AMD will give consoles a Die-shrink first
As you guys probably know, console APUs have become big business for AMD. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo are all using one. These are still based on a 28nm fabrication process. However TSMC is getting its 20nm fabrication node up and running.
Now everybody expected AMD to die-shrink their APUs for the PC market first, but it's the console SoCs that will be favored. As TPU reports today:
Unlike NVIDIA, which may use the new process to shrink its GPUs, or launch bigger chips based on its "Maxwell" architecture, AMD will treat its console SoCs with optical-shrinks to the new nodes first, so the company could immediately eke out better margins, as console gamers upgrade to Xbox One or the PlayStation 4. AMD's SoC for the Xbox One, could be the first in line for this optical shrink to 20 nm. This chip features a transistor count of 5 billion, and houses eight 64-bit x86 CPU cores, and a 768 SP GPU based on the Graphics CoreNext architecture; 48 MB of on-die cache, and a quad-channel DDR3 IMC. The chip also features an integrated core logic. AMD's chip for the PlayStation 4 features design inputs from Sony. The chip features the same CPU component, but a 1152 SP GPU, and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, wired to 8 GB of memory that's virtualized for both system- and graphics-memory. The 20 nm shrinks of both chips are expected to lower not just manufacturing costs, but also step up energy-efficiency, which could then let Microsoft and Sony save additional costs on other components, such as power and cooling.
Via TPU and Expreview.
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Because the millions who have already paid money will now be using the crappier one.
It would be pointless anyway, as most devs would just code the game for the first gen consoles to keep parity and save time and money on development costs.
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I don't think lazy is fair considering how much more complex games are today. Time to market vs money in the kitty to pay developers salaries is the real factor here. Lazy no.
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30fps is more often than not a design choice, the majority of people i speak to would rather better graphics than a better framerate.
There is also the marketing side of things, it's easy to advertise your game on TV or the cinema if your game is throwing out alot of fancy visual effects, but how do you advertise 60fps on a 24fps cinema screen or 25/30fps TV channel?
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Or why not make them stronger at same heat/power,
add more gpu streaming processors and maybe higher frequency for both gpu and cpu.
....You're kidding right? If they were to do this, this would alienate everyone who currently owns a console, as new games would not be able to be ran on an old system due to being designed for the more powerful version. I'm a PC gamer, i'm all for making advancements and fast, but it's obvious that's not what consoles are and if a console company were to do that, it'd be the death of them
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i still can not understand why someone would get mad at ms or sony for releasing a newer console which can output better quality lets say 1080p instead of 720p with some scaling bs, instead of taking advantage of this little architecture bump from 28nm to 20nm like apple does to refresh the internals of its popular devices with faster, less power hungry parts they choose to save on costs? jeez, yet nobody is complaining cause their half year old smartphone cant even open a new chat app, tech these days is going mad, we have tiny laptops with twice the resolution of a gaming rig wtf