PS4 as "Supercharged PC" Getting Positive Response
Sony's Lead Designer trying to make developers and own company happy.
Mark Cerney, Lead System Architect on PlayStation 4 - you may have seen him when Sony launched the idea of the console or heard him when he slagged off the design process of the PS3. Well, he's been chatting techy-like about the PS4's Supercharged PC Architecture.
"We started to design the PS4 in 2008. Since then, we had discussions with many companies on the adoption of any technology", he begins, thereby giving the new console both history and a future in one go. But basically it boils down to the fact that he opted to use Single Chip Custom Processor which have eight Jaguar x86 64-bit CPUs made by AMD." Why?
"We made that decision from the viewpoints of technology, time and business", he says. He tells Technon in Japan, that "The adoption of the x86 architecture made it much easier to develop game software because enough toolchains, numerical libraries and software that utilizes multimedia instructions are available for it."
The chip and as importantly the memory ("Though it is a challenge in terms of cost and procurement, we decided to offer a memory capacity of 8 Gbytes because of strong demand from developers", he says of the 16 4-Gbit GDDR5 memory chips used in the new console) are aimed at making things "easy for developers to create games so that many games will be made."
"We received very positive responses to the concept of 'Supercharged PC Architecture' from developers because we made a drastic improvement to performance and made it easy to develop games at the same time. It is hardware for which games can be developed really easily."
"We started to design the PS4 in 2008. Since then, we had discussions with many companies on the adoption of any technology", he begins, thereby giving the new console both history and a future in one go. But basically it boils down to the fact that he opted to use Single Chip Custom Processor which have eight Jaguar x86 64-bit CPUs made by AMD." Why?
"We made that decision from the viewpoints of technology, time and business", he says. He tells Technon in Japan, that "The adoption of the x86 architecture made it much easier to develop game software because enough toolchains, numerical libraries and software that utilizes multimedia instructions are available for it."
The chip and as importantly the memory ("Though it is a challenge in terms of cost and procurement, we decided to offer a memory capacity of 8 Gbytes because of strong demand from developers", he says of the 16 4-Gbit GDDR5 memory chips used in the new console) are aimed at making things "easy for developers to create games so that many games will be made."
"We received very positive responses to the concept of 'Supercharged PC Architecture' from developers because we made a drastic improvement to performance and made it easy to develop games at the same time. It is hardware for which games can be developed really easily."
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Comments
Ergo 4 Apr 2013 15:04
1/3
Wow, talk about PR garbage.
There is nothing "supercharged" about the PS4--it's a very middle of the road design, horsepower-wise, with a mobile-class CPU and mid-tier GPU. It has nothing on a current $1000 gaming PC where you'd have more RAM, a *much* faster CPU and a *much* faster GPU, and it's not even 4th quarter yet.
(This is the reason everyone obsesses over the RAM--because i's the only stand-out feature.)
There is nothing "supercharged" about the PS4--it's a very middle of the road design, horsepower-wise, with a mobile-class CPU and mid-tier GPU. It has nothing on a current $1000 gaming PC where you'd have more RAM, a *much* faster CPU and a *much* faster GPU, and it's not even 4th quarter yet.
(This is the reason everyone obsesses over the RAM--because i's the only stand-out feature.)
Doug 5 Apr 2013 08:52
2/3
@Ergo
Of course a $1000 gaming PC will be better because they are upgradeable and it is 2.5 times the cost of the PS4. So you can't really compare the two. It's obvious PC would win. A console is a closed box, which makes it no competition. You can only compare the PS4 to the next Xbox. I'm looking at getting a PS4 because my friends will get it. But I also game on PC, but only for games that are PC only.
Of course a $1000 gaming PC will be better because they are upgradeable and it is 2.5 times the cost of the PS4. So you can't really compare the two. It's obvious PC would win. A console is a closed box, which makes it no competition. You can only compare the PS4 to the next Xbox. I'm looking at getting a PS4 because my friends will get it. But I also game on PC, but only for games that are PC only.
JustFacts 8 Apr 2013 00:52
3/3
@Ergo You cannot find anything in the gaming PC world which can be close from a technological point of view. This is a revolutionary APU design with a unified memory model.
Sony has shown demos where the PS4 competes with a top gaming pc: i7 (ivy) + 16 GB RAM + GTX-680. And you cannot buy this pc by $1000.
Sony has shown demos where the PS4 competes with a top gaming pc: i7 (ivy) + 16 GB RAM + GTX-680. And you cannot buy this pc by $1000.