PS4 - GDDR 5 RAM Overkill?

[novaboi24]

So I'm looking up the PS4 specs and came to this: http://uk.playstation.com/ps4/features/techspecs/.

 

Considering many of us only have DDR3 RAM, is it really necessary for it to have not only have 8GB but also GDDR 5 as well? Why does it have that and what is it used for?

 

In my knowledge, GDDR RAM is used for gaming in GPUs. Even the Titan has 6GB so why would the PS4 (a much less powerful machine) need 8GB? If the GDDR 5 is placing the DDR3 RAM, it shouldn't be able to do the same tasks; Linus' Techquickie vid on DDR vs GDDR: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbgvzVgfoSc.

[Paralectic]

So I'm looking up the PS4 specs and came to this: http://uk.playstation.com/ps4/features/techspecs/.

 

Considering many of us only have DDR3 RAM, is it really necessary for it to have not only have 8GB but also GDDR 5 as well? Why does it have that and what is it used for?

 

In my knowledge, GDDR RAM is used for gaming in GPUs. Even the Titan has 6GB so why would the PS4 (a much less powerful machine) need 8GB? If the GDDR 5 is placing the DDR3 RAM, it shouldn't be able to do the same tasks; Linus' Techquickie vid on DDR vs GDDR: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbgvzVgfoSc.

It's graphical DDR memory, which focuses itself on graphical performance, which isn't the case in regular RAM for your system.

It's just some sort of technique where the system's regular ram and the graphical ram is somehow combined to be a cheap way to deliver graphical power.

[SkilledRebuilds]

Any APU that uses faster System memory for its package......will see the GPU portion will Always be faster with faster System memory.

 

We PC users do use DDR3 for System Memory however we have discrete DDR5 Memory chipped GPU's , so this is not the same.

PS4 GPU is using Sys Mem DDR5 not DDR3 so the GPU is faster in DDR5 compared to slower DDR3.

You would easily notice the difference side by side if the PS4 had been cloned however using DDR3 all round.

[kinkywink]

So I'm looking up the PS4 specs and came to this: http://uk.playstation.com/ps4/features/techspecs/.

 

Considering many of us only have DDR3 RAM, is it really necessary for it to have not only have 8GB but also GDDR 5 as well? Why does it have that and what is it used for?

 

In my knowledge, GDDR RAM is used for gaming in GPUs. Even the Titan has 6GB so why would the PS4 (a much less powerful machine) need 8GB? If the GDDR 5 is placing the DDR3 RAM, it shouldn't be able to do the same tasks; Linus' Techquickie vid on DDR vs GDDR: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbgvzVgfoSc.

i believe 8gb of ddr3

[Whiskers]

The reason for this is complicated in explanation, but in concept relatively simple.

 

For developers, the fewer things they need to work with to make their games the easier it is to make them. The PS3 was a fantastically powerful device - however owing to its lack of documentation, level of complexity and presence of so many different hardware and software levels development was notoriously difficult for a long time. With the PS4 Sony aimed to alleviate that issue entirely, making the console roughly as easy to work with as the PS1 had been back in the day.

 

To this end, they opted to have one bank of unified memory instead of a separate one for the system and the GPU. This should in theory allow the CPU and GPU to communicate between one another much more effectively, and does mean that the system's RAM overall is ultra-high bandwidth. Some say that latency is an issue with GDDR5 and that's why it's not used as system RAM on our PCs, but I doubt that's really much of an issue - strictly speaking DDR RAM is lower latency than DDR2 which is lower latency than DDR3, so if latency was that much of an issue it would raise the question of why we've been slowly getting worse in that regard.

 

In short, it's a good thing. It should make the PS4 more powerful and versatile and most importantly (yes, most importantly) easy and quick to develop for.

[rhyseyness]

Lets not forget that modern graphics cards also use GDDR5.

My guess is it has 8GB in order that it can support higher resolutions and textures in the future.

The console is expected to last 10 years + after all

[brownninja97]

i believe 8gb of ddr3

nope its gddr5 or ddr5, i remember how happy i was, now that i care about consoles but it could mean we get ddr5 quicker.

[Guest GRRigger]

nope its gddr5 or ddr5, i remember how happy i was, now that i care about consoles but it could mean we get ddr5 quicker.

ddr is system memory, now we have ddr3, ddr4 on the way, ddr5 maybe allready in development but nowhere near we getting it. see where they started developing ddr4 in wikipedia.

gddr5 is vram

[s3ns3]

its shared between system and gpu. gpu needs fast memory.so no its not overkill

[kinkywink]

nope its gddr5 or ddr5, i remember how happy i was, now that i care about consoles but it could mean we get ddr5 quicker.

oh well okay then, never really followed consoles :L just know that the ps2 was pretty awesome 14 years ago

[qwertywarrior]

 

[brownninja97]

ddr is system memory, now we have ddr3, ddr4 on the way, ddr5 maybe allready in development but nowhere near we getting it. see where they started developing ddr4 in wikipedia.

gddr5 is vram

Yeha i do know that but the ps4 seems to break some rules somehow.

[Guest GRRigger]

Yeha i do know that but the ps4 seems to break some rules somehow.

By having GDDR5 as memory for APU? Or what you mean.

I think its great they chose gddr5. Maybe we get it embedded along with APUs in future. Actually we bound to get emmbeded solutions. Apus are allready pretty strong iGPU wise.

[GeathX]

The memory setup of the PS4 is actually very similar to the 360. There is a large single block of RAM that the CPU and GPU both work off of. GDDR3 for 360 and GDDR5 for PS4. There is just a trade off with higher latency with GDDR, though not really that much and is fair out outweighed by the bandwidth increase. AMDs already been looking at using GDDR memory for system RAM on their APUs.

 

What is some what not mentioned about the RAM for both next gen systems is that a chunk of the RAM is locked away from developers. Either for the OS or keeping some free in case new features need to be added with future updates. Its actually closer to around 5 or 6 GB free for the developers on the PS4. Which is still a lot when you see game specs still only needing maybe 4GB at most and thats also taking into consideration that windows is running (an easy 1GB there) in the background.

[Whiskers]

The memory setup of the PS4 is actually very similar to the 360. There is a large single block of RAM that the CPU and GPU both work off of. GDDR3 for 360 and GDDR5 for PS4. There is just a trade off with higher latency with GDDR, though not really that much and is fair out outweighed by the bandwidth increase. AMDs already been looking at using GDDR memory for system RAM on their APUs.

 

What is some what not mentioned about the RAM for both next gen systems is that a chunk of the RAM is locked away from developers. Either for the OS or keeping some free in case new features need to be added with future updates. Its actually closer to around 5 or 6 GB free for the developers on the PS4. Which is still a lot when you see game specs still only needing maybe 4GB at most and thats also taking into consideration that windows is running (an easy 1GB there) in the background.

Indeed.

If I recall correctly there is a total of 7GB of RAM available to developers on PS4 and 5GB available on Xbox One. PS4 by default reserves some of the RAM for the sake of some sort of virtualisation tech for developers or something.

[GeathX]

Indeed.

If I recall correctly there is a total of 7GB of RAM available to developers on PS4 and 5GB available on Xbox One. PS4 by default reserves some of the RAM for the sake of some sort of virtualisation tech for developers or something.

 

There's not actually been a confirmation on the PS4 front with how much is actually available for devs to use. At the very least its the same as the X1 but potentially more as the OS is a lot more simplified on the PS4 compared to the X1. But yeah the virtualisation part for the ps4 was something about 512mb of the ram being able to be allocated to a game if it needs plus another 512mb on the hard drive that is seen as a single chunk. On the X1 side theres 3GB used up by the various OS's running.

[MellowCream]

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbgvzVgfoScDang

`

Dangit you beat me to it.

[BludoTheSmelly]

It's faster than the Xbone, I enjoy mine. Wait and see in about 4 years when they start getting every extra ounce out of the system.

[DavidTheWin]

So much misinformation in this thread. GDDR5 is a similar technology in DDR3 but altered so that it can have insanely high bandwidth at the expense of latency. This is what you want for a GPU which has to move a lot of data in/out of its memory, but not so good for a CPU with less data to move but it needs the data quicker. PCs use DDR3 memory as system RAM for their CPU and graphics cards include GDDR5 for their GPU. When you have an APU which obviously doesn't have GDDR5, you can see the difference that GDDR5 makes because even a relatively small increase in bandwidth (small when compared to what GDDR5 bandwidth is capable of), you can see a drastic performance increase.

The PS4 uses an APU and so having high bandwidth memory is desirable, but instead of going with high bandwidth DDR3 (which to consumers can cost around $1,000 for 8GB) they went with GDDR5 for the system RAM rather than just use it for the GPU. The CPU portion of the APU suffers slightly, but this is made up for by the extra GPU performance it can give you. When it has 8GB of GDDR5, you don't compare it to the GTX 780 Ti and ask why it needs 5GB more than that, you compare it to a system with 8GB DDR3 system RAM and 3GB GDDR5 on the 780 Ti and realise it's not that much memory.

