Why not boost ps4 cpu?

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vpacalypse

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#1 vpacalypse
Member since 2005 • 589 Posts

I hear the biggest bottleneck in these consoles is the cpu.

& since it seems since some devs aren't fully optimizing their games... leading to frame rate issues...

Why doesn't the ps4 just boost the cpu like x1 did.

I have no idea what the thermals from the boost would be but does this make sense?

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thehig1

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#2 thehig1
Member since 2014 • 7537 Posts

you mean overclock it via an update ?

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vpacalypse

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#3  Edited By vpacalypse
Member since 2005 • 589 Posts

Yh. Is it worth it?

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thehig1

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#5 thehig1
Member since 2014 • 7537 Posts

@vpacalypse said:

Yh. Is it worth it?

If you want to see what your Ps4 looks like while on fire sure.

Seriously I don't think the Ps4 has the cooling ability to handle an overclock, I cant see sony releasing improved CPU coolers with instructions to open your ps4 and fit it.

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KHAndAnime

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#6 KHAndAnime
Member since 2009 • 17565 Posts

I'm not aware of the Xbox doing any sort of processor boost from an update. AFAIK all they did was allow developers to turn off the Kinect, freeing up additional CPU resources.

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vpacalypse

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#7 vpacalypse
Member since 2005 • 589 Posts

Its a shame, sounds like that cpu was the best they could afford to work with or the best that was on offer at the time. What else could they have possibly used from amd?

It's just funny how they went from previous-gen quite strong cpu's to this.

They were willing to take a loss back then too in favour of beefier hardware but they both decided to sell at cost this time round. Not even sure I'd call it a coincidence but more a secret conference call to say lets do it this way now.

Not the best news for the buyer... at least the rest of the ps4's tech is somewhat decent.

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UmbratheShadow

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#8  Edited By UmbratheShadow
Member since 2013 • 25 Posts

@vpacalypse:

Not remotely true. The bottleneck is occurring at the GPU level. These consoles feature an APU design which allows the system to share resources between CPU, GPU, RAM and HDD. The inherent issue with this though is that the entire system is only as strong as the weakest link. SO when the CPU is bottlenecked, it does not mean it's because of the CPU, it means the CPU is having to pick up the slack of something else that is not performing well enough to take the load off of the CPU.

Since at least 90% of a videogame is run by the GPU, the CPU mostly just accepts and sends instructions (like a brain) and uses RAM for dumping excess computed instructions. The brain doesn't run out organs, the organs run themselves by listening to the brain telling them how. Even our brains would bottleneck if they tried to actually do the tasks our organs do. So the CPU isn't horrible and the RAM is actually quite excellent, but they are picking up slack that they should not do.

Reason being? 1 year ago Sony used a custom AMD 7970 or a 7990 to fit into their PS4. Right out of the gate the GPU was already 2 years old, therefore it lacked the special instructions, optimizations and improvements that current tech has. The PS3 never did this. PS3 was equipped with cheaper but current tech at the time.

Now, here is the issue: An old GPU is trying to run modern games with even higher graphics than it was rated for and higher resolutions. That GPU that could barely do that 2 years ago when games were much less demanding, and everyone wonders why the PS4 and XB1 are struggling so badly. They tried far too hard to hit that traditional $400 mark, not accounting for the fact that computer tech has not progressed enough to make the parts cheap enough to get the power people were expecting at the traditional $400 price tag. They should have just sold the PS4 for $500 instead and used a current GPU. Voila, all issues then would have simply boiled down to optimizing.

For those who don't accept this, I compiled a list showing the PlayStation generations in terms of CPU and GPU power below in detail that likely no one will read-------------------------------------------------

1) PS2 was 100x more powerful than PS1, even 200x more powerful if you count the second Emotion Engine Core it utilized

2) PS3 was easily 33x more powerful that the PS2 at very worst for processing power alone.

3) However, the PS4 is clearly struggling to be even 1.5-2x more powerful than the PS3. There is no gain in CPU power, perhaps even a slight loss (explained below)

-------------------------Facts about PS4 vs PS3----------------------------------

---Both have 8 cores of CPU, however the processor on the PS3 (30 year old CPU tech) was actually set at 3.4GHz while the PS4 has its limit set at 1.6GHz with modern CPU tech from AMD with APU design. Both are probably par but something tells me the Cell processor was superior since it had many dedicated single core units, while the APU design for PS4 is bottlenecked by RAM limits and old graphics.

---The PS4's RAM is tremendously faster, but it's been proven that faster RAM means almost nothing in gaming. It does sport 8GB of it with an "on-paper" 160GB/s of bandwidth potential, but only 5.5GB is usable. The GDDR5 type was a nice touch, but it's scarcely a saving grace with such an underpowered GPU (below). The problems the PS4 currently has all boils down to the GPU, with the RAM and CPU doing almost nothing to help alleviate the real issue. The PS3 only had 256MB RAM set at 800MHz.

---Lastly, the graphics card is about par with an AMD 7970/7990, which is over 2 years old right out of the gate. This still represents a huge boost in power over the PS3, however the PS3 basically had a dumbed down NVIDIA 8800 with 256MB VRAM which at that time the was top of the line. Sony took current GPU tech and customized it for console usage to meet their $400 pricetag. The PS4 however did not do that at all. They took severely old tech and jammed it all in there with a "fake" 8 core APU with great RAM that does nothing to help the poor GPU. The PS4's potential could have been very surprising if Sony did not skimp in the ONLY real area that matters with gaming-- the GPU, where 90% at least of all gaming is computed.

PLAYSTATION 1

CPU: 32-bit RISC (33.9MHz)

RAM: 2MB, 1MB Video RAM

Graphics: 3D Geometry Engine, with 2D rotation, scaling, transparency and fading and 3D texture mapping and shading

Colors: 16.7 million

Sprites: 4,000

Polygons: 360,000 per second

Resolution: 640x480

Sound: 16-bit 24 channel PCM

PLAYSTATION 2

CPU: 128-bit PlayStation2 @294.912 MHz 16KB Cache (Data: 8KB + 16KB (ScrP))

RAM: 32MB Direct Rambus DRAM, 3.2GB/s (roughly equivalent to 800MHz DDR3 RAM)

Co-Processor for FPU @6.2 GFLOPS

GPU: 4MB Graphics Synthesizerâ„¢ @147.456MHz

(DRAM Bus bandwidth 48GB/s, 2560 Bits wide interface)

Max Resolution: 1280 x 1024

PLAYSTATION 3

CPU: 128bit PowerPC-base Core 8 Cores @3.2GHz 512KB L2 cache

7 x 256KB SRAM (for data crunching for the cores)

1 of 8 cores (SPEs) reserved for redundancy

total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS

GPU: 256MB NVIDIA RSX @550MHz w/ GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz (VRAM: 22.4GB/s)

(G70/GeForce 7800 GTX)

1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance

RAM: 256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz (25.6GB/s)

System Floating Point Performance: 2 TFLOPS

PLAYSTATION 4

CPU: AMD x86 Jaguar 1.6GHz 8-Core (two 4 cores Jaguars side-by-side sharing 2MB L2 Cache, out-of-order-operations)

GPU: Custom 2GB AMD Radeon approx. equal to a 7970/7990 (GCN Architecture, 1.84TFLOPS)

RAM: 8GB GDDR5 unified 8 GB GDDR5 RAM setup (~3.5GB for typical OS use, ~5.5GB max for games)

HDD: 500GB 5400RPM

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hrt_rulz01

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#9 hrt_rulz01
Member since 2006 • 22372 Posts

You can already cook an egg on a PS4 so I doubt it...

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BldgIrsh

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#10 BldgIrsh
Member since 2014 • 3044 Posts

@umbratheshadow: I have been reading that the ps4 gpu is on par with a 7850... A 7970/7990 gpu would not have these type of issues that is present in these games.

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thehig1

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#11 thehig1
Member since 2014 • 7537 Posts

@umbratheshadow: @bldgirsh: your right the ps4 is on par with a 7850 and weaker than an overclocked 7850.

the ps4 gpu is no wear near a 7970 never mind a 7990.

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MethodManFTW

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#12 MethodManFTW
Member since 2009 • 26516 Posts

If you actually want a good answer to this question you are on the wrong forum. Try gamasutra or neogaf or even giant bomb.. any forum where actual developers post.. and that definitely is not here.

