this is the best possible situation -especially for AMD- because now we have software engineers designing game engines that are better threaded.
Who cares about single threaded performance if it is faster than the previous gen but slower than current gen pc parts if the tasks can be now multithreaded and use more than 2 -sometimes more than 4- threads.
The problem was, sony needed to cut costs, that's why they asked AMD for its APU solution. They needed performance/watt, that's why they fused 2 4c jaguar(110mm²) in a single processor. Pitcairn is ~220mm² sized(I know they made the gpu with GCN1.1 architecture) and the next GPU chip is ~350mm² sized, so they not found a way to put a bigger GPU on the PS4 project.
Trying to cram that much heat into a console is going to make a very expensive cooling solution, and is just begging for a repeat of the RROD disaster. Just look at how overengineered the XBox One's heatsink is, if you need an indication of how seriously they have taken heat this time.
Game devs have access to 6 out of the 8 Jaguar cores, and 5GB of RAM.
360-PS3 graphics decision has proven to be right after many years. Build 360 with a strong graphic card made 360 last the eight years it lasted, in a gaming world were graphics means so much. With GPUs continuing to move with 80-100% more performance at every architectural jump, PS4-Xone Gpus can become obsolete much faster than in other generations.
Piledriver and Jaguar are similar IPC per clock, Piledriver clocks higher but it needs more energy and die space to achieve that. The extra 20 to 30 watts tdp is a big deal when your goal is trying to make something a little larger than a ceral box.
Source?
Because I'm seeing here that at best Jaguar gets 90% of K10 IPC much less 100% of Piledriver. http://codedivine.org/2013/05/25/amd-jaguar-vs-amd-llano-k10-at-same-clocks/. Don't know how credible that source is so if you've got a better one I'm genuinely curious to see it
The power point is a fine point to make, but seeing how well Kaveri scales down I wish they had taken a 45w (or less) Kaveri with 2 or 3 modules over a 8 core Jaguar. As pokey as AMD can be about getting a core design out, I bet they could have done it with Kaveri given the amount of money they'd be getting from MS and Sony in order to develop it, had those chosen to do so.
comparing cinebench score between the two perhaps?
The only thing I have to say about this is both of those last gen consoles barely had any games at 1080p most were 720p or lower, it lasted 8 years but you can't really say either of those gpus were strong if they were game would have been made at 1080p. I think both of the last gen consoles could have been replaced 5 years in instead of limping to the finish line at the 8th year. And I think this years consoles will have more staying power than the last.
Cost and noise were preferred by Sony and Microsoft vs absolute performance.
If you had Sony and Microsoft priorities, their decision made sense.
Well, even the highest end gaming PC bought/built right when the 360 was launched wouldn't be able to play recent titles at any resolution. That's not going to be the case with this era.
Thats not right. A high end system from 2005-2006 would be able to play recent X360/PS3 games at the same 1024x600 resolution, no AA, and low-medium detail settings as the console.
The only thing I have to say about this is both of those last gen consoles barely had any games at 1080p most were 720p or lower, it lasted 8 years but you can't really say either of those gpus were strong if they were game would have been made at 1080p. I think both of the last gen consoles could have been replaced 5 years in instead of limping to the finish line at the 8th year. And I think this years consoles will have more staying power than the last.
Source?.
Source?
Because I'm seeing here that at best Jaguar gets 90% of K10 IPC much less 100% of Piledriver. http://codedivine.org/2013/05/25/amd-jaguar-vs-amd-llano-k10-at-same-clocks/. Don't know how credible that source is so if you've got a better one I'm genuinely curious to see it
The power point is a fine point to make, but seeing how well Kaveri scales down I wish they had taken a 45w (or less) Kaveri with 2 or 3 modules over a 8 core Jaguar. As pokey as AMD can be about getting a core design out, I bet they could have done it with Kaveri given the amount of money they'd be getting from MS and Sony in order to develop it, had those chosen to do so.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7528/the-xbox-one-mini-review-hardware-analysis/5
Xbone and PS4 consume 120-140 W under gaming load for the entire system.
That is not much power when you consider that a 7870m running BF4 consumes a similar amount of power and is cooled by a reference two slot cooler. Such a cooler is not expensive nor difficult to manufacture.
With the significantly larger volume of the ps4/xbone it should be no difficulty to cool.
he simplest way to measure the efficiency of the two chips is to divide their respective benchmark scores in a given application by (CPU Frequency * Core Count). This normalizes both variables and gives us a measure of intrinsic core performance. The next step was to turn each of these clock-and-core normalized figures into a percentage. In a test like Cinebench, a score less than 100% indicates that Kabini is less efficient than its big-core rival, while a score of greater than 100% means Kabini is more efficient.
You are twisting my words, and this is exactly the reason I brought up the Geometry Wars exception that you conveniently deleted. Sure, if you cut out enough other detail (polygon count, etc.) you can render a crappy source at high resolution and probably a low frame rate. That won't make it a good-looking 4K game.
Both Microsoft and Sony want to keep the power consumption in that 120w range that you observed, they do not want a chip that was 150 or 180w power consumption (25% or 50% higher). They did so for they want to keep rmas low, use cheaper power bricks, keep the size small, keep the noise low etc.
Remember this devices are often in places with very bad air flow such as in an entertainment center, a wood or glass box with no air flow. Microsoft and Sony want to make money on these consoles, they do not want high rmas.
If heat/power consumption was not a concern they could get free performance by running the gpu at the same clock speeds they run the desktop chips at!
Build 360 with a strong graphic card made 360 last the eight years it lasted, in a gaming world were graphics means so much.