Recently Microsoft talked about how the Xbox is finely balanced for performance and efficiency. Increasing the GPU CUs from 12 to 14 didn't give that linear increase in performance. Instead, a higher clocked GPU gave a better overall performance.
Increasing the frequency impacts the whole of the GPU whereas adding CUs beefs up shaders and ALU," interjects Nick Baker.
"Right. By fixing the clock, not only do we increase our ALU performance, we also increase our vertex rate, we increase our pixel rate and ironically increase our ESRAM bandwidth," continues Goossen.
The PS4 GPU has 18 CU's but even Sony did maintain that 14 + 4 is the right balance although developers could use the extra CUs for rendering. What's interesting is how this information is presented to developers reported by VG Leaks. http://www.vgleaks.com/playstation-4-balanced-or-unbalanced/
Its interesting that Sony maintains that the right balance is 14 CUs + 4 CUs for GPGPU tasks if required. Developers can instead chose to utilise the extra 4 CUs but will only see a minor boost in rendering. So effectively the 14 CU setup is the more balanced setup for the PS4. But that's still 2 CUs more than the XB1. Well the higher clocked GPU, CPU gives the entire system a boost which more than makes up for it. The other 4 CUs primary purpose is for GPGPU tasks, but on the XB1 we know the special processors can take some of the load off the CPU and GPU, besides there is cloud compute. So overall, what we are seeing here are two systems which are pretty much evenly matched. The real difference will not be in what's inside the box but rather in software, tools, APIs that can harness the power.
Increasing the frequency impacts the whole of the GPU whereas adding CUs beefs up shaders and ALU," interjects Nick Baker.
"Right. By fixing the clock, not only do we increase our ALU performance, we also increase our vertex rate, we increase our pixel rate and ironically increase our ESRAM bandwidth," continues Goossen.
The PS4 GPU has 18 CU's but even Sony did maintain that 14 + 4 is the right balance although developers could use the extra CUs for rendering. What's interesting is how this information is presented to developers reported by VG Leaks. http://www.vgleaks.com/playstation-4-balanced-or-unbalanced/
Its interesting that Sony maintains that the right balance is 14 CUs + 4 CUs for GPGPU tasks if required. Developers can instead chose to utilise the extra 4 CUs but will only see a minor boost in rendering. So effectively the 14 CU setup is the more balanced setup for the PS4. But that's still 2 CUs more than the XB1. Well the higher clocked GPU, CPU gives the entire system a boost which more than makes up for it. The other 4 CUs primary purpose is for GPGPU tasks, but on the XB1 we know the special processors can take some of the load off the CPU and GPU, besides there is cloud compute. So overall, what we are seeing here are two systems which are pretty much evenly matched. The real difference will not be in what's inside the box but rather in software, tools, APIs that can harness the power.
