| Teeqoz said: You are right, but for the wrong reasons. Moore's law is dead, and has been for a while. However the Scorpio isn't that far above the Pro (same relative difference as the Xbox One to the PS4), so I'd be surprised if they couldn't manage to sell it for 399$ by the time it launches. I don't really understand the people saying 500-600$, that doesn't make sense. |
Moores Law isn't dead. It's just being extended.
Moore's law has constantly been claimed "dead" over the last 50 odd years and it's never come true.
First PMOS replaced Bipolar Transistors, which were in turn replaced by NMOS and then that too got kicked to the curb in favor of CMOS, Geometrical Scaling > Equivalent Scaling and now we are in the era of 3D scaling.
Moore's law is also more than just how small you can make a transister.
At every node, there is constant refinement to the patterning process, constant refinement to chip layouts to improve density and reduce leakage and more, it's why AMD and nVidia were able to push 28nm as far as they did.
| irstupid said: Actually it's like a $30 piece of hardware. It's $15 more than the Blu Ray player. That's where the $15 comes from. Meaning it would only cost Sony $15 more to use that instead of a blu ray player in the PS4pro. Considering Sony's position with the format though, it should cost them less than the $15. But yea, its a moot point. A $300 system already out has it included. It's not going to be bringing up the Scorpio's price by $100 like peopel think the Pro's price would somehow be $100 more if it had a 4k player. |
In some cases UHD costs $0 extra over a regular Blu-Ray drive, there are drives on the PC that get that functionality with a firmware update.
| JRPGfan said: Unless they use a newer proccessing node to shrink their bigger chip, to the same size or smaller than Sony's, I dont expect them to be able to do the same price as them (399$). Im assumeing they will use the same manufactureing technology, and same gpu arch just bigger chip. (I used to think it would be higher, but sony suprised me with their lower than antisopated price) Looking forwards to eating crow if 1year from now if it launches at 399$. I also assume they will give the PS4 pro a 50$ price cut, right before the scorpio launches, so it ends up 349$ vs 449$. |
There is more to a chips cost than just the size. If the fab you are using has a process that tends to be very leaky... Then a smaller higher clocking chip that used more volts would likely result in a costlier design than a larger chip, with more conservative clocks and voltages.
Fabricating chips isn't as black and white as people assume it is.
We need to keep in mind that we have no idea where Scorpio is going to be fabbed, whether it's at TSMC's 16nm or at Global Foundries 14nm.
There is also other costs to consider as the other components aren't free.
| poklane said: Percentages. The difference between 6TF and 4.2TF is 42.86%, the difference between 1.84TF and 1.31TF is 40.46% |
More to performance that just flops.
| JRPGfan said: "1 year = cheaper" doesnt work, unless you have fab advances that make it so. |
If you truly believe that, then you should probably spend more time researching how chips are made.
| Normchacho said: And it's going to require an all new CPU. |
Why will it require a new CPU?
| CGI-Quality said: Well, the rumor mill claims 12GB of RAM. |
Which would mean (If that rumor is valid) that it's using a 384bit memory bus or 192bit, which would be new-ground for AMD as far as bus widths go.
Teeqoz said:
Only GDDR5X? Why not HBM 2.0? I mean, you might as well go all in at that point. |
The interposer would likely drive costs up to high for a console. HBM is premium. Like seriously premium.
GDDR5X is good enough for a console at the moment.
| Normchacho said: I guess it doesn't HAVE to have a new CPU. But people are in for a huge disappointment if it doesn't. Even if it gets overcooked by like 30% youre still looking at a 2.4 or 2.5GHz CPU. That not really enough to make a huge difference over the Pro. You'll basically be seeing PS4 vs. Xbox One levels of difference amd it will still probably be more than $399. |
AMD's cat cores aren't good at clocking. 2.4Ghz would be pushing it.
| Normchacho said: MS said that it will have 320 gb/s worth of GDDR5. That's either 12gb, the fastest 8gb ever, or the slowest 16gb of GDDR5 ever. |
Depends on how wide the bus is.
12Gb of memory tells me that there will be a 192bit or 384bit memory bus depending on how many memory chips are used.
Thus you are looking at 3.2 Gbps GDDR5 speed on a 384bit memory bus or 6.4 Gbps on a 192 bit bus to hit that 320 gb/s number.
It's not unusual for GDDR5 to hit those rates, Polaris (Radeon 480) for instance is using 7 and 8 Gbps chips.
| Normchacho said: MS has said that they are Jaguar cores. Which is a shame. But I can't imagine them not using a new CPU of some kind. |
Source? Please?
| mutantsushi said: This thread feels embarassing. |
Sony is actually using TSMC's 16nm (Aka. Rebranded 20nm with Finfet.)
| mutantsushi said: I don't believe MS will actually get Zen although if they did it would be great for them, but they will at least use Puma+. |
Agreed. Zen likely didn't tape out once Scorpio entered the design phase. Puma+ at most is likely, Jaguar is still a possibility.
| barneystinson69 said: Exactly. The RX 480 is only $199, and it is capable of 6Tflops with a slight overclock. You can expect that to fall to $149 next year, and plus you need to take into account discounts as well. People here are overestimating the cost of the Scorpio given the specs we've got. |
You also need to remember that a PC's Graphics card is for the *entire* graphics card from Ram, to power delivery to PCB... For a chip in a console, it's a cost that is consolidated.
Soundwave said:
You really think a 2013 Jaguar is the pinnacle of CPU technology and can't be improved on in 4 years? |
Jaguar already has a successor... It's been out for a long time actually. It's called Puma.
| Drakrami said: Microsoft's Xbox Live has become the envy of all other online-gaming services. Yet, speculation abounds that Nadella will try to trim the fat at Microsoft and sell off the Xbox division to another company. Xbox doesn't fit into Nadella's vision for Microsoft, reports say, and he's willing to drop the division for the right price. But Nadella should consider such a move carefully. While gaming might not fit into Microsoft's core enterprise software and services business, the Xbox division is too big and too important for Microsoft to sell off even as it tries to move deeper into the mobile hardware market. |
The issue is that the Xbox is integrating more and more of Microsoft's technology and platforms, becoming tangled in the Universal Windows Platform and pushing Microsoft services like Bing and Skype. It's not something Microsoft will give away lightly.
Microsoft are willing to pay millions/billions for services with a large number of users, because then they can tempt those users to other services and make more money.
Xbox Live falls into that category now.
Often I see Microsoft trying to sell an Xbox alongside a Surface Laptop and Windows Phone... And I have to admit, I have been tempted a few times. :P
--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--
