News AMD hints at Xbox 720 APU design win

While I do recall tests performed with different data rates (frequencies) of DDR3 and APUs I do not recall a single review where they tested single versus dual channel controller operation.One would expect twice the performance, but performance scaling hasn't been anywhere near in the case of CPU-bound tasks. Could it be that tri- or quad-channel controller coudl make very little difference due to CPU's internal memory bus bandwidth limitations ?

 

In fairness a GHz edition would take even MORE power. And the first versions of these cards basically used the bone stock versions. The GE versions were basically OC'ed 7970s. Mind you they really weren't that much louder or power consuming than a 680 in fairness.

Even though AMD landed the contracts, I think Nvidia wisened up to the problems with developing a Console chip, the limited ROI. Even though it offers great marketing potential the amount of money a company receives from developing a Console chip is limited at best. Hence why Nvidia didn't rush ahead to make a new Graphics chip.

I'm not entirely sure how profitable this venture would be. Although I am certain that it would help bolster chip sales if anything.

 

What is going on with AMD, they are even promoted in Crysis 3, which Crytek normally back Nvidia?...

 

Ars actually has a very good post about this from yesterday - bit disappointed in bit's coverage, tbh.

Speculation pegs the GPU as roughly equivalent to the 7850. Despite AMD's talk about next-generation graphics, they are obviously talking about this generation - their roadmap doesn't nearly line up with the next generation (I hesitate to call it 8000-series, since AMD has already started rebadging 7000-series parts as 8000-series, at least in the mobile lineup...not that they haven't done that before, at least with the 5000-series/6000-series, while the 6000-series obviously had new hardware, as well.)

Jaguar is, of course, the successor to Bobcat aka the answer to Atom that kicked Atom's sorry ass. While clock speeds aren't impressive, being 'close to the metal' should help developers tremendously. Also, while the PS4 running 8 cores may have no bearing whatsoever on ports to PC being more multi-threaded, hope springs eternal. After all, on PC, games are running on top of an OS, while that doesn't necessarily have to be the case on consoles (or, if nothing else, a console OS can be a hell of a lot more stripped-down than a full-fat PC OS.)

Additionally, there is an as-yet-unnamed co-processor to which background tasks can be offloaded. It seems likely to be an ARM processor with dedicated code/decode hardware bolted on. Console & game updates will be offloaded to this processor, along with video playback - letting it run on an ARM proc while powering down the Jaguar cores will save energy and should be a lot less noisy, since the system fans will likely be able to spin down in that case. Also, this may offer mitigation to the interminable updates - how often did you sit down for a quick bit of gaming, only to wait until you were old and wrinkled while the system downloaded updates?

Nvidia, meanwhile, still has fat wads of cash to through at studios if they're of a mind to push TWIMTBP. So, while a whole lot of development will happen on AMD hardware first, don't expect Nvidia to take it lying down - graphics hardware is still their bread and butter.

So, even though I don't even care about consoles anymore, I'm a bit stoked for PS4/the next Xbox - running on x86 gives me hope that devs can spend better time optimizing in ways that will make it better for PCs. While the GPU is high-ish midrange today, we're still talking essentially an off the shelf AMD GPU - rather than devs futzing around with the nightmare Cell was rumored to be, they'll be programming in the magical land of x86, which hopefully will lead more studios down a path where PC gamers can get proper graphics if they've got the hardware to handle it. I hope, anyway.

 

again, next generation doesnt exist in any `final` form , so how do you propose using that in a product thats being built right now?

you cant


as for an ARM cpu? no information - it would seem your actually reading other websites (which got it badly wrong with their` leak` over the PS4 ram capacility , ergo , everything else is up in the air right now)

since sony havent announced anything about the cpu - since the `leaks` all said 4GB of GDDR5 with a 1.6ghz xpu ; how about 8GB of GDDR5 wiht a 2ghz cpu , all using LibGCM 1.2 for far greater power than your very own desktop has - since your own kit cant change compute core useage on teh fly as needed now can it...

 

crysis 3 runs on the razor edge gaming tablet.....

http://www.destructoid.com/crysis-3-can-be-run-on-the-razer-edge-246485.phtml

 

I will say one thing. Any thing is an upgrade now, a console with a 7850 is at least 5-7x in terms of power. That's a hell of an increase.

 

Uuurgh, playing an FPS using thumbsticks.... the very thought brings a tear to my eyes