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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Will PS/XBX follow Nintendo's footsteps?

derpysquirtle64 said:
Trumpstyle said:

Just wanna point out several things, first if the next-gen consoles launches around 2025-2026 I can easily see they having 16-core ARM cpu with more than 2x ipc than current consoles, probably clocked at 4ghz.

I don't know anything about emulation but this should make it easy for both Sony and MS to emulate previous gen games. They don't really need 100% perfect emulation anyway.

It will be AMD who builds the SOC, not Sony/MS. Most likely ARM(Cpu) + RDNA(gpu).

Second point, the main advantage ARM has over X86 is its ipc advantage, I don't know much about this but just what I read from very highly knowledgable people, X86 will lose against ARM because it's basically stuck at 4 decoders, it's very hard for a x86 cpu to go beyond this while ARM can go unlimited. Skylake from intel supposedly have 5 decoders in some press news but this is inaccurate, it has 4 decoders same as zen3. M1 has 8 decoders. It's because of the decoders ARM can have much higher ipc (Perf/ghz).

M1 has around 1.53x higher ipc than Zen3, the new snapdragon that will launch soon around 15%.

The Perf/w and smaller cores ARM gives is just a bonus.

"It will be AMD who builds the SOC, not Sony/MS. Most likely ARM(Cpu) + RDNA(gpu)."

But what if AMD would not want to build ARM-based SoCs? Yes, as I've mentioned in my post, I don't see Sony being able to create their own ARM SoC. So they would have to rely either on Nvidia with Tegra or AMD (if they'll jump on board with ARM). Another options can be Qualcomm or Samsung I suppose. By the way if I'm not mistaken Samsung is partnering with AMD for some of their newer Exynos SoCs to improve graphics. I think I've heard it somewhere.

"Second point, the main advantage ARM has over X86 is its ipc advantage, I don't know much about this but just what I read from very highly knowledgable people, X86 will lose against ARM because it's basically stuck at 4 decoders, it's very hard for a x86 cpu to go beyond this while ARM can go unlimited. Skylake from intel supposedly have 5 decoders in some press news but this is inaccurate, it has 4 decoders same as zen3. M1 has 8 decoders. It's because of the decoders ARM can have much higher ipc (Perf/ghz).

M1 has around 1.53x higher ipc than Zen3, the new snapdragon that will launch soon around 15%."

I'm not really sure what is meant here by decoders, I guess it is probably refering to GPRs (General Purpose Registers), but not sure. The issue is with IPC comparison. It's not indicative of performance at all. Because x86 is a CISC processor and ARM is a RISC processor. They have completely different instruction sets. Just an example from the internet, in x86 assembly a=b/c operation looks like this:

That's the perfect example of why you can't compare IPC between ARM and x86, as with ARM's reduced instruction set, it is usually required to run more instructions compared to x86 to perform the same operation.

If Amd won't build them a ARM CPU I don't think they will go arm, but I don't expect this will be a problem as AMD can just license ARM cpu from ARM. They don't need to build a custom CPU themself.

For decoders stuff, I just have to use google translate from sweden as it's only way I can find quick source:

"What makes Apple's design so potent is that the simplicity of ARM is complemented by a very broad design, where eight instructions can be initiated (issue-width) per clock cycle. In comparison, the x86 camp is much narrower, where until recently both Intel and AMD were limited to being able to decode a maximum of four instructions per clock cycle. In terms of how many instructions can be initiated with the latest generation of Cove architectures, Intel has broadened its design from four to five, while AMD and the Zen 3 architecture stay at four."

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sweclockers.com%2Fartikel%2F30952-apple-m1-vi-synar-apples-forsta-arm-processor-i-sommarna%2F2

When I compare ipc, I mean real performance 1 cpu core in benchmarks like cinebench, Geekbench 5 and the very higly respected SPEC2006 that pc users love.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-tested/4

M1 is clocked at 3.2 ghz and Zen3 5950x clocked above 4.5ghz. I actually haven't done the math I just made the assumption that A13 has 1.8x higher ipc than Zen2.

Last edited by Trumpstyle - on 07 January 2021

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Trumpstyle said:
derpysquirtle64 said:

"It will be AMD who builds the SOC, not Sony/MS. Most likely ARM(Cpu) + RDNA(gpu)."

