Microsoft Xbox Next and PlayStation 4 to Feature Eight-Core AMD Jaguar Microprocessor

[Lefein]

Cell was supposed to go into TVs, computers, and all kinds of consumer goods but that never happened. It's pretty much dead in the water. There were no avenues of recuperating the research and development costs and there is no reason to carry it on to the next generation at this point. There were some truly amazing road map plans for Cell going to a kind of multi-multicore architecture by 2013. It would have been a true beast, but if Sony went that route, they would have no developers backing it.

The real key here is in the Vita. No doubt, if Cell was a commercial success, we would have seen a miniature Cell in the Vita but Sony opted for a more standard CPU instead. I have very little doubt this is the direction they will go in with the PS4. If Sony was going with something really exotic in the CPU, we would have heard about it by now since development kits are already going out as well.

[MonkeyClaw]

Cell was supposed to go into TVs, computers, and all kinds of consumer goods but that never happened. It's pretty much dead in the water. There were no avenues of recuperating the research and development costs and there is no reason to carry it on to the next generation at this point. There were some truly amazing road map plans for Cell going to a kind of multi-multicore architecture by 2013. It would have been a true beast, but if Sony went that route, they would have no developers backing it.

The real key here is in the Vita. No doubt, if Cell was a commercial success, we would have seen a miniature Cell in the Vita but Sony opted for a more standard CPU instead. I have very little doubt this is the direction they will go in with the PS4. If Sony was going with something really exotic in the CPU, we would have heard about it by now since development kits are already going out as well.

Exactamundo!

[TGO]

I still believe the PS4 has BC hardware in there somewhere.

[Sub-stance1]

I still believe the PS4 has BC hardware in there somewhere.

Me too. I think its a possibility.

[Yungstar 2006]

I still believe the PS4 has BC hardware in there somewhere.

can't imagine that at all.

[MonkeyClaw]

If they do stick it in there it will be serving another purpose on top of BC, I don't see them putting it in there strictly for only BC.

[coolguy]

the cell could have been much better then it was. bring on the PS4

[Morganator]

I am onboard with you on the whole RAM debadicle, but as for the Cell architecture, I have a feeling that will be going to the grave, you have to remember the whole Cell BE thing was Ken Kutaragi's baby, he is no longer there and I am willing to bet they drop it in the PS4/Orbis. It is just more logical that they are going to go with off the shelf parts and make it easier to develop for. I have a feeling we will be seeing the A10 APU along with a discrete GPU as well, which they might throw the old Cell BE in there as a processor for another function and also for backwards compatibility (like the PS2 did with the PS1 CPU), but I think even that is going to be a long shot!

True. The fact remains though that ultimately, we really don't know for sure since Sony has been really tight-lipped. I can see Cell being dropped. That's not hard to believe at all. What I don't believe is that we will see an APU setup. It's understandable that the Vita uses it because the Vita is a mobile platform and needs the lower power consumption requirements that APU setups generally give. With home consoles, that isn't much of an issue.

Honestly, if Sony goes the x86 route, it will be heavily modified to include x64 architecture characteristics like double precision floating point calculations which the Cell did pretty decent at when compared to consumer grade CPUs of the x86 variety. In all honesty, all we can do is speculate. I for one, hope they don't, haven't and won't go the APU route.

[MonkeyClaw]

True. The fact remains though that ultimately, we really don't know for sure since Sony has been really tight-lipped. I can see Cell being dropped. That's not hard to believe at all. What I don't believe is that we will see an APU setup. It's understandable that the Vita uses it because the Vita is a mobile platform and needs the lower power consumption requirements that APU setups generally give. With home consoles, that isn't much of an issue.

Honestly, if Sony goes the x86 route, it will be heavily modified to include x64 architecture characteristics like double precision floating point calculations which the Cell did pretty decent at when compared to consumer grade CPUs of the x86 variety. In all honesty, all we can do is speculate. I for one, hope they don't, haven't and won't go the APU route.

Agreed, I hope they don't go that route, but if they do have an APU in the system I am hoping that it also has as secondary discrete GPU that is more powerful, that way it would leave the GPU inside the APU to things like physics, particle effects, etc.

