AMD May Supply GPU for PlayStation 4, Say Former Employees

By Douglas Perry
published

It is not a surprise that AMD is in the race for providing the graphics chip (or some other processor) for Sony's next-generation game console.

It appears that AMD may actually have won the contract to supply the chip. Former AMD employees told Forbes that AMD may play a "key role" in this next product. Both AMD and Sony declined to comment on the statement. Sony even denied the existence of a potential PlayStation 4.

Forbes' information attributed to an industry source with unknown credibility and unknown access to current information leaves quite a bit of room for interpretation. Does "key role" refer to graphics alone or more? In the end, there have been no recent news about the continued development of the Cell Broadband Engine, the heart of the PS3. The PS3 Slim received the most recent version of the chip, a 45 nm shrink, in August 2009. IBM, who played a critical role in the development of the chip, said in 2009 that it had halted the development of a Cell processor with 32 SPUs. The two most recent ISSCC events, which have historically been prominent venues for Sony to reveal new developments for the Cell technology, did not include news about the processor.

There is not much substance to this information at this time, but any part of Sony's next console would be an attractive deal for AMD. Of course, it is most likely that AMD would be the graphics chip supplier for this game console. Nvidia currently provides its IP for the RSX graphics chip built into the PS3. The GPU ships as a 40 nm version with a 550 MHz clock speed.

Douglas Perry
57 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Granter
    I cross my fingers for Radeon 8970! or something like that.
    Reply
  • killabanks
    would make sense since microsoft has been very happy leaving nvidia and so has been nintendo.
    Reply
  • dharmenparikh
    I really hope the PS4 has at a minimum a Radeon 6970 2gb...and not the crappy Radeon 6670 that the Xbox 720 will have.

    Sony needs to counter the cheap console idea...and make 2 versions of the PS4. One that costs $600-$700 and has something like a Radeon 7950 3gb..and another $350-$400 one with a cheap card for casual gamers. They may make less profit in the first 1-2 yrs...but as die shrinks come in...the cost will lower and they will make more money on the expensive console. It will also mean that their console aint obsolete in 3-4 yrs.

    I like playing Bf3 on ultra on my pc...but I also want to play God of War on ultra someday. We really need 2gb+ of vram for eye candy on console...this way Pc gamers will benefit too.

    What do you guys think?
    Reply
  • Granter
    dharmenparikhI really hope the PS4 has at a minimum a Radeon 6970 2gb...and not the crappy Radeon 6670 that the Xbox 720 will have.Sony needs to counter the cheap console idea...and make 2 versions of the PS4. One that costs $600-$700 and has something like a Radeon 7950 3gb..and another $350-$400 one with a cheap card for casual gamers. They may make less profit in the first 1-2 yrs...but as die shrinks come in...the cost will lower and they will make more money on the expensive console. It will also mean that their console aint obsolete in 3-4 yrs.I like playing Bf3 on ultra on my pc...but I also want to play God of War on ultra someday. We really need 2gb+ of vram for eye candy on console...this way Pc gamers will benefit too.What do you guys think?

    i think in 2016 it will be outdated, 4gb vram is good enough! ;D
    Reply
  • CaedenV
    The cell processor (and Power PC which it is loosely based on) is a dead/dying architecture. It use to have the support of all of the consoles, plus Mac and a ton of servers, but now it is just consoles with the occasional high end server, and now ARM and x86 are starting to look pretty good from a !/$ point, so I am sure that all 3 console camps are likely looking in those directions. The development costs for 3rd party game designers to get into the cell processor really scared developers away, and I think moving to a more standard processor would bring in more software developers, which means more games, which means more sales.

    I got all hot and bothered by the PS3 when it was coming out, and really wanted one very badly. And then it came out... and I quickly realized that my PC at the time (which was nothing particularly special) was better than the PS3. The PS3 was only 720p (and even now has a rough time with 1080p), had terrible screen tearing issues, and no filtering (AA or otherwise), while my PC did 1200p (16:10 instead of 16:9), and could hack a little bit of filtering to even out the rough spots. Not to mention the PS3 was 30fps (or less), while my PC was pushing 30-50fps on similar games. There is simply no comparing PC gaming with consoles. The image quality is better, the frame rate is better, the resolution is higher, and there are very few games that are console exclusive (though I do miss playing final fantasy :( ). And when you need a good PC in the first place (in my case for video editing), then it costs less to throw a gaming GPU in the system than it does to buy a separate box that is exclusively for gaming.
    I am certain that my current GTX570 will beat any next gen console coming out, and I get to enjoy that level of graphics today, instead of waiting a few more years.

    Besides, consoles are going to do the same thing they did last time. When the last gen of consoles came out they were really designed with high end SD content in mind, and they pushed them to work for the 720 and 1080p standards that had just come out. By the time the next consoles come out they will be designed for 1080p when 2K (slightly wider than 1080p) and 4K (think 4 1080p screens tied together) show up on the scene, and consoles will again be pushed beyond their capabilities to run at the new standard.
    Reply
  • scook9
    granterI cross my fingers for Radeon 8970! or something like that.Then you clearly do no understand how consoles work.....expect a 6870 at best in it
    Reply
  • billybobser
    7750 should hit the powerdraw, form factor and price levels. Though I imagine it will be more of a 7670 level of gpu.
    Reply
  • CaedenV
    granterI cross my fingers for Radeon 8970! or something like that.Considering such a card would cost $5-600 when it comes out and the entire console needs to fit in the $5-600 range this is highly unlikely.
    Much more likely to be in the 6670 to 6870 range, but as a dedicated use machine it will perform better than a 6670-6870 in a windows environment, and it will be paired with a CPU that will meet or slightly choke it.
    Reply
  • killerchickens
    caedenvConsidering such a card would cost $5-600 when it comes out and the entire console needs to fit in the $5-600 range this is highly unlikely.Much more likely to be in the 6670 to 6870 range, but as a dedicated use machine it will perform better than a 6670-6870 in a windows environment, and it will be paired with a CPU that will meet or slightly choke it.
    The ps3s cpu was choked by the gpu and memory quite a bit.
    Reply
  • slabbo
    If AMD locks in all three next gen consoles, that's gonna be a lot of money in the bank for them for the next 5-8 years, just by making older chips. Which is something that GloFo might actually be able to pull off for once...or not!
    Reply