Xbox One Silicon Talk


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From http://semiaccurate.com/2013/08/26/xbox-one-details-in-pictures/

 

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Ok... It's official... The Xbox One is a beast, as far as games consoles go.... Like I said in one of my post... It's the things you can't interact with that make the XB1 a beast...

 

PC-Players, I don't want to hear it... We know.... :D

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Its nice to see some specific facts about the hardware on these consoles.

 

 

47mb of cache is fairly ridiculous.  No current AMD or Intel cpu employs that much on die cache.  I'd be interested in knowing how this storage is spread out among L1 and L3 cache and what the latency/bandwidth numbers are for that cache.

 

Also, the slides reveal that there is 8GB of flash memory on board (eMMC).  I'm not sure that was ever confirmed, but I wonder what that flash is used for.  It could be used in concert with the hard drive for caching, or have something to do with preloading games in order to allow for starting a game while its still downloading, or just general cloud related functions. 

 

But the PS4 has 18 to 12 GPU compute units and GDDR5 vs GDDR3 RAM...

 

Its not just GDDR5 vs DDR3, its GDDR5 vs DDR3 + SDRAM

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I wonder if the 8GB eMMC was known? that's completely new info IIRC.

 

Its nice to see some specific facts about the hardware on these consoles.

 

 

47mb of cache is fairly ridiculous.  No current AMD or Intel cpu employs that much on die cache.  I'd be interested in knowing how this storage is spread out among L1 and L3 cache and what the latency/bandwidth numbers are for that cache.

 

 

 

 

Its not just GDDR5 vs DDR3, its GDDR5 vs DDR3 + SDRAM

I wonder if 32MB eSRAM is accounted for in that 47mb?

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Its nice to see some specific facts about the hardware on these consoles.

 

 

47mb of cache is fairly ridiculous.  No current AMD or Intel cpu employs that much on die cache.  I'd be interested in knowing how this storage is spread out among L1 and L3 cache and what the latency/bandwidth numbers are for that cache.

 

 

 

 

Its not just GDDR5 vs DDR3, its GDDR5 vs DDR3 + SDRAM

 

 

That's What I would like to know as well.  If optimized correctly, the XB1 will seem like one seamless transition no matter what your doing. 

 

This kind of information helps you get a true picture of Microsoft's (initial) vision in your head...

Maybe they should of have went with this at the initial reveal... really helps...

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Some other interesting points that I see:

 

1.  There was a rumor about the eSRAM being boosted to 192 gb/s in bandwidth that closed the gap badwidth wise with what GDDR5 could offer

     -If you look at the slide regarding this, it looks like the bandwidth is listed as 204 or 264 GB/s, which points to even more of a boost to overall memory bandwidth

 

2. There is a reference to 'DisplayPort AV In' on the diagram and then that leads to a 'Composite/DisplayPort/HDMI/SPIDF Out.

  -I wonder what this means.  Are they using a DP mechanism internally in order to properly support HDMI output at 4K? 

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I wonder if the 8GB eMMC was known? that's completely new info IIRC.

 

I wonder if 32MB eSRAM is accounted for in that 47mb?

 

 

Maybe, its a bit confusing. 

 

At first, I would say it doesn't.  Notice they say that the 47mb refers to 'on chip' storage.  I don't believe the eSRAM is 'on chip' though. 

 

 

Its also interesting that they built the equivalent of a single core processor to handle the audio side of things.

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Oh also, the gpu slide clearly points to the gpu being 1.31 TFLOPs in raw performance.  So now you can compare that to 1.84 TFLOPs on the ps4 and come to a difference of 40%.  So that should settle any discussion on what the difference in terms of raw performance regarding the gpu only.

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I believe the eSRAM is embedded on the chip.

 

Notice the slide titled SoC components, it has the eSRAM listed "inside the box" but the 8GB system RAM is put "outside of the box". If we go by the previous assumption that the CPU uses 2+2MB of L2 cache then we have 11 MB left. Who can guess what they are reserved for.

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I believe the eSRAM is embedded on the chip.

 

Notice the slide titled SoC components, it has the eSRAM listed "inside the box" but the 8GB system RAM is put "outside of the box". If we go by the previous assumption that the CPU uses 2+2MB of L2 cache then we have 11 MB left. Who can guess what they are reserved for.

 

 

That's true, but that's inside the SoC box, its not part of the cpu portion of the SoC.  If they meant inside the entire SoC when they said 'on chip' then I agree that's likely what it is, but if they meant the cpu specifically when they said 'on chip', then it would seem to point to something other than the eSRAM.

 

That diagram clearly puts the eSRAM outside of the cpu.

 

I'm reminded of Intel terms 'on chip' and 'on package'  to describe parts that were built into the cpu portion and those built into the whole chip (SoC) but not directly integrated into the cpu

 

This would not be unusual if it is not part of the cpu considering that is how it was for the 360.

