PS4 Neo GPU Is Point-For-Point A Match For RX 480

[Pemalite]

JRPGfan said:

1) The 7970 (280x) isnt anywhere close to the the performance of a RX 480 (which is around a 980 or slightly faster ). So in 2013 they couldnt have fit a gpu like this into a 400$ machine.

RX480 should be more than twice what a 7970 is in performance, if its faster than a 980 (but slower than a 980ti).

That assumes that Sony was to use a vanilla 7970/280X, which like their Radeon 7870/7850 derived GPU, wouldn't be, it will take on a few features from GCN 1.1/1.2, that changes things a little bit.

There are also rumors that the Neo won't be using a plane-jane desktop Radeon 480 either, it will be underclocked, putting it closer to the 7970 than you might otherwise think.

JRPGfan said:

2) "DDR4 and DDR3 memory can offer more bandwidth than GDDR5, it all comes down to the implementation."

 "Thus 4166mhz DDR4 on a 512bit bus would provide 266GB/s a second of bandwidth, that's more than the PS4 or the PS4 Neo."

Bullsh*t.   

128bit bus is Dual Channel, tri-channel is 192bit, 256bit is quad channel. Normal non super computer pcs dont run higher.

If would be too expensive to have a mainstream cpu/motherboard combo forced to use 16 ram sticks of PC4166mhz.

"AMD has also used a technology known as "Side Port" once before." 

It goes against their philosphy now of APUs haveing 1 memory pool for HSA. It would be a compremise to go back to that stuff.

 

"Dedicated PCI-E is here to stay, it's used for more than just Graphics." 

How many avg users use it for anything other than GPU? seriously if demand for GPUs drops in the future due to APUs, I can easily see PC makers makeing motherboards for normal users without one.

Yes they do.

AMD and nVidia have used 512bit memory buses in the past.

I think the mistake you are making is that you are thinking memory configurations come in "sticks". - Which isn't always true, my original point still stands though, DDR3 and DDR4 can offer more bandwidth than GDDR5, it all comes down to the implementation.

Well. HSA has just recently been expanded.
You can have seperate memory pools under HSA and using Virtual Address Space you can share data by using pointers.






No. PCI-E won't be going anywhere, in-case you haven't been watching the PC market, the bright spots which are offering the largest growth are custom builds and enthusiast machines, which require PCI-E.

The exception to this is ultra small devices like the NUC, but recently there has been an interest in external GPU's to get around that... Which still uses PCE-E.
Even Thunderport sometimes reuses PCI-E and so do some USB controllers.

JRPGfan said:

3) Yep Puma+ is just rumor... so is basically everything PS4 neo though. But I hope they dont just keep the same jaguar cores.

Agreed.

AMD's CPU's are pretty horrible, Jaguar being the worst of AMD's offerings from a performance perspective isn't a good thing.

Barkley said:

Pemalite - "All PS4 titles as they are today, if they aren't updated... Will run exactly the same as they do now even on the new machine." - (would have quoted but on mobile and deleting the rest of that 10,000 word essay post would have taken ages)

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Not necessarily, if games on the current ps4 suffer from fps drops below their locked target those drops may not be prevalent on the neo.

Unless sony underclock the hardware to that of the original ps4 when running original titles games that don't meet their fps target at all times will have a more consistent framerate and any game that has an unlocked framerate could benefit greatly by the new hardware, with or without an update to the game.

So hopefully they don't limit the hardware when playing old games...

That's a good point.
However, pretty sure there will be software limitations for those titles to try and get it to perform like a plain PS4, otherwise everything would run faster. (Which is a super bad thing if a games tick rate is tied to framerate.)