Will PS4/Xbox One increase the need of Cores?

[remyat]

Shouldn't a "twice the speed/half the cores" cpu (like the i5 3470, no turbo) have the same performance? let's say they have the same IPC, cache size, level and latencies. I think they switch threads fast enough.

Let me rephrase, in which way a "twice the speed/half the cores" cpu will be hindered while trying to do the same job as the "slower/more cores" cpu? Maybe by "competing for resources" inside a core, but you can assign the "competing" threads to lower loaded cores.

Slower cores my be hindered by having to synchronize cpu intensive jobs that have to be divided because 1 core isn't enough. That would be an advantage for the "twice the speed" cpu. IA and physics could be an example of this? Doing the compute of those tasks in the cloud could be a solution but offline play would suffer.

 

[computerparts1]

It's only slower when it's running intel optimized software.

 

[Silverforce11]

Even without the consoles, the current trend is new AAA games are already multithreaded, scaling with 6 cores or 4+4HT.

Its simply because games are getting more complex and require additional CPU grunt, whereas a generation ago, the bottleneck is all on the GPU. With consoles relying on more but weaker cores going forward, developers simply HAVE to tap into every single core they have access to deliver a stunning game. This means it will come out of the box with full multicore reliance.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Sounds good to me. Any excuse to upgrade is a good reason

THe problem is finding a CPU that fits the bill...

 

[moonbogg]

Even without the consoles, the current trend is new AAA games are already multithreaded, scaling with 6 cores or 4+4HT.

Its simply because games are getting more complex and require additional CPU grunt, whereas a generation ago, the bottleneck is all on the GPU. With consoles relying on more but weaker cores going forward, developers simply HAVE to tap into every single core they have access to deliver a stunning game. This means it will come out of the box with full multicore reliance.

Hope you are right. It would be great to need a 6 or 8 core CPU for best performance, just like BF3 needs a quad. It would be so awesome to buy an 8 core Haswell-E and have it actually be the best damn gaming chip available due to its core count and ipc.

 

[sniffin]

Jaguar can go way above 2 GHz, it isn't a hard limit. It is a soft limit imposed by AMD, to appeal to said market.

Do you have a source for this? I'm actually interested to know if this is the case or not.

It's interesting because Jaguar's IPC isn't actually that far behind Piledriver. The advantages of Piledriver are supposed to be high frequencies and little complexities like advanced branch prediction and so on. I would love to see how a 3GHz Kabini compares to 3GHz 2M/4C Richland.

Hope you are right. It would be great to need a 6 or 8 core CPU for best performance, just like BF3 needs a quad. It would be so awesome to buy an 8 core Haswell-E and have it actually be the best damn gaming chip available due to its core count and ipc.

BF3 does benefit ever so slightly from Intel's 6C/12T CPU's as is, but it is very marginal. It could even be the extra cache, who knows.

 

[2is]

Hope you are right. It would be great to need a 6 or 8 core CPU for best performance, just like BF3 needs a quad. It would be so awesome to buy an 8 core Haswell-E and have it actually be the best damn gaming chip available due to its core count and ipc.

Only if that "need" is justified. They can just as easily make a game exactly like BF3 run like crap on quad cores and better on hex cores while offering nothing in return. In other words, "needing" 6 or 8 cores by way of crap optimization isn't a good thing for anyone. But if that extra power went to good use, I'm all for it.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Only if that "need" is justified. They can just as easily make a game exactly like BF3 run like crap on quad cores and better on hex cores while offering nothing in return. In other words, "needing" 6 or 8 cores by way of crap optimization isn't a good thing for anyone. But if that extra power went to good use, I'm all for it.

I agree. I think a fast quad core without HT should have plenty of cpu grunt for console ports if they are optimized for less faster cores but could have a problem if poorly ported from the more, slower cores of the consoles.

If price were equal, I would definitely go with a hyperthreaded quad, but I am still not sure the benefit is enough to justify the extra cost, unless you insist on the fastest no matter what.

