| Trunkin said: I sure as hell hope not. Are there even any PC games that actually make use of 8 gigs of memory? |
It's not about PC games today, but about games in 2014-2022. When PS3 and 360 came out in 2005-2006, how many games used more than 1GB of system memory and how many games used more than 256MB of VRAM?
Here is a 2005 PC Building Gaming guide - December 21, 2005. I used the flagship system to give you an idea.
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Hot-Hardware-for-the-Holidays-A-Buyers-Guide/?page=2
Nvidia 7800GTX 512MB @ $749 x 2 = $1500
CORSAIR 2GB (2 x 1GB) System memory = $232
So if we look at it in those terms, 2048MB (~2GB) of system memory was $230 when Xbox 360 launched with 256MB or 8x less.
Today, you can buy 64GB for $280:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233308
By Q4 2013, 64GB is probably going to drop to $230-240. 8x less of that is 8GB. For simplicity's sake, 8GB as the minimum kinda makes sense if they want next generation consoles to not become comletely outdated to PCs of the future.
System memory should never be compared on consoles to today's PCs because consoles need to be around for what appears even longer generations now. So if PS4/Xbox Next are going to launch in 2013-2014 and last 8 or so years like this generation of consoles did, then it's about games from 2014-2022 and 8GB is going to be peanuts in that context. Given the cost of 8GB today hovering at $35-40 in retail, there are not many logical excuses to not have 8GB in next generation consoles. RAM is now one of the cheapest parts in a console. 6-7Ghz of GDDR5 over 384-bit bus interface for 288-336GB/sec of memory bandwidth dedicated for a flagship GPU is what's really expensive in terms of memory layout.
This is where Nintendo cut costs as they have only a 12.8GB/sec of memory bandwidth available for the GPU. 8GB of system memory is the basics. They can't cut the memory bandwidth to the GPU either and that's where cost and power consumption skyrocket. You can mitigate this to an extent with eDRAM which is why it's so common in consoles now.