But what if AMD would not want to build ARM-based SoCs? Yes, as I've mentioned in my post, I don't see Sony being able to create their own ARM SoC. So they would have to rely either on Nvidia with Tegra or AMD (if they'll jump on board with ARM). Another options can be Qualcomm or Samsung I suppose. By the way if I'm not mistaken Samsung is partnering with AMD for some of their newer Exynos SoCs to improve graphics. I think I've heard it somewhere.

"Second point, the main advantage ARM has over X86 is its ipc advantage, I don't know much about this but just what I read from very highly knowledgable people, X86 will lose against ARM because it's basically stuck at 4 decoders, it's very hard for a x86 cpu to go beyond this while ARM can go unlimited. Skylake from intel supposedly have 5 decoders in some press news but this is inaccurate, it has 4 decoders same as zen3. M1 has 8 decoders. It's because of the decoders ARM can have much higher ipc (Perf/ghz).

M1 has around 1.53x higher ipc than Zen3, the new snapdragon that will launch soon around 15%."

I'm not really sure what is meant here by decoders, I guess it is probably refering to GPRs (General Purpose Registers), but not sure. The issue is with IPC comparison. It's not indicative of performance at all. Because x86 is a CISC processor and ARM is a RISC processor. They have completely different instruction sets. Just an example from the internet, in x86 assembly a=b/c operation looks like this:

That's the perfect example of why you can't compare IPC between ARM and x86, as with ARM's reduced instruction set, it is usually required to run more instructions compared to x86 to perform the same operation.

If Amd won't build them a ARM CPU I don't think they will go arm, but I don't expect this will be a problem as AMD can just license ARM cpu from ARM. They don't need to build a custom CPU themself.

For decoders stuff, I just have to use google translate from sweden as it's only way I can find quick source:

"What makes Apple's design so potent is that the simplicity of ARM is complemented by a very broad design, where eight instructions can be initiated (issue-width) per clock cycle. In comparison, the x86 camp is much narrower, where until recently both Intel and AMD were limited to being able to decode a maximum of four instructions per clock cycle. In terms of how many instructions can be initiated with the latest generation of Cove architectures, Intel has broadened its design from four to five, while AMD and the Zen 3 architecture stay at four."

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sweclockers.com%2Fartikel%2F30952-apple-m1-vi-synar-apples-forsta-arm-processor-i-sommarna%2F2

When I compare ipc, I mean real performance 1 cpu core in benchmarks like cinebench, Geekbench 5 and the very higly respected SPEC2006 that pc users love.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-tested/4

M1 is clocked at 3.2 ghz and Zen3 5950x clocked above 4.5ghz. I actually haven't done the math I just made the assumption that A13 has 1.8x higher ipc than Zen2.

For a comprehensive and a visual explanation of decoders and out-of-order execution, watch this video (explanation of decoders starts around the 6th minute). 



LurkerJ said:
Trumpstyle said:

If Amd won't build them a ARM CPU I don't think they will go arm, but I don't expect this will be a problem as AMD can just license ARM cpu from ARM. They don't need to build a custom CPU themself.

For decoders stuff, I just have to use google translate from sweden as it's only way I can find quick source:

"What makes Apple's design so potent is that the simplicity of ARM is complemented by a very broad design, where eight instructions can be initiated (issue-width) per clock cycle. In comparison, the x86 camp is much narrower, where until recently both Intel and AMD were limited to being able to decode a maximum of four instructions per clock cycle. In terms of how many instructions can be initiated with the latest generation of Cove architectures, Intel has broadened its design from four to five, while AMD and the Zen 3 architecture stay at four."

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sweclockers.com%2Fartikel%2F30952-apple-m1-vi-synar-apples-forsta-arm-processor-i-sommarna%2F2

When I compare ipc, I mean real performance 1 cpu core in benchmarks like cinebench, Geekbench 5 and the very higly respected SPEC2006 that pc users love.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-tested/4

M1 is clocked at 3.2 ghz and Zen3 5950x clocked above 4.5ghz. I actually haven't done the math I just made the assumption that A13 has 1.8x higher ipc than Zen2.

