Pemalite said:
JustBeingReal said:
When someone comes out and says that memory doesn't need to be fast because the processor is fast, you know it's fake. Memory needs to be able to send and receive data fast enough, to keep the processor fed.
Also this leak guy is saying the CPU is 30% faster than PS4 and XB1, which is it? XB1's CPU runs at 1.75Ghz and PS4's is 1.6GHz.
Same thing with the GPU differences compared to PS4 and XB1, as Barkley said. 50% faster than XB1, isn't 50% faster than PS4's GPU.
The only ways that 12GBs of memory make sense, is either if Nintendo are using 8GBs of DDR3 memory and 4GBs of something faster like HBM or GDDR5 or GDDR5X. 12GBs of DDR3 with some kind of cache like 64MBs of eSRAM or eDRAM (because you'd need more than 32MBs for a faster GPU).
Finally 12GBs of all GDDR5 or GDDR5X, because that would provide ample bandwidth and storage.
The latter memory set-up makes for the simplest to develop for.
This NEX rumor sounds completely fake. |
1) DDR3 can potentially be faster than GDDR5.
2) 6/12Gb is entirely plausable. Take a look at the Intel x58 Triple channel memory configuration that you can have on the PC.
Nintendo could have 24x16bit memory chips and that would be 384bit.
Now let's assume Nintendo has 2133Mhz ram like Microsoft's Xbox One... However, because of the wider memory bus, Nintendo would actually have 93.7GB/s of bandwidth verses Microsoft's 68.3GB/s.
What if Nintendo went with 3000Mhz DDR3 Ram? That would boost it to 144GB/s.
Now, thanks to advancements in GPU tech... You need less bandwidth. The NX *could* have less bandwidth than the PS4, but end up having more to play with overall thanks to Colour compression. (First introduced with AMD's Tonga GPU's, the PS4 and Xbox One lack this.)
End result is... The NX could have DDR3 and more bandwidth to play with than the PS4.
Still. I personally think this is fake... Going with DDR3 isn't wise considering that memory technology is slowly being phased out, it's price isn't that much lower than DDR4... And should get more expensive as manufacturing shifts over to the newer standard.
Plus 384bit memory bus and 24 memory chips would get expensive. 384bit would require more traces on the motherboard, which means more PCB layers which means higher cost. And well.. More chips is more expensive.
Nintendo is often fairly conservative.
With that said... This bloke could have 12Gb in his machine if it's a Dev Kit, Dev kits sometimes have more memory for development purposes.
As for the CPU... Jaguar is old and slow. 1.6ghz vs 1.75ghz isn't anything worth comparing, the differences would be minimal.
It would also be trivial for AMD to offer twice the performance of both. It already has old CPU's that exist that can do just that... CPU's also don't need fast RAM, his statement is true, AMD has a plethora of technology's to hide bandwidth and latency deficits.
The GPU however is an entirely different matter...
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1)No DDR3 cannot run faster than GDDR5, not without running into issues with incredibly high voltage. DDR3 just isn't designed to operate at the kind of speeds that GDDR5 does.
I didn't say 12GBs of memory wasn't possible, I said it doesn't make sense to use 12GBs of DDR3, alone.
Newer GPU tech actually requires more bandwidth, which is why companies have invented GDDR5X and HBM, you aren't going anywhere without any more data actually getting to the GPU for it to actually work on. Fast memory is essential.
384 Bit DDR3 doesn't exist. The biggest bus width available is 256 Bit, unless you clock it higher than 2133Mhz, you're not getting higher than 68GB/s theoretical performance, as you clock it higher you run into latency problems.
2400Mhz DDR3 on a 256 Bit bus would only offer 76.5GB/s, which is pitiful for a GPU 2X stronger than XB1's, hell 68GB/s wasn't enough for XB1, which is why Microsoft added 32MBs of eSRAM and there are still bandwidth problems. This hypothetical NX potentially has a 2.7TFlop GPU, which is more than 2X the GPU performance of XB1, 2X the bandwidth would be the minimum needed compared to XB1's GPU.
You're not going up to 3000Mhz on DDR3, the voltage problems would be ridiculous, better to just go with GDDR5, which can have a 384 Bit bus and latency would be much lower than clocking DDR3 through the roof, hell even DDR4 would have more latency problems than GDDR5 would, 4GBs of HBM would be even better, especially for a 2.7TFlop GPU.
No DDR3 can't provide more bandwidth than GDDR5, not even if you had 2 separate 256 Bit buses, each with a 6GB pool clocked at 2400Mhz, PS4 would still outperform it for bandwidth, with 176GB/s theoretical vs 153GB/s for NX. NX would have a lot of latency issues clocking it's memory that high, considering that the timings for PS4's memory are comparable to 2133Mhz DDR3, if you go higher then latency gets longer.
As for my CPU points, you miss the point. The point is that there's no specific basis for comparison between PS4, XB1 and NX, this rumor is incredibly vague and if this person had real information he would give a specific comparison between either PS4 or XB1 compared to NX.
You can't hide bandwidth deficits, latency sure, but bandwidth is literally like the fuel of a car, without data the GPU has nothing to work with, compression means you loose data, better to have high bandwidth, hell HBM would be a better option in part, because it has lower latency. Part HBM, part GDDR5 would probably be best if you can't get all HBM.
This leak is as fake as they come.
