Nvidia: Consoles Can No Longer Surpass PC Graphics
Console companies just don't have the resources to compete with GPU makers.
Nvidia's Senior Vice President of Content and Technology, Tony Tamasi, recently talked with PC PowerPlay about the typical comparison between the PC platform and consoles. He revealed that, unlike generations in the past that were on par if not better than many performance PCs at launch, console makers no longer have the resources to jump ahead of the PC gaming hardware market. This became obvious during E3 back in June, as many demos showcased on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 just didn't look as good as the earlier PC versions.
Tamasi explained that at the time of the first PlayStation console, there really weren't good graphics on the PC. It wasn't until the PlayStation 2 that 3D really started to shine on the mainstream PC platform. By then, the likes of Sony, Nintendo and Sega could dump tons of money into hardware to support (then) high-quality 3D graphics. Tamasi even admitted that the PlayStation 2 was faster than a PC at the time of its launch.
Once the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 arrived, their hardware was on par with the PC at launch. Look inside those boxes and you'll find hardware by AMD and Nvidia because, at the time, they were leading the innovation in PC graphics. He said that Nvidia alone spends $1.5 billion USD per year on research and development, and over $10 billion in graphics research during a single console's typical lifespan. Microsoft and Sony simply don't have that kind of pocket change to dump into research, whereas AMD and Nvidia sell millions of chips year after year.
"The second factor is that everything is limited by power these days. If you want to go faster, you need a more efficient design or a bigger power supply," he explains. "The laws of physics dictate that the amount of performance you're going to get from graphics is a function of the efficiency of the architecture, and how much power budget you're willing to give it. The most efficient architectures are from Nvidia and AMD, and you're not going to get anything that is significantly more power efficient in a console, as it's using the same core technology."
Consoles will always be less capable than a PC because they have power budgets of only 200 watts or 300 watts – they're designed to run quietly and cool in the living room. On a PC, 250 watts can be used solely on the GPU, thus consoles will never beat a 1000 watt PC. In a chart provided by Nvidia, the trajectory shows that consoles will never equal or succeed the PC platform again, that the tiny window between 2005 and 2006 will likely be the last time these two industries will ever be on the same page.
"At that time, the PC graphics industry wasn't operating at the limits of device physics and power," he said, referring to why the X360 and PS3 were on par with the PC despite their power limitations. "If you wind back the clock, a high-end graphics card at that time was maybe 75W or 100W max. We weren't building chips that were on the most advanced semiconductor process and were billions of transistors. Now we're building GPUs at the limits of what's possible with fabrication techniques. Nobody can build anything bigger or more powerful than what is in the PC at the moment."
To read the full interview, head here. They also talk about performance due to development on closed versus fragmented systems, and more. Fun stuff to feed the console vs. PC war.

Actually, classically they have had about a year of better graphics, a year of parity, and then a steady slide - though the line is a bit less clear cut than that. When the first Halo game came out for the original XBOX, there was not a PC game out there that looked as good. Same deal for the first Gears of Wars game for the XBOX 360.
Of course, it's not nearly so clear cut. PC games were managing larger worlds, in some cases higher res textures and higher resolutions in general, but at the time, whole package in, those two games were the best of the best graphically for at least a few months.
Also, if you go back prior to that to the N64, SNES, and NES, consoles actually looked better for a good stretch of time.
Of course, Nvidia coming out and saying this now is highly suspect to say the least, but it is true that consoles usually come out the gate stronger than contemporary PCs.
Actually, classically they have had about a year of better graphics, a year of parity, and then a steady slide - though the line is a bit less clear cut than that. When the first Halo game came out for the original XBOX, there was not a PC game out there that looked as good. Same deal for the first Gears of Wars game for the XBOX 360.
Of course, it's not nearly so clear cut. PC games were managing larger worlds, in some cases higher res textures and higher resolutions in general, but at the time, whole package in, those two games were the best of the best graphically for at least a few months.
Also, if you go back prior to that to the N64, SNES, and NES, consoles actually looked better for a good stretch of time.
Of course, Nvidia coming out and saying this now is highly suspect to say the least, but it is true that consoles usually come out the gate stronger than contemporary PCs.
That being said, I think console graphics are better than PC graphics only at the very beginning of the console's release and only one a couple titles. PC's slowly get the games at the same or better performance--the only difference is requiring far more computational overhead because of platform diversity considerations. Nothing new here.
More and more, PC games will have to squeeze into the power budget of 25W or whatever the average laptop is going to be. Unless there's a reverse in the current trend, the consoles are going to win the power race.
Valve's been doing some solid diplomacy, i can see.
Heh... I've had faster hardware than the release console at the time of release every single generation before this one. Problem is, there is more to it than just faster hardware and that results in the truth of the above post - that, in the first year, consoles have had the best looking game/games in pretty much every previous generation.
