Digital Foundry: all questioned AAA developers recommend AMD CPU's for gaming PC's

[galego]

Its simply the best fit (jaguar is). The devs also said that over 8 cores introduces scaling issues. Carmack said that given the same power he would always take that power on fewer cores. Also the fact that 12 or 16 core jaguar would blow the cpu tdp budget (4 x 4 core jaguar @ 25 watts = 100 watts).

The devs and sony basically had a choice. Intel was too expensive (though if they could they would go with intel at the same price any day--better perf/watt). Piledriver was expensive and quite power hungry. If they were going to go with an apu design then jaguar and gcn are on a much similar node compared to gcn and piledriver decreasing r and d costs. The four core chips that were available were either too weak or too expensive or problematic.

Sony got burned last cycle with a console that was too expensive. They don't want to make that same mistake.

I always like the analysis made a posteriori. Everyone now is able to explain why jaguar, still nobody did years ago when game developers started to design the PS4.

I did read many analysis, a priori, affirming us that neither the PS4 nor the next Xbox would use AMD technology. It was "common sense" they said then.

How about we wait for richland to be tested before making claims about it?

Seems a good advice, and it would be fine if everyone follows it... but I am sure that the lack of data will not be an impediment for lots of posters to claim how bad Richland, Jaguar, Steamroller... will be.

 

[Exophase]

The devs and sony basically had a choice. Intel was too expensive (though if they could they would go with intel at the same price any day--better perf/watt).

It wouldn't be enough for Intel to offer an existing i7 or even Haswell at a competitive price. What Sony needed was two things - a strong custom APU today and shrunk versions of that APU in the future. I doubt Intel would have made a fast enough custom APU for them (assuming their IGP can even scale that high right now) and they're not in the habit of shrinking the same uarch more than once - even when they do it often still brings in a bunch of extra stuff to take up some of the gained space.

Sure they could have gone with non-APU solution if the price was right, but that'd be less power efficient and would have brought down the performance ceiling for whatever Sony's thermal limit was. You also have to ask what price could have been right. If AMD is willing to sell the 8x Jaguar APU for the same price they would have sold a GPU-only version for then no price would have been low enough.

 

[dastral]

AMD was willing to play ball (price, performance, control loss, unified product) Intel & Nvidia were probably not.

It all boils down to this : AMD could/would do it, no one else could/would, so AMD got the deal.

As to "all developpers recommended AMD CPU" we all know this is PR Bullshit.
There is absolutely not a single scenario in which AMD beats Intel.
Also Intel doesn't really have a GPU... which is kinda problematic for a gaming console

However as it has been pointed out, if you factor in PRICE (which is VERY important when you sell 30M consoles), then yes, AMD is always competitive if not better under some conditions.

Every developper would prefer a Xeon E5-2690 + Titan over what they have today...
But you're not going to sell many of these 4000$ consoles....

AMD had the perfect product... and that's it.... Kudos for them.

 

[galego]

As to "all developpers recommended AMD CPU" we all know this is PR Bullshit.
There is absolutely not a single scenario in which AMD beats Intel.

We know this is untrue.

Every developper would prefer a Xeon E5-2690 + Titan over what they have today...

That would be some 'enthusiast' pc-gamer choice: an over-hyped GPU (a 7990 beats both the titan and the 690), a classic CPU+GPU design full of bottlenecks, lacking unified memory...

Game developers have designed the PS4 and call it "the nearly perfect gaming pc".

 

[frozentundra123456]

We know this is untrue.



That would be some 'enthusiast' pc-gamer choice: an over-hyped GPU (a 7990 beats both the titan and the 690), a classic CPU+GPU design full of bottlenecks, lacking unified memory...

Game developers have designed the PS4 and call it "the nearly perfect gaming pc".

That is the kind of overstatement you seem to take unquestioningly. It is obvious overstatement because it is not even a PC. It is a specialized gaming device. I am not saying it wont be good at that, but whoever said that it was a gaming pc is obviously speaking in hyperbole or just not being accurate in his statements.

 

[Sweepr]

We know this is untrue.



That would be some 'enthusiast' pc-gamer choice: an over-hyped GPU (a 7990 beats both the titan and the 690), a classic CPU+GPU design full of bottlenecks, lacking unified memory...

Game developers have designed the PS4 and call it "the nearly perfect gaming pc".

Overhyped? AMD doesnt come close to its performance without multi-GPU solutions. As a HD7970 user, I'd pick up a Titan any day over a HD7990.

