.....Its a 6670.....*silence*........ Bahahahahaha The sad thing is, I'm not sure if this is good or bad for PC gaming. On the one hand developers like Epic who were complaining about the lack of grunt in the current console gen might flock to the PC as its where the boundries can really be pushed. On the other hand, it might hold back improvements in graphics etc for the next 7 years or so! I know you can get a lot more out of a console GPU that you can from a PC GPU but I personally was hoping for something like a 6950 with ~1404 shaders.
Would be nice to have something that would make good use of our recent upgrades without having to upgrade again too soon.
So when my mate comes round and brings his game for us to co-op it might not work? I can buy an old game 2nd hand for couple quid to see if I like the gameply? Don't go there MS or I'm jumping ship
Tbh, I'm pretty certain these kind of rumours are around at every console release. Not saying it won't happen, but I wouldn't be too worried about it atm!
I also heard that the xbox 720 is going to be released at the fall of 2013. Which means they will be using a 6670 2 years from now! Which will be massively underpowered. Hopefully the PS4 will have a 28nm gpu in it. It is anoying that they pick the gpu's just before the big jump is going to happen. Like xbox has a 7800gt, imagine if it had waited and got 8800gt in it. Same with PS3. Hopefully the PS4 won't have some stupid cpu in it either.
With that in mind, they're probably looking at power consumption and load temperatures as much as performance; and I guess the 6670 hits the sweet spot for console performance, while being able to be cooled fairly efficiently. We have a 360 for the kids, and I only go near to set parental controls and the like, but I think it's probably a smart move by Microsoft. If Sony or whomever turn up with a vastly more powerful console, they could end up running the RROD/YLOD gauntlet, with the GPU trying to detach itself under it's own heat output. Very constructive. Nice work.
What's with all the hate? That GPU with direct-to-metal programming, will provide more than bountiful visual effects even at it's maximum supported (hopefully now native) resolution of 1920*1080. I expect the games released, after the devs are done getting used to the new kit, will resemble The Witcher 2 (which incidentally, my system still can't run maxed out). I think people forget that PC's are limited by the majority of games currently being produced, because they're largely bad console ports, the MASSIVE overhead of the DirectX API on PC which IIRC is like up-to 90% on good games, and the disinclination to develop for PC properly generally. Can anyone name a released PC game that wasn't quite obviously a console port from 2011? The Witcher 2 and Battlefield 3 seemed to me to be the only real exceptions (from memory). Factoring in the low cost, low size, and low TDP of the GPU - and yet with some considerable grunt - which in theory make for a desirable console, why not? I'll be buying one, and will be glad to see the back of my current 360s. All things considered, it's at least a step forward, and not sideways as was the Wii U? TSB
I don't think it's too bad a choice tbh. It's very efficient and has a fair amount of oomph. AvP with AAx4, AFx16 at 1920x1080 supposedly runs at 31fps. Mafia2 on medium at 1680x1050, 4xAF, noAA runs at 73fps. Max power consumption is 63w. It would depend highly on the architecture surrounding the gpu, i.e. vram, cpu etc.
the witcher 2 is a bad example as the highest settings involve that stupid ubersampling thing which imo makes it look worse. Otherwise you should be able to turn most things right up. My 460 coped admirably with pretty high settings.
I'd presume Mafia2 would be running at 720p with nowhere near as many pretties switched on, on console. The PS3 version struggled from what I hear.
I agree with the majority of your post but I would prefer to see something in the region of 800shaders considering the expected life span on these consoles. Still as you say, with bare to the metal programming it is quite suprising what can be extracted from the current generation of consoles. A significantly more powerful HD6670 iteration (compared to the R500 Xenos GPU - which is more like a 240 shader HD3870) could provide some stunning visuals once developers get used to it.
We're also forget the manufacturing consideration - odds are that manufacturing a 6670 in serious (ie tens of millions of units) bulk is much more efficient than a 6950, for example.
If Sony releases rumours saying they will use some high end gpu 570 or 580 then expect me to do the same.
Sure they can, but as you say, given that the expected release date for the new Xbox is Q4 2013, and the shelf life of consoles is now 8 years or so...... Not only that but at the time the 360 launched R500 was very near the top of the pile, and 8 years on its considered very underpowered. I still hope this is the wrong information and its closer to 1000 shaders at least, or, that the PS4 can bring something more powerful to the table. It'd be a great shame if we were stuck with today's graphics for the next 8 years. I want next gen consoles to look like the Virgin advert..
To quote our fearless BF3 leader DEATH TO CONSOLIFICATION! I am less than impressed with console gaming. And having spent what I have on my PC and I will not buy another console!!
Bah...is it not about time they used a Crossfire/SLi setup in games consoles? Now that would be interesting. Perhaps one day...
