PlayStation 4 Announced: PC-based AMD Hardware Inside

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
if every report checks out to be true about the ps4 then it's going to be a power house of a gaming system and end up blowing away the competition. Sony has done a much better job at rep their ps4 capabilities so far then Microsoft has with the 720 and if the reports of the hardware in the ps4 are true then the ps4 is going to have a much more powerful gpu then the 720 will have, which will make those of us that are intuned to graphics with our gameplay a lot more interested in the ps4 then the 720.
 
I feel bad for nvidia both xbox and ps3 with AMD GPU's = AMD optimized Games. So it pretty much concludes that most games will run best with AMD.
 
is this a victory for amd?

margins on game console hardware are usually razor thin... and the prices fall sharply every year. most profit comes from the games. maybe that explains the stock... or perhaps this will force game developers to target amd hardware for game optimizations, perhaps benefiting amd's PC hardware sales. maybe the benchmarks will start tilting toward amd for the most popular games?

still trying to figure this out...
 
[citation][nom]aznjoka[/nom]I feel bad for nvidia both xbox and ps3 with AMD GPU's = AMD optimized Games. So it pretty much concludes that most games will run best with AMD.[/citation]
Ps4*
 
[citation][nom]shadowfamicom[/nom]Before all the people get into the comments section, and go "I am gonna stick with my 680gtx and i7!!" or the general anti-console talk... Look people I have a gaming PC too... and PC games are great. But how am I going to get the new Okami, Catherine, Monster Hunter, Rez, Siren, Virtua Fighter, Lumines, Tekken, Silent Hill, Katamari, Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, The Last Guardian and the like on PC? The fact is a lot of my favorite genres happen to be developed mostly in Japan. These games do not generally come out for PC. So yes, it IS stupid to buy the new FPS on a console for $10 more and with crappy controls and no real modding scene to speak of... and when I am buying an FPS it is on PC. But a large amount of games I enjoy are console only. So anyone saying... "CONSOLE is BaLLs, PC IS THE OWNZ!!!1111", consider that not everyone is always after the next FPS, RTS, Simulator or MMO.[/citation]

It's a bit arrogant in it's self to think that people on this site will jump to elitism, isn't it? That aside, I play all categories of games on my PC, not just the genres you listed above. It's a matter of plugging in a controller for certain games and if a company can't spend the time to port a game over then they are losing sales. Buying a console means their marketing is working and that you support a system that tells you how to do things. Well let me tell ya something: I'm not going to buy a console to be told what my system is made of, what games I can and cannot play, to be charged extra for playing my games online, or any of the other "fun" things that a console represents.
 


it wont pwn anything in 4 years.
 
[citation][nom]thor220[/nom]It's a bit arrogant in it's self to think that people on this site will jump to elitism, isn't it? That aside, I play all categories of games on my PC, not just the genres you listed above. It's a matter of plugging in a controller for certain games and if a company can't spend the time to port a game over then they are losing sales. Buying a console means their marketing is working and that you support a system that tells you how to do things. Well let me tell ya something: I'm not going to buy a console to be told what my system is made of, what games I can and cannot play, to be charged extra for playing my games online, or any of the other "fun" things that a console represents.[/citation]

I have seen it rather often in console related articles here, it's no worries though, I just skip past those comments.
And I think you make some very valid points. But I also think there are benefits to a closed system as well as benefits to an open system, or a system that finds the right balance in between.
 
[citation][nom]TheBigTroll[/nom]for about 2teraflops on the GPU, id say we are getting 7850-7870 performance in terms of speed. pretty good[/citation]

The closest product AMD currently sells to the stated specs is probably the 7970M which performs in the ballpark of a desktop 7870. There's no way a console could use a variant of a card like the 7870 that draws 125W's. That said, the performance of a 7970M and what we will see from the PS4 will likely have little in common.
 
[citation][nom]Madjimms[/nom]"8 core custom APU"So.... 4 cores with 2 threads per core....[/citation]

Not likely. AMD doesn't have an SMT technology lie Intel. It's much more likely to be a modular CPU in which case it is eight real cores.

[citation][nom]kinggremlin[/nom]The closest product AMD currently sells to the stated specs is probably the 7970M which performs in the ballpark of a desktop 7870. There's no way a console could use a variant of a card like the 7870 that draws 125W's. That said, the performance of a 7970M and what we will see from the PS4 will likely have little in common.[/citation]

It might have a tweaked architecture and/or used other advantages such as using a large eDRAM cache for the GPU again.
 
I wonder if it's going to be integrated, or upgradeable. I also wonder who will be the first to install windows or linux on this badboy if it truely is x86.

[citation][nom]stalefish85[/nom]what about backwards compatibility?[/citation]
Unfortunately, due to the complexity of the PowerPC based Cell Architecture, it probably won't be possible to create backwards compatibility with PS3 unless they included a Cell Microprocessor as a Coprocessor inside like they did with the Emotion engine. MIPS was hard enough to emulate on Intel's Instruction set. That's probably why we don't see PS3 or Xbox 360 emulation around.
 


