The PS4/Xbone GPU is even more generations ahead. Stop trying to derail the thread.

Reported for trolling :)

What else is new??

I have to disagree a bit because you couldn't use the memory for gpu or cpu as you wish with igp. And decades is also exaggerating. It was shared memory but it wasn't unified memory until APUs were made.

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. 

Unified Memory Access or UMA, HAS been around for decades, the only thing you are getting into is the semantics of how the memory is allocated and how the devices talk to each other.
Even on old Intel graphics that shared system memory like the i830 and i915, they could talk to the CPU, make some writes in the CPU's cache and vice versa, the Intel drivers actually had specific commands recognised by the drivers kernel in order for the CPU and GPU to talk to each other directly via system memory.

Heck, on some old Intel IGP's the CPU would actually perform some graphics functions such as TnL, do the processing for that then send it to System memory for the graphics processor to do it's thing.

As for APU's, they aren't that flexible, the idea of AMD's eventual goal with fusion was to have the CPU and GPU handle every-day tasks that each are best suited for, for example, the GPU could handle the floating point math for the CPU as it's well adapt at doing so due to it's parallel nature, unfortunatly we still aren't there yet, Trinity/Kabini was another step forward to that eventual goal.

Also, PCI is going to be a bottleneck, it's 133MB/s. PCI-E however doesn't have such restrictions, it's not holding anything back except in some extreme pure compute scenarios.

As for PC's getting more PC like, AMD started developing APU's for the PC, not for consoles first, so it's purely consoles are getting more PC-like at this stage.
AMD outlined in several whitepapers on what it's Fusion initiative was going to head towards when they bought out ATI, long before these consoles were even in the design phase, that's for sure.

The only difference between an APU and IGP is that an APU has the graphics processor on-die with the processor, that's pretty much it, the APU still sets aside some dedicated pages in Ram to use for itself.

Intel IGP's for example would dynamically take memory from system memory to use for itself depending on load, even when it was integrated into the motherboard chipset, some motherboards would even allow you to adjust it manually.
The only difference between the two platforms is the developer makes the choice not the driver or the BIOS or the user to how much memory is allocated to each processor.

Its not just Semantics. Its an efficency improvement. Are you telling me that you could in the past address the same ram space through GPU and CPU ? I have never heard that once please give some links. It kills the need for duplicating data, occupiyng more space and hoging up bandwith.

Asfar as I understood Cernys babbeling about the volatile tag: PS4 is not UMA but NUMA http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Uniform_Memory_Access except for CPU+GPU. Thats basically how HUMA from AMD works and is suppossed to come later this year.

What Consumer PC did that before  ?

Also PCI is not holding anything back right now (You know exactly I mean the latest iteration). But it will eventually, appearently some people think GPU computing will be more important. And I think PCI 3.0 maxes out at 16gb/s currently ? PS4 is slightly above that I think.

Your last comment makes no sense I said Consoles became more PC like, and PC will become more Console like (speculation obviously). That means using more efficent ways to get to the goal. Split memory like GPU RAM and CPU RAM will disappear. Sooner or later, IMO.

I am not even sure what we are talking about here. The technology for the PS4, HUMA etc is about to come out for PC at the same time. But its not the same level due to ram limitations. The usual PC Setup has certain disadvantages and the APUs are bandwith starved. So its not been done in the same way on PC. 

PC will catch up on the memory front, they are however way too strong to struggle with anything you throw at them. So its not like they need it.

PC will have HUMA by the time PS4 is released but the bandwith of the main ram is too narrow to allow AMD to leverage that advantage in a meaningful way.

I dont want you to push me here in a Console defense position. So I need precise information were exactly any of the things I said are wrong and if they aren't I would like to end this discussion.

I dont really care about the consoles. But its just wrong to say Consoles bring nothing new at all to the table and everything has been done on the PC decades ago. The PS4 and XBone are state of the art budget PCs designed by AMD. Realized in a way thats not possible with the current PC System Architecture.

^ Isn't this thread supposed to be about Wii U, not PS4/X1 vs PC?

You are right I got a little side tracked. I wont comment on it further

It is just semantics. They both share the same memory pool, both the processors can talk to each other via that memory pool, it's been well documented in the linux community where they develop there own graphics drivers, the difference is GPU's of today are far more progammable and can talk directly via it's own dedicated bus to the CPU instead of passing through the System Ram like with Intels Ring Bus.
But that doesn't mean it's not possible for a CPU and IGP not to talk to each other and provide assistance in older platforms via slower methods. (Which is the point of this entire discussion.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache_coherence
https://01.org/linuxgraphics/blogs/vivijim/2012/i915/gem-crashcourse-daniel-vetter
http://supercomputingblog.com/cuda/cuda-memory-and-cache-architecture/

That link you provided is also not in English, no idea why you would post it in another language when this entire conversation has been purely in English.
Here is the English version for those wanting to know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Uniform_Memory_Access
Again, Intel had supported NUMA 5-6 years ago, starting with the Nahalem platform.
http://lse.sourceforge.net/numa/faq/

Intel will be taking it a step farther with Haswell with it's embedded DRAM that both the CPU and IGP utilise as a cache and can see what processor has what, much akin to what they do in System Ram, it is just another step up in the cache hierachy to hide the latency and bandwidth deficit that DDR3 has. (Only on the GT3e IGP's however.)

Now, I honestly don't see dedicated memory going away, how you came to that conclusion beats me.
For example, back on the Radeon Xpress/3000/4000 IGP's AMD included 32Mb - 256Mb of DDR3 (Or better) Ram dedicated to graphics. - http://www.anandtech.com/show/1537/17
Intel has gone with throwing a bunch of transisters for a large fast cache on the CPU die.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6911/intels-return-to-the-dram-business-haswell-gt3e-to-integrate-128mb-edram
AMD will be introducing GDDR5 for Integrated graphics soon.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20130305060258_AMD_s_Fusion_Kaveri_APU_Supports_GDDR5_Memory_Report.html


Lastly... As for PCI-E 3.0 bandwidth... It is 1GB/sec per lane in each direction, maximum of 32GB/s in total, PCI-E 4.0 will double that again.

Correct, but the Wii U does benefit from technology such as this. :P