Nvidia: PS4 specs are low end CPU and mid range GPU

[Hielkenator]

This is the first time the Playstation will have specs lower than PCs at launch. When the PS2 came out, it had specs superior to any PC. Same with the PS3 (albeit by a much smaller margin). This is the first time Sony's console isn't a superior powerhouse but merely a comparable (if not inferior) machine at launch. Sure, all the "consoles aren't PCs / better use of hardware / no bulky OS / uniform hardware platform" still applies, but it applied to previous consoles as well - but they also had superior hardware on top of it. Or underneath it? In conjunction with, in any case.

What? Ha ha, that's absolutely NOT true at all.

 

[Foxi4]

...Just to lighten up the atmosphere, lads:



#February 20th 2013
#Still Ballin'

 

[BORTZ]

>Nvidia is butthurt over not being given the job, says things that everyone knows to make it sound bad.

Cool.

 

[heartgold]

By "run" I meant "run at a comparable performance" since that's the whole point. I can "game on Ultra" too except why would I do that at 2FPS?

You must have a crappy PC Foxi4. I kid.

Anyhow as the PS4 is releasing later this year, the next GPU card is going to be double the flops also releasing around the same time meaning PS4 will be left behind by PC by miles.

Those 8 cores jaguar cores are targeted for mobile or low end laptops, they don't have a comparable performance again real desktop processors that's why they are low end. Think of atom, but yeah I'm sure it's better than that. I heard on neogaf forum A15 is closer to jaguar cores performance, than jaguar is against current desktops CPU's. With 8 cores it should be fine, it's more capable and more advance features making it no match for A15. Just saying performance wise.

We already have quad core jaguars for netbooks confirmed, also we will be seeing tablets with 2-4 x64 jaguar cores sometime later. Which is nice.

 

[DiscostewSM]

I kinda feel the 8-cores on the CPU are giving in to high diminishing returns. Sure, they can be used for games, but I honestly don't see them being used efficiently, in that only 3 may be maxed out while each additional core gets used less than the previous one.

 

[heartgold]

I kinda feel the 8-cores on the CPU are giving in to high diminishing returns. Sure, they can be used for games, but I honestly don't see them being used efficiently, in that only 3 may be maxed out while each additional core gets used less than the previous one.

Each core isn't very powerful by itself, you are not going to get a good performance, together you can split up the tasks and be very efficient. As I already mentioned these are very low end CPU that will get used in tablets and low end laptops. 8 cores will be supper effective performance wise, don't forgot Cell was overpowered, most of cells work is done on modern days GPU. With a decent powerful GPU you can pump out nice graphics.

 

[Rydian]

Each core isn't very powerful by itself, you are not going to get a good performance, together you can split up the tasks and be very efficient.

Not for gaming though, which is why you see gaming PCs are still predominantly dual-core or quad-core. More cores go unused, or used not for the game process.

The only part of gaming that can be run highly-parallel is the video rendering, and that's already offloaded to the GPU to be run way more parallel than any CPU can do.

 

[Qtis]

Dedicated platform for gaming vs a multi-use platform for a various amount of different tasks. Guess which one uses the available resources more efficiently? While this is apples and oranges, I can see a company like Nvidia complaining like this. Sure they have a point, but the PS4/WiiU/Durango (or whatever it'll be called) will use resources solely for the purpose of gaming. There will of course be multimedia support, but the platform doesn't have to run 3D modeling, audio mixing, video editing, photo editing or games not meant to be played on a certain hardware configuration.

In other words, games will be developed with the known specs instead of a thousand variables. Less variables means possibility for optimization and thus better use of resources. Specs by themselves don't mean as much, but the related SDK does show the possibilities or restrictions of games at a certain timeframe.

 

[tronic307]

A lot of this talk about games being unable to take full advantage of multi-core computer architectures may have been relevant a decade ago, but makes little sense in an era where even a simple browser can use hundreds of threads. The paradigm shift away from the 'ideal' uniprocessor computing model has been complete for years. Surely a 10GHz single-core would be superior to a 2GHz, 8-core processor, but the point is mooted by the fact that the former is highly impractical for consumer use at this time. Many PC games may use 2 or 4 cores max, but the fact that PC games are coded to run on the most machines possible has to be recognized.

 

[Rydian]

A lot of this talk about games being unable to take full advantage of multi-core computer architectures may have been relevant a decade ago, but makes little sense in an era where even a simple browser can have hundreds of threads. The paradigm shift away from the 'ideal' uniprocessor computing model has been complete for years. Surely a 10GHz single-core would be superior to an 8-core 2GHz processor, but the point is mooted by the fact that the former is highly impractical for consumer use at this time. Many PC games may use 2 or 4 cores max, but the fact that PC games are coded to run on the most machines possible has to be recognized.

