NVIDIA: Era of fully-custom console hardware is over
NVIDIA Ceo Jen-Hsun Huang states that that fully-custom hardware for video game consoles is no longer feasible. Huang explains that with the power delivered by today's CPUs and GPUs, it no longer makes sense to spend lots of money into the development of custom processors with odd architectures, such as the Cell chip developed by Sony, Toshiba and IBM. He adds that it's much easier to use off-the-sheld hardware, and proclaims the age of exclusive game console hardware is over as everything will be based on common architectures.
“You cannot make a game console such as the PlayStation 2 anymore. When it emerged, PS2 had a 100 times higher performance than the most powerful PC. I wonder whether it is possible to make something 100 times powerful than GeForce GTX 680? If possible, Nvidia will make it,” said Jen-Hsun Huang in an interview with PC Watch web-site.
Mr. Huang is in many ways correct. The forthcoming Microsoft Xbox Next and Sony PlayStation 4 are based on custom chips heavily rely on PC architecture and technologies developed by Advanced Micro Devices. Even PlayStation Vita features system-on-chip with ARM Cortex-A9 general-purpose cores and PowerVR SGX 5XT series graphics. Not surprisingly that Nvidia designed its own game console around Tegra 4 application processor, which will power numerous tablets and smartphones this year.
NVIDIA: Project Denver is ARMv8 with added secret sauce - 11/12/2012 09:59 AM
In a conference call last week with financial analysts, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang revealed that the company's Project Denver, aka NVIDIA's upcoming desktop processor, is a full-custom ARMv8 archite...
NVIDIA: 30 Tegra 3 smartphones coming - 05/27/2012 10:41 AM
NVIDIA released information that there are 30 Tegra 3 based smartphones on the way in 2012, double as much as the Tegra 2's design wins. NVIDIA GM Mike Rayfield also added that many of these phones wi...
NVIDIA: 28nm yields not as good as anticipated - 02/17/2012 01:08 PM
NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang told investors during yesterday's earnings call that TSMC is doing fabulously with its 28nm ramp. Yields on 28nm wafers are higher at the same point in the cycle than they we...
Nvidia: We Expected More from the Radeon HD 7900 Series - 01/25/2012 01:43 PM
Okay .. Awkward .. Now AMD had a pretty good launch with the Radeon HD 7970, NVIDIA however isn
NVIDIA: Tegra 3more performance less power consumption - 08/17/2011 10:18 AM
NVIDIA's that Kal El (Tegra 3) will not only offer more performance than Tegra 2 but also a lower power consumption as X-bit Labs reported today. Nvidia Corp.'s next-generation code-named Kal El syste...
Senior Member
Posts: 4299
Joined: 2007-05-27
"He adds that it's much easier to use off-the-sheld hardware"?
I see what you did there Hilbert

Looks like Shield to me!
Senior Member
Posts: 4915
Joined: 2008-12-09
So what if it isnt "100 times" more powerful. It's still MORE POWERFUL, and in modern terms, even if its "twice" as powerful, that's huge if they are already powerful.
Senior Member
Posts: 1095
Joined: 2010-11-28
At least now I'll finally be able to understand gaming architecture. I have to admit they really came up with some interesting complex stuff over the years, like the Super FX in SNES.
Senior Member
Posts: 6947
Joined: 2004-04-25
Jen-Hsun Huang: "You don't need to buy consoles, no other company can make a better console than ours because it has GeForce marketing inside it, DUUUURRR so buy our console instead! DEERP
Posts: 7604
Joined: 2012-07-10
Incredible so it is, folks are still getting excited over ps4 + xbox720, we know where it's at though thanks to folks like you, HH.
Crysis3 + x2 680s /7970s right?