Hardware Expectations For Valve's Steam Box

[salmonfish123]

Steam Machine vs Xbox One vs PS4

I was doing research on the Steam Machine's specs and price and how it compared to the Xbox One and PS4. I am not the best with specs so can anyone tell me if the facts I gave in this post are legitimate:

http://hawaiiantoast.com/2014/01/steam-machine-ps4-xbox-one-killer/

[juanrga]

This conclusion is definitely wrong. The Ivy Bridge die is smaller and therefore the heatspreader does not work so well as with a bigger die (Amd ones are definitely BIGGER). Also those speed records are done with unlocked amd chips which have only 1/4 of the integrated cores enabled at all (ok, for Intel this is possible as well). Intel has got K cpus but the maximum multiplier allowed is now 63 (Sandy Bridge 57). As the base clock can only be raised by 10% usually this means the max. is around 7 ghz even with liquid nitrogen. I think Haswell will allow up to 77x, lets see how well it works.

The conclusion is right. The problem with ivy Bridge is not die size but low quality materials and poor design (no fluxless solder)

http://www.techpowerup.com/165882/tim-is-behind-ivy-bridge-temperatures-after-all.html

There are lots of videos on internet explaining how to remove the IHS for cleaning the stock bad quality TIM and substituting it by high-quality TIM.

The AMD world record of overclocking that I was mentioning has the eight cores enabled

http://news.softpedia.com/news/All-8-Cores-of-the-AMD-FX-8350-Vishera-CPU-Overclocked-to-8-176-GHz-Somehow-301992.shtml

Yes Haswell promised revolutionary overclocking... well it also promised us more than 10% gain in performance and better performance per watt but tests are showing other things

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20130503174250_Intel_Core_i7_4770K_Haswell_Overclocked_to_7_01GHz_Report.html

http://wccftech.com/intel-haswell-core-i7-4770k-review-live-china/

[Kano]

Intel lies about the nanometer. Their 22nm process are what everyone else calls 28nm. Their production process has quality issues as well. E.g. the IHS issue with the Ivy Bridge chips. AMD has solid production process. That is why it is AMD who owns the worldwide record of overclocking. Intel chips cannot achieve record clockspeeds.

This conclusion is definitely wrong. The Ivy Bridge die is smaller and therefore the heatspreader does not work so well as with a bigger die (Amd ones are definitely BIGGER). Also those speed records are done with unlocked amd chips which have only 1/4 of the integrated cores enabled at all (ok, for Intel this is possible as well). Intel has got K cpus but the maximum multiplier allowed is now 63 (Sandy Bridge 57). As the base clock can only be raised by 10% usually this means the max. is around 7 ghz even with liquid nitrogen. I think Haswell will allow up to 77x, lets see how well it works.

[juanrga]

So when you look at the next option it would be intel only. Haswell might faster than HD 4000 (could not test that) but Intel driver in general is really bad supported by Serious Sam 3.

Haswell igpu performance gains are minimal for the desktop chips and still far behind AMD trinity. Only big gains are promised for the mobile Haswell chips, but they are targeting mobile graphics cards, which would match to low end desktop cards.

If you really combine a i5 cpu with nvidia dedicated chip then you can not call the result a console, thats just a normal gamer pc.

Yes.

Currently amd has interesting gfx options, but intel has the better production process. So maybe let intel produce the new amd apus that they could run at higher clockspeeds.

Intel lies about the nanometer. Their 22nm process are what everyone else calls 28nm. Their production process has quality issues as well. E.g. the IHS issue with the Ivy Bridge chips. AMD has solid production process. That is why it is AMD who owns the worldwide record of overclocking. Intel chips cannot achieve record clockspeeds.

the other problematic thing is the default Linux sheduler. It switches so often tasks when another core is unused but downclocked that it can not scale up fast enough. Games like SS3 suffered from that and they tried to bind the main logic to always the same core. The speed is still not optimal for other games.

Interesting reading. I only knew scheduler issues on W7.

It dont see a Steambox winning against PS4 even if would be similar priced (unlikely as PS4 will be sold much more often). It is somehow always a matter of time, but right now the time is not working for Valve because PS4 will hit the stores for xmas. I don't think that ppl will buy a 2nd console thats just a pc in a different (smaller) case to play less optimized games. In case it would really be intel cpu + nvidia gpu combined it would be VERY expensive, intel only would too slow for some games (even with haswell), default amd apus you can completely forget, that ps4 thing maybe. When you need to combine a cpu with ddr3 and a 2nd chip with gddr5 it will be more expensive as well, maybe a tiny bit cheaper than intel but it will use more power.

