AMD Creates Quad Core Zen SoC with 24 Vega CUs for Chinese Consoles (anandtech.com) 93
An anonymous reader shares a report: AMD has cornered the x86 console market with its handy semi-custom mix of processors and graphics. While we slowly await the next generation of consoles from Microsoft and Sony, today AMD and Zhongshan Subor announced that a custom chip has been made for a new gaming PC and an upcoming console for the Chinese market.
The announcement states that a custom chip has been created for Subor that is based on four Zen cores running at 3.0 GHz and 24 compute units of Vega running at 1.3 GHz. The chip is supported by 8GB of GDDR5 memory, which the press release states is also embedded onto the chip, however it is likely to actually be on the package instead. [...] Assuming that this custom chip is a single chip design, with CPU and GPU, this means that AMD is handily gaining custom contracts and designing custom chip designs for its customers, even for consoles that won't have the mass western appeal such as the Xbox or Playstation.
The announcement states that a custom chip has been created for Subor that is based on four Zen cores running at 3.0 GHz and 24 compute units of Vega running at 1.3 GHz. The chip is supported by 8GB of GDDR5 memory, which the press release states is also embedded onto the chip, however it is likely to actually be on the package instead. [...] Assuming that this custom chip is a single chip design, with CPU and GPU, this means that AMD is handily gaining custom contracts and designing custom chip designs for its customers, even for consoles that won't have the mass western appeal such as the Xbox or Playstation.
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Given that this embedded part has 50% more compute units than the RX 560, it would certainly have no trouble with the original Crysis and probably perfectly fine with Crysis 3. With 3/8ths of the compute units of AMD's flagship Vega 64 discrete part it is a highly respectable piece of silicon that would obviate the need for a separate GPU for most gamers if it released to retail, a nice step up from the 2400g.
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The games will obviously be made by Martians, duh.
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Developers who want access to the Chinese market, obviously. Don't make the mistake to think that everything has to cater to the US audience. Consoles are particularly informative on this topic, the Japanese market sees tons of titles which for various reasons never reach the western audience.
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Seems to me the perfect steam box.
Play games at TV resolution, likely high settings for current gen and medium for a long while to come.
I'd love to have this chip, a beefed GPU slower CPU 2400G with RAM too.
This in an SFF PC is the dream for my usage.
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This in an SFF PC is the dream for my usage.
Me too, so long as it comes with a boatload of RAM, say 32GB. And I'd like it as small as possible, and with an external power supply. M.2-only storage is acceptable to minimize size, so long as it's NVMe and not SATA. I need USB2, USB3.1, and modern HDMI, and that'll do me.
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That seems excessive for a low/middle end PC.
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That seems excessive for a low/middle end PC.
It might seem so, but I have a middle-end PC right now by modern standards (FX-8350) with 16GB of RAM, and sometimes I wish I had more.
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No you donÃ(TM)t, that CPU is very low end.
There's tons of people out there still using dual- or quad-core systems because they still serve most people's needs. So you call it what you want, and I'll call it what I want. The current AMD CPU may be twice as fast, but this thing is something like eight times as fast as systems people are still using happily. Those are low-end systems. This is mid-range.
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At work I have 16GB, and I'm definitely glad to have it (and it's a fairly low end computer), but usually over 25% being used is web browsing, and 40% or so is often free.
For a Steam box plugged into my TV, I don't foresee any web browsers being open.
Looking at Farcry 5, it wants 8GB (both minimum and recomended), so I don't know if 8 is enough if 1 is going to the GPU.
I really hope the system is available in August (the Windows 10 one, not the console), because I've been wanting to get a SFF with a 2400GE
Ouch, Sony/Microsoft must be a bit worried (Score:2)
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Riiiiidge Raceeeeeeer!
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But what you describe isn't an architecture problem, it's a content/IP one. The Nintendo Switch is using a Tegra architecture that is very similar to literally billions of Android devices but they're not having the same problems with competition - because of their content and IP libraries. People want to play Mario Odyssey and Fire Emblem, and Smash Bros and Mario Kart and the latest Zelda so they go get the Nintendo product. The PS4/Xbox war on the other hand comes down to both content and price as many
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the tegra sold very poorly
In the Android space, maybe, but they sold more than 20 million into consoles. Not sure about your definition of "poorly". Tegra's difficulties in the mobile market have more to do with power efficiency and Qualcomm's monopoly abuse of modem patents than processor horsepower.
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Tegra's heart is the ARM Cortex chip family, which has a significant chunk of the Android market (and Apple if you want to go there).
Mass western appeal? (Score:2)
You say that as if the western market was much bigger than the Chinese market.
Europe population 741.4 million (2016)
U.S.A. population 325.7 million (2017)
Mexico population 127.5 million (2016)
Canada population 36.29 million (2016)
Europe + U.S.A. + Mexico + Canada = 1.231 billion
China population 1.379 billion (2016)
Granted, not
US population is mostly 1%ers, can afford toys (Score:4, Insightful)
Median household income is about EIGHT TIMES higher in the US that in China.
Median household disposable income in the US in $47,000, in China $5,271.
OECD (2018), Household disposable income (indicator). doi: 10.1787/dd50eddd-en (Accessed on 03 August 2018)
In other words, the US is the rich people, who can spend hundreds of dollars on games.
98% of the world's population makes less than $25,000/year, so when you're selling expensive toys not all countries are equally important markets.
About 0.25% (Score:2)
Only 1% of Chinese households make more than $90,00. 80% of Americans do.
Being YOUNG and rich is even less common in China. Much more of US disposable income is young people who tend to buy video games. So around 0.5% of China is young people with significant disposable income, or about 6 million people.
.
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China's Gini coefficient of .63 is indeed much, much higher than the US (.48). (Meaning income inequality is much higher than China).
Once you combine that with income, you find:
The US has very high incomes, fairly uniform in distribution (a large middle class, all of which are very wealthy by global standards).
China has low income, and VERY high inequality, meaning a lot of very poor people and a very few rich people.
Only 1% of Chinese households make more than $90,00. 80% of Americans do.
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That's the second time you wrote "$90,00".
Do you mean 90 or 9000 dollars? Because if you mean 90000 dollars you've missed a zero in both your posts.
$90,000. Copy-pasted my error (Score:2)
I meant $90,000. I copy and pasted that sentence from one post to the other.
I should have caught that (Score:2)
I should have known something wasn't right about that 80% number. This percentile chart looks more correct:
https://dqydj.com/household-in... [dqydj.com]
That puts 30% making over 90K. As you said, we would expect that 50% make over $59K, so ...
I'm not sure now where I got that number. I suspect it might have been an individual income of $90K puts you in the 80th percentile, maybe.
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China has low income, and VERY high inequality, meaning a lot of very poor people and a very few rich people.
That's a distorted picture of reality in China, and fails to explain how Shanghai became one of the most expensive cities in the world. Impossible to populate a city that size with rich elite alone, you need millions of young, well paid professionals. To understand the real picture in China you need to understand how it is segregated into rural and urban economies, in large part by educational barriers. If you consider only urban areas, the income gap between China and the wealthy west is small and shrinkin
$13,000 vs $58,000 (Score:2)
> Shanghai became one of the most expensive cities in the world.
Okay, you want to focus on Shanghai for a moment. Shanghai median income is $13,000 and like you said it's one of the most expensive cities in world in terms of housing and other necessities. Leaving a disposable of very near zero. Where I'm sitting in Dallas median income is $63,812 - almost five times as much as the great Shanghai. Apartments here also cost less than a fourth as much, leaving median disposable ten times as high as Shanghai
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Where did you get your income numbers? You're out by a large factor. Median Shanghai income in the 25-44 yo bracket, the bulk of the urban population, is $38,214. [point2homes.com] Smugly Posting wrong numbers to Slashdot isn't going to do a lot. If you want to do something about it then just roll up your sleeves and get back to work.
Virginia isn't part of China report to WTO (Score:2)
Shanghai, the neighborhood in Mattaponni, Virginia, isn't actually part of China. I guess the very first statistic on that page you looked at didn't top you off:
Total Population 658
$13K and change is what the China government reported to the World Trade Organization.
If you prefer to pull numbers from the popular press, China Daily reports Shanghai users of the career web site Zhaopin (think Monster.com) average 9,802 yuan per month, which is $17,218.68. Obviously fast food jobs and such aren't advertise
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My Shanghai mistake is just plain funny, I bet they get that a lot.
Tell you what, if you stay away from the ad hominems and aggressive attitude, I'll try not to make you look like a complete moron.
1) Show me where I used ad hominem on you 2) what the fuck did you just do? 3) we're obviously both wrong, the truth would be interesting.
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> My Shanghai mistake is just plain funny
Yes, yes it is. :)
Also a good reminder to check your sources, because it's embarrassing when that happens. It's happened to me.
>3) we're obviously both wrong, the truth would be interesting.
I cited the World Trade Organization, China Daily, and Forbes. Do you have some reason to think they are all wrong, or did we both learn something about Shanghai today? I enjoy learning.
Re: $13,000 vs $58,000 (Score:2)
I cited the World Trade Organization, China Daily, and Forbes. Do you have some reason to think they are all wrong, or did we both learn something about Shanghai today?
Yes I do. I know Shanghai is expensive, so I know you need a good income to live there. And I know a lot of young professionals live there. So if somebody is telling me their living expense is the same as their income, it's immediately obvious that it's wrong.
So how to get some real numbers? That's a bit tricky. I certainly wouldn't bet my life on Forbes, and even WTO is doubtful for a number of reasons, including the difficulty of getting good numbers out of the Chinese government, who collects them, and t
Speaking of citations (Score:2)
I don't know if you happened to see my initial post in this thread. It included things like:
--
Median household disposable income in the US in $47,000, in China $5,271.
OECD (2018), Household disposable income (indicator). doi: 10.1787/dd50eddd-en (Accessed on 03 August 2018
--
Just a friendly comment on that -
I've noticed that when people puts APA format citations in their Slashdot posts, citing globally authorative sources such as OECD:
a) They often know what they are talking about
b) I better bring my A game
I cited tech jobs earlier: $17,000 (Score:2)
You may recall the China Post page I linked to reported salaries from a site similar to Monster.com, so tech jobs and such. That number was $17K and change.
Compare $58K as I recall in D/FW (Texas), while a 1,000 SQ foot apartment in Shanghai can be $750,000, and I got a 2,350 square foot house for $240K. So real estate per square foot is far more expensive in Shanghai, while even tech salaries are about 70% less.
I think if I were selling expensive toys, I'd want to sell to the people who a) make three or f
I typed that too fast, while distracted (Score:2)
I was distracted by my daughter while I typed that, so please excuse the typos. Also, an error because I combined two sentences into one:
A *typical* new-ish house in the area that that price would be about 2,350 square feet. MY house, at that price, is a tad over 3,500 SQ feet for $240K in 2016, but I got a good deal.
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Real estate may be on the pricey side in Shanghai but apparently rent is not, and I find my $25K more believable for S/W Eng in Shanghai than your $17K. Whatever the truth is, it is clear that your professionals in Shanghai enjoy much the same circumstances are we do in the industrialized wast, and you can be sure that whatever gap exists will be considerably smaller by this time next year.
Each of my four bedrooms is larger than that (Score:2)
"Get a 200 sq ft one "
Different expectations indeed. It would be rare to find anything smaller than 650sq feet in Texas. In many cities, anything below 200 is ILLEGAL, and there are legal limits on how many can be built under 600 or 650.
My bedroom suite is about 400 square feet. 300 for the bedroom proper, plus the walk in closet and attached bathroom. My four year old daughter's bedroom is about 300. We have two other bedrooms we don't use, plus my office and another room I use for hobbies. I'm not at all
One guy in a cardboard box? (Score:2)
> Next question: how much does it cost to live in Shanghai? Here we go: ¥4,327.53 That's about USD $633 we.
You're using the number for basic living expenses per person other than rent, and that's your cost of living you're comparing to household income? I'm not sure why you are ignoring the $996.52 per bedroom for rent.
We were looking at median household income, so figure 2.5 people. Rent $633-1266, of plus according the page you linked, $1582.50 / month basic living expenses.
About $2300 / mo
Xbox One X Still Trounces Them (Score:1)
What's most eye opening is the stats on the Xbox One X, it still has more horsepower than all of them. Although the cores are clocked a little slower, there are double the CPU cores and almost double the GPU cores, and 50% more memory. On paper it's the winner.
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On the XBox one X, the other cores are reserved for DRM, telemetry, updates, telemetry updates, drm updates, security updates, Genuine advantage checking, and Genuine advantage updates.
the 50% more memory is also reserved for same.
it's not like developers can actually use them.
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He's an Xtroll One X troll. Only half of him will go away and the other half will stay here to annoy you.
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yeah? and the XBOX costs $500. moore's law is over. you pay more you get more.
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yeah? and the XBOX costs $500. moore's law is over. you pay more you get more.
Never forget to check the accuracy of claims by random self appointed expert on the internet.
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The Xbonex GPU is faster, but the CPU gets absolutely demolished.
Those wimpy, two instruction per cycle mobile toys that the Xbox one/X use are just no match to a real CPU such as a ryzen.
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The Xbonex GPU is faster...
No it isn't.
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That's a bit more painful than i initially expected then.
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Not even, the PS4 smacks the XBone left and right once you drop synthetic benchmarks and check real-world performance.
Most "1080p" games on XBone actually render internally at 720p and get upsampled. PS4 renders 1080p internally almost all the time on the same games.
RAM on the XBox is DDR3. PS4 has GDDR5 which has far more bandwidth. Even if the XBONE has more theoretical TFLOPS, it'll never hit that with that gimped DDR3.
Both systems use a gimped Jaguar CPU running in the 2-sh GHz range in the updated mode
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I'm just going to pretend you didn't say that newer Nintendos have a better interface. I bought my son a switch for his birthday and it took an hour or more to sign up and link and create accounts and setup parental controls. It also required two other devices (computer to create nintendo account and phone to run parental control app).
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What's most eye opening is the stats on the Xbox One X, it still has more horsepower than all of them.
Nonsense. Xbox One has 12 GCN compute units, this one has 24.
ancient chinese secret (Score:2)
pssst. there are BILLIONS of chinese people and their government doens't like the western (free) internet. so building a custom chinese console specifically for the chinese market may be a good way to meet the growing chinese demand for games with the added benefit/limit of internet freedom! PROFIT.
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and use hidden cameras / mics to spy on users as well.
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so building a custom chinese console specifically for the chinese market may be a good way to meet the growing chinese demand for games with the added benefit/limit of internet freedom! PROFIT.
Not to mention that the government probably owns a big piece of the corporation, so it's actually literal PROFIT.
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And just like their Movie industry it will be hobbled by government goons ensuring that everything presents China in a good light and doesn't criticize anyone in government.
Got a game that shows aliens invading? That's a no-go because it presents the Chinese government in a bad light. People like you seem to forget that those censorship controls and the thought police they use tend to destroy creative industries like this. For evidence look no farther than the Chinese film industry who can barely make a few
Diversion item (Score:2)
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these console targeted chips will be diverted into super-computer use
They make their own, highly respectable supercomputing silicon. These console chips will be diverted into the hands of upwardly mobile young professionals with kids.