mutantsushi said:
ViktorBKK said:
R9 270 has 20 CUs at 925 MHz. PS4 has 18 CUs at 800 MHz. Both have same amount of ROPS. R9 270 doesn't share its memory bandwidth with a CPU, the PS4 does.
Let's wait and see how low level can you go on this STEAM OS. If something like Mantle can be used to code for games in Valve's new box, then I expect the hardware to be just as efficient as it is in consoles. In that scenario even the vanilla R9 270 will outpace the PS4. |
It'd be great if Mantle could achieve console level of optimization, but it simply can't, although it can come closer than DX/GL can.
Just using Mantle does not allow for all the memory optimization that PS4 does with unified memory especially great for hybrid compute,
and there's a whole host of other optimizations possible with PS4 (and XBone) that are just not possible with open/variable HW config.
Not to mention PS4's disproportionate amount of ACE's will enable it to 'play above it's rating' in terms of similar size/cost GPUs,
that amount of ACEs will become norm on the HIGH END of PC GPUs but PS4 will be able to leverage that like the PS3's SPUs.
With both consoles using AMD, it seems likely that crossplatform games will have a shared level of optimiation that is Mantle compatable for the most part,
but as I wrote, Mantle and AMD is not the exclusive GPU for Steam Machine, it also uses NVIDIA, just like Windows that factor is not constant.
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EA says Mantle should become available for nVidia as well, eventually. Also keep in mind that PC doesn't need to be as efficient as consoles to destroy them. We already have graphics cards in the market that outclass the next gen consoles, even on DirectX. If they can become 20% more efficient on Mantle, thats pretty big. Also, unified memory makes things a bit easier for programmers, but in terms of performance, it means that CPU and GPU have to share the same bandwidth. A split pool solution of 8GB DDR3 for CPU + 4GB GDDR5 for the GPU is far superior. Especially when you conside that consoles only use a part of those 8GB of unified ram for games. With that said, I totally agree that PS4 graphics will be absolutely impressive for the next couple of years.