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I don't usually follow the Semi Accurate site, but I went to their homepage to see if they had other articles on the info yet.  I had no idea their editorials were so clearly against MS in general and the X1 in particular.  They really don't like anything they are doing lol.  Oh well, at least I know I'm not missing much from the rest of their site.

 

I usually only see their articles referenced when they are posting on technical info, which doesn't involve editorials. 

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That's true, but that's inside the SoC box, its not part of the cpu portion of the SoC.  If they meant inside the entire SoC when they said 'on chip' then I agree that's likely what it is, but if they meant the cpu specifically when they said 'on chip', then it would seem to point to something other than the eSRAM.

 

That diagram clearly puts the eSRAM outside of the cpu.

 

I'm reminded of Intel terms 'on chip' and 'on package'  to describe parts that were built into the cpu portion and those built into the whole chip (SoC) but not directly integrated into the cpu

 

This would not be unusual if it is not part of the cpu considering that is how it was for the 360.

47MB on the SoC, the eSRAM seems to be on the SoC, the CPU is also on the SoC. When I used the word chip I meant the SoC, not the CPU. What we don't know is if we have 11MB left on the SoC, Is it used for more L2 cache for the CPU or if it's used for some other processors. The audio processor seems to use quite small memory so what else could it be used for than for more L2 cache

 

I am not good at reading these diagrams so I make many assumptions but I think it's pretty safe to say the One will not get 47MB L2 Cache or anything like that.

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47MB on the SoC, the eSRAM seems to be on the SoC, the CPU is also on the SoC. When I used the word chip I meant the SoC, not the CPU. What we don't know is if we have 11MB left on the SoC, Is it used for more L2 cache for the CPU or if it's used for some other processors. The audio processor seems to use quite small memory so what else could it be used for than for more L2 cache

 

I am not good at reading these diagrams so I make many assumptions but I think it's pretty safe to say the One will not get 47MB L2 Cache or anything like that.

 

 

Oh I doubt its 47mb of L2 cache as well, but there wording was confusing me as to the purpose of that cache.  It could be spread out among L1,L2, and L3 cache and then include the eSRAM as you said. 

 

Maybe will get a further breakdown of the numbers later. 

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47MB is an odd number, and that 8GB of flash is very interesting as well.  We need more details for sure.

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I'm wondering, would it be safe to assume that the 8GB of on-board flash storage is actually to hold the OS?  I mean, if the mechanical hard drive takes a dump, you have a paperweight, but if the OS is on the flash storage, if we plug in an external drive, the machine would still function.  It's just a guess, but it sounds logical.

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it all makes sense now.

 

the 32mb is not cache. microsoft is implementing tiled resources within hardware,instead of emulating it in shaders. this is big. this even reduces the dependency on bandwidth like the "older" methods require, but even so, the esram has a bandwidth of 204GB/S. this is the reason why games like forza 5 are running at 1080p 60fps.

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it all makes sense now.

 

the 32mb is not cache. microsoft is implementing tiled resources within hardware,instead of emulating it in shaders. this is big. this even reduces the dependency on bandwidth like the "older" methods require, but even so, the esram has a bandwidth of 204GB/S. this is the reason why games like forza 5 are running at 1080p 60fps.

 

Or it could be similar to how forza 4 ran at 720p60. By not exactly pushing the envelope on environment detail.

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Or it could be similar to how forza 4 ran at 720p60. By not exactly pushing the envelope on environment detail.

 

yeah thats gotta be it :rolleyes:

go to 4:50 for the talk about the evironement details

 

  

  
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it all makes sense now.

 

the 32mb is not cache. microsoft is implementing tiled resources within hardware,instead of emulating it in shaders. this is big. this even reduces the dependency on bandwidth like the "older" methods require, but even so, the esram has a bandwidth of 204GB/S. this is the reason why games like forza 5 are running at 1080p 60fps.

Makes complete sense to you but I still barely understand anything  :huh:  

 

Need to do some more reading on graphics processing and architectures... things like "swizzle copy" make no sense to me at all  :D

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it all makes sense now.

 

the 32mb is not cache. microsoft is implementing tiled resources within hardware,instead of emulating it in shaders. this is big. this even reduces the dependency on bandwidth like the "older" methods require, but even so, the esram has a bandwidth of 204GB/S. this is the reason why games like forza 5 are running at 1080p 60fps.

 

I kept bringing up the new tiled resources in hardware feature of DX11.2 over and over but people wanted to ignore it and just focus on theoretical raw numbers like that's all that matters.  It's clear to me that MS is doing this custom work on the Xbox One first and then using it as a stepping stone to bringing better performing high quality gfx to lower end hardware like tablets.  The same tech is core to Windows 8.1 for example. 

 

It's also interesting to find out that they've done custom work on the CPU cores as well and not just the GPU.

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