Report: PlayStation 4 Rumored to Use AMD Fusion CPU/GPU

News
By Douglas Perry
published

Given the transitional state of console gaming, the success of the Xbox 360/Kinect, and Nintendo's experiments with a new controller type, Sony will need something big for the PS4.

The core building block appears to be AMD hardware.

Information about the inner workings of the next PlayStation have been trickling out for some time, with no way to determine how accurate those bits and pieces are. Nevertheless, the reports are interesting and could point to a trend on how console makers are planning to keep today's consoles relevant in their own game as well as in a trend that is leverages general purpose applications that merges active entertainment (gaming, social engagement) with passive entertainment (audio, video, TV). The PlayStation-centric site PSX Sense reports that Sony may be building they next console, code-named Orbis, mainly on AMD hardware.

There will be a Fusion processor codenamed Liverpool. The APU may have four cores and run at 3.2 GHz. the site also lists a "Tahiti" R10XX GPU that is capable of 1,843 Gflops at 800 MHz clock speed, 2 or 4 GB memory, a Blu-ray drive, HDMI 1.4 support, 16 GB Flash memory and at least 320 GB HDD space. The launch date is sometime in 2013.

Douglas Perry
112 Comments Comment from the forums
  • monkeymonk
    That doesn't sound bad at all
    Reply
  • A Bad Day
    I hope AMD doesn't get rejected like the Apple situation due to insufficient manufacturing capability.
    Reply
  • K2N hater
    That's pretty good for a console, right?
    Reply
  • gilgamex
    A Bad DayI hope AMD doesn't get rejected like the Apple situation due to insufficient manufacturing capability.
    Well if Sony expects availability from Nvidia, that is way more of a gamble.
    Reply
  • queenfan
    Not a problem, SONY can purchase the manufacturing time at other foundries as well i'd guess. AMD is Fabless these days, so whether it's Global Foundries or TSMC it won't matter so much.
    Reply
  • Darkerson
    A Bad DayI hope AMD doesn't get rejected like the Apple situation due to insufficient manufacturing capability.Hasnt been a problem so far, considering they are in several consoles. But then again, they will probably just sell the customized ip off wholesale, like they did with microsoft for the 360.
    Reply
  • edlivian
    That sounds like a HD 7850 gpu, which is pretty great for a console doing 1080p graphics.
    Reply
  • captaincharisma
    AMD CPU eh? i guess sony will have no choice but to use windows 8 on the PS4 if they want to get the best performance out of it LOL
    Reply
  • alidan
    lets put this in to prospective, i believe current consoles are at .25 tflop, the cpu on the ps3 may push more than the gpu im not sure.

    this being almost 2tflop... its not top of the line, but is far better than most computers have today, i could imagine that if epic gets there way, you may see the gpu side reworked yo push it to 3tflop.

    but not only that, but if sony isnt pushing the billions into a custom gpu/cpu combo, than this may become the gold standard that pcs get held to with you have this much power, or possibly that they preform better on an apu than a slightly more power cpu and gpu combo.

    i am likeing this.

    edlivianThat sounds like a HD 7850 gpu, which is pretty great for a console doing 1080p graphics.
    i have a 5770, that is far less powerful than what is proposed, but i have yet to play a game that cant play with great detail at 1080p, granted i turn down shadow detail in every game regardless of how well it plays just to push the fps a bit higher.
    Reply
  • dudewitbow
    edlivianThat sounds like a HD 7850 gpu, which is pretty great for a console doing 1080p graphics.I highly doubt it, consoles use overclocked versions of gpus, and a base clock for a 7850 is a 860mhz clock speed. since this one is 800 mhz, it has the same memory bandwidth as a 7750. a 7750 has 819.2 gflops according to wiki, and the 7770 is 1000 mhz with 1250 gflops. Paper wise, the gpu would be like a modified OC 7750.
    Reply