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vpacalypse

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#13 vpacalypse
Member since 2005 • 589 Posts

@umbratheshadow:

Great explanation.

Mark Cerny doesn't really look like a suit to me though, I'm sure he strived for a fairly comprehensive gaming first solution. Then again I have no idea why he went for a 2 year old Gpu. Was he given a particular budget to work around? Maybe he should have persuaded Sony to take a slight hit with every console.

I just find it so odd that both decided to sell them at cost this time round.


The only question I have is if the Gpu does 90% of the heavy lifting & the X1 Gpu has half the power... Why is the X1 version of Assassins Creed Unity running better right now?

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UmbratheShadow

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#14 UmbratheShadow
Member since 2013 • 25 Posts

@vpacalypse:

both the PS4 and XB1 basically have the same hardware. They have all AMD CPU and GPU tech, with some minor tech differences that add up to a lot of paper but not so much in reality. Both will probably be incapable of high graphics plus 1080p. If the PS4 can get 1080p/60 on a game then the XB1 will do the same or 1080p30 at worst.

Don't worry about subtle differences here and there so far. In the end, both are severely incapable to even be considered next gen at all. Both consoles are last gen and when games start rolling out more and more, developers are either going to have to get really creative with optimizations or simply put, the consoles are already dead.

I would not be the first to ponder if consoles are dead already and they just aren't coming to grips with that reality yet. Suffice it to say, consoles will certainly not live the 5-7 years as previous gen's had

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GTR12

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#15  Edited By GTR12
Member since 2006 • 13490 Posts

@umbratheshadow said:
Whole bunch of wrong...

The PS3 has 7 SPE's (1 is disabled as a fail-safe), and of these 7, 1 is reserved for the OS, that leaves 6.

PS4 has a 7970? LMAO, PS4 is lucky to have a 7850 at best.

PS3 is set at 3.2Ghz, theres a million websites showing this evidence.

And apparently you live in 2034 or there abouts, because the Cell architecture was only invented in the middle of 2000, did a monkey warlord force you to write up those bogus stats or something?

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BldgIrsh

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#16  Edited By BldgIrsh
Member since 2014 • 3044 Posts

Whole bunch of misinformation in here...

Gpu is on par with 7850. This is a fucking fact. The reason why games like AC unity are dropping to below 20 Fps is not due to the weak gpu. It's due to the damn CPU.

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GTR12

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#18 GTR12
Member since 2006 • 13490 Posts

@umbratheshadow said:

@You guys are trolls, plain and simple. I've read plenty of sources that list the specs of PS4 and XB1. Who gives a hoot if it's a 7850 or a 6950 or a freakin R7 270. All is crap.

My point was this: All previous generations of PlayStations used current tech that was creatively modified to fit to price tag with as little sacrifice as possible. The PS4 used archaic tech and made sacrifices for every last part in it. Plain and simple, they should not have tried for a $400 budget or they should have waited another year.

And the PS3 had 8 SPE's with one NOT DISABLED but for redundancy as a fail safe. Learn to read you rotten trolls, and change your diapers and tell your moms to put their boobs back in their bras you should all stop breast feeding if you're going to talk trash like men. And grow some facial hair while you're all at it.

Some mod ban this guy already.

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ShadowDeathX

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#19  Edited By ShadowDeathX
Member since 2006 • 11698 Posts

To answer your questions;

  1. Thermals
  2. Yield Possibility.

The PS4 uses an APU. So if you increase the clock of the CPU part, it's going to heat up the GPU part as well. I don't know if the PS4 cooling system can handle the increase in heat. That PS4 already sounds like a jet taking off when it's in full load. Also, we would have to assume that every APU made for the PS4 is capable of a CPU uptick without causing trouble.

The Xbox One uses the same CPU portion as the PS4 but was able to be overclocked because the cooling on the Xbox One is better than the PS4's and the Xbox One GPU uses less die size and thus allows more potential for heat to released.

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Ulyriel

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#21 Ulyriel
Member since 2014 • 25 Posts

@umbratheshadow:

The ps3 was only capable of 230GFlops with a 100 in double precision. I can't believe how much BS you are propagating.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_technical_specifications

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_Judas_

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#22 _Judas_
Member since 2004 • 785 Posts

Would be cool of they buil the PS4 in modules, so in a few years maybe you could buy an add-on that added CPU and maybe offered a seconds graphics unit or something -- to extend it's longevity. Reminds me of some games for the N64 where you had to purchase a RAM-cartridge in order to play Perfect Dark multiplayer

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thehig1

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#23  Edited By thehig1
Member since 2014 • 7537 Posts

@_Judas_: basically a PC.

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#24  Edited By Noblecowboy
Member since 2014 • 44 Posts

It would be awesome if you could stack 2 PS4 to combine the CPU and graphics power then take them apart when you want 2 separate PS4's. PS4 Crossfire APU? Haha. Simple upgrade and more power. I think it would be better than adding modules. Too many moving parts causes too many problems. Wishful thinking...

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_Judas_

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#25 _Judas_
Member since 2004 • 785 Posts

@thehig1: hahaha, well...kinda, just affordable and plug-and-play'ish. This could work like an upgrade -- PlayStation 4.5 or something, give it slightly more oomph as a new standard that devs can choose to follow, OR follow the "old", current specs.

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GTR12

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#26 GTR12
Member since 2006 • 13490 Posts

@_Judas_ said:

Would be cool of they buil the PS4 in modules, so in a few years maybe you could buy an add-on that added CPU and maybe offered a seconds graphics unit or something -- to extend it's longevity. Reminds me of some games for the N64 where you had to purchase a RAM-cartridge in order to play Perfect Dark multiplayer

That's what killed the N64...

That's like Sony doing a M$ and shoving a Kinect down peoples throats, it would kill the PS4.

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_Judas_

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#27  Edited By _Judas_
Member since 2004 • 785 Posts

@GTR12: At the release of N64, I was only a child and when the ram-cartridge came, I was like "Oh snap, this is gonna make te N64 INTO A freakin' PS4!!" .... well, not exactly.... let's just say I was unaware of what ram actually did at the time. Anyway, this ram cartridge was never mandatory, I believe? You COULD play perfect Dark singeplayer just fine, I believe. I don't think that this ram cartridge "killed" the N64.... did it?

EDIT: Did some quick research -- turns out you needed the "expansion pack" to play the campaign. I stand corrected. Still, I didn't know too many games that required this expansion pack..

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bezza2011

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#28 bezza2011
Member since 2006 • 2729 Posts

@umbratheshadow: Yes consoles are dead and here we are, Today and realizing that the PS4 is on PAR with the fastest selling console ever to hit and growing every day, to the point they are predicting that at this rate the PS4 will out sell the PS2 by the end of the life cycle and were saying the consoles are dead, the GPU in the PS4 is fine, it's the CPU which is holding things back, but reality is some developers are just getting lazy and not optimizing there games properly.

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gamevet77

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#29 gamevet77
Member since 2013 • 555 Posts

The issue is people are comparing a $400 console that comes with controller, os, and everything you need to play to a cpu with a graphics card in the $300-$400 range. The ps4 for the price is the best thing you can buy right now

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MikeHockbourns

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#30 MikeHockbourns
Member since 2014 • 754 Posts

GTA 5 does get choppy during a high speed chase.

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GTR12

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#31 GTR12
Member since 2006 • 13490 Posts

@_Judas_ said:

@GTR12: At the release of N64, I was only a child and when the ram-cartridge came, I was like "Oh snap, this is gonna make te N64 INTO A freakin' PS4!!" .... well, not exactly.... let's just say I was unaware of what ram actually did at the time. Anyway, this ram cartridge was never mandatory, I believe? You COULD play perfect Dark singeplayer just fine, I believe. I don't think that this ram cartridge "killed" the N64.... did it?

EDIT: Did some quick research -- turns out you needed the "expansion pack" to play the campaign. I stand corrected. Still, I didn't know too many games that required this expansion pack..

I think I remember goldeneye also requiring the pack for something.

By daisy-chaining the PS4 as I understand, it will kill the PS4, developers could just say, oh you need 2, 3 etc just to play and people will not fall for that, it ends up being $600-650 (isn't that what the PS3 launched for in NA? we all know how that turned out), and yes I purposely said $100 less than the actual value from a business perspective.

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SolidTy

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#33 SolidTy
Member since 2005 • 49991 Posts

@KHAndAnime said:

I'm not aware of the Xbox doing any sort of processor boost from an update. AFAIK all they did was allow developers to turn off the Kinect, freeing up additional CPU resources.

/thread.

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Ribstaylor1

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#34 Ribstaylor1
Member since 2014 • 2186 Posts

Ugh I don't know if the thing is large or well cooled enough to overclock it. I'm rather sure the specs of these machines is now rather finite unless they release a better cooled model with improved chip speeds which I can't see happening. As all ways software will make things better but still these machines are weak and will stay that way.

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Iambattlecry

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#35 Iambattlecry
Member since 2013 • 211 Posts

@thehig1: Have you witness a overclocked PS4 on fire ?. How do you know what the cooling system on the PS4 can handle ?. Tell me, did you take part in designing the PS4 ?.

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MikeHockbourns

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#36 MikeHockbourns
Member since 2014 • 754 Posts

hmm, wasn't designed with that in mind. it would go on fire.

maybe the reason why the x1 is so big is because of the constant boosts it gets.

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#37  Edited By xantufrog  Moderator
Member since 2013 • 17875 Posts

My PS4 doesn't get that hot or loud - are you folks ventilating properly?

As for an overclock, I'm pretty sure they could boost it a wee bit without it "catching on fire", but as others have said it's not clear that you'd gain much by another 100mhz. I think the CPU boost on the X1 you are referring to, however, is not the overclocking they did pre-release at the last minute. I think you're talking about the recent news leaked about the next SDK that will free up .5-1 extra core from background processes on the X1 (so it can use upwards on 7 cores for games instead of 6). Can this be done on the PS4? Probably - if they find the right bits of background stuff that they can cut back on or push to one core. As with the case of an overclock, how much would it help? Maybe a bit, if the developers were diligent and took advantage of the extra core. Hard to know, but I'm guessing you'd see only marginal increase in real world capability

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thehig1

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#38 thehig1
Member since 2014 • 7537 Posts

@iambattlecry said:

@thehig1: Have you witness a overclocked PS4 on fire ?. How do you know what the cooling system on the PS4 can handle ?. Tell me, did you take part in designing the PS4 ?.

Consoles are designed to be cost affective, no console manufacturer would design a console were the cooling is overkill, they would save those funds and use them elsewhere.

The ps4 runs warm now, it will only get hotter with an overclock.

Would overclock your PC's CPU if your PC was in a tiny case with little airflow and a stock cooler ?

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MethodManFTW

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#39 MethodManFTW
Member since 2009 • 26516 Posts

@SolidTy said:

@KHAndAnime said:

I'm not aware of the Xbox doing any sort of processor boost from an update. AFAIK all they did was allow developers to turn off the Kinect, freeing up additional CPU resources.

/thread.

A boost is a boost, regardless. Not like anything uses Kinect in a good way, so (partial) access to the 7th core is definitely a great thing..

I have to say, when the PS4 was first announced I was pretty damn hype at GDDR5 being used as system memory, but it seems like that doesn't matter at all (so far)..

Hopefully The Order, Uncharted 4, and whatever other graphics focused games Sony has cooking up prove wrong.

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nipsenbusker

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#40 nipsenbusker
Member since 2014 • 27 Posts

@vpacalypse said:

@umbratheshadow:

Great explanation.

Mark Cerny doesn't really look like a suit to me though, I'm sure he strived for a fairly comprehensive gaming first solution. Then again I have no idea why he went for a 2 year old Gpu. Was he given a particular budget to work around? Maybe he should have persuaded Sony to take a slight hit with every console.

I just find it so odd that both decided to sell them at cost this time round.

The only question I have is if the Gpu does 90% of the heavy lifting & the X1 Gpu has half the power... Why is the X1 version of Assassins Creed Unity running better right now?

Because routines running on just one core still need to be prepared and placed, write to cache, and have results occupying the same queue before being written to ram. On top of that, the architecture has each two cores share a math-unit, so put together, the more active cores, the slower the thread response will be. It was well-known long before they picked the hardware. And it's so significant that it's not really a benefit for games to go from 4 cores to 8.

So it's not accurate to say they freed up a core. It's more accurate to say they removed a routine mandated by the sdk that would draw resources and increase thread response for no reason.

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Juub1990

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#41  Edited By Juub1990
Member since 2013 • 12620 Posts

@umbratheshadow:

Not remotely true. The bottleneck is occurring at the GPU level. These consoles feature an APU design which allows the system to share resources between CPU, GPU, RAM and HDD. The inherent issue with this though is that the entire system is only as strong as the weakest link. SO when the CPU is bottlenecked, it does not mean it's because of the CPU, it means the CPU is having to pick up the slack of something else that is not performing well enough to take the load off of the CPU.

Since at least 90% of a videogame is run by the GPU, the CPU mostly just accepts and sends instructions (like a brain) and uses RAM for dumping excess computed instructions. The brain doesn't run out organs, the organs run themselves by listening to the brain telling them how. Even our brains would bottleneck if they tried to actually do the tasks our organs do. So the CPU isn't horrible and the RAM is actually quite excellent, but they are picking up slack that they should not do.

CPU does bottleneck the system and pretty often at that. PS4 has both a weak CPU and GPU so depending on what a game needs the most either can cause a bottleneck. A game such as Planetside 2 relies heavily on the CPU as it renders hundreds of players and multiple calulations of spawns, health, names etc. MMO's are mostly CPU whereas your corridor shooter like Killzone needs much less CPU power but far more GPU power as the engine doesn't calculate as many logical algorithms.

Planetside 2 devs say CPU causes bottleneck.

Unity is mostly CPU bound. Unsurprising considering it has to calculate the AI for hundreds of NPC's.

Reason being? 1 year ago Sony used a custom AMD 7970 or a 7990 to fit into their PS4. Right out of the gate the GPU was already 2 years old, therefore it lacked the special instructions, optimizations and improvements that current tech has. The PS3 never did this. PS3 was equipped with cheaper but current tech at the time.

I assume you meant 7850. 7970 absolutely demolishes what's inside the PS4 and 7990 is simply two 7970 on a single card. PS4 is equivalent to a modded 7850 or around a 7870 from what I heard. Not terrible but not great in 2015.

---Both have 8 cores of CPU, however the processor on the PS3 (30 year old CPU tech) was actually set at 3.4GHz while the PS4 has its limit set at 1.6GHz with modern CPU tech from AMD with APU design. Both are probably par but something tells me the Cell processor was superior since it had many dedicated single core units, while the APU design for PS4 is bottlenecked by RAM limits and old graphics.

Incorrect. The PS3 has a single physical PowerPC core and 8 SPE's. One of which is disabled to increase yields. 1 used by the OS and the 6 others available for games. They're not cores in the sense of an Intel i7 which has 4 identical cores. SPE's are basically highly specialized CPU's used to do redundant tasks.

---The PS4's RAM is tremendously faster, but it's been proven that faster RAM means almost nothing in gaming. It does sport 8GB of it with an "on-paper" 160GB/s of bandwidth potential, but only 5.5GB is usable. The GDDR5 type was a nice touch, but it's scarcely a saving grace with such an underpowered GPU (below). The problems the PS4 currently has all boils down to the GPU, with the RAM and CPU doing almost nothing to help alleviate the real issue. The PS3 only had 256MB RAM set at 800MHz.

Faster system RAM mostly means nothing in PC games. For example, 2400MHZ of DDR3 will not make your games run any better than 1600MHZ. PS4 uses unified GDDR5 which is usually used in video cards as it has a high bandwidth, great speed but high latency. It is excellent at handling large amounts of similar data(high res textures, huge maps and large amounts of anti-aliasing) but would be absolutely terrible at handling small amounts of different data. This is why GDDR is not used for system RAM in PC's despite being faster. Its latency is a big issue. 5GB of GDDR5/160GB/s is useless as you need a card fast enough for that large bandwidth. Last I checked, the PS4's GPU bus is only 256-bit which is pretty decent(considering the GTX 970/980 also have that) but the number of transistor, its clock speed and memory speed are too low. Large amounts of RAM only works if your GPU has a fast enough memory clock speed to handle it. The PS4's GPU does not. That's why people say it's useless to buy a 4GB 760. The card will run out of juices way before RAM becomes an issue.

---Lastly, the graphics card is about par with an AMD 7970/7990, which is over 2 years old right out of the gate. This still represents a huge boost in power over the PS3, however the PS3 basically had a dumbed down NVIDIA 8800 with 256MB VRAM which at that time the was top of the line. Sony took current GPU tech and customized it for console usage to meet their $400 pricetag. The PS4 however did not do that at all. They took severely old tech and jammed it all in there with a "fake" 8 core APU with great RAM that does nothing to help the poor GPU. The PS4's potential could have been very surprising if Sony did not skimp in the ONLY real area that matters with gaming-- the GPU, where 90% at least of all gaming is computed.

Again it's a 7850/7870. Nothing close to a 7970 let alone a 7990.

Edit: And to answer the thread, boosting the CPU would basically mean overclocking it beyond the manufacturer's intended specifications which would piss off AMD. The failure rates would likely rise for a boost in performance that would barely be noticeable. I also don't think Sony is allowed to increase the clock speed without AMD's consent and it's very unlikely AMD would agree to that. Also, from what I recall the Jaguar doesn't overclock particularly well. Consoles would have to go through validation once again and a whole bunch of crap. If Sony does it without asking AMD then AMD will be pissed off Sony didn't contract them for a faster clock speed in the first place and Sony will have to deal with the increase of failed units. Not worth it for at most a 5-10% boost.

@KHAndAnime:You're correct, it wasn't via an update. They upped the clock speed to 853MHZ from 800MHZ just before release if my memory is right.

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synchro_w

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#42 synchro_w
Member since 2004 • 25 Posts

sod it. i've been getting the impression that the GPU tech in the PS4 is designed for games devs haven't got round to using yet, nvidia 'something or other' that will make PS4 games make proper use of the GPU's higher end capabilities? i've worked out i can buy a gamer PC in parts for a little more than this so-called next gen consoles. the PS4 does, however, have a beautiful controller which is nicely balanced and no bloody useless D-pad. it also looks nice. the XB1 looks... i can't describe just how bad it looks and i don't trust M$ after the catastrophe of half the lifespan of the XB360, which has been a long long time. but still they release a bloody next gen console that is not much faster?

i'm getting an nvidia chipset mobo, i5 or i7 cpu, 8gb ram - gddr3 will do, 2gb geforce grfx card, 600watt PSU. i got everything else, case, etc. building a PC now is like using Lego. not like it was from the 90s when it was actually bloody awkward. hmmm.. may get another HDD. they're so cheap.

i just don't see the point of getting a next gen console that charges me for the online play and as if that wasn't enough i have to pay for the bloody mods - for mods? on consoles they're called DLCs, and you are charged a lot for them. also season passes. [i can't believe we are all falling for this crap. i bought a season pass for Borderlands 2 but i still had to buy so much more stuff that the Pass didn't include!! waste of money]. i'm paying for a telephone line i don't need, to support a broadband connection i also pay for, then i pay M$ or Sony to host games or play online. With the PC? i got grfx that i can upgrade if i want, any size of HDD i choose [tho the PS4 can do this] and i mean a FAST HDD at 7200rpm rather than a crappy 500gb at 5400rpm. 500gb?? 1/2 a Tb? in 2015? i have an XB360 w a 380 gb HDD [roughly.. it reported i had 345gb of space after i installed a 5gb game for the first time]. but with my last PC -the old Athlon3200 - i could play on 128 player servers, meet up with team mates on teamspeak beforehand. and PC mods are coded by the PC gaming community who can make an old game into something playable and interesting again...AT NO COST other than just downloading it! it's difficult to trust M$ after the early days of the XB360 amd their arrogance with the XB1 pre release.

consoles=rip off. i've seen the XB1 'almost the same as XB360' controller w the awful D-pad STILL THERE! and AA batteries?

does the PS4 need to use AA batteries? i have NEVER used AA batteries in XB360 controllers. it all feels so 1990s. the batt. pack i've always used that snaps onto the XB360 controler worked for 2-3 years and lasted often 2 days of solid gaming before needing a recharge. then it died and i replaced it few months ago - it cost £12, not bad for 2-3 years of use.. rechargable AA batteries i have nothing but bad memories from for other devices so i try to stay away from AA [i'm talking about compact digi-cameras].

it's all a little depressing.

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bezza2011

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#43 bezza2011
Member since 2006 • 2729 Posts

End of the day, drivers and other patches will be released to give greater control to developers and everything will work out, it's always the same with consoles the first year or 2 is a learning curve and you know the rest.

The GPU is not the problem it's a mid range half decent one, not one I'd of gone with but it does the job, the problem is, they went with a weaker CPU than they should of and it's showing it's problems handling stuff, but really it comes down to how good the developers are at optimizing I mean if your putting the xbox one version of unity to the PS4 version, it has nothing to do with the PS4 struggling it's there useless developers who just are lazy, look at MGS ground zeroes that game is running at 1080p 60fps on the ps4 and X1 can't even handle that, it's swings and aroundabouts, yes the systems aren't the best should of been but PS4 is great value for money, and it's down to the developers to code it right, but you can't use unity, Ubisoft are awful with there optimization even the pc version ran like poop

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jsmoke03

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#44 jsmoke03
Member since 2004 • 13717 Posts

cant sony do anything with a firmware upgrade? idk about all the techie jargon but yea im pretty sure sony can just update it.

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Juub1990

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#45  Edited By Juub1990
Member since 2013 • 12620 Posts

@jsmoke03 said:

cant sony do anything with a firmware upgrade? idk about all the techie jargon but yea im pretty sure sony can just update it.

You can't just update the power of a console. It doesn't work like that.

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The_Last_Ride

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#47 The_Last_Ride
Member since 2004 • 76371 Posts

@KHAndAnime: they could do the same to the PS4 i believe

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vpacalypse

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#48 vpacalypse
Member since 2005 • 589 Posts

I think the new nintendo system is on the cards for late 2016/ early-mid 2017.

I'd like to see them take advantage of the technological edge processors have now to deliver something capable. I've maintained, technologically these consoles were released a year or two early (but no could wait, so it was the right thing to release). But with these new 20nm chips amd will be dishing, the potential for a more capable system should be an easy thing for nintendo to achieve. They have the blueprint in simplicity in design from the ps4, they should just scale it up to more powerful components & let the devs handle the rest. or they might just make it as powerful, but I want to see something more capable than we already have for me to be interested.

So I guess I'm saying i'd be happy with the ps4's power so long as nintendo hits a home run on the technological front.

For others who wouldn't get more than one console. strictly speaking these new gen specs aren't ideal... but they're just about doing the job to a 7/10 spec standard. I assume most people could live with that.

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mgools

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#49 mgools
Member since 2005 • 1301 Posts
@ShadowDeathX said:

To answer your questions;

  1. Thermals
  2. Yield Possibility.

The PS4 uses an APU. So if you increase the clock of the CPU part, it's going to heat up the GPU part as well. I don't know if the PS4 cooling system can handle the increase in heat. That PS4 already sounds like a jet taking off when it's in full load. Also, we would have to assume that every APU made for the PS4 is capable of a CPU uptick without causing trouble.

The Xbox One uses the same CPU portion as the PS4 but was able to be overclocked because the cooling on the Xbox One is better than the PS4's and the Xbox One GPU uses less die size and thus allows more potential for heat to released.

Sorry to hear your PS4 sounds like a jet taking off under full load. Mine is whisper quiet. Also the PS4 runs cooler, and not hotter from what I am reading.

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/171440-how-is-the-ps4-smaller-lighter-and-yet-more-powerful-than-the-xbox-one/2

"In testing, Digital Foundry found that the Xbox One and PS4 have very similar thermal characteristics — in fact, rather than being significantly cooler than the PS4, the Xbox One’s case temperature is actually higher. During games, the Xbox One case temperature (directly above the CPU) was 49 degrees Celsius; the PS4 was just 44 degrees Celsius."

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TiMeSpLiT--TeR

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#50 TiMeSpLiT--TeR
Member since 2014 • 28 Posts

It will over heat your console. I don't think the cpu will get fried. But the mother board will get fried to save the cpu. Most cpu is designed to shut down to save itself. I once overclocked a cpu and my mother board went on fire. Lol. Developers should focus more on gameplay than graphics. But if they limit themselves, then they won't push themselves.