We have finally confirmed a small amount of the hardware inside the PS4.
Below is a post by John Taylor from AMD.
" Yesterday, Sony gave a sneak-peek at its next-generation PlayStation®4 (PS4™) game console coming later this year and, here at AMD, we couldn't be more excited. Bringing a supercharged PC architecture that combines next-gen hardware, software, and the fastest game network in the world. Oh, and this is all powered by a semi-custom designed AMD accelerated processing unit (APU) jointly developed in coordination with Sony!
In fact, the PS4 is the first announced design win based on semi-custom AMD APUs. This further demonstrates our commitment to take AMD technology into adjacent high growth markets as we diversify beyond the PC.
What exactly is a semi-custom APU? Let me elaborate:
At the most basic level, an APU is a single chip that combines general-purpose x86 central processing unit (CPU) cores with a graphics processing unit (GPU) and a variety of system elements, including memory controllers, specialized video decoders, display outputs, etc. Our semi-custom solutions take the same treasure trove of graphics; compute and multi-media IP found in our APUs, and customize them for customers who have a very specific high-volume product that could benefit from AMD’s leading-edge technologies.
In the case of the PS4, we leveraged the building blocks of our 2013 product roadmap – the same technologies you find in the latest AMD APUs powering PCs, ultrathin notebooks and tablets – to create a solution that incorporates our upcoming, low-power AMD “Jaguar” CPU cores with next-generation AMD Radeon™ graphics delivering nearly 2 TFLOPS of compute performance! This unique APU architecture enables game developers to easily harness the power of parallel processing to fundamentally change the console gaming experience. Not only creating the opportunity for new possibilities in software design, but also faster and more fluid graphics.
This is going to be a very exciting year for gamers, especially for those with AMD hardware in their PCs and consoles, as we have even more game-changing (pun intended) announcements still to come. "
-John Taylor
So in simple words at the heart of the PS4 lies a power efficient 8 core processor with strong built in graphics much like the AMD APUs. The memory will be a large chunk of 8GB GDDR5 which will be shared as RAM and VRAM!
This could be a very important factor in the pricing of the system as APUs can lower the cost of production by a large extent. The PS4 could be a great success like the PS2 if it is priced right!
This could be a very important factor in the pricing of the system as APUs can lower the cost of production by a large extent. The PS4 could be a great success like the PS2 if it is priced right!
