM. Probably not until 2016 though. That's stacked next to the GPU not on embedded like Intel is doing with their GT3.

 

[Cazalan]

Looks like there will be a GT3 part for "regular" notebooks. Interesting enough, I'm pretty sure it will also be available for HTPCs.

I saw that. Interesting that the GT1 part seemed to disappear. Maybe Intel finally realizing that low of graphics is no good. And to add more confusion GT3 comes with and without embedded RAM.

 

[anxiousinfusion]

Steamroller was to be out this year now 2014. Begs the question of why and if PCIe 3 and DDR4 maybe?

to offer pcie3.0, they need faster ht (4ghz) or wider channel (32 link of ht 2.0)
because if i got it right (from diagram of my 880gm board and sandra bench) then data exchange between cpu and gpu flows through ht channel which is currently set at ht2.0 to 3.0 speed with x16/x16 uplink/downlink
here are some number crunching
ht2.0 x16 = 8GB/s bandwidth (unidirectional)
pcie2.0 x16 = 8GB/s bandwidth (unidirectional)
so they need higher speed or wider link

If Kaveri truely has six cores it would be less than surprising to see them drop the FX line.

if steamroller apu is going to have upto 6 cores then cpu linup is almost useless (except for those who need more cores)
so droping of cpu line makes sense

3) Chris used the words closed up to or faster than Richland, this is a completely inaccurate sentiment. If a 4770K cannot match a 3850 at low res and low presets on a Skyrim bench, it has absolutely no chance in a title like F1 2012 which is actually a very good GPU guage.

me too agree
its is as same as saying this "amd is equal to intel in x86"
if they only need to dump in some more shaders to up the performance without affecting tdp by much then why they/intel are not introducing desktop graphics cards

DROPS and FX or APU

AMD will only unify its sockets by excavator and while the CPU only will be replace by hybrid processors, the FX mantra will be kept, I have heard that there is a 2016 architecture with the FX name so, they will unify the A series and FX but retain the FX mantra, which has a steep history in AMD like Athlon.

All things IGPU

I have heard just rumors, the sources are good but they do not give anything more than showing the cookie jar. Kaveri iGPU's wise, the top end iGPU's will feature higher speed integrated GDDR5 and come in quad and hexcore veriants, also on lower voltage parts. The lower end iGPU's will feature low clocked GDDR5. Some stories is that AMD's iGPU with GDDR5 is capable of the unrestrictive bandwidths needed. Talk of the top end part achieving the same bandwidth as the HD7790 just released around 80-90GB\s. AMD is intending its APU's along with the soon to be spec released HD8600 sea islands parts which on rumor the HD8670/90 are both comparible to the HD7790, very similar performance. That will basically offer consumers $200 and under Chip+GPU options with Dual Graphics/Crossfire support.

Kaveri was intended to be mainstream and it looks like it will be very much the case for entry level mainstream considering a Trinity is not that far off.

Intel GT and Fudalicious rumors, well it is clear the Haswell of a year ago is somewhat diminshed to something that is just so disappointing, there are instances where HD4600 is barely tickling 10% gains on HD4000. Crysis 2 and Metro 2033 highlighted the severity of it. While in Metro Chris and Don will be quick to say that the 5800k can only beat Haswell by 5-6 FPS under extreme torture, 5-6FPS in that game is the equivilant of 20-30 in other games. Crysis 2 is very unkind to HD4000 not hitting double figures while the 5800K managed 30 and the Llano parts around 24. Skyrim was the only chance to make HD4600 look awesome and Chris painted it in golden tassels, Skyrim loves a faster CPU, and with the fastest x86 processor and a improved iGPU the 4770K and GT2 came well short of a A8 3850. So a budget builder relying on iGPU gaming will actually get better performance of a Llano not even a Trinity is needed to oust Intel's powerhouse. Then we can get into size, clockspeeds, bandwidth, power and all and all GT is just nothing it was touted to be.

Now I am generally one to say pfft and move on, and I did a year ago, said Llano is not even under threat and well every Intel preferenced site said that GT2 was going to beat Trinity and GT3 was going to end AMD. Well fast forward and its all just very comical. So for toms I think they need to explain at what level HD4600 became a match or bested Trinity unless they were talking about the HD7450D on the A4s, but on pure number HD4600 looks about 15-35% slower depending on the title.