For a comprehensive and a visual explanation of decoders and out-of-order execution, watch this video (explanation of decoders starts around the 6th minute). 

Answering @Jumpin I partially gave a possible way for AMD and Intel to get out of the corner, but there's more, I'll add it below.

Alby_da_Wolf said:
Jumpin said:

It'll be interesting. If Sony and Xbox don't move to ARM architecture in 7 years, or some similar RISC, then Nintendo's next console is going to blow them away in power. There is no way X86 is going to keep up with the momentum of ARM at this point. X86 is a dinosaur that's heading toward extinction. The M1 chip is exactly the sort of direction that consoles will be taking - it won't be Apple, but some Nvidia solution.

The fact that Apple came to the playing field with entry level chips in cheap-ass macs that are already smoking high-end chips in certain capacities just makes you wonder how far ahead they'll be in 2-3 years. ARM tech is where the biggest investment is happening. Apple is an American company that has risen to #1 in the Japanese desktop PC market thanks to the M1 Mac Mini seizing 26% of the PC market. I can see them advancing worldwide market share if the competition doesn't quickly transition.

My opinion, Microsoft switches Xbox to ARM by 2026.

If Sony doesn't, in 7 years, Playstation is toast, it won't have any compelling feature except a very very loud fan system.

Would you like to know more?

Both AMD and Intel could decide to give direct access to their microarchitectures, bypassing the x86 translation layer that would be used just for legacy applications (and could be gradually abandoned when emulation starts reaching the native performances of the last x86 CPUs, but could be dropped altogether, saving silicon, for CPU models targeted to users not needing legacy).
Basically, the generation approach stops for the next years required x86 performances at PS5 APU level for PS5 exclusives, while PS5/XBS multiplats will just need XBSS APU performances as minimum requirements, this means that if next gen x86 will be abandoned, new RISC CPUs with legacy x86 BC will just need a bypassable translation layer capable of supporting 7 years old x86 performances, for the transistor numbers APUs and GPUs will have by then, it will be a modest increase. Such transition would be a lot more painless than on PC, where x86 performances will keep on growing through the whole generation.

Apple-like solution is perfect for big device makers needing just one or two SoCs at a time for their mainstream platforms, like console makers, or for HUGE device makers needing a higher, but still quite limited number of SoCs, like Apple.
So a 10th gen RISC SoC with a bypassable x86 to RISC translation layer using a subset of the available cores to deliver 9th gen BC could be feasible, the old gen performance capable translation layer would add little more silicon to a 7 years newer highly parallel RISC SoC.
But the SoC solution, as the video you linked correctly pointed out, isn't suitable to the whole PC market, that provides a really wide range of single components and an incredibly huge number of possible system configs that would be a bloodbath to serve with an excessively wide range of SoC's, not to mention that a single PC config, even using APUs, so fixed combinations of CPUs and GPUs, still offers the possibility of expanding RAM, always on desktops and very often on laptops, except the ultrathin ones with RAM external to CPU or APU, but soldered on the MoBo.
For the PC market I can still see the Apple-like RISC SoC solution doing wonders, but it will still need at least one more feature, a very high-speed (higher than current Northbridge AMD and Intel ones) external bus to connect the SoC to external RAM sockets, possibly treating such external RAM as L5 memory, while internal RAM and caches would be Levels 1 to 4. This would add costs, but lower than making enough SoCs for all the different needs of PC users.
A very high-end solution, viable only if the OS supports it, so good luck to users of non server versions of Windows, would be that the user needing more RAM adds one or more whole SoCs, this is surely unthinkable even for average mid-high end users, that could need to add just RAM for some memory intensive tasks to the fastest SoC they could afford. And all this not even considering users needing not only larger RAM, but also faster GPUs than those included in the SoCs, here there is an even higher obstacle, new high-end GPUs are released more often than high-end CPUs, making the highest-end SoCs quickly outdated in their GPU side.
So the classic PC system model is here to stay for some time, but console makers, that already order and help design customised chips for their systems, really haven't insurmountable obstacles to switch to Apple-like SoCs for 10th gen, and adding 9th gen HW BC won't be too hard either.



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Intel Tigerlake x86 for handheld / hybrid formfactor doesn't run that bad either: