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Intel To Design PlayStation 4 GPU
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri Feb 06, 2009 03:42 PM
from the wtb-cash-cow dept.
from the wtb-cash-cow dept.
madhatter256 writes "According to the Inquirer it looks like Intel will be designing Sony's next gen console GPU. It will most likely be an off-shoot of the Larrabee GPU architecture. It is also unknown as of yet if Intel will also take part in the CPU design of the console. Due to current economic times it was a no brainer for Sony to go with Intel. " The article also mentions rumors of ATI getting the Xbox3 GPU and, if history is any judge, the Wii2 as well.
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Grammar Junta, attack! (Score:5, Funny)
>> Wii2
Sheesh - The proper term is WiiAlso.
Re:Grammar Junta, attack! (Score:5, Funny)
>> Wii2
Sheesh - The proper term is WiiAlso.
Not the WiiWii?
Parent
Re:Grammar Junta, attack! (Score:4, Funny)
Not the WiiWii?
That's a limited european marketing name. And it's spelled OuiiOuii.
Parent
Re:Grammar Junta, attack! (Score:4, Funny)
That's a limited european marketing name. And it's spelled OuiiOuii.
And the version for playstation fanbois will be the ennui.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
ennuii.
Re:Grammar Junta, attack! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Grammar Junta, attack! (Score:5, Funny)
After the Wii2 comes the Wii3... which comes in a special "R" edition with a digital video recorder, and also comes packaged with the ever popular game, Kings of Orient, making it the Wii3/Kings of Orient/R.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Grammar Junta, attack! (Score:4, Funny)
I believe it will be:
Xbox 3 Basic
Xbox 3 Home
Xbox 3 Media Center
Xbox 3 Premium
Xbox 3 Business
Xbox 3 Ultimate
Xbox 3 Ultimate - Halo Edition
Xbox 3 Ultimate XTreme Turbo Black
The will all do exactly the same thing.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I believe it will be:
The will all do exactly the same thing.
You must be referring to a red ring of sorts.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Is that like the MacBook Pro Black edition, now only $200 for the privilege of us changing the pigment color in the injection mould!
No, that's only $200 for the priviledge of you owning a computer that has the same color as The Lord's Own Turtlenecks. In addition, highly scientific studies have shown that having a black Mac, instead of a regular color Mac, will result in you attracting 150% more chicks when you sit sipping $15 soymilkchocolatelattefrappuchinomochaorangemintlattes while writing the great next american novel at your local coffeshop.
Re:Grammar Junta, attack! (Score:5, Funny)
And the Xbox3
They meant the XBOX 129600. The correct formula for Xbox naming is XBOX 360^(N-1) where N is the generation number.
Parent
Xbox3 and Wii2? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Xbox3 and Wii2? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
They are not official names - but they indicate to all readers which consoles are being referred to.
Re:Xbox3 and Wii2? (Score:5, Interesting)
The obvious follow-up to the Wii would be the Super Wii.
Parent
Because when I think graphics, I think intel (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Because when I think graphics, I think intel (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Because when I think graphics, I think intel (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless, however, they plan on making the PS4 some super casual console that doesn't need a lot of oomph for their up and coming stick figure games.
Which wouldn't surprise me in the least, since Sony is more than willing to follow the pack leader to grab more marketshare and force their ill-conceived DRM laden formats on the masses.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well the Cell was a bit out there when it was conceived, and Larrabee's sort of in that position now. I guess Sony is trying to take the bad press that came from the Cell being "too difficult to code for" and going with it, still maintaining that multicore is the way to scale up performance. Good on 'em, I say (despite my overall negative feelings toward the company).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The whole "cell is too hard to program for" bullshit was just a symptom of a larger industry-wide problem: education simply doesn't cover multi-threaded resource sharing nearly as well as it needs to.
I was speaking more about everything Sony has done since the walkman:
CD burners are too expensive and complicated, you say? Use our MD players, they record like a tape deck, but have the capacity of a CD in our proprietary format!
That digital camera too complicated? Use our sleek (if poorly engineered) alternat
Re:Because when I think graphics, I think intel (Score:5, Informative)
They even allow you to install another OS on their system. Compared to this, it is MS and Nintendo who are "Forcing their ill-conceived DRM laden formats" on the masses.
Unless you are talking strictly about Blu-Ray instead of Hardware. Don't know why that one would bother anyone, since DVD's and CD's also have DRM but no one seems worried about that.
Parent
Re:Because when I think graphics, I think intel (Score:4, Interesting)
wouldn't that be a Wii^2?
Anyway, I think part of the reason Intels offerings suck, is they are going for the majority of the graphics market - integrated. They aren't really trying for powerhouse GPUs.
I'm not saying this is a sure fire thing, but as a rough indication, compare their primary competitor that does try for powerhouse GPUs and CPUs. Look at how they perform on the former with their competitors, and the latter with Intel.
If intel decides to make a performance GPU, it might actually work.
Add to that the fact that, using a static architecture, consoles don't /need/ the raw power of memory, CPU or GPU that a gaming computer needs, I think Intel has the potential to provide a very reasonable GPU for a console.
Parent
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Re:Because when I think graphics, I think intel (Score:5, Informative)
Which is precisely why I think this story is bullshit.
This helps too: http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/sony-shoots-down-intel-gpu-in-ps4-rumours-525563 [techradar.com]
Parent
Re:Because when I think graphics, I think intel (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Because when I think graphics, I think intel (Score:5, Informative)
Do they have some magically awesome chipset that has never graced the consumer market?
Yes, Larrabee [anandtech.com]. It's a massively-multicored x86 processor designed to act as a GPU (it has some fixed-function GPU stuff tacked on).
In effect, Intel intends to build a GPU powerful enough to get software rendering (and all the flexibility and power that brings) up to the same speed as hardware-accelerated rendering. Intel is also going to be providing OpenGL/Direct3D abstraction layers so that existing games can work.
Larrabee is expected to at least be competitive with nVidia/AMD's stuff, although it might not be until the second generation product before they're on equal footing.
Parent
Re:Because when I think graphics, I think intel (Score:4, Informative)
No.
It's designed to be used as a GPU:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larrabee_(GPU) [wikipedia.org]
looks really nice. I am looking forward to seeing what the finished product could do. The graphics market could use another competitor at the high consumer end.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Larrabee has 32 cores, so that's all right then.
There's no reason Intel can't make a high-end graphics chip, their fabrication processes alone would give them a huge advantage over ATI/NVIDIA.
If they haven't made one so far it's because they're not really interested. They already sell more graphics chips than the competition so why bother?
The market for top-of-the-range graphics cards is pretty small. ATI/NVIDIA make way more money from their $50 cards than their $500 cards.
Inquirer bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
I know Slashdot isn't known for its high standards of editorial oversight, but do you really have to waste our time parroting Inquirer bullshit?
Note that the only media source claiming that Intel is designing the PS4 GPU is The Inquirer, which is wrong more often than they're right. And Sony has explicitly denied [techradar.com] the rumors.
Intel might end up designing the PS4 GPU, who knows. This story doesn't give us any more information than we had before either way, and the headline is certainly wrong in concluding otherwise.
Re: (Score:2)
on the merits, also unlikely (Score:3)
For what it's worth, on the merits this is also unlikely to be a genuine leak, even if we ignore it being from the Inquirer. They claim that they got this scoop from a "nice Sony engineering lady at CES". It's unlikely that a random Sony representative at CES would even be privy to such information, or it would've leaked by now. These sorts of decisions are generally kept pretty close to the chest, and don't leak very early unless someone fucks up. (When they do leak, it can lead to SEC investigations.)
Re:Inquirer bullshit (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Slow down and consider the implications (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Slow down and consider the implications (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Cell? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Why Intel? Because IBM screwed Sony... (Score:5, Informative)
From the article:
How Sony inadvertently helped a competitor and lost position in the videogame market.
Read here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123069467545545011.html [wsj.com]
Enjoy,
Lucky for nVidia (Score:3, Insightful)
Gee, over the past few years the news has been all about how doing a GPU for a console not only lost you money, but also pulled resources away from the profitable PC market, and the last few exchanges between ATI and nVidia holding first place in that market have been attributed to this.
Intel needs any kind of GPU win, badly, and they're big enough and rich enough they can afford to lose money on each chip and make it up on volume.
It's Sony I worry about, given how utterly appalling Intel GPUs have traditionally been.
So I gotta wonder, why do you think nVidia is worried about this?
Console timing strategy (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm expecting to see the PS4 come out at least 3 years after the Xbox3. For one thing, the PS3 has technical advantages over the 360 which should give it more legs. Sony designed the PS3 with a target of a ten year lifespan.
Also, Sony is really stinging from the cost of trying to compete with a same-generation Xbox. They should be able to hit a sweet spot by spacing their machine a half a generation away. When the Xbox3 is released, Sony can drop their PS3 prices to very low levels, and capture the large, budget-minded segment of the market. After 3 years, once the Xbox3's newness has worn off, Sony can release a system which is technically unmatched, and which Microsoft won't be able to respond to for another 2-3 years.
Anyway, that's what I'd do if I ran Sony. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
What IDIOCY! (Score:5, Informative)
No, not the article.
The editor.
First off, Sony denied this already -- yesterday [techradar.com]. So this isn't news, and it's already-rejected news.
Secondly, what kind of idiot links to the Inquirer as a source? Remember, they're the ones who posted the article claiming the PS3 was "slow and broken" because they didn't understand a memory bandwidth chart.
im full of jokes today (Score:5, Funny)
that should be Playstation 3.99967873 :P
Parent
Re:im full of jokes today (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that they made a huge mistake by not keeping the same architecture with the PS3 as the PS2. If had kept the same architecture, while only increasing the processor speed and the graphics chip (while still adding new opengl lighting and shading effects, etc.), they could have easily made the PS3 FORWARD compatible, like many of the Xbox games are. Not only that, but every developer on earth knows how to prog
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This could be a long post, but to sum it up as best I can...
When Sony started to think about the PS3 they talked to their TOP developers and asked them what it needed to be able to do. We can assume those companies were their internal development staff, Konomi, Square, whomever makes GT. Those companies wanted a TON more performance and as such Sony couldn't just deliver a beefed up PS2. Sony mentioned in one of their articles that these developers demanded close to 100X the performance of the PS2. Sony
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
History: I put on my robe and judge's wig.
Larrabee doesn't exist, yet (Score:3, Insightful)
It's kind of weird to take Larrabee as evidence of Intel having successfully produced a GPU, since they still haven't produced it, despite years of hype. It might turn out to be as excellent as they claim. It might turn out to be as excellent as revolutionary as their last revolutionary new architecture, Itanium.