I really don't care whether they like or don't like AMD but the problem here is when Haswell was talk up to be the champion and well I am not saying that Haswell doesn't represent something that is impressive, Intel node stacking is just off this planet but performance wise people are getting stiffed and Toms went out of their way to herald this. The effect is that intel stocks rose the day it was leaked and AMD stocks went down. Fud reporting of complete inaccuracy has that effect on the market. I just really long for the days where people didn't have to punt up the justifications for intel systems to feel better. I agree in some instances I will only use an intel because I need the performance, but for a day to day gamer and psuedo overclocker and person who has a system for that usage AMD is just fine.

I have my A10 5800K tests and benches. I solely used FRAPs and BF3 multiplayer but for a APU to achieve 70FPS average at 768 on low presets is just impressive at 1050 you can achieve around 35-45FPS while 1080 is 25-30FPS, this on DDR3 1600. In dual graphics mode you can get more than double the FPS. I have 1080 medium blend settings enabled and get around 45 FPS average which for $160 is unbeatable by anything current or past from AMD or Intel at that budget for chip+Discrete

I drool at the thought of achieving the equivalent of dual 7790 performance on an APU platform. Where did Tom's hide that thumbs up button?

 

[George Siamanis]

who cares if intel's cpu is faster i have amd 8150 and i kill everything i put it on it.i kill every program and every game i try it so AMD was better from intel in half money and without any problems(heating-overclocking and more... )im very happy for my 8150 and that they say so many who bought 8150.So i think steamroller is my next buy.Only bad in case is if AMD not change the am3+ with newest chip cause am3 is like my grandma right now.

 

[palladin9479]

Steamroller was to be out this year now 2014. Begs the question of why and if PCIe 3 and DDR4 maybe?

to offer pcie3.0, they need faster ht (4ghz) or wider channel (32 link of ht 2.0)
because if i got it right (from diagram of my 880gm board and sandra bench) then data exchange between cpu and gpu flows through ht channel which is currently set at ht2.0 to 3.0 speed with x16/x16 uplink/downlink
here are some number crunching
ht2.0 x16 = 8GB/s bandwidth (unidirectional)
pcie2.0 x16 = 8GB/s bandwidth (unidirectional)
so they need higher speed or wider link

If Kaveri truely has six cores it would be less than surprising to see them drop the FX line.

if steamroller apu is going to have upto 6 cores then cpu linup is almost useless (except for those who need more cores)
so droping of cpu line makes sense

3) Chris used the words closed up to or faster than Richland, this is a completely inaccurate sentiment. If a 4770K cannot match a 3850 at low res and low presets on a Skyrim bench, it has absolutely no chance in a title like F1 2012 which is actually a very good GPU guage.

me too agree
its is as same as saying this "amd is equal to intel in x86"
if they only need to dump in some more shaders to up the performance without affecting tdp by much then why they/intel are not introducing desktop graphics cards

Incorrect HT bandwidth by a very large amount.

HT3.1 (2008 and forward, so basically everything we have now) is 3.2GHZ DDR speeds. The older 3.0 standard was 2.6Ghz DDR speeds and was made in 2006. At 16x unidirectional (the 32x link is broken into two directions) that equates to 12.8 GB/s in each direction for HT3.1 devices. That's a VERY far cry from the 8GB/s you quoted above. Furthermore graphics products are just now starting to use more bandwidth then a single PCIe 2.0 8x connection can provide.

Right now there is no need for PCIe 3.0 connection to the CPU, it's only a space saving measure as you can use an PCIe 3.0 8x link instead of a PCIe 2.0 16x link. This may change in the next three to four years, but it won't be a deciding factor in the next two.

Also what many people are probably getting confused is the difference between what the CPU supports and what the chipset supports. AMD BD/PD design supports HT3.1 @3.2Ghz but the 990FX does HT3.0 at 2.6Ghz so while the CPU supports higher speeds the motherboard / chipset producers didn't feel the need to utilize them. HT3.0 at 2.6Ghz ends up being 10.4GB/s.

 

[truegenius]

^ even my phenom 2 1090t supports ht3.1 (3.2ghz)
you can check it using hwinfo64 summery
x16/x16 ht@2ghz to ht3.0 is enough for pcie x16 v2.0
but not for pcie x16 3.0
though pcie 3.0 is not needed now (atleast for single gpu)

here are some number crunching
[strike]ht2.0[/strike] ht@2000mhz x16 = 8GB/s bandwidth (unidirectional)
pcie2.0 x16 = 8GB/s bandwidth (unidirectional)

thats where the problem was (that means you read it carefully 😗 )

since i see many phenom 2 with 2ghz ht so i mistyped it as ht2.0 (actually ht2.0 = 1.4ghz)
means i thought that 2ghz is ht 2.0
here are correct speeds (wiki 😀 )
ht2.0 = 1.4ghz
ht3.0 = 2.6ghz
ht3.1 = 3.2ghz

btw
is it correct ?
HyperTransport 2.0 (1.4 GHz, 32-pair) 179.2 Gbit/s 22.4 GB/s
HyperTransport 3.0 (2.6 GHz, 32-pair) 41.6 GB/s
this means that ht2.0 is ddr and ht3.0 is qdr

 

[palladin9479]

@truegenius

The dependency typically comes with the motherboard chipsets. The 990 (and by extension the 8xx) only did HT3.0 speeds and AM2 was at HT2.0 speeds. Chances are a newer "1090" chipset would use the full speed of HT3.1.

 

[sarinaide]

Y'all Hear about BF4 running on the Malta GPU? 😀
Also, De5_Roy, "Spectacular Flop" I was ROFLing.

fx may be a success. but it's sales are so top secret that No One talks about it. not even in quarterly conferences or in earnings reports.
since no news on new chips....
AMD announces SKY, the new cloud gaming line
GDC 2013: Shock of the year, AMD nails marketing
http://semiaccurate.com/2013/03/27/amd-announces-sky-the-new-cloud-gaming-line/
i admit, i didn't pay attention until s/a pointed out the details. kudos to amd. i hope to see more of this in the future.
AMD teases us over the HD7990
http://semiaccurate.com/2013/03/27/amd-teases-us-over-the-hd7990/
AMD Delivers Unified Gaming Strategy at GDC 2013
http://www.techpowerup.com/182037/AMD-Delivers-Unified-Gaming-Strategy-at-GDC-2013.html

The irony is that most people expected AMD to be dead by now, nobody expected a full line up on all platforms plus a few healthy surprises.

 

[gamerk316]

Y'all Hear about BF4 running on the Malta GPU? 😀
Also, De5_Roy, "Spectacular Flop" I was ROFLing.

fx may be a success. but it's sales are so top secret that No One talks about it. not even in quarterly conferences or in earnings reports.
since no news on new chips....
AMD announces SKY, the new cloud gaming line
GDC 2013: Shock of the year, AMD nails marketing
http://semiaccurate.com/2013/03/27/amd-announces-sky-the-new-cloud-gaming-line/
i admit, i didn't pay attention until s/a pointed out the details. kudos to amd. i hope to see more of this in the future.
AMD teases us over the HD7990
http://semiaccurate.com/2013/03/27/amd-teases-us-over-the-hd7990/
AMD Delivers Unified Gaming Strategy at GDC 2013
http://www.techpowerup.com/182037/AMD-Delivers-Unified-Gaming-Strategy-at-GDC-2013.html

The irony is that most people expected AMD to be dead by now, nobody expected a full line up on all platforms plus a few healthy surprises.

Lets see if the financials stabilize this year. They still aren't in a good financial position at all.

 

[sarinaide]

Y'all Hear about BF4 running on the Malta GPU? 😀
Also, De5_Roy, "Spectacular Flop" I was ROFLing.

fx may be a success. but it's sales are so top secret that No One talks about it. not even in quarterly conferences or in earnings reports.
since no news on new chips....
AMD announces SKY, the new cloud gaming line
GDC 2013: Shock of the year, AMD nails marketing
http://semiaccurate.com/2013/03/27/amd-announces-sky-the-new-cloud-gaming-line/
i admit, i didn't pay attention until s/a pointed out the details. kudos to amd. i hope to see more of this in the future.
AMD teases us over the HD7990
http://semiaccurate.com/2013/03/27/amd-teases-us-over-the-hd7990/
AMD Delivers Unified Gaming Strategy at GDC 2013
http://www.techpowerup.com/182037/AMD-Delivers-Unified-Gaming-Strategy-at-GDC-2013.html

The irony is that most people expected AMD to be dead by now, nobody expected a full line up on all platforms plus a few healthy surprises.

