how come the apu's in ps4 and xbox1 are using more cores for games than the pc port does?

David_24

Distinguished
Aug 26, 2015
329
1
18,795
Shouldn't pc games benefit from that use of multiple cores. or are developers just assuming that you'll have 4 cores that are better than the ones in the apu's.

will the consoles core count start to influence pc games to use 6 or more cores sooner than later? As games are made on console first and ported to pc.
 
Solution
The consoles use more cores but they're individually weaker. My guess has always been heat concerns, spreading the workload over many weaker cores means more compact cooling. Consider the type of coolers, even stock coolers for either intel or amd whether i3, i5, fx 8350. That cooler would never fit in a ps4 or xbox one. The ps4 is using cores which run at 1.4ghz.

Even though they both (pc and console) run games, they're very different systems. A pc isn't limited to 1.6ghz low powered cores, they can run 3-4ghz cores and support larger coolers along with larger cabinets and airflow to handle the heat. Each core doing far more work than a console core. If you can't run hotter faster cores in a small space like a console your only...

JanHyka

Commendable
Jun 24, 2016
110
0
1,710
As long as mainstream gaming PC is 4 cores machine I don't expect utilization go beyond 4 cores (except exceptions confirming the rule ;-) ). But with new API you can expect better/balanced usage of those 4 coming.
 
The consoles use more cores but they're individually weaker. My guess has always been heat concerns, spreading the workload over many weaker cores means more compact cooling. Consider the type of coolers, even stock coolers for either intel or amd whether i3, i5, fx 8350. That cooler would never fit in a ps4 or xbox one. The ps4 is using cores which run at 1.4ghz.

Even though they both (pc and console) run games, they're very different systems. A pc isn't limited to 1.6ghz low powered cores, they can run 3-4ghz cores and support larger coolers along with larger cabinets and airflow to handle the heat. Each core doing far more work than a console core. If you can't run hotter faster cores in a small space like a console your only option is to go 'wide' by adding additional cores. The physical platform (small case) and power limitations (single wall plug, small power supply) mean they had to get creative.

As Hlsgsz pointed out, they also know exactly which hardware is in the console and that hardware has been paired up using slim code designed to do 1 task. It's a very streamlined system. It's not meant to check email, open browsers, run photoshop, edit videos, run a database, act as a server or any of the multiple other functions a true pc may be tasked with. With everything streamlined for a single task they can achieve decent performance in that one task it was geared toward.

This article may help explain some things despite being nearly a year old. They discuss how when it comes to consoles, some of the cores out of the 8 available are reserved for the os and other allowed to be used to run the actual game. Also how throwing more cores at it doesn't mean better performance which is the same issue with pc's as evidenced by a quad core intel cpu outperforming an 8 core amd vishera cpu. More cores isn't an automatic win, it's how well those cores work and what they're capable of achieving.

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/218659-sony-unlocks-the-ps4s-seventh-cpu-core-but-will-games-benefit
 
Solution