Neither I see.

[juanrga]

From a Linux driver perspective, there really is no other compelling choice for a Linux gamer.

Pardon? Correct me if wrong but is not one of the Steam Boxes using AMD Radeon? And is not the PS4 using linux?

A high-performance discrete GPU isn't needed for video playback and very lax games, but Intel HD 4000 "Ivy Bridge" graphics or Haswell would be more than enough for those lighter-weight workloads. Intel graphics support on Linux is good, but their integrated graphics can't compete with high-end NVIDIA/AMD GPUs.

HD 4000 can't compete with low discrete GPUs neither with AMD integrated graphics (APUs).

NVIDIA may also be trying hard to get its chips in the Steam Box given Sony going with Radeon graphics and Microsoft's Xbox "Durango" also having been rumored to rely upon Radeon graphics.

Why? After losing the contract with PS4, Nvidia said us that they were not interested in consoles. We know that they could not provide the hardware to Sony, because Nvidia lacks the technology, but even if we accept Nvidia excuse, with what face would they be proud of powering a console now after saying they are not interested in consoles?

I would expect the CPU to be at least a quad-core with the possibility of Hyper Threading.

Please don't give us virtual cores, give us real cores.

Memory: The PlayStation 4 has 8GB of system memory and the next-generation Xbox also looks that way too, in which case I would expect Valve to match that or at least provide 4GB. I haven't hit any memory pressure issues with the Valve's games on Linux.

4 Gb is too little and 8 GB is as well. The PS4/Xbox have 8 GB of unified memory. E.g. the PS4 is based in an advanced APU HSA hUMA design by AMD. This implies, among other things, you don't need a copy of VRAM data on RAM. As consequence, the 8 GB of the PS4 don't translate to 8 GB on PCs locked to the traditional architecture CPU + dGPU. Epic is selecting an Intel i7 with 16 GB RAM plus 2 GB VRAM (Nvidia GPU) in their comparisons PC-PS4. I don't know exactly why they selected 16 GB of RAM, but their unreal engine uses 8:1 and 4:1 texture compressions which implies

2 GB VRAM x 4 = 8 GB RAM
2 GB VRAM x 8 = 16 GB RAM

If they are storing textures uncompressed in RAM, about 12 GB could be textures, plus the game engine, plus Windows, account for the 16 GB. In any case looking to the Epic specs for PC, 16 GB RAM looks more reasonable for Valve if they finally go towards a more inefficient Intel CPU + Nvidia GPU conf. and still pretend to outperform consoles.

Note that the PS4 has unified GDDR5 memory, which means developers can use 4-5 GB as VRAM. What Nvidia card could provide such memory capacities. Most of the their cards would be out. Only a pair high-end models would pass the cut. Do you really believe that all the Steam Box will be incorporating a $1000 noisy and power hungry GTX Titan?

Disk: I wait a real disk here. A SSD is not really needed for gaming and would increase the cost of the console.

[Licaon]

Getting clear, clearer, cleared, by the day: http://kotaku.com/5990254/piston-mak...ally-for-valve

[zxy_thf]

wtf? did you even bother to read it?

And I think Valve is smart enough to know that no one in the right mind would get a $1000 console, and maybe that nVidia is the way to go ATM.

Oh, I missed the ORIGINAL STORY in that text and thought it was the latest news

[Licaon]

Not everything is cleared out. No any useful info about GPU, we even don't know it's discreted or integrated.

Only thing that may excite someone: NVIDIA lost ALL the market on the next-gen console.

wtf? did you even bother to read it?

UPDATE: Valve has distanced itself from the Xi3 Piston, dubbed an unofficial Steam Box. It had been believed that Valve had backed the grapefruit-sized computer ahead of the release of its own Steam Box, but this appears to be false. Valve's Doug Lombardi told Eurogamer that Valve had some dealings with Xi3 Corporation, the company behind the Piston, but not any more. "Valve began some exploratory work with Xi3 last year, but currently has no involvement in any product of theirs," he said. Eurogamer contacted Xi3 yesterday after it was revealed the Piston would cost - at a minimum - $1000, and launch this Christmas. A UK price or delivery details are still to be announced.

And I think Valve is smart enough to know that no one in the right mind would get a $1000 console, and maybe that nVidia is the way to go ATM.

[zxy_thf]

Finally some news that clears things out: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...rts-at-USD1000

Not everything is cleared out. No any useful info about GPU, we even don't know it's discreted or integrated.

Only thing that may excite someone: NVIDIA lost ALL the market on the next-gen console.

[Licaon]

Finally some news that clears things out: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...rts-at-USD1000