 

[galego]

That is the kind of overstatement you seem to take unquestioningly. It is obvious overstatement because it is not even a PC. It is a specialized gaming device. I am not saying it wont be good at that, but whoever said that it was a gaming pc is obviously speaking in hyperbole or just not being accurate in his statements.

Game developers made the claim when comparing the PS4 to a gaming PC. Nobody that I know believed that they were claiming that a console is a PC. The PS4 is not a PC, evidently.

 

[Sleepingforest]

I actually do believe that the PS4 is pretty close to perfect for gaming--or at least, much closer to perfect than a PC will be in the next few years. One platform, completely standard, and with fewer bottlenecks.

The thing that won't change is how weak it is in comparison. Galego, I know we've been over this before, but it bears repeating: the PS4 only gets around 2 TFLOPS of raw power. It is far more efficient with it than a PC, but not powerful enough to outpace PC forever. Historically, the PC has developed power quickly enough to overcome efficiency advantages far before the lifetime of a console ends.

Also, regarding your point about the 7990 vs the 690: they have basically the same output at 1440p right now, as reported by Anandtech. The 7990 has more memory available, but also produces more heat and requires more watts, so it's basically a choice of efficiency versus long term performance.

 

[galego]

Overhyped? AMD doesnt come close to its performance without multi-GPU solutions. As a HD7970 user, I'd pick up a Titan any day over a HD7990.

The "most over-hyped card", "hype card", "Very disappointing card"... are some of the claims made.

Other 7970 users think different:

I'm a bit disappointed in Nvidia on this one. Looks like I'll be on my 7970s a while longer.

If you want a single card the 690 is faster that titan.

If you want go dual. A pair of 7970 GHz Ed are more faster than titan and cost less.

If you want top performance in a single card go for the 7990. It is faster than the 690 and much faster than the titan.

 

[Phynaz]

The "most over-hyped card", "hype card", "Very disappointing card"... are some of the claims made.

Other 7970 users think different:



If you want a single card the 690 is faster that titan.

If you want go dual. A pair of 7970 GHz Ed are more faster than titan and cost less.

If you want top performance in a single card go for the 7990. It is faster than the 690 and much faster than the titan.

Ever heard of AMDZone? You belong there, not here. Over there they will believe what you post.

 

[galego]

I actually do believe that the PS4 is pretty close to perfect for gaming--or at least, much closer to perfect than a PC will be in the next few years. One platform, completely standard, and with fewer bottlenecks.

The thing that won't change is how weak it is in comparison. Galego, I know we've been over this before, but it bears repeating: the PS4 only gets around 2 TFLOPS of raw power. It is far more efficient with it than a PC, but not powerful enough to outpace PC forever. Historically, the PC has developed power quickly enough to overcome efficiency advantages far before the lifetime of a console ends.

Also, regarding your point about the 7990 vs the 690: they have basically the same output at 1440p right now, as reported by Anandtech. The 7990 has more memory available, but also produces more heat and requires more watts, so it's basically a choice of efficiency versus long term performance.

About the PS4 looks at my thread about that. I guess that the PS4 would perform like a 7990. Other posters seem to confirm this.

Regarding the 7990 vs 690 vs titan, the 7990 is in general faster and quiet and about so hot. Power consumption is not an issue at those enthusiast levels. Moreover the 7990 has rather more memory than the 690 and thus consumes more.

Notice that in some games such as DIRT Showdown (see pcgamer review) the 7990 can give twice FPS.

the HD 7990 is faster than the GTX 690 in most tests that we ran, but not in all of them.

[...]

Even more surprising is the card's lack of noise and heat, [...] We'd say all in all it's probably just a bit quieter than the GTX 690, and gets about as hot.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/videocards/amd_radeon_hd_7990_first_look

As the results on the preceding pages have shown, the Radeon HD 7990 puts up some impressive frame rates, outpacing the similarly priced GeForce GTX 690 and GTX Titan more often than not.

[...]

Power consumption under load was relatively high for the Radeon HD 7990, but we were expecting that to be the case considering the card is packing 8.6B transistors and 6GB of memory.

[...]

With that said, the Radeon HD 7990 is immensely powerful and it runs surprisingly cool and quiet, considering its performance.

[...]