 

[BigChickenJim]

I think it's hard to imagine a scenario in which we won't see an improvement/increase in multithreaded CPU use in games. The question is really how generalized, appreciable, and far-reaching those improvements will be.

The consoles' Jaguar cores are extremely slow by most PC gamers' standards (remember, Jaguar was originally designed to power tablets and other low-power devices), so my guess is that the devs are going to be forced to multithread their games heavily to avoid nasty bottlenecks. The switch to x86 should translate into generalized software improvements for all modern multicore CPUs, but "should" and "will" are very different words. We'll have to wait and see.

At the very least I think we're in for some (finally) passable ports. Whether or not it will lead to a general, industry-wide improvement in multithreaded programming is hard to say, but I certainly hope it does.

 

[galego]

Shouldn't a "twice the speed/half the cores" cpu (like the i5 3470, no turbo) have the same performance? let's say they have the same IPC, cache size, level and latencies. I think they switch threads fast enough.

Let me rephrase, in which way a "twice the speed/half the cores" cpu will be hindered while trying to do the same job as the "slower/more cores" cpu? Maybe by "competing for resources" inside a core, but you can assign the "competing" threads to lower loaded cores.

Slower cores my be hindered by having to synchronize cpu intensive jobs that have to be divided because 1 core isn't enough. That would be an advantage for the "twice the speed" cpu. IA and physics could be an example of this? Doing the compute of those tasks in the cloud could be a solution but offline play would suffer.

Game developers rejected the 4-core design:

The eight core CPU was another developer-lead choice. "We quickly could tell that we should put either four or eight cores on the hardware," explains Cerny. "The consensus was that any more than eight, and special techniques would be needed to use them, to get efficiency."

http://www.officialplaystationmagaz...ny-on-a-developer-centric-approach-to-design/

 

[ShintaiDK]

Game developers rejected the 4-core design:

No, Sony and MS rejected it due to cost and segmentation. Any coder with half a brain would pick a quadcore at twice the speed over an octocore.

 

[monstercameron]

No, Sony and MS rejected it due to cost and segmentation. Any coder with half a brain would pick a quadcore at twice the speed over an octocore.

not necessarily true...

 

[galego]

No, Sony and MS rejected it due to cost and segmentation <snip inadequate>.

No. Read the talk by the PS4 architect. I repeat the quote and add bold:

The eight core CPU was another developer-lead choice.

 

[ShintaiDK]

not necessarily true...

So you rather choose to deal with this:

When going from 4 to 8 threads with extra debugging and development time/cost if you had the chance to stay with 4 at twice the speed for a faster endproduct?

 

[ShintaiDK]

No. Read the talk by the PS4 architect. I repeat the quote and add bold:

If you read what he says, he didnt say the alternative was a quadcore at twice the speed. Also we know no game will use 8 cores because some are reserved for OS and other things.

 

[galego]

If you read what he says, he didnt say the alternative was a quadcore at twice the speed.

Neither he said a quadcore at half the speed. He clearly said that the 8-core design was a choice of game developers, not of Sony.

Also we know no game will use 8 cores because some are reserved for OS and other things.

We don't know for sure. It is a rumour. In any case this is irrelevant to the discussion of cores.

The relevant points are that the new consoles are using (despite your failed predictions) 8-core AMD APUs and future games will heavily threaded favouring AMD CPUs such as the FX-8350.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Neither he said a quadcore at half the speed. He clearly said that the 8-core design was a choice of game developers, not of Sony.



We don't know for sure. It is a rumour. In any case this is irrelevant to the discussion of cores.

The relevant points are that the new consoles are using (despite your failed predictions) 8-core AMD APUs and future games will heavily threaded favouring AMD CPUs such as the FX-8350.

So why is AMD dumping the 8 cores in favour of quadcores?

A dualcore Pentium or maybe even Celeron class Haswell will be as fast or faster than the combined power of the PS4/XboxOne CPU in all areas. Thats how weak it is.

Also listening to PR...not really working out. Remember the generation ahead statement? How did that work out? Game developers hardly had a choice. They never had any with the previous consoles.

 

[Silverforce11]

A dualcore Pentium or maybe even Celeron class Haswell will be as fast or faster than the combined power of the PS4/XboxOne CPU in all areas. Thats how weak it is.

It's as fast or faster in Intel optimized scenarios.

Let's reverse that.. because game devs will be optimizing their game for AMD, not Intel CPUs.. suddenly your claims don't look so solid.

I mean we have a recent demonstration of this: Bitcoin mining. It's an extreme example, but bear with it. AMD absolutely pwns the crap out of NV in this field, with Titan not even making a bleep in comparison when on paper and other metrics, it dominates. Or Intel CPUs, clearly ahead in other benchmarks, but a lowly AMD APU puts to it to shame.

Now comes along ASICs, pathetic little chips with "weak cores"..

 

[ShintaiDK]

It's as fast or faster in Intel optimized scenarios.

Let's reverse that.. because game devs will be optimizing their game for AMD, not Intel CPUs.. suddenly your claims don't look so solid.

You do know AMD CPUs perform the best with the ICC compiler?

And where would that magic source performance come from? And why would it run better on PD cores if its optimized for Jaguar cores?

 

[Silverforce11]

Not saying it runs better on PD cores, just saying your underestimation of the weak console CPU is flawed, because the performance metrics you impose on it is highly biased towards one architecture when in reality, developers will NOT optimize for Intel but go with extracting everything they can out of Jaguar.

 

[galego]

So why is AMD dumping the 8 cores in favour of quadcores?

Server roadmap shows that AMD will be releasing 12/16 core Warsap chips in 2014. The 4/6/8 core line is eliminated.

A dualcore Pentium or maybe even Celeron class Haswell will be as fast or faster than the combined power of the PS4/XboxOne CPU in all areas. Thats how weak it is.

As shown in the PS4 thread, the 8-core jaguar competes with an i7(HT). That is why all PC-console demos are using an i7(HT) in the PC. We also know that a 8350 outperforms a 3770k and that the 8350 has been selected by game develoeprs as the best CPU for future gaming.

Also listening to PR...not really working out. Remember the generation ahead statement? How did that work out? Game developers hardly had a choice. They never had any with the previous consoles.

That twitter was extensively discussed in the PS4 thread.

 

[NTMBK]

A dualcore Pentium or maybe even Celeron class Haswell will be as fast or faster than the combined power of the PS4/XboxOne CPU in all areas. Thats how weak it is.

Now that's just not right. For a start, the Pentium and Celerons will probably have AVX disabled like the Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge ones too, so Haswell's big jump in vector performance will have no impact on the crippled Pentiums and Celerons.

A Haswell i3? Sure, I could believe that that could be as fast as 8 Jaguar cores, if it's a high-clocked desktop part. But 2 crippled Pentium cores, with no HT? No way.

 

[Sweepr]

An 8-core Jaguar @ 1.6GHz would barely match a 3.2GHz 2M/4C Piledriver, so no, I doesnt come remotely close to a 4C/8T Haswell CPU >3.5GHz (and developers will only have access to either 6 or 7 of those cores in X1/PS4). Dont you find it strange that in the same post you mention all next-gen PC-console demos are using i7s and then say the FX83xx is the best gaming CPU? You should tell those developers they are either lying or dumb then.

Maybe they know that some games are CPU bound even @ 1080p (and they are not even next gen), and this is what happens:

id Software legend John Carmack quote:

 

[ShintaiDK]

Now that's just not right. For a start, the Pentium and Celerons will probably have AVX disabled like the Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge ones too, so Haswell's big jump in vector performance will have no impact on the crippled Pentiums and Celerons.

A Haswell i3? Sure, I could believe that that could be as fast as 8 Jaguar cores, if it's a high-clocked desktop part. But 2 crippled Pentium cores, with no HT? No way.

Sure about that? It doesnt take much to extrapolate the data:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6974/amd-kabini-review/5

 

[Haserath]

He sure says the core amount decision in a weird way.
"The consensus was that any more than eight, and special techniques would be needed to use them, to get efficiency."

He doesn't say directly they chose eight over four. They just didn't want more than eight.