Sony Has New Console In The Works, AMD Building Graphics

[DhinShin]

I think the Wii U won't be as underpowered as we were expecting, I really think both Sony and Microsoft have decided to stay very far away from the cutting edge this time.

[Kyros]

I think the Wii U won't be as underpowered as we were expecting, I really think both Sony and Microsoft have decided to stay very far away from the cutting edge this time.

Yeah, I'd guess the gap between the three will be a lot smaller this time.

[Ruzhyo]

I think the Wii U won't be as underpowered as we were expecting, I really think both Sony and Microsoft have decided to stay very far away from the cutting edge this time.

A sound observation, what with the released technical specifications already available for all of the next-next-generation systems.
[beta]

[Irontiger]

A sound observation, what with the released technical specifications already available for all of the next-next-generation systems.
[beta]

Technical shmechnical. For all the hype about X360's GPU, I've found myself impressed by the graphics of more PS3 games than Xbox ones. And it's not likely Nintendo will ever release the full specs of the Wii U.

[_DeKe_]

I can't say I really care who makes what in the up coming generation or how cutting edge it is. The direction I take when it comes to buying hardware depends on the software.

It doesn't matter what hardware you have in your console. If you don't have any good games to play on it then it simply won't sell.

[Brat Gvidon]

I wonder if it will take them 6 years to optimize their new consoles with firmware and whether it will take the same amount of time for developers to optimize games for the hardware. Current generation console games' graphics has reached its full potential after 6 years since they first came out on the market. I hope Sony learned from its past mistakes that development software needs to be easy enough for developers to code games quickly. Given that it is more difficult to code for PS3 than Xbox 360, we may never know PS3's full potential...

[red_dog007]

It's got more in common with HD 2900 in that it's a unified shader, but beyond that, it's vastly different from any desktop GPU.

Looking at spec sheets, it seems a lot like a R500 hybrid moving into R600. Feature wise, it is very similar to the R500 being DX9.0c based with a couple DX10 goodies like tessellation. Though it introduced Unified Shaders, 18 months ahead of the R600 (HD2000 series). Still very different from desktop chips, but that is pretty much how you can look at it comparing to desktop chips.

It is took bad that Sony just didn't say screw it and use a full fledged GeForce 7800. The only difference is 8ROPS are disabled on the console version. Would have twice the pixel power over the x360 and a definite edge graphically.

i wonder what kind of income AMD will make from having chips in all 3 consoles this round?

Maybe enough to keep the CPU division a live?
They scored the Gamecube, then the Wii which has sold a LOT + the x360 this generation.





I wonder what AMD will do. Will AMD just toss in a desktop chip, or will they continue doing what ATI did and design unique processors. Maybe implement designs from architectures in the works again.

[CorrupT88]

It seems like the big greedy sony and microsoft are not happy with making a slight loss on hardware then making massive profits on software... Instead they are using almost obsolete hardware to try and make a profit on that as well [thumbdown]

[Irontiger]

Looking at spec sheets, it seems a lot like a R500 hybrid moving into R600. Feature wise, it is very similar to the R500 being DX9.0c based with a couple DX10 goodies like tessellation. Though it introduced Unified Shaders, 18 months ahead of the R600 (HD2000 series). Still very different from desktop chips, but that is pretty much how you can look at it comparing to desktop chips.

It is took bad that Sony just didn't say screw it and use a full fledged GeForce 7800. The only difference is 8ROPS are disabled on the console version. Would have twice the pixel power over the x360 and a definite edge graphically.



Maybe enough to keep the CPU division a live?
They scored the Gamecube, then the Wii which has sold a LOT + the x360 this generation.





I wonder what AMD will do. Will AMD just toss in a desktop chip, or will they continue doing what ATI did and design unique processors. Maybe implement designs from architectures in the works again.

"R500" is Xenos. R520 is X1800, which was an extension of R480 (X850), which was a minor upgrade of R420 (X800), which was an extension of R3X0 (9X00). Xenos was based off of R400, which was to be the first desktop unified shader, but wasn't going to run fast enough at the time it was intended to ship. Instead of that radical new design, they launched extensions of the already mature 9700/9800 architecture, until they could deliver the unified architecture with "enough" performance (HD2900).

RSX is saddled more by the halved memory bandwidth than the halved ROPs.

These days AMD seems to be leaning heavily on SOCs.

[Jarnis]

Oh, one thing is for sure; Next consoles from MS and Sony will aim for, at launch, SOC one chip design. It just saves so much money on building the thing. AMD is lightyears ahead of what Intel or NVIDIA can do there. On the other hand, I fear that SOC design (CPU, GPU, "chipset" all on one chip) will be saddled with performance that, by today's PC gaming standards, would be... crap. Translation; we'd get another generation of sub-720p-upscaled-narrow-FOV console junk. Yeah, tessellated and more shiny (future console GPUs will be DX11.1 grade as far as features go) but I fear the raw performance would hobble them... just so they can build a SOC design from day 1.