Lets see if the financials stabilize this year. They still aren't in a good financial position at all.

Its better than it was last year and it is certainly better than it was 18 months ago, it has levelled out but seems to always fall when a Intel lie comes out or Nvidia start talking about in house FCAT software or when reviewers punt up the next Intel/Nvidia circle jerk.

This time round AMD have tangible offers, royalties and sales will give AMD a rolling income, the same thing for all the new partners AMD has taken onboard, These are the small things that AMD didn't have that are of tangible importance outside its product line.

As above I have mentioned that AMD's position is a fragile one, first off a reviewer is going to review an AMD product under the expectation of being perfect, if it is not perfect the review will be negitive. Intel and Nvidia are under the enviable position that even a failure is punted up to be more than it really is. When I read a TH review on anything AMD, I am struck with the immediate sense of "I couldn't be bothered, please god let my conclussion come quickly", the general market are like sponges, if you tell people that Intel integrated solutions are better than AMD's they will believe you, you tell them a GTX640 is faster than a HD7870XT, they will believe you, the myopic view on Intel and NVida has the effects of seeing AMD's NYSE ratings drop, everytime someone says Intel iGPUs are equal or better to Richland an angel dies and AMD stocks fall, Intels goes up...go figure.

 

[gamerk316]

Its better than it was last year and it is certainly better than it was 18 months ago, it has levelled out but seems to always fall when a Intel lie comes out or Nvidia start talking about in house FCAT software or when reviewers punt up the next Intel/Nvidia circle jerk.

This time round AMD have tangible offers, royalties and sales will give AMD a rolling income, the same thing for all the new partners AMD has taken onboard, These are the small things that AMD didn't have that are of tangible importance outside its product line.

As of the last financial numbers I saw (Q4 2012), AMD had enough cash on hand to cover one year of operations at its current profit loss level. Granted, this was before the selling off of its campus, which will help, but the question is this: with just over $1 Billion cash on hand, can AMD sustain too many more quarters of $100 Million+ losses?

 

[sarinaide]

The difference now from then was in 2012 the only product AMD had was Vishera, This year we have Richland, Kabini, Tamesh, Graphics cards from the 7790 to 7990 to skycloud parts, there are also server grade jaguar based systems, XBox, PS and game partnerships with a number of developers. These bring capital.

AMD's stock position in December was around 1.9, its gone up to a high of 2.9 this year albeit levelled around the 2.6 mark.

 

[mayankleoboy1]

Spoiler

Y'all Hear about BF4 running on the Malta GPU? 😀
Also, De5_Roy, "Spectacular Flop" I was ROFLing.

fx may be a success. but it's sales are so top secret that No One talks about it. not even in quarterly conferences or in earnings reports.
since no news on new chips....
AMD announces SKY, the new cloud gaming line
GDC 2013: Shock of the year, AMD nails marketing
http://semiaccurate.com/2013/03/27/amd-announces-sky-the-new-cloud-gaming-line/
i admit, i didn't pay attention until s/a pointed out the details. kudos to amd. i hope to see more of this in the future.
AMD teases us over the HD7990
http://semiaccurate.com/2013/03/27/amd-teases-us-over-the-hd7990/
AMD Delivers Unified Gaming Strategy at GDC 2013
http://www.techpowerup.com/182037/AMD-Delivers-Unified-Gaming-Strategy-at-GDC-2013.html

The irony is that most people expected AMD to be dead by now, nobody expected a full line up on all platforms plus a few healthy surprises.

Lets see if the financials stabilize this year. They still aren't in a good financial position at all.

Its better than it was last year and it is certainly better than it was 18 months ago, it has levelled out but seems to always fall when a Intel lie comes out or Nvidia start talking about in house FCAT software or when reviewers punt up the next Intel/Nvidia circle jerk.

This time round AMD have tangible offers, royalties and sales will give AMD a rolling income, the same thing for all the new partners AMD has taken onboard, These are the small things that AMD didn't have that are of tangible importance outside its product line.

As above I have mentioned that AMD's position is a fragile one, first off a reviewer is going to review an AMD product under the expectation of being perfect, if it is not perfect the review will be negitive. Intel and Nvidia are under the enviable position that even a failure is punted up to be more than it really is. When I read a TH review on anything AMD, I am struck with the immediate sense of "I couldn't be bothered, please god let my conclussion come quickly", the general market are like sponges, if you tell people that Intel integrated solutions are better than AMD's they will believe you, you tell them a GTX640 is faster than a HD7870XT, they will believe you, the myopic view on Intel and NVida has the effects of seeing AMD's NYSE ratings drop, everytime someone says Intel iGPUs are equal or better to Richland an angel dies and AMD stocks fall, Intels goes up..

.go figure.

That where AMD's marketing engine need to step up. Making a good product and selling it are two different things.
But then, AMD bit off more than they could chew during Zambezi. They promised heaven, and the product was just above hell. Granted they made PD quite a good product, but by then, the damage was done. That is why they had to retire their FX brand yet again.

 

[mayankleoboy1]

The difference now from then was in 2012 the only product AMD had was Vishera, This year we have Richland, Kabini, Tamesh, Graphics cards from the 7790 to 7990 to skycloud parts, there are also server grade jaguar based systems, XBox, PS and game partnerships with a number of developers. These bring capital.

Isnt Temash Dead-On-Arrival (already outdated, previous generation) ? As far as i know, Temash is already superceded by Kabini, with no real user devices build atop Temash.
XBawx and PS4 should bring some revenue, not sure how much.
And we have yet to see a Richland review, even though it has been RTM for about a month now.


EDIT: I may seem a hater, but really i wish the best for AMD . We need more competition in the market, and its bloody time AMD gave us a WOW product.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Do the math, if the revenues from having 2 gpus was ok, now add 1 more gpu and 2 cpus into the mix for consoles.
Add in their ability to do "other" solutions so readily and handily, add in their ability to keep growing in their IPC improvements better than their competition, who has a comanding lead, but becomes less with each iteration from AMD, plus the good enough factor.
Lets again look at something, the new leadership and attitudes for example.
In their gpus, where we see some micro stuttering, now, they seek a solution, and low and behold, in doing so, they find alot of perf besides.
The leadership will find better ways, better angles (think of the potential gaming wins currently) and it isnt just RR doing this, they have at least 2 more grand fellows thats new, one in marketing, primarily for gaming, the other, a cpu designer extraordinaire.
We all know why they joined on, yes this is a challenge, but I believe, one that wont soon be forgotten, and where these peoples satisfactions, where theyve all been credited highly in the past, is nothing but pure motivation for them.
I see their leadership as never before, and as omeone mentioned earlier, its all about the money, no, if anything its not about the money, as AMD has been riding this fence for ages, its the leadership, those who can give the company some wings to clear it

 

[mayankleoboy1]

edit.

 

[Cazalan]

Isnt Temash Dead-On-Arrival (already outdated, previous generation) ? As far as i know, Temash is already superceded by Kabini, with no real user devices build atop Temash.

Temash and Kabini while similar are for different market segments. Temash is for tablets and runs in the 1-1.4ghz range. Kabini is to replace the low end laptop/desktop chips in the 1.8-2.2ghz range.

Kabini will use 3-4x as much power as Temash (<4W) so not even close to the same market segment.

Both are the first chips from AMD with the Platform Controller Hub (chipset) integrated, so they are a true 1 chip solution.

 

[mayankleoboy1]

Oops, yes.
i had Temash confused with Hondo.

 

[gamerk316]

The difference now from then was in 2012 the only product AMD had was Vishera, This year we have Richland, Kabini, Tamesh, Graphics cards from the 7790 to 7990 to skycloud parts, there are also server grade jaguar based systems, XBox, PS and game partnerships with a number of developers. These bring capital.

AMD's stock position in December was around 1.9, its gone up to a high of 2.9 this year albeit levelled around the 2.6 mark.

Great. Now translate that into sustained revenue.

 

[gamerk316]

And some PS4 H/W details, some if it very interesting:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/03/sony-dives-deep-into-the-ps4s-hardware-power-controller-features-at-gdc/

Norden started by focusing on the chips, including the 64-bit x86 CPU that he stressed provided low power consumption and heat. The eight cores are capable of running eight hardware threads, with each core using a 32KiB L1 I-cache and D-cache, and each four-core group sharing 2MiB of L2 Cache. The processor will be able to handle things like atomics, threads, fibers, and ULTs, with out-of-order execution and advanced ISA.