The AMD Radeon HD 7990 is a beast.

http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-Radeon-HD-7990-Review-The-Silent-Beast/?page=13

The noise levels are excellent too, even at full load. AMD have been talking about not only making sure it’s quiet in terms of decibels, but also in terms of the tonal quality of any noise it does make. And the fans on the AMD Radeon HD 7990 are at once quiet but any noise is a lot softer than the somewhat harsher tones of the GTX 690, or even the also impressively quiet GTX Titan.


[...]


It is though very, very quick and the HD 7990 has the GTX Titan beaten in every benchmark test we put them through. Thanks to the power of the Tahiti XT it also holds its own ahead of the similarly dual-GPU GTX 690. So in those terms it’s a win; the fastest reference graphics card in the world.

http://www.pcgamer.com/review/amd-radeon-hd-7990-6gb-review/

The HD 7990 6GB and it's GeForce nemesis duke it out throughout our benchmarks, with the HD 7990 6GB just about scraping victory on the balance of results across all the games and resolutions on test. However, for every decisive win such as in Bioshock Infinite, there are still games such as Skyrim and The Witcher 2 where the GTX 690 4GB is quicker.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2013/04/24/amd-radeon-hd-7990-6gb-review/12

 

[galego]

Ever heard of AMDZone? You belong there, not here. Over there they will believe what you post.

Please don't kill the messenger if you don't like the message.

You can find lots of sites recommending dual 7970 over the titan. You don't like the recommendation? Not my problem.

You can see the 7990 outperforming both the 690 and the titan. See links in my previous post... They are not AMDZone. You don't like the benchmarks? Not my problem.

 

[bgt]

Please don't kill the messenger if you don't like the message

Absolutely so:thumbsup:

 

[Idontcare]

Sony's Mark Cerny explains why the PS4 switched to x86

For the Playstation 4 Mark Cerny, the lead system architect, wanted to make sure that developers coding for the PS4 aren’t stuck in the CELL-quandary they faced in the last generation.
"The biggest thing is we didn't want the hardware to be a puzzle that programmers would be needing to solve in order to make quality titles," he said in an interview with Gamasutra. “[With the CELL] There was huge performance there, but in order to unlock that performance, you really needed to study it and learn unique ways of using the hardware."

Sounds very reasonable, and it does make me think PC ports from consoles are going to be all the better versus the past. And if AMD does get GDDR5-based APU platforms off the ground, it could certainly be a potent benefit.

 

[dastral]

We know this is untrue

Are you telling me AMD beats Intel in Perf or Perf/W ? We all know this is untrue.
However Intel is a LOT more expensive... You can't put a 350$ i7m in a Sub500$ Console....

AMD never had the best product, it had the ideal product for this cast (once price is factored in).

That would be some 'enthusiast' pc-gamer choice: an over-hyped GPU (a 7990 beats both the titan and the 690), a classic CPU+GPU design full of bottlenecks, lacking unified memory...
Game developers have designed the PS4 and call it "the nearly perfect gaming pc".

I agree we haven't yet seen the benefits of unified memory, but seriously ?
A weakish CPU, a decent GPU, no SSD for the "nearly perfect gaming pc ?"

Now if you ask me "what's the best we can do with 400$" ?
Then yes i'll agree with you.
But saying the PS4 is "perfect" is way too fanboyish to be serious.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Are you telling me AMD beats Intel in Perf or Perf/W ? We all know this is untrue.
However Intel is a LOT more expensive... You can't put a 350$ i7m in a Sub500$ Console....

AMD never had the best product, it had the ideal product for this cast (once price is factored in).

I agree we haven't yet seen the benefits of unified memory, but seriously ?
A weakish CPU, a decent GPU, no SSD for the "nearly perfect gaming pc ?"

Now if you ask me "what's the best we can do with 400$" ?
Then yes i'll agree with you.
But saying the PS4 is "perfect" is way too fanboyish to be serious.

Well said. I would also add the best we can do within the power and thermal and space limits as well.

 

[galego]

Are you telling me AMD beats Intel in Perf or Perf/W ?

Yes.

However Intel is a LOT more expensive... You can't put a 350$ i7m in a Sub500$ Console....

Even after rebating to $150 it would be a bad choice.

I agree we haven't yet seen the benefits of unified memory, but seriously ?

Unified memory was one of reasons why the Xbox 360 was able to compete with PS3.

A weakish CPU, a decent GPU, no SSD for the "nearly perfect gaming pc ?"

Now if you ask me "what's the best we can do with 400$" ?
Then yes i'll agree with you.
But saying the PS4 is "perfect" is way too fanboyish to be serious.

