By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Gaming Discussion - If MS switches to GDDR5 now, did Sony make a silly mistake?

platformmaster918 on 21 February 2013
drkohler said:
platformmaster918 said:
Kynes said:

Why? There is something that most people seem to forget, right now there aren't on the market 4 Gb GDDR5 chips, so Sony will have to use 16 chi

If you shop around, you'll note that gddr5 chips come in 1Gbit and 2Gbit sizes. It takes 32 chips to get 8GByte (=64Gbit) of memory. That is a lot of real estate on a console pcb. I doubt stacked memory (if available at all) would be cheaper than real estate, in the end.

so it'll be a bigger form factor?  That seems fine to me I have space.




Get Your Portable ID!Lord of Ratchet and Clank

Duke of Playstation Plus

Warden of Platformers

Around the Network
enditall727 on 21 February 2013
superchunk said:
I think Sony's upgrade from 4GB to 8GB is the reason we didn't see a box yesterday.

Sony must have felt the need to match general storage and the relatively late change in size of RAM is forcing modifications to their design.

Now, MS may be doing the same thing. They may not want the 1/2 the speed RAM combined with eSRAM on the GPU. They may realize that this setup will be harder on devs as its less base PC-like. So they could scrap the eSRAM design and go with full GDDR5.

HOWEVER, there is one other point to think about. The cost. MS is including a Kinect in the box. So that may force them to stick with their current design as it reduces cost dramatically on memory which is then offset by the Kinect hardware.

I don't think MS will change.


so you think that ram changes the design of a console?



Fireforgey on 21 February 2013
CGI-Quality said:
Fireforgey said:
CGI-Quality said:
Fireforgey said:


Its just that we didn't think Sony to be so dumb to go the PS3 route again.......I guess we were wrong.

Since people were so keen to use developers  as a means to say the PS3 was "a bad move", why not use those same people in 2013 who say they are more than ready to work on the next PlayStation?

In other words, the PS3 and this hardly have anything in common.

I'm talking about an overpowered console that wll cost Sony billions at a time that it can hardly afford it.   It might not lose as much money as the PS3 because it doesn't have that same Blu-Ray problem, but it will still be insanly expensive and it will be highly subsized at the same time which will sink Sony back into the red.  So yes, it has plenty in common.

Perhaps people are jumping the gun, then, on what Sony can/cannot afford, and/or what is "overpowered". This wasn't just a system they created in a vacuum, unlike the PS3. They reached out to the very people who are going to be working with the harware, and from all accounts, have been successful in courting them. Where things go from here is uncertain, but this is definitely not going to be a repeat of last gen and the PlayStation 3.

One of my favorite quotes is "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes", I think this applies here.  It's not the EXACT same situation but it is very simmilar.  The thing is, does it matter if Sony is reaching out to third parties?  What last gen did wasn't that it got rid of games from the PS.  No.  What it did, was it gave the 360 all of the multi-plats that it needed to survive and thrive.  Now that Sony is reaching out again doesn't mean that FF, GTA and Metal Gear will become exclusives again.  It just means that the multi-plat ports will be very good, thats about it.  The 360 already made a name for itself and is now a major competitor.  Now Sony tried to fix some of mistakes and that's a great thing, but that ship already sailed and in the end it is spending money it can hardly afford on another arms race.

Now just to make this clear, I am a Nintendo fan, but if I could choose which console would stay and which would leave I'd much the PS stay and the Xbox leave.  At this rate Microsft will murder Sony.  Nintendo has taken over Japan, Microsoft has America and they both have a good footing in Europe.  This was the chance for Sony to show that it is proactive and stoping problems that haven't even happened yet.  However, they are just fixing problems we've known for 7 years and added a "share button".  Things aint looking too good for PlayStation and maybe even Sony as a whole.



sergiodaly on 21 February 2013
Soleron said:
haxxiy said:
Soleron said:
I'm seeing a misconception here that GDDR5 > DDR3. It's a tradeoff. GDDR5 has much higher latency in return for faster bandwidth. The choice was no doubt made to support the on-die GPU but this isn't necessarily good for the CPU.

Try having gaming and video applications run in standard DDR then. There's a reason PS3, X360, Wii-U, Wii, GC, PS2 etc. didn't do it.

It's not a tradeoff when one product is so much better than the other except for one characteristic, much like we can agree plasma and LCD is better than cathode ray displays. You are playing the overwhelming exception fallacy right there.