Simply put, PCs are held back from their full potential by a few factors. One, every developer aims for lowest common denominator systems, meaning that their primary focus is never to tap that tiny percentage of higher end machines out there. Two, even if they do aim at the higher end of the spectrum, they have to try and make the software work on a staggering potential combinations of hardware, as opposed to the single hardware profile that console developers can optimize for. And three, PC hardware is all made to operate in concert with a whole host of other potential devices, whereas there is a fair amount of R&D that goes into making a console's hardware compliment each other as well as possible, leading to the hardware just working together better than any PC can claim.
End result? A PC that has hardware a fair bit more powerful than a console will get at most marginal gains in performance. When the hardware is at all close, the console will usually look significantly better.
Eventually, of course, PCs *far* outstrip consoles through raw power, but, usually not out the gate. If Mr.Nvidia guy is to believed, this will be the first generation where we'll actually see PC games looking better than console games on day one... Or day one hundred, for that matter.
Nowadays, the xbox 360 is just sitting around unused for a couple years now, the unit itself has been replaced 2x for freezing, the dvd drive has been replaced on the latest one, and now the hard drive in it is completely dead and hours of saved games from years past are lost forever into the void. There is zero desire to fire it up, replace it, repair it, or get one of the new consoles.
Thanks to youtube, if their is a console exclusive, with a really compelling story, I'll be watching a "let's play..." and keeping my coin. =)
The reality is, PCs were always faster than consoles, by a lot. It's not physics, or power, it's simply that a console has to sell at a certain price point, whereas PCs, being modular can be quite inexpensive to quite expensive.
Also, SOFTWARE is the key to efficiency. You can't make the hardware more efficient for consoles, that's very true. But, the bloat in Windows slows things down dramatically, making consoles much more efficient in that area. That's a huge difference.
Windows is a very poor gaming platform, especially with Direct X. It's a business operating system, that they shoe-horn gaming into, but Windows NT was never designed for that, and still is not. If it were, it would be a lot smaller and faster.
Luckily, AMD just announced Mantle, but even so, you're still working with the bloated and flatulent Windows 7/8 OS, which is quite poor for gaming. Contrast that with an OS designed the other way - with games as the primary design goal, and by the way, we can also run other apps.
SteamOS and Mantle both illustrate the inherent inefficiency of Windows and Direct X as a gaming platform. They only exist for that reason. But, in the former case, it could very well bring the PC to an entirely new performance level that makes NVIDIA's crying more rational, and in the latter case, it will at least make Windows somewhat more competent at gaming.
Either way, with the consoles all AMD, it's hard to see NVIDIA as anything but a dying company as AMD leverages their wins there to garner greater optimizations in the PC market.
With Mantle now out, and GCN based APUs becoming more common as time goes on, the writing is on the wall, and it's saying NVIDIA is being terminated as a GPU maker, at least for games. They both have the same access to manufacturing, and their designs are always relatively close, so software optimization and ease of porting is an advantage that will put NVIDIA at a big disadvantage. They're done. They have no where to turn, no way out. AMD is finally doing everything right, and without a real CPU (they have toys like Tegra, but nothing real), NVIDIA had no chance to remain a viable GPU maker; AMD won the console wars because they could make an APU whereas NVIDIA could not. They leveraged that, now they are leveraging their win in consoles to terminate NVIDIA in the PC space.
It's about time to see AMD really innovate and leverage their advantages successfully. The black cloud that was known as Hector Ruiz is finally moving away, and the damage that incompetent jackass did is finally being recovered from. It's like a completely different company, and it's nice to see them back pushing new ideas and technologies, not just making inferior x86 CPUs at a lower price (while claiming an IMC is a real new idea, despite being done 10 years earlier in x86 by NexGen, or moving to 64-bits in a very straightforward way is really an innovation as opposed to an straight-forward implementation.).
- Xbox One/PS4 cost about $500
- PC cost between $1000 to $10000..
PC rig killer can cost alot more than XboxOne/PS4....
Dual Xeon, Quad SLI, 256GB RAM, 6TB SSD... with 60" TV
I do, though, think Ruiz is trying to diss consoles because they are now in his competitor's pocket. Personally, I think that is rather lame. I am no fan of consoles and never will be as a console is not the right platform for me, however, he is taking aim at a very broad spectrum of PC power as others have pointed out, and I agree with the opinions of others that performance PCs have always been able to outperform, hardware wise, any console. The console is a different market. It always has been and always will be. In a way, I think Ruiz is comparing oranges and pears.
Now how about compare a $400 console to a $400 PC with Nvidia graphics, OS, storage, the works and see who comes out on top.
they're butthurt they have nothing to do with the Wii-U, PS4 and XBone and now have to resort to slander and name calling. The true sign of someone butthurt.
They are just jealous that the 8th Gen Consoles sport APUs. If the next gen has Nvidia GPUs , that same guy will say - "Consoles now are at par with the PC in Gaming".
Dual Xeon, Quad SLI, 256GB RAM, 6TB SSD... with 60" TV"
Lol! Wut?
Who uses Dual Xeon's in a gaming pc? I can build you a gaming pc for about $500 that will be every bit as good as a next gen console if not better.