Hardware Expectations For Valve's Steam Box

[curaga]

There's no reason they couldn't do a quad-A15 + discrete GPU from AMD or Nvidia, it would have plenty of power.

But I expect it will be x86 due to the legacy catalog.

[duby229]

I'm pretty sure there will be a steam box for everyone. For those of you wanting nvidia, you'll get one. For those of you wanting AMD, you'll get one too. Yes steam is going to have its reference, but hardware vendors will be able to release what they think is going to satisfy there customers. It's quite obvious that some people prefer nvidia and others amd. Something will be made for everyone.

So you didn't notice anything? Ok, let's put it this way:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/03/07/nvidia-apologizes-for-poor-geforce-performance-in-tomb-raider

I just got the game and are happy to have inferior AMD hardware :P

I have used Catalyst and this is utter shit. I wasn't able to play UT2k4, because of stuttering. With Open Source drivers it worked fine. The best choice is Nvidia.

[GreatEmerald]

Yea, Intel's HD Graphics 4000 is comparable to an AMD HD 3650 in terms of performance. Which is not very good. On the other hand, AMD's flagship mobile GPU, HD 7970M, is comparable to HD 7850 or GTX 660. That's a really wide gap.

[Kristian Joensen]

I have an NVIDIA Optimus thingie in my old (Ubuntu-running) macbook pro, horrible things. The new one has Intel card which is much nicer and the battery lasts three times longer.

The article is pretty insane - how much do you want this thing to cost? I think it is completely overkill.

If it was an all Intel solution, it would also be darn useful for other uses besides gaming.

However, if I was Valve and wanted something to develop over the long term, I would be looking to go for an ARM-based solution. Passively cooled means no moving parts so less of them will go wrong. Also a lot cheaper which would work much better for a razor and blades type business model.

However, the graphics driver support, especially mainline support, is a bit of joke at the present time. However, if I was Valve I would try to get ARM to open source their existing (but not great) driver for its Mali GPU. If it become a mainline open source driver, Valve and others in the community could then improve performance and reliability.

(Emphasis mine)

But it would not be useful for gaming at all. Intel just doesn't cut it. Try running Crysis 3 with a 100% Intel solution, good luck with that! It is not just a very demanding game like Crysis 3 where Intel doesn't cut it, most games that are just mildly demanding on the graphical front don't support Intel at all and require a discreet GPU from either ATI/AMD or Nvidia or if they support Intel at all they will run very slowly and/or at low graphical settings. Intel is completely uncompetitive in that market. They may as well not exist as far as graphically intense games are concerned. Sure they make great CPU's, but for gaming those CPU's need to be combined with GPU's by either AMD (or preferentially IMHO) Nvidia.

[gradinaruvasile]

ARM may be good in phones and tablets but it is definitely not enough for games requiring this kind of computational power.

[zeth]

How about ARM?

I have an NVIDIA Optimus thingie in my old (Ubuntu-running) macbook pro, horrible things. The new one has Intel card which is much nicer and the battery lasts three times longer.

The article is pretty insane - how much do you want this thing to cost? I think it is completely overkill.

If it was an all Intel solution, it would also be darn useful for other uses besides gaming.

However, if I was Valve and wanted something to develop over the long term, I would be looking to go for an ARM-based solution. Passively cooled means no moving parts so less of them will go wrong. Also a lot cheaper which would work much better for a razor and blades type business model.

However, the graphics driver support, especially mainline support, is a bit of joke at the present time. However, if I was Valve I would try to get ARM to open source their existing (but not great) driver for its Mali GPU. If it become a mainline open source driver, Valve and others in the community could then improve performance and reliability.

[gradinaruvasile]

This is about the steambox, a piece of hardware that surely wont have room for high end cards (IF it has room for a dedicated card, that is).
I too think that the ideal hardware would be AMD APU, because of its balanced CPU/GPU combo.
Intel+Nvidia=higher costs, the need of integrating both CPU and GPU in the package.
INtel alone=just dont cut it. AMD at least have good CPU+very good GPU packaged as Intel has a very good CPU+mediocre GPU.

Drivers: I dont think Valve or any manufacturer gives a rats ass about open source. They need to deliver a product that has the manufacturer drivers full support thats all. No OSS driver is mature enough in Linux right now. OSS drivers need multiple packages to be updated, nvidia/amd drivers come in one package and they dont need other OS libs.

I have a A8-5500 and i run Debian on it with Xfce. I had no issues with it whatsoever - this includes Steam and the games that run on it.

Just to put things in perspective, i use Linux for 4 years or so and until i got this mobo, i used nvidia cards exclusively. I used Linux with 7600GS, 8200 IGP, NVS285, NVS135M, 210 before. I saw the old Catalyst driver perform horribly on an x1300 Ati card (in contrast with my NVS285 which was working perfectly well with the same distro - Ubuntu8.04).
Now, last year i got a Gigabyte F2A85X-D3H mobo with a A8-5500 APU on it. Previously i had a nvidia 8200 IGP in a ASUS M3N78-VM and was working very well.
Surprise, the A8 works just as well with Catalyst 12.10 and newer, only faster in games AND even in plain 2D unaccelerated rendering (xfce has no opengl compositor). Flash, that was always tearing with nvidia, has no issues like that on Catalyst if tearfree is on.

[RussianNeuroMancer]

Are you stupid or are you stupid?

AMD's most powerful card, the 7970, is already getting eaten alive by Nvidia's mid-range 6XX series cards. Put the new GTX TITAN and the GTX 690 into the comparison and AMD's pitiful 7970 becomes even more wretched.

Are you stupid or are you stupid?

You trying to compare 7970 with Titan that cost almost three times more but faster just a little bit for that price (20-30%).
You also trying to compare single chip 7970 with AFR (690). Any single chip (even top) lose in comparison with fresh AFR GPU, even Titan "is already getting eaten alive" by cheaper 7990.
And about your comparison 7970 with mid-range 6XX series cards - your information is outdated. In some tests 680 is better, is some tests 7970 is better, but compare 7970 with middle is just plain stupid.

[Sonadow]

In any case Intel has the best CPUs and AMD has the fastest GPUs hw wise and tend to be a bit cheaper.

Are you stupid or are you stupid?

AMD's most powerful card, the 7970, is already getting eaten alive by Nvidia's mid-range 6XX series cards. Put the new GTX TITAN and the GTX 690 into the comparison and AMD's pitiful 7970 becomes even more wretched.

I could definitly see next generation system being ARMv8+ based just on the fact that arm is catching up performance wise as they try to edge into more of the market.

Sure...when they can reach even a fraction of SandyBridge's performance.