It's always possible to emulate an architecture. Whether or not it can be done with good performance is what we should be concerned about.
 
Anyone not to impressed with killzone 4? Didn't care for all the social features as I do not have very many friends. Glad to see it has 8gb's of GDDR5 as some rumors suggested only 4gb.

I'm still on the fence, might just stick to PC unless MS blows me away with the new Xbox or if Sony show me sometime I feel is worth getting on the PS4.
 
[citation][nom]fonzy[/nom]Anyone not to impressed with killzone 4? Didn't care for all the social features as I do not have very many friends. Glad to see it has 8gb's of GDDR5 as some rumors suggested only 4gb.I'm still on the fence, might just stick to PC unless MS blows me away with the new Xbox or if Sony show me sometime I feel is worth getting on the PS4.[/citation]
I didn't care for the fire effects very much on K4. I thought it looked very unrealistic without much contrast as one would expect.
 
[citation][nom]itzsnypah[/nom]I am disappointed, the best APU's can only play 720p smoothly. Oh and there is no such thing as an 8core APU. I really hope this playstation only lasts a few years, because I don't want to have another 8ish years where graphics in games don't improve. It's obvious that they don't have a power limit so why didn't they use dedicated graphics? Also who the hell needs a touchscreen controller?[/citation]
The point of a console. You have missed it. Developing games with full access to a single known hardware configuration grants more than 10x the performance than said hardware would run a PC game with. PC games & applications only interact on a software level in order to have compatibility with hundreds of potential hardware configurations.
 
Can you play used games on it? If Xbox blocks this then I'll be getting the PSX this time around. If they require internet I won't be getting either, lol. Where are the stinking details? we need DETAILS!!!!
 
8GB of GDDR5 might sound grand however there's a few caveats.

The fast stuff is expensive so likely it will be slower than usual to keep costs down. The memory bus may be a simple dual channel affair (128 bit) which is as much as AMD has ever gone to a CPU. The memory is also unified so both the GPU and CPU components have to share it at the same time.

If this machine is going to manage output to a 4K screen then the games are going to be terribly starved for space leading to the usual compromise in textures from developers.

The good news for us PC gamers though I think is that by sharing more similarities, we ought to experience less driver issues with titles.
 
With AMD's financial problems, and Sony depending on AMD hardware, I see Sony owning AMD in two years.
 
[citation][nom]soulprovider[/nom]8GB of GDDR5 might sound grand however there's a few caveats.The fast stuff is expensive so likely it will be slower than usual to keep costs down. The memory bus may be a simple dual channel affair (128 bit) which is as much as AMD has ever gone to a CPU. The memory is also unified so both the GPU and CPU components have to share it at the same time.If this machine is going to manage output to a 4K screen then the games are going to be terribly starved for space leading to the usual compromise in textures from developers.The good news for us PC gamers though I think is that by sharing more similarities, we ought to experience less driver issues with titles.[/citation]

Memory bandwidth is quoted as around 170GB/s and capacity is 8GB. That's a 256 bit interface unless clocks and densities are messed up.

Having 4K support doesn't mean that you'll actually be able to use it much if ever. You can't use a feature that your TV doesn't support and almost no TVs support 4K, making it difficult as anything other than a little bit pf preparation into the future.
 
Something to think about - if both the Nextbox and PS4 will be running on all AMD hardware, does that mean multiplatform games might run better on AMD-powered PCs vs Intel/Nvidia? I know Intel generally has superior performance to AMD in the CPU biz, and Nvidia pulls ahead slightly in the GPU field, but I'm a curious guy.
 
[citation][nom]shadowfamicom[/nom]I have seen it rather often in console related articles here, it's no worries though, I just skip past those comments.And I think you make some very valid points. But I also think there are benefits to a closed system as well as benefits to an open system, or a system that finds the right balance in between.[/citation]

Didn't want my comment to seem like the argument is lopsided. Consoles of course do have benefits as you hinted to. Easy to setup and easy to use. The only thing you have to worry about is where and when you want to game. I used to play on consoles myself, as I'm fairly sure many others have, and find elitist on both sides lacking a certain perspective. I guess when you look at it you have to question why the user games on that device. My reason for being a PC gamer is all the advantages you get that come along with building your own system: Modding games, Tweaking graphics, Great sound(I hate that people never mention what a good sound card/headphones can do), instant game downloads, and many other. When I was a console gamer(like 10 years ago) it was because: playing games was easy, could use on any t.v., and could play with my friends. Nowadays, HDMI has made PCs easy to hook up so the one point is kinda gone.

The Main reason people will continue to use consoles though is the easy factor, where-in anybody can do it. Hopefull value can change that with the steambox, and we will see a new era of PC gaming.
 
10x the performance?
Someone has high hopes.

If only 10x was possible.
Maybe 2x the performance, at best, but not even close to 10x, otherwise the PS3 would run circles around any desktop and the xbox.

[citation][nom]Onihikage[/nom]Developing games with full access to a single known hardware configuration grants more than 10x the performance than said hardware would run a PC game with.[/citation]
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom