Hello everybody! This is my first time posting on TPU and I've been a lurker guest for years. I decided today I'm rather going to start adding my bit to the community here and this seems like the perfect place to start.
2 - A10 is today's top trinity apu, but won't be the only one. Think about A12, A14, A16, I mean, we don't really know how AMD will refresh its line of apus, we only know the line will be compatible.
AMD won't refresh the entire lineup until the generation after Steamroller hits, possibly unifying the entire family under one socket, all with GPU and ARM components. But for now lets assume that with Sony giving AMD a large dosh of cash and telling it what is needed that this drives AMD to accelerate production of Piledriver cores on a 22nm process with VLIW4 GPUs on a 32nm process. They've arguably had enough time to get something like that tapered out because the Sony deal has been in the works for years. But since it doesn't look like Steamroller will be on 22nm, it wouldn't be a train smash if the components were stuck on 32nm and 40nm respectively.
I don't think they'll change from the existing lineup of A4; A6; A8 and A10 cpus because that would introduce more complexity. But that's on the desktop which, for this thread, doesn't fit into the equation. What will be in the PS4 is going to be a different beast to what we're used to and it could be based off the A10-5700 and a HD6670 GPU. So lets leave the desktop out of this for now because, as everyone in this thread is eager to point out, they're not directly comparable. Similar in terms of hardware, yes, but with software they are very different performers.
3 - Developers had to optimize multithreading on the PS3 very complex architecture. So adopting the A10 should make things easier, and dual GPU would be a breeze.
I also think that coding for an x86-64 architecture and more modern instruction set will make the developers life easier but I'm not sold on the dual-GPU portion just yet (even on the desktop I'm hesitant to recommend SLI or Xfire to anyone). I haven't seen results from an APU and GPU combo that shows frame rates over time and from what I've seen with SLI and Xfire, the stuttering issues are enough to put some people off dual GPUs completely. However, I do know that with a strict hardware configuration the Xfire rendering could be tweaked so that instead of rendering alternating frames the devs could choose to divide up the frames between the two. Unfortunately, only developers with access to these machines can answer our questions and until then, everything else is just assumption.
Why Sony choose APU?Definitely Sony knew something that we don't.Console are console,targeted for most casual gamer whose doesn't even bother about upscale.
TDP requirements and less complexity, mostly (along with cost, which is going to be a big factor). You can build a APU setup into a thin client-like/ITX chassis without having to worry too much about cooling and your GPU requirements are mostly catered for already. When I was working at a computer repair shop a year ago I received three PS3s to diagnose and fix. When I could finally open two up for myself, one a launch version and the other a Slim I was stumped at how the launch versions could have survived the heat generation. You had these massive, (relatively) power-sucking chips that needed a good amount of cooling to stay functional for as long as the warranty remained valid and I often found with other units that the cooling wasn't always up to scratch. I had to re-flow the boards, clean out the cooling systems and lap the heatsinks so that the older units wouldn't overheat.
With desktop-class APUs, the stock cooler is perfectly fine. In fact, cooling requirements for the A10-5700 peaks at only 65W TDP which means there's much less work required in designing the console's cooling system. I think we might even see a launch version that is as slim as the PS3 Slim (not the recent swanky one which, IMO, looks fugly) and in future could become as small as the PS2 Slim. Considering that the APU in question might even be the mobile A10-4600M, its plausible.
Next post is camera capture shows 1080p60Hz on TV info to countermeasure your opinion regarding lack of 1080p capabilities on PS3.You suggesting a proper method for comparing between these two,you may quote any of my last post,did i mention "rendered"?
No-one's ever said that the PS3 can't run games at 1080p. In fact, there's a handful that can, Prince of Persia being the only recent one I can remember. Its down to the developers that have to figure out what they want to sacrifice the most: visual fidelity and potentially higher performance or more stuff on the screen but potentially lower performance.
To those of you who say that a game running at 30fps at 1080p is crap, I'd have to agree with you initially. If I notice it, it becomes a problem until I play the game enough times to not notice it and then its smooth sailing from there on. Even Forza Horizon, which I got to play recently, runs at 720p and minimum 30fps. Technically the developers could run the game at 1080p and get similar performance, but they'd have to sacrifice some visual fidelity and the beautiful world the game is rendered in. Personally, I don't have a problem with the speed at which the game is rendered, only that it looks good and doesn't suffer hiccups.
Likewise, you can't directly compare today's consoles with desktops. Well, at least not the PS3 because the RSX GPU lacks some components and instruction sets that make it comparable to a desktop-class GPU. The Xbox 360 is closer to a proper desktop setup but again can't be compared directly because it can't render anything in DX10. A good deal of games today include a DX10/DX11 render path so that makes the comparison even more moot. 720p30 DX9 and 720p30 DX11 with their highest settings will look different and will behave differently due to the rendering mode. With the PS4 and the Xbox 720 being based off modern hardware, at least we'll have consoles and computers on the same footing again in terms of graphical ability, if not in performance.
And I'm sad that the shift to an x86-64 architecture means my existing PS3 library won't be compatible with the new system, but I guess that its only fair that six years on a new standard is introduced. The PS3 has had an incredibly long run and its time for something new.
