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Netyaroze on 01 June 2013
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Pemalite said:
Netyaroze said:

I am refering to unified Ram which is just way more efficent and will come for PC in the future, also CPU GPU communication is better so in a sense they are ahead. The Chip Architecture is the same but bringing it all together has certain advantages. PC has the better parts but the overall system design can be improved.   


PC had unified memory systems for decades, what do you think APU's are? What about any system with an IGP? The memory isn't split on such systems, the PC had unified memory systems far before the consoles, infact it was invented on the PC first.

Unified Ram also has downsides, for starters, the bandwidth is shared, you get memory contention etc'.


I wrote twice a longer response but it wasn't posted. So here a shorter version:

 

Consoles have advantages through their system architecture, it wasn't done like that before. Decades ? Shared memory =/= unified memory. APUs are limited because of DDR3 bandwith, and can't use their strengths on a PC yet. Yes PC is and always will be stronger. But efficency will play a bigger role for PC, because of rising manufacturing costs. I don't need a history lesson. I played my first PC game on a x286.

 

Also IGPs have to adress the ram seperatly and CPUs can not use the data, it must be copied. One for CPU one for GPU. They can not share identical data even if the data is the same. Kaveri will do that but its not out yet, and aslong as the ram limits the performance its not that interesting.

PCI is a bottleneck and even with 4.0 alot of the bandwith will go to redundant tasks, also GPU CPU cycles will. No unified system memory will do that. Right now its no big deal but it will be in the future once the code changes that GPUs run. CPU GPU communication will be more important. PC has to throw money and ressources at everything and excells at everything. But with costlier shrinks in the future PC has to change or costs will rise. 

 

Consoles got more PC like and PC will get more console like. Its weird to assume Sony/MS Engineers didn't try to improve the PC Architecture in the only way they can. Afterall in terms of raw performance they will always be behind and in terms of Chip architecture they can be at best just a couple of months ahead, like 360 once.