It's not either/or. The PS3 and 360 and regular PCs have DDRx for the main memory and GDDRx for the graphics memory. Sony could have done this, this is a deliberate choice to use GDDR5 for both that is most definitely a tradeoff.

There is a second downside as well; GDDR5 chips are much more expensive.

i might be wrong... but neither the PS3 or the XB360 use DDR memory... PS3 use xdr for main and GDDR3 for GPU... and the XB360 use GDDR3 for their "one pool" architecture...

Proudest Platinums - BF: Bad Company, Killzone 2 , Battlefield 3 and GTA4

Soleron on 21 February 2013
sergiodaly said:
Soleron said:
haxxiy said:
Soleron said:
...

i might be wrong... but neither the PS3 or the XB360 use DDR memory... PS3 use xdr for main and GDDR3 for GPU... and the XB360 use GDDR3 for their "one pool" architecture...

You're right.



Around the Network
Fireforgey on 21 February 2013
CGI-Quality said:
Fireforgey said:
CGI-Quality said:
Fireforgey said:

I'm talking about an overpowered console that wll cost Sony billions at a time that it can hardly afford it.   It might not lose as much money as the PS3 because it doesn't have that same Blu-Ray problem, but it will still be insanly expensive and it will be highly subsized at the same time which will sink Sony back into the red.  So yes, it has plenty in common.

Perhaps people are jumping the gun, then, on what Sony can/cannot afford, and/or what is "overpowered". This wasn't just a system they created in a vacuum, unlike the PS3. They reached out to the very people who are going to be working with the harware, and from all accounts, have been successful in courting them. Where things go from here is uncertain, but this is definitely not going to be a repeat of last gen and the PlayStation 3.

One of my favorite quotes is "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes", I think this applies here.  It's not the EXACT same situation but it is very simmilar.  The thing is, does it matter if Sony is reaching out to third parties?  What last gen did wasn't that it got rid of games from the PS.  No.  What it did, was it gave the 360 all of the multi-plats that it needed to survive and thrive.  Now that Sony is reaching out again doesn't mean that FF, GTA and Metal Gear will become exclusives again.  It just means that the multi-plat ports will be very good, thats about it.  The 360 already made a name for itself and is now a major competitor.  Now Sony tried to fix some of mistakes and that's a great thing, but that ship already sailed and in the end it is spending money it can hardly afford on another arms race.

Now just to make this clear, I am a Nintendo fan, but if I could choose which console would stay and which would leave I'd much the PS stay and the Xbox leave.  At this rate Microsft will murder Sony.  Nintendo has taken over Japan, Microsoft has America and they both have a good footing in Europe.  This was the chance for Sony to show that it is proactive and stoping problems that haven't even happened yet.  However, they are just fixing problems we've known for 7 years and added a "share button".  Things aint looking too good for PlayStation and maybe even Sony as a whole.

Only time will tell, but right now, they're opening far better than they did with the PS3, and ultimately, that's what counts.

I'll admit they're doing much much better.  I just doubt that it will be enough, I can't presume to say what would have been enough, I guess it all depends on whether people consider Sony to be leaving the PS3 on a high note.  One saving grace of the PS3 was that everyone thought the PS2 was the bee's knees.  If people get that perception again this gen of the PS3 it has a hope, and to be honest it has left probably the best taste in people's mouthes of the big three coming into the new Gen.  I'm just underwhelmed at what they are doing "new".



Teriol on 21 February 2013

8gb GDDR5... smells like 599.99 us dollars!! again lol



34 years playing games.

 

HokageTenshi on 21 February 2013

i don't see why they still insist using GDDR3 since Sony already using GDDR5...



SxyxS on 21 February 2013
IamAwsome said:
Slimebeast said:
I think it's funny how many people dismissed the idea of having 8GB RAM on a console. And now, bang, both next gen consoles have 8GB just like Epic, Crytek and DICE were asking for.

8GB of RAM is good, but the cheapest Sony could sell it for is about $450. If MS really goes with GDDR3, they could undercut the PS4's price by up to $100. 

 


a similar hardware with cheaper RAM but integrated kinect2 to undercut the ps4 by 100dollar????



Turkish on 21 February 2013

They can't, its too late. Any changes to the devkits now would be disastrous and delay the system by months.