Topic: Rev to use 512-Bit video card?

[Sir_Stabbalot]

Clicky

Isn't the Rev suppost to use the Radeon 520 chip? And the 360 uses 500, right? The Rev looks to have a video advantage here... I think.

[BigJim]

We don't know jack about the video.

But the 512-bit only refers to the memory controller.

[Sir_Stabbalot]

Really? I thought the Rev used the R520 video chipset...

Yeah, I know the 512 bit thing won't affect performance, but just thought it was kinda interesting (I also wanted to actually posted news that wasn't old for once ).

[ThePerm]

actually despite  the whole  anti-bit=performance talk biuts  are important..the more bits you have the less clock cycles you need the less heat produced....thats why  g3s  being 128  bit while wintel  computers were 32  bit were  only like 400 mhz and whipping their ass while the  other ones  were approaching  gigaherts...

you need way more  transistors for that  though

[BigJim]

well, it's not that simple. G3's weren't 128-bit. It's possible some small segment of the chip was, but they weren't officially 128-bit by any means.  Even the G5's are only 64-bit.

[NotSoStu]

Bits are important, but only for systems that will definitely optimize them. That's why the AMD64/x86-64 architecture hasn't really shown off what it can do on the Computer market, since there aren't very many Windows applications that have 64-bit extensions. (Linux is another story entirely, but whatever.)

Anyway, we don't know jack about the video, as they've said. All we know is, it's called Broadway. We don't know if it's based off of R520/RN520 yet or not.

[KDR_11k]

Why does this translate into a "video advantage"? Do you know what kinds of GPUs the PS3 and X360 will use?

[NotSoStu]

Yeah, actually, we do. X360 is using an ATi card which has its' R500 core, which isn't even out for PCs yet. PS3 is using nVidia's RSX chip, which is supposedly better than their current top-of-the-line card, the GeForce 7800 series.

[BigJim]

If Broadway is based on anything in the R500 series, which is likely, then we'll be securely in the realm of not being able to tell much of a difference from one platform to the next, unless Nintendo stymies the system with insufficient RAM, which I doubt they'd do.

[NotSoStu]

BigJim, more or less true. But as for insufficient RAM, well, I'll just direct you to last generation...

Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if they did it again. Or maybe they've learnt from their mistake?

[KDR_11k]

I meant that as in "how do you know MS and Sony won't have '512 bit' GPUs?".

[manunited4eva22]

I've sat back for long enough reading this stuff, a comment is in order.

1) The link in question shows the r520 has a 512bit controller, but as of the moment it will have 256bit memory.

2) Perm: you are comparing vectoring (altivec in this case for the g3) with scalar. That's a no no if you want to compare performance. Certain things work quite will in vectoring, others don't. However the g3 itself is not a 128bit processor, just as a pentium4 is not a 128bit processor (though sse2 is). In the same sense the gpu is not 512bit because the memory controller is. If you want to compare altivec to sse or sse2, well that's another story.

3) x64 is a headache, and the only real benefit that has come out of it is the extra registers that were not there before. Yes there are some programs that can take advantage of it, but the vast majority have not (and probably will not).

4) Last gen: yes the n64 ran out of ram and that was a bonehead move. I honestly don't think we will see a repeat.

5) If you really want to get down to how GPUs work the 512 bit controller talk is silly unless there is a 512 bit ram to go with it. As that would require a lot of chips and a lot of layers (read: money) I don't think it will be too much of an issue. If it appears, great ATI just opened up an enormous amount of memory bandwith. If not, it's a gimmicky feature that has potential.

edit: (see below) well in that case I have no idea what perm was talkign about.

[BigJim]

Small correction on #2. Altivec wasn't introduced until the G4. Everything else... yes.