Having all this GDDR5 memory available gives it room to grow in the future as textures increase in file size and games take up more system memory. Whereas desktop GPUs are using more memory to account for 4k resolutions, I doubt the PS4 will need that if it can barely run at 1080p as it is.

[Stefky]

You have GDDR5 in your graphics card most likely. All Sony have done is use a unified pool of GDDR5 for the CPU and GPU to share. It's not quite so ideal for the CPU, but compared to how inappropriate DDR3 would be for the GPU, they made the better choice.

 

Microsoft went for a DDR3 pool, with a 32MB chunk of ESRAM to overcome its bandwidth problems, which developers have found pretty limiting so far and its a principle reason (along with a weaker GPU in the X1) that cross platform games look better on PS4.

[Tacitus]

I'm not a very knowledgeable tech person, but a few developers have said Xbox development is suffering because of its slower ram and the added complexity of its ESRAM means it's often under-utilised. Hence, I'd argue the GDDR5 RAM is probably helping out somewhere along the line.

[BeyondEvolution]

Yeah most arguments and articles are suggesting that the X1's ESRAM has been the problem for most titles, besides the inferior GPU. This is just like the PS3's non unified RAM arquitechture and complex cell processor giving developers hell.

Correct me if I'm wrong but some people mentioned that the PS4 has 7GB of RAM allocated to games/available to developers... isn't this wrong? There were plenty of articles and confirmations from sony saying it was essentially the same as the X1: 5GB (after a technical 4.5 limitation and an extra 512MB for virtualization or something like that).

[Tech_Dreamer]

Consoles are generally of low specs, so i wouldn't agree it being an overkill, rather an over selling of normal thing for us PC users use day to day.

 

 

 

 

ninja loves wool masks

[Silent_Xaxal]

Consoles are generally of low specs, so i wouldn't agree it being an overkill, rather an over selling of normal thing for us PC users use day to day.

 

 

 

 

ninja loves wool masks

 

It would be overkill if suddenly we got GDDR5 modules for our systems.

[Tech_Dreamer]

gddr (graphics double data memory) is specific, in order to move huge volumes of data (as in game 3d or raw video data) with high latency(which is bad in cpu terms) which is ideal for a graphical enviorment since there is a delay between the command you give & the time you get it to respond.

 

ddr rams such as ddr3 (aka static double data rate) is tailored specifically for set instructions to respond with as much as very very  little latency (delay to response) as possible. currently we have this generation gap (pun intended) between these two

 

but is pretty much the same in retrospect that sddr ram (ddr2/3/4) rap like "Twista" or "busta rhymes" instantly (floods us with response quicker), while the other one (gddr ram module)takes time to dress up & show off like lady gaga ,looks good but cant perfom as fast as twista can on stage live.  you get the idea :wacko: . you just cant mix them up on the stage if it does, the fans (us consumers) is gonna boo them outta the stage since they dont want the other one around for something they don't want.

 

plus there's that difference in memory lanes. :blink: *dramatic sound* (kinda like t-rex vs velociraptors both has its own 'thing' , one can run faster the other can stomp the ground & make an epic presence)

 

eg: in a game, changing a view from one angle to another requires shit load of data transfer from hdd to gpu & is constantly changing all the time, cpu on the other  hand is set ot work quicker on lighter loads like opening a new program window or a tab , evn if we switch over each other you'll definitley be dissapointed. kinda like old original pentium vs xeon e7

 

 

i get that you're refering to playstation 4 having a newer generation gddr , but , its the same one we use in our graphics cards currently (gddr5) on our pcie slot.  depending on which generation of graphics card you own , because some older models still sell gddr3 ram graphics card to consumers , point being , i think the amd jaguar cpu that ps4 has is incorporated with memory controller which is set to directly connect with gddr , specificaly architectured for them , if it is true then that explains the scorching framerates. and subtle lags in response.

 

were on the brink of consumer available sddr4 rams as of now, its gonna be like ateast 3 years for them to advance over to sddr5 probably around 2017-18, as 3-5 years is the standard time range between generation advancing architecture

 

"wow, you read through all that? here have a cookie. "

 

 

(times new roman is easier to read & less fatiguing to the eyes as research suggest, so that answers why many of my posts incorporate it )

 

 

 

 

 

 ninja hates long posts