So two banks of L2 cache shared by four cores.

Sony is building its CPU on what it's calling an extended DirectX 11.1+ feature set, including extra debugging support that is not available on PC platforms. This system will also give developers more direct access to the shader pipeline than they had on the PS3 or through DirectX itself. "This is access you're not used to getting on the PC, and as a result you can do a lot more cool things and have a lot more access to the power of the system," Norden said. A low-level API will also let coders talk directly with the hardware in a way that's "much lower-level than DirectX and OpenGL," but still not quite at the driver level.

The low-level library sounds a step above what libgcm was for the PS3. Not shocked that Sony is still allowing that level of access, since it can greatly increase performance.

The system is also set up to run graphics and computational code synchronously, without suspending one to run the other. Norden says that Sony has worked to carefully balance the two processors to provide maximum graphics power of 1.843 teraFLOPS at an 800Mhz clock speed while still leaving enough room for computational tasks. The GPU will also be able to run arbitrary code, allowing developers to run hundreds or thousands of parallelized tasks with full access to the system's 8GB of unified memory.

Speaking of memory, Norden hyped up the 8GB of GDDR5 RAM in the system as the type of memory that's currently usually found only on high-end graphics cards. Calling the RAM "expensive" and "exotic," Norden stressed that you "can't buy this [RAM] for 50 bucks... that's why high-end graphics cards cost as much as they do." The 176 gigabytes of total bandwidth provided by that GDDR5 RAM are much more efficient than the 40 gigabytes a second provided by the standard DDR3 RAM used in most current computer systems. The unified address space should also cause fewer headaches for developers than the mixed architecture of the PS3, Norden said.

We've already had our debate on this topic. Moving on:

The development environment coders will use is based on Windows 7 and fully integrated with Visual Studio 2010 and 2012, allowing developers to debug PS4 code just like PC code. Tools will include C and C++ front ends that are largely compatible with most standard compilers, and various binary utilities, including CPU and GPU analyzers that can run in real time alongside games. Development houses will also be able to distribute tool and version updates to multiple dev kits more easily through a tool integrated into Windows Explorer.

Looks like MSVC is still king.

As for the physical hardware itself, the PS4 will have a Blu-ray drive that's "up to three times faster" than the PS3's drive and will include a "very large" hard drive in every system.

No shock here.


So all in all, nothing too surprising here.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

The relationships, the attitudes coming from AMD to their partners for one.
Back in the day, somehow the leadership at AMD couldnt give their chips away, and yes, there were other things involved at the time, but nonetheless, the leadership failed AMD when it had the superior product at the time.
No one knew some of the things going on til way later, and I dont mean within the tech industry itself, but the wider scope.
I have a feeling that wider scope is well plotted by current leadership, of course you need the HW to reach the potential, but unless people think AMDs offerings are trash, theres the answer

 

[-Fran-]

The difference now from then was in 2012 the only product AMD had was Vishera, This year we have Richland, Kabini, Tamesh, Graphics cards from the 7790 to 7990 to skycloud parts, there are also server grade jaguar based systems, XBox, PS and game partnerships with a number of developers. These bring capital.

AMD's stock position in December was around 1.9, its gone up to a high of 2.9 this year albeit levelled around the 2.6 mark.

Great. Now translate that into sustained revenue.

Well, on the console side, depends on whether they bent over or actually managed to get a good deal out of Sony and MS. Either way, it should provide sustained income and it adds to a possible positive cash flow (revenue; good EBIT) when you add volume sales to OEMs that hopefully they'll get from GPUs and later on from the refreshed/new APUs.

I'm really doubtful about Tablets and low power stuff to be honest (ultrabooks/thins included) will give AMD serious cash. ARM and Intel are saturating the market there already; it's a fierce battle in there and AMD doesn't have any product that makes me think it will give them the upper hand. At least, not yet. Even Intel is in a position where it makes me think if they'll make it there.

Anyway, I agree with sarinaide on AMDs position. They are way better than before. It doesn't translate into "profit" right away, but a strong line up portfolio is certainly a good thing to have for any Company, specially after the financial WOES they've had on 2011 and 2012. It shows they still have battles to fight (and win, hopefully), so the show keeps going.

Cheers!