It is being called a nearly perfect gaming PC because beats high-end gaming PCs costing more than the triple of money.

 

[exar333]

Yes.



Even after rebating to $150 it would be a bad choice.



Unified memory was one of reasons why the Xbox 360 was able to compete with PS3.



It is being called a nearly perfect gaming PC because beats high-end gaming PCs costing more than the triple of money.

Please stop trolling.

The PS4 is a nice 'compromise' gaming-PC. It's power-efficient, has 'OK' CPU power and 'OK' graphics.

It's not next-gen. It will likely still inferior to many rigs running on this webste back in 2007 when Crysis was released. It will be a solid step-up from the current generation, at a good price.

If they really wanted next-gen, they could have done so, but the price would have been $$$.

I am sorry - but you obviously do NOT know what you are talking about and are just trolling. If you believe the PS4 will even beat a high-end machine from 2 years ago, you are kidding yourself and have zero tech knowledge....

 

[Sweepr]

Yes.

Well, it doesnt. But if you keep your wishful thinking maybe one day it will, uh?

It is being called a nearly perfect gaming PC because beats high-end gaming PCs costing more than the triple of money.

This console will probably cost $400-500. 3x that is $1200-1500. In early 2014 (near PS4 launch in late 2013) that would buy you a 4C Haswell (or a 4/6C Steamroller APU) + HD7970/GTX680 replacements (probably near 3x flops of PS4's GPU w/ 4-6Gb GDDR5 dedicated for graphics). You could even go multi-GPU with 2x ''HD8970s'' if they keep the current price scheme. Good luck beating this machines on multiplatform titles with a PS4.

 

[galego]

Epic Games:

It's like giving you the world's best PC

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/398813/ps4-is-like-a-really-perfect-gaming-pc-says-epic-vp/

The PS$ is more than a high-end PC:

Guerrilla Games’ technical director Michiel Van Der Leeuw has dismissed the notion that PS4 is little more than a high-end PC, suggesting that those describing the console that way are ‘trolls’ and ‘fanboys’.

http://www.edge-online.com/news/ps4-isnt-just-a-high-end-pc-says-guerrilla-games/

Eurogamer article linked in the first post.

It takes time to get the most out of console hardware, and in the meantime we fully expect enthusiast PCs to continue to deliver the goods. However, equally it's fair to say that your current gaming computer that runs existing titles at 1080p60 or higher may well have problems equalling that level of performance once the next-gen era kicks in at full force.

 

[Exophase]

You've really got to give these PR statements less benefit of the doubt. His entire claim hinges around this point:

"The other exciting thing is that... when you think about Windows, even Windows for most people is tied to about 2GB of addressable memory space. This really opens up beyond what most PCs can do, because most PCs are running a 32-bit version of Windows.

Which doesn't agree at all with the Steam survey data (http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey) which shows over 70% of users are running 64-bit operating systems. And 8GB of RAM is the most popular configuration.

PS4 has only two real hardware advantages over what PCs will have - 8GB of fast-ish RAM and an optimized connection between the CPU and GPU parts. Neither of these will really make much difference for games, especially not early on, and as the years pass high end PC hardware will just get faster while PS4 stays still.

Perhaps first gen games will look better than a most current PC, but I guarantee you that the PC versions of the same games will run better than they do on PS4 (higher resolution, higher framerate, more features, etc) when paired with high end hardware. But if you don't believe it I guess you'll have to wait and see.

 

[2is]

Well, it doesnt. But if you keep your wishful thinking maybe one day it will, uh?

I don't think he knows what perf/w is. Either that or he's intentionally trolling. There is no third option.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Epic Games:

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/398813/ps4-is-like-a-really-perfect-gaming-pc-says-epic-vp/

The PS$ is more than a high-end PC:



http://www.edge-online.com/news/ps4-isnt-just-a-high-end-pc-says-guerrilla-games/

Eurogamer article linked in the first post.

Didnt you already tout all these unsubstantiated "developers" comments in the PS4 thread? Honestly, repeating something over and over again does not make it true, and wont convince others unless you can provide objective data, which is obviously impossible since the console isnt even out yet.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I don't think he knows what perf/w is. Either that or he's intentionally trolling. There is no third option.

Well, he could be being obtuse and talking about igpu performance, but again like most of his other posts, he just makes unsubstantiated claims without showing any data or directly answering questions.

 

[galego]

There is a third option, but not sure if you can understand it any time soon. In any case I will continue trying to educate you.