No, that's not how it works. Browsers have multiple threads for segregation issues, not CPU usage issues. It doesn't matter what platform it runs on, most game engines only have two or three main threads, period (if even more than one). It's not about catering to people with low-core machines, it's literally that the extra cores go unused because there's no extra threads on them, because more threads would not make their tasks any faster.

 

[tronic307]

No, that's not how it works. Browsers have multiple threads for segregation issues, not CPU usage issues. It doesn't matter what platform it runs on, most game engines only have two or three main threads, period (if even more than one). It's not about catering to people with low-core machines, it's literally that the extra cores go unused because there's no extra threads on them, because more threads would not make their tasks any faster.

Point noted, but I'm sure Sony's engineers would beg to differ. Unless, of course their reason for specifying 8 cores was nothing more than *ZOMG 8 CORES!!1!one!* I don't know about Sony, but I'd rather lose a pissing contest than potentially billions of dollars.

 

[Foxi4]

Those 8 cores jaguar cores are targeted for mobile or low end laptops, they don't have a comparable performance again real desktop processors that's why they are low end. Think of atom, but yeah I'm sure it's better than that. I heard on neogaf forum A15 is closer to jaguar cores performance, than jaguar is against current desktops CPU's. With 8 cores it should be fine, it's more capable and more advance features making it no match for A15. Just saying performance wise.

Keep in mind that strong integer maths are not exactly required for gaming purposes - we should be concerned with Floating Point which will be performed by the GPU. Moreover, the more cores the more simultaneous operations the CPU can perform (pipelines and whatnot ). Most of graphics-related calculations are performed by the GPU - the CPU bothers with memory allocation, A.I. etc.

 

[heartgold]

Keep in mind that strong integer maths are not exactly required for gaming purposes - we should be concerned with Floating Point which will be performed by the GPU. Moreover, the more cores the more simultaneous operations the CPU can perform (pipelines and whatnot ). Most of graphics-related calculations are performed by the GPU - the CPU bothers with memory allocation, A.I. etc.

Indeed as I related to the expensive Cell Sony created for the PS3, newer GPU can perform those tasks with more ease. Regarding multi core use, Rydian tells me most cores will go unused like PC gaming. I can see it happening, not all 8 cores will be used for gaming, maybe spare a couple for OS and other additional features.

 

[Rydian]

Point noted, but I'm sure Sony's engineers would beg to differ.

Not for gaming, no. The tasks game engines do, CPU-wise, are not tasks that can be run parallel beyond ~2-3 threads. Games are often limited in CPU per-core performance (where more cores does jack shit since it's one thread causing the issue) or GPU performance.

Unless, of course their reason for specifying 8 cores was nothing more than *ZOMG 8 CORES!!1!one!* I don't know about Sony, but I'd rather lose a pissing contest than potentially billions of dollars.

Stuff other than gaming while gaming is the main guess. Likely the ability to bring up a browser (or whatever) while a game is paused without having to halt the game's execution (since the cores it's on don't need to be freed), stuff like that, or motion capture data processing runs on the CPU instead of the actually input device used for it, etc.

 

[tronic307]

My PC only has half as many cores as a PS4 but this game seems to be using every core I can throw at it. Admittedly, even if I had hyperthreading I would leave it off. That usage valley is from when I went to the map screen.

 

[Rydian]

My PC only has half as many cores as a PS4 but this game seems to be using every core I can throw at it. Admittedly, even if I had hyperthreading I would leave it off. That usage valley is from when I went to the map screen.

Doesn't look like it to me. 25% CPU usage on a four-core machine is one main thread full-on, Windows likes to take processes and swap the cores they run on around.

You can right-click a process in the task manager and use "Set Affinity" to lock it to just one core, preferably one of the later/unused ones, though if it can only use one core it'll just try to max that one out anyways, maybe seeing how it bounces between two cores would be better?

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

I still think Sony would have been better off with a 4 core CPU with more Mhz than 8 cores... But I am not an engineer so take it with a grain of salt. lol

 

[tronic307]

This is what a single core app looks like; the core usage graphs are independent.

 

[Pluupy]

After all these years, people are still complaining about system specs? Seriously? All the current and next gen consoles can run games beautifully. They're not trying to compete with the Titan and start conducting science experiments. Jeez.

 

[Rydian]

This is what a single core app looks like; the core usage graphs are independent.View attachment 2100

Can you use something like Process Explorer to see which threads are where from the process?
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx