There has been a lot of talk about who won E3 and what console is the best, I have been a PlayStation user since the PS1. So, it was not hard for me to lean towards the PS4 this time. But putting that aside; One thing that intrigues me is the way the console itself is build, the fact that it uses the so called “Unified” memory and the way that the CPU and GPU are actually in the same die. I even came across articles, even before E3, saying that that might be the future of PC’s as well. People are suggesting that soon we will have MoBo’s with a GPU socket and a CPU socket and slots of high speed unified memory.
Do you think that this will ever happen? If not, why and what do you think will happen?
Do you believe that unified memory is as good as people are suggesting and that it will eliminate bottlenecks in the system?
AMD has an APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) that has the CPU and GPU on the same die with 80 stream processors. Pale in comparision to the 7000 series. The APUs will be powerful enough as onboard graphics for daily work and graphic animations for programs like medical equipment. AMD is advertising their APU as a solution for tablets, TVs, and other small form factor uses not dedicated cards.
As to the unified memory, anything is pure speculation and until the next gen consoles are released and benchmarks are availible. New graphic cards come out yearly and as such it is never good to just look at the hardward or synthetic tests. Using games to benchmark are really the best way to compare hardware or namely the next consoles.
I don't think we will have modular consoles, primarily because of fragmentation. Even in the PC space, more and more things are becoming integrated,. which is the opposite of what your talking about.
I definately think the PS4 is better console. Their GPU is more powerful - I believe similar to a 7850, and we know memory bandwidth makes a *HUGE* impact in performance of APU's, especially in the A10's (going from 1333 to 1866 can add 20% performance boost), which have a GPu on par with a 6670. So the GDDR5 will really make the PS3 fly when it has a significantly beefier GPU to feed. The Xbox on the other hand will use a GPU similar to the 7790, with DDR3 memory. Their trick is a small amount of SRAM, but I don't it will have enough. In addition, the xbox will be running essentially 3 operation systems, so on top of having less reources overall, the Xbox will have to divide it's resources, where the PS3 has a single OS for one, meaning it will be able to allocate more resources to gaming.
The tech I've been following claim there won't be much of a difference on multi-plats, and to a point, I agree. It's really up to the devs if want to optimize their game to utilize the PS4's extra resources. However, it should definately be noticeable on exclusives.