1020°

PS4 GPU has 128 'Hidden' Stream Processors - 10% Increase in Gaming Power Could Be an Update Away

New information has surfaced which shows that the PS4 actually houses 1280 SPs instead of 1152 like everyone thought. Thats 128 SPs unaccounted for in the PS4 and an increase of 10% in gaming power just a Sony Update away.

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wccftech.com
GarrusVakarian3905d ago (Edited 3905d ago )

Lets hope it's option 3! 10% increase would be a nice power boost, especially later in the generation.

Secret sauce FTW!

codelyoko3905d ago (Edited 3905d ago )

:) So it would appear. Ditto.

abzdine3905d ago

proof more that this console is made to last.
well done Cerny

NewMonday3905d ago (Edited 3905d ago )

could be a redundancy thing

anyway the improvement going forward should come from cod optimization, GG said they can double the polygon count in the next game, also HSA is yet to be fully exploited, that should come with API updates.

saladthieves3905d ago

It could be also that they had initially planned to use all 1280 stream processors and then decided to disable them (for the moment) until maybe a firmware update later.

Interestingly though is how Sony never mentioned anything about this. They were confident enough that the available stream processors were more than enough.

Upcoming headline:

"XBONE GPU has 129 'Hidden' Stream Processors - 11% Increase in Gaming Power Could Be an Update Away"

pedrof933905d ago

This look like the Misterxmedia articles...

BUT FOR THE PLAYSTATION.

Enemy3905d ago

It's already 50% more powerful. This will only boost the power further. Tears await.

SilentNegotiator3905d ago

It's used for something. They didn't throw it in to add weight and I doubt that they threw it in for future use only.

ProjectVulcan3905d ago (Edited 3905d ago )

The most likely explanation is to improve yields. This is by far and away the most reasonable explanation and they wouldn't be 'reactivated' at any point, or it'll potentially kill countless machines.

You want every chip to come out perfect and run to spec voltage and clockspeeds, but they don't. So you target a voltage and speed a large percentage will run to.

You can also have a design with more than you need, and then in testing disable the clusters that may have problems so more chips reach spec required and pass QC.

Maybe only 50 percent of the chips made will hit the volts and clocks you want with 20 clusters enabled, but when you test them and can disable a couple weaker areas you could see 75 percent plus hitting spec. Redundancy will save you millions.

PS3 for example always had an SP disabled on it's CPU to improve the number of usable chips.

This is a very large die even by PC graphics standards, and most graphics cards sold are ones with clusters and areas of the chip disabled.

Even something like Titan had sections disabled, and they were all the best examples that were manufactured at the time

MRMagoo1233905d ago

@SilentNegotiator

They threw it in there for balance lol

starchild3905d ago

As usual, vulcanproject is right on the money.

ziggurcat3905d ago

@ pedrof93

Except this article is factual, and not some delusional rant about "sony lie" or "brainwash."

Consoldtobots3904d ago

these types of conversations will take a back seat to gameplay this gen. That's been Cerny's whole point in presenting the PS4. I have played both BF4 and Shadow Fall and BF doesn't even come close to the immersion in gameplay that shadowfall offers. HOLY CRAP does KZ:SF kick some major booty. Oh yeah on that token multiplats will be taking a backseat to Sony exclusives this time around too.

+ Show (8) more repliesLast reply 3904d ago
Xwow20083905d ago (Edited 3905d ago )

They are not hidden, ps4 gpu has 20 CUs and 2 of them are disabled to improve yields so we have 18 CUs*64(each compute unit have 64 stream processors) = 1152 .

Kayant3905d ago

Same as the XB1. Total 14.
12 active 2 disabled for yields.

http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...

Nothing to see here. PS4's secret sauce is GPGPU & huma?.

Xwow20083905d ago

True, GPGPU(especially with the customization sony gave to the gpu)+ huma will give massive advantage to ps4 in the future.

plus its funny when we get disagree for stating facts ;)

jtenma3905d ago

Xwow2008.

You both got disagrees but he got more because it looked like it favored the X1 to those who are uninformed.

It is crazy because you are both right, but N4G can't stand anything neutral or favoring X1.

SilentNegotiator3905d ago

@jtenma

No, it's because Kayant threw in that completely unnecessary "PS4's secret sauce is GPGPU & huma?" comment.

Kayant3905d ago

@SilentNegotiator

"it's because Kayant threw in that completely unnecessary "PS4's secret sauce is GPGPU & huma?" comment."

Really. oh well I guess Mark Cerny has been talking out of his ass for a while now /s

Huma is unconfirmed but likely which is why the question mark is there.

I don't get it all I said was what Mark Cerny has been talking about since the beginning that is GPU compute(GPGPU) that's one of PS4's advantages & it's sercet sauce apart from it's more powerful GPU.

AaronMK3905d ago

@Kayant

I would be very surprised if XBox One does not support DirectCompute.

Kayant3905d ago

@AaronMK
Am not saying it doesn't but it wasn't built around it in mind to as the PS4 was. Read the article I linked the XB1 system architect admitted it. GPGPU is the main customisation that was done to the PS4's GPU. It's the thing Mark Cenry has been talking about for a long time now.

MRMagoo1233905d ago

anyone with tech knowledge knows that a couple years from now the gap between the 2 systems will be even wider because of the reasons Xwow2008 specified "True, GPGPU(especially with the customization sony gave to the gpu)+ huma will give massive advantage to ps4 in the future" Xbox one just wont be able to keep up with the ESram involved.

+ Show (5) more repliesLast reply 3905d ago
ZBlacktt3905d ago (Edited 3905d ago )

This thing is so very fast now it's mind blowing over what we've known using the PS3 for years. Sync the trophies, bam done in like 2 seconds. Loading games and playing, bam 15, 20 seconds. Go in out of out the game is instant. Downloading content off the PSN. A 100 times faster. All of it is still odd to see since we are so used to it being very very slow. The features are all very good. I've already started making share videos.

Mystogan3905d ago (Edited 3905d ago )

Speak for yourself, Our Xbox live downloads on the 360 were already superfast. Same goes for achievements. The other stuff are pretty obvious that they're going to be faster.

ZBlacktt3905d ago

Mystogan, seriously are you a troll or something? Who is talking about the XBox? I own a XBox 360 Kinect system. It's people like you who just need to go away from the gaming community. Try rereading what I wrote and you'll see I said PS3. Which is topic related unlike your comment.

andrewsqual3905d ago

So you can download GTA V, the BIGGEST game of the year by far on Xbox Live faster than PlayStation owners. BIGGEST = More Bandwidth.
If Xbox Live speeds couldn't match the speeds of my 30mb internet connection I would be worried (my PS3 one does that too so I have no idea what you are even talking about to begin with)
Do I really need to explain again how the 2 services are nowhere on the same level?

kneon3905d ago

@Mystogan

My PS3 downloads from PSN were already lightning fast and always have been. I don't understand why people have speed issues but it's not their servers that's the problem. If it was then my downloads would also be slow.

hollabox3905d ago

What PSN are you guys downloading from? Just got the PS4 and Resogun took 4 hours to complete. I know the network is bogged down by so many activation, but historically my now old PS3 slim could only achieve 7-15 mbps or so on my 25 mbps connection while all other devices achieved full bandwidth. Making for slow a$$ game downloads from the PSN store compared to my other PCs, Mac book, and X360.

solidboss073905d ago

Imagine us all in 5 years cursing our PS4's and XB1's for taking too long, because we will be used to the speed by then and will be getting impatient again.

AndrewLB3905d ago

Yet it still can't do 1080p/60 on every game as standard...

Madderz3904d ago (Edited 3904d ago )

I was under the impression the ps3 had an older type network card in (not a b/g/n type)?

So even if you had the fastest fibre, it would reach the network cards peak way before your ISP download speed?

So isn't that a hardware limitation and not the PSN?

That was always what I believed anyway.

Thoughts? Or someone with more know how?

EDIT: I never had a problem with download speeds on PSN btw, it still didnt reach anywhere near my 100M Fibre though. Installs were always the long ass part of it.

HammerKong3904d ago

yah you are very right with next gen our lives will be more faster.a lot faster than last gen ,its good to see that psn is also getting better day by day ,our money is spending on a right thing ,i was expecting dedicated servers but probably in future we will get it soon.this is all what i expected from next gen.

+ Show (6) more repliesLast reply 3904d ago
GribbleGrunger3905d ago

I've just posted this on Gaf and most people are suggesting that they are locked for yield purposes, so it could be nothing.

black0o3905d ago

agreed

or it could be redundant in case one of the other CU's fail

GamersRulz3905d ago

That's 2 locked CUs for yields. Sony will never activate them ever.

hesido3905d ago

Yeah, indeed. This is done to increase yields and even if the process gets good enough to not disable those in future, the possibility that the earlier models having faulty CU's makes it impossible for Sony to activate them retrospectively, without bricking a good portion of early models.

Dehnus3904d ago

Indeed the Xbone has them too, and Radeon cards in the past had them too. Really this is fanboy reaching. YOu could also sometimes be a lucky camper and via a bios update unlock unused Units in your Radeon cards. There where risks of artifacts or even unstable systems.

But there is no way in HELL Sony will activate these alter in the generation, as it would really fuck over early adaptors with buggy systems or even just crash their systems or make them incompatible with newer released software that depend on these extra 2 CU's.

Same goes for MS and her 2 CU's that are "Software disabled".

imt5583905d ago (Edited 3905d ago )

Remembering what Sony did with PSP...

Double_O_Revan3905d ago

This is true. Almost forgot about that!

BKsecret3905d ago

Can you tell me what they did? I'm not sure what you guys mean

Ingram3905d ago (Edited 3905d ago )

@BK, they unlocked 33 extra mhz from the CPU and upped the RAM on later models.

Dark_Vendetta3904d ago

They actually unlocked 111mhz (from 222 to 333mhz). But the reason for the PSP was (if I remember correctly) the battery life.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 3904d ago
solidt123905d ago

I am 100% satisfied with my PS4 purchased. I am still in disbelieve that they made the system so powerful and the support that they are showing to the gaming community. When they announced it has 8gigs of DDR5 ram my jaw hit the floor, and when I first saw Killzone, and played Battlefield 4 my jaw hit the floor. keep up the good work Sony. Can't wait for Infamous SS in March. Having a blast with Knack also.

Dehnus3904d ago

GDDR 5.
DDR5 doesn't exist yet.

Droidbro3905d ago

It's a manufacturing redundancy. Xbox One does the exact same thing. It's cheaper to put in an extra 10% in each board than to discard each board that is slightly off.

creatchee3905d ago

So let me get this straight - when they announced 10% boosts to Xbox One, 10% was an insignificant figure and should be disregarded. Now that PS4 *might* have a 10% power increase, it's secret sauce and time for celebration?

I love you, N4G. Never change.

Benchm4rk3905d ago

Was just about to post the same thing. Amusing isnt it

Pintheshadows3904d ago

Except for most in here that have any sense and decide not to bring anything fanboy into the discussion (just so you are aware creatchee, that is what you have done) have realised that it is standard practice to increase yield.

MaXiM19843905d ago

Sony knows how important is to have the edge graphically at the end of the generation to deliver the final boom as they did with the PS3!

Well thought Sony!!

awi59513905d ago

Actually this is very common with amd cpus' some cores are bad and they turn them off. Sometimes you can get lucky and get a cpu they converted down because they didnt have enough six cores or 4 cores. You can unlock the cores and get a free 6 core or 8 cores. Ive never been that lucky i unlocked my 6 core on on pc and the two extra cores only ran 2.5g cpu stock speed is 3.3. I tried to run them all @2.5 but the extra cores were unstable as crap.

badboy7763905d ago

But Developers are LAzy and this will only show in 1st party games. We learned that this Gen.

HammerKong3905d ago

its good that they also having somethink to satisfy that ps4 is future proof,but i'am realy woried about xb1 how it is gona handle and compete with the ps4 ,i'am expecting xb1 launch event to bring the complete satisfied about the system so that we can be satisfied
that xb1 will also have same graphics and resolution like ps4 at multiplats and exclusives.

+ Show (11) more repliesLast reply 3904d ago
Majin-vegeta3905d ago

Can someon lay this out in simple man terms?

SarzySarsCandybars3905d ago

This isn't even it's final form.

GarrusVakarian3905d ago

Lmao, funny comments guys. +Bubbs.

codelyoko3905d ago (Edited 3905d ago )

PS4 GPU is made of 1152 Tiny Processors

Or so we thought.

Turns out there are 128 Tiny Processors unaccounted for. Increasing the total count by 10% and thus the power by 10% (1280 Tiny Processors)

GarrusVakarian3905d ago

There are 128 SP's more than the official record of 1152. Now the question is if they are going to be activated at a later date for a power boost or they aren't going to be touched at all..

Sano643905d ago (Edited 3905d ago )

What Xwow2008 said is correct. This is common with lots of pc hardware. Unfortunately they will never be turned on.

badz1493905d ago

That's what she said!

Sorry...can't resist -_-!

clouds53905d ago (Edited 3905d ago )

AMD (manufacturer of the PS4 CPU/GPU) is actually known for this from previous products.

So here it goes: Microchips are very delicate to produce. They have a pretty high failure rate. So when they realize that let's say 30% of their produced Microchips have minor faults in some areas (but otherwise work fine), they decide to shut those faulty areas down and sell them as a lower power and lower cost product.

They did that with their Phenom CPU line. They offered a triple and a quad core CPU, but the triple core was just a quad core with one disabled core ;) When you had the right motherboard you could actually reactivate the 4th core and in some cases it would work (in most cases though it really was broken).

I'm pretty sure this is the same thing here. Sony ordered chips with 1152 SPs and that's what they got. No one says they can't be 1280 SP chips that have some SPs disabled as long as they work properly ;) Anyway it would HIGHLY surprise me if they were fully functioning and Sony has decided to gimp their own console just to magically unlock more power later. Doesn't make sense^^
-->No company that is interested in making money gives away free stuff (unless it makes you buy more of their stuff).

Somebody3905d ago

"No company that is interested in making money gives away free stuff (unless it makes you buy more of their stuff)"

That and the fact there are disabled stream processors reminded me of a Futurama episode where Bender was overclocked and Mom Corps doesn't want the public to know about such ability.

irepbtown3905d ago

One quick question; So the extra 128 chips (or some of them) are in fact faulty?

clouds53905d ago (Edited 3905d ago )

@irepbtown: Yes, that is my assumption. They are disabled on all chips. And if you read through the comments here I'm not alone with that guess ;)

But it's not an official statement or anything... AMD is known for that kinda stuff though. And you still get the "most powerful console" on the market either way.

hesido3905d ago (Edited 3905d ago )

@irepbtown:
Some PS4's will have faulty CU's, some won't. The faulty CU's will be disabled. Even if there are no faulty ones, they will still disable a set so the PS4's are all identical in performance.

So indeed, some PS4's will have defect-free chips, but they won't be able to utilize it.

@clouds5: I think the 1152 number was not decided solely by Sony but there had to be a mutual conclusion between Sony and AMD about the die size / number of total CU's in that die and expected yields.
I'm sure Sony wouldn't say no if AMD could come up with a process that saved all the CU's they produce.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 3905d ago
theoneb3905d ago

PS4=Goku XB1=Vegeta
Vegeta is blinded by pride and unwilling to acknowledge that Kakarot is always able to push his power level past the Prince of all Sayians.

+ Show (3) more repliesLast reply 3905d ago
EXVirtual3905d ago (Edited 3905d ago )

If this is true, then this is what Yoshida was talking about the other day. I'm sure there are also other optimizations to be done (like any other console), but this is even better if true. It'll help out the PS4 even more later on in the gen.

4logpc3905d ago

Its the CU's that are there for fail safe. Not anything secret.

medziarz3905d ago (Edited 3905d ago )

No. Both X1 and PS4 have 2 more CUs that are disabled, to increase production yields. It's the same reason for the PS3's missing eighth SPU.

Yes both consoles are gimped to save their respective companies money, during the rocky first two years of production.

DeadlyFire3905d ago (Edited 3905d ago )

Its original design was 9 SPUs. 2 were disabled for yields. Leaving only 7 SPUs. Seems 2 is the traditional number. :)

medziarz3905d ago

Nope. 8 SPUs and na normal CPU, 9 cores total. 1 SPU disabled.

Show all comments (107)
160°

Leaked RDNA 4 features: AMD to catch up in RT - doubled RT intersect engine could come to PS5 Pro

A partially redacted data sheet highlighting the expected ray tracing features coming to RDNA 4 GPUs has been shared by well-known hardware information leaker @Kepler_L2. We expect the features to also be present in the hybrid RDNA 3 + RDNA 4 RT design coming to PS5 Pro when it launches (presumably) later this year or early next year. The leaked data points seem to confirm that advancing ray tracing technology is going to be a major focus of RDNA 4.

Read Full Story >>
tomshardware.com
Einhander19724d ago

This will be the actual start to Ray Tracing on consoles, I'm really looking forward to seeing what PSSR is capable of as well.

I can't wait to see what games designed around this can do.

sagapo4d ago (Edited 4d ago )

Don’t hope for anything major imo. RT remains a power consuming feature and I don’t think a pro version will make all that much difference. Higher frames (say 60fps) with RT features as they are now would be a big win if that would be the case. If RT features would be extended, games will probably stick at 30fps like they do now, is that worth a pro upgrade?

Einhander19724d ago (Edited 4d ago )

Zero first, second or major third party console exclusives have lacked a 60 fps mode on PlayStation, 30 fps is an xbox problem.

The GPU alone statistically offers 40% uplift, and with PSSR upscaling games designed around the console should have a significant performance uplift.

And my understanding is that RT has been largely decoupled from the CU's in RDNA 4 so the performance hit from RT should be much less than on current AMD GPUS. And regardless, the huge number of RT cores with the doubled RT intersect engine should be able to power through RT in a way that simply is not possible on current consoles.

fr0sty3d ago (Edited 3d ago )

With a rumored (according to the leaks) 4x performance jump in RT performance (and a 40% boost in overall GPU performance), in addition to the added AI upscaling frame generation tech, the actual RT performance increase should be significant.

sagapo3d ago (Edited 3d ago )

@Frosty; 40% GPU boost you claim. With PS4 pro vs base at the time, that increase basicly doubled so 40% ain’t that big of a deal imo.
4x performance jump with RT (if true) sounds impressive but will we be able to play games in 60fps quality mode then? If not then pro is a waste as most gamers prefer 60fps performance over 30fps quality mode.

Einhander19723d ago (Edited 3d ago )

@sagapo

The PS4 Pro had the same GPU as the PS4, the PS5 Pro is switching from RNDA 2 to a mix of RDNA 3 and 4. The 40% increase is just the CU increase and doesn't include any uplift from the technological improvements AMD has done to RDNA which have been significat.

PS5 Pro is going to be a much bigger improvement than the PS4 Pro was, especially when you take into account the RT improvements..

sagapo2d ago

@Einhander; assuming you are right, answer my question: will the pro do 60fps in quality (RT) modes? Because if not, why bother imo.

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 2d ago
FinalFantasyFanatic3d ago

I really hope so, AMD has been pretty far from Nvidia's performance on Ray Tracing, so to see such a huge uplift, with greater performance and efficiency is a big win.

Destiny10804d ago

if astro bot is fully raytraced / 60fps on the pro model, we can start believing the hype

fr0sty3d ago (Edited 3d ago )

No games are fully raytraced as of now, even on PC. All of them utilize a combination of raytraced and rasterized graphics, with ray tracing being used for shadows, reflections, or global illumination in the best cases, but not for the entire rendering process.

Whitey2k3d ago

There's gonna be quite a difference between ps5 and ps5 pro compared to ps4 and ps4 pro

fr0sty3d ago (Edited 3d ago )

agreed, PS4 Pro was only geared at pushing more pixels per frame (and HDR), not making those pixels look better in the process. PS4 Pro didn't offer much as far as increasing the actual quality of the rendering went.

Whitey2k3d ago (Edited 3d ago )

Expecially when ps5 is around 10tflops and ps5 pro rumored to be 30tflops compared to ps4 at 1.84tflops and ps4 pro at 4.2tflops u could pretty much call it a ps6 near enough. Then ps5 pro could be using rdna 3 or say rdna 3.5 because it's rumoured to be using that newly assets of rdna 4 which benefit greatly on resolution and Raytracing even effect etc etc. What would be nice for sony greatly benefit is amd solution of the X3D in its Cpu on cpu bound games

dveio3d ago (Edited 3d ago )

As always:

I can't wait for the specs of the new consoles.

Wether it's NSW2, Xbox Next or PS6.

If Cerny stays the lead architect of the PS6's hardware (which is very likely I guess?), I am VERY excited for Sony's approach.

They've always done something unique noone else did.

And I expect the same for the PS6.

Edit: man, crazy. PS6 (six!) is already near! Time flies.

neutralgamer19923d ago

Ceeny won't be going anywhere I don't think. He and his team have produced back to back amazing consoles

What I want to know is what the price for pro will be since it's much more powerful compared to regular PS5

smashman983d ago

This might be his last run tho, I hope he has looked into training a protege

160°

Sony Music Entertainment Japan, Aniplex, and Pocketpair jointly establish Palworld Entertainment

Sony Music Entertainment Japan, subsidiary Aniplex, and Palworld developer Pocketpair have announced the establishment of Palworld Entertainment, a joint venture that will be responsible for developing the reach of the intellectual property and for expanding commercial business endeavors, including the global licensing and merchandising activities associated with Palworld, outside of the game.

16d ago Replies(1)
Eonjay16d ago

Does this mean that Palworld is getting an anime?

Abnor_Mal16d ago

Crazy that they’ve formed a partnership of sorts, but the game itself still haven’t been released on PlayStation

badz14916d ago

It's still in Early Access. If it ever goes gold, there will definitely be a PS5 version, might even be a PS4 version too

Abnor_Mal16d ago

I still have no clue what this game is all about, to be honest.

badz14916d ago

@Abnor_Mal

If games like ARK is not to your liking, then Palworld wouldn't be your cup of tea either...I think.

Show all comments (10)
70°

10 Best PSP RPGs Of All Time

The PS1 and PS2 both had strong RPG libraries, so it’s not a huge surprise that the PSP saw numerous excellent RPG releases, covering original releases, ports, and spinoffs/sequels to major franchises.

Read Full Story >>
culturedvultures.com
jznrpg27d ago

Great list but needs to be 12 you don’t have Star Ocean First Departure and Second Story!