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Sirius87 on 03 November 2012
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drkohler said:
Sirius87 said:

You also have to remember:
In desktop computers the GPU in the APU is pretty much limited by the ram. So there is no real reason to put a strong GPU in it (the GPUs in the A10 still are totally ram-limited in most cases).

For consoles you can design the GPU around the available ram (that's also one point you may change in your opening posts: just because all rumored GPUs use GDDR5 that doesn't mean anything on the matter which kind of ram the consoles will use. There's no real problem using DDR3 if you have a large enough bus width). Ram in PCs is (usually) limited to dual channel, but in a console you can run as many ram chips parallel as you want.

AMD could design a special GPU for PS4s APU which can be a lot more powerful than the 7660D.

Everything you wrote is completely false, everything. On technical level, on design level, on price level, on AMD capabilitie's level. Amazing.

Ok sorry to bring this up again, but I still don't understand what's exactly wrong with all of my statements (and you haven't answered after my first question):

1. The point that the GPU in the APU in desktop environment is totally limited by the RAM is obviously true (there are a lot of tests showing how the GPUs profit from higher RAM-frequencies, but more than DDR3-1866 is still to expensive for consumers and so the APUs are probably designed for a maximum of DDR3-1866). But I'm not really sure if you really doubted that point, despite stating that "Everything" is "completely false".

2. The point that you can't say anything about the used type of RAM for a GPU just because the desktop variants use GDDR5 is in my humble opinion also true. Entry level desktop GPUs show that switching from GDDR3/5 to DDR3 is possible (combined with a performance loss of course).

 

3. Afaik all DDR3-modules in desktops work at 64-bit. So using them in dual channel brings us to a combined 128-bit (I'm not sure if you can really say it that way, but at least from a pure available bandwidth POV you now have twice as much).

DDR3-packages themselves usually seem to be capable of up to 32-bit (but I may be wrong here). So if the PS4/PS Orbis uses 8 4Gb/512MB-packages @32-bit that brings us up to a maximum of 256-bit, twice as much as possible in a typical desktop-PC using DDR3-modules in dual channel.

And if we now accept that the GPU in the APU is Ram-limited it could be possible to design a twice as powerful GPU which may perform well in this environment. The main problem I see is the generated heat in such a setup. But I've no idea how much of a problem that really is.

4. AMDs capabilities are indeed not the greatest, but seeing that they are more and more focusing on the APU-market isn't it possible that they invest some money to really deliver a strong APU? As far as I understand it DDR4 is expected to deliver higher bandwidth in desktops (aren't they getting rid of dual channel, and instead allow more modules operating in "parallel"?), and it sure wouldn't hurt to already have strong APUs once that happens.

 

Looking forward to your opinion :)

(edit: oh and I like lecture mode)