[Lefein]

In many ways, an APU can behave in some manner the same way Cell was used to draw to render particle effects and handle physics. It's almost unanimously confirmed that Sony is opting to mate a GPU with whatever they are putting in the PS4. Every rumor starts to draw a clearer and clearer picture of what PS4 will do from a fundamental sense.

[MonkeyClaw]

In many ways, an APU can behave in some manner the same way Cell was used to draw to render particle effects and handle physics. It's almost unanimously confirmed that Sony is opting to mate a GPU with whatever they are putting in the PS4. Every rumor starts to draw a clearer and clearer picture of what PS4 will do from a fundamental sense.

I personally believe they will have an APU (CPU+GPU) in the PS4/Orbis, I just hope they have a secondary much more powerful GPU as the main workhorse of the system.

[LegendaryAim]

So.....in laymen terms.......How big of a graphical/power jump are we going to see next-gen?

[jj03]

So.....in laymen terms.......How big of a graphical/power jump are we going to see next-gen?

Not as big a jump as ps2 to ps3...thats for sure.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

[Lefein]

Not as big a jump as ps2 to ps3...thats for sure.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

I'd say to the uninitiated, it may seem that way. The in-game graphics should roughly be like the in-engine cutscenes from this generation in some ways and better in a lot of ways due to things like tessellation and the ability to run better resolutions.

Developers really had to struggle with the hardware of this generation. It would be hard to explain, but the resources afforded by the PS3 and 360 were not even in the same galaxy as what was going on in PC gaming. The success of the Wii also pulled a lot of resources away from much needed manpower on the HD consoles. The demands on the hardware set by game engines to run in 720P natively much less 1080P were just too great.

In short, I think the PS4 generation will actually deliver on the visuals and scope of games we were hoping for with the PS3 and then some. PC will always have a leg up on consoles, and that will not change here. However, it's not like even PC developers have been pumping out a whole lot of games on the same level as Crysis (1). The parity between what developers can do and what they actually will do won't be quite so vast this time around, at least, not initially. 4K monitors will start to be a big thing and there is DirectX 11 and 12 out just beyond the horizon. In the meantime, enjoy PS4. It should not only look a whole lot better and cleaner, but the developers will be able to do a lot more with it as far as their game design is concerned.

[TGO]

can't imagine that at all.

What about hamsters?

Sent via Codec

[TGO]

If they do stick it in there it will be serving another purpose on top of BC, I don't see them putting it in there strictly for only BC.

I think this aswell, Cell is still no wimp in crunching numbers so it will benefit the PS4
By default (from rumored specs) the PS4 has the balls to out perform the 720, Cell being there for BC and addition power would not bottle neck anything
You can get better results by default, but if you choose you can use Cell for overkill, I'd imagine 1st party will have no problem with that
Plus the Cell is still in production for the PS3, so its not like extra resources are needed

Sent via Codec

[MonkeyClaw]

I think this aswell, Cell is still no wimp in crunching numbers so it will benefit the PS4
By default (from rumored specs) the PS4 has the balls to out perform the 720, Cell being there for BC and addition power would not bottle neck anything
You can get better results by default, but if you choose you can use Cell for overkill, I'd imagine 1st party will have no problem with that
Plus the Cell is still in production for the PS3, so its not like extra resources are needed

Sent via Codec

Watch this is what they are doing:

AMD A10-5800K APU, has integrated 7660D GPU, which scores 819 using Passmark
RSX in PS3 is roughly a 7800GTX, which the 7800 GTX scores 310 using Passmark

So far, the integrated GPU should be more than ample to render a PS3 game. The rumored 2.2 GB of video memory that we talked about previously made us wonder if the 256MB portion is to cover for BC (maybe they put 256GB of XDR in it?!). I am almost wondering if their modified A10 APU is tweaked so the specs are compatible with the RSX and that 256MB is for BC, so if they somehow integrated the Cell BE or a modified version of it we could end up seeing BC in the PS4/Orbis...it is an extreme long shot, but who knows...I just really don't think the integrated GPU will be the only GPU in there, the 7660D is just too weak for a next gen console, when you compare a 7800GTX to the 7660D it is only around a 3x increase in power...