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0 pointssupergauntlet12y ago0 comments

Yeah, this is not true at all. You can get video cards that are better than the PS4's (by enough to counter any initial optimization, if not end-of-life optimization) for $150. Specifically, 7870 GHz editions.

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nitrogen12y ago

The only thing you can't get in a PC is the high-bandwidth shared memory. You can probably make up for it by having tons of RAM on your PC's video card, but I still think the shared memory architecture will be the most interesting part of the current generation of consoles.

lucian190012y ago

That, and the usual low-level hardware access that consoles have always had. That counts for a lot, especially later in the console's life.

Arelius12y ago

> You can probably make up for it by having tons of RAM on your PC's video card.

You can't "make up" for having shared memory unless the developer is just using it to pretend that they have a machine with like 6 GB of vram.

Of particular relevance is the fact that the PS4 has cache coherent shared memory. Which is a separate ball game entirely.

nitrogen12y ago

By "make up" for it I mean you might get the same performance by moving more of your processing to the GPU and avoiding the CPU altogether. Obviously you can't do the same kind of close interaction between CPU and GPU like you could with shared, cache-coherent memory.

I can't wait until there's a PC that has that kind of memory architecture, though, if we ever get one.

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criley212y ago

Haha sorry buddy, the 7870 editions that beat the PS4 are $200. You're right that they are better than the PS4 GPU, but wrong on the price. The 7850's get down to $150, but they're also benchmarking lower than the PS4 in synthetic benchmarks.

Also, a $50 price difference doesn't invalidate my answer of $600-$650 --- in fact you'll notice that it lands exactly in my stated error range of $50.

EDIT: My bad, I found a super off-brand cheap bad-warranty version of the 7870 for $170.

But speaking from experience, don't buy a shit card from a shit company with a shit warranty.

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nitrogen12y ago

lucian190012y ago

That, and the usual low-level hardware access that consoles have always had. That counts for a lot, especially later in the console's life.

Arelius12y ago

> You can probably make up for it by having tons of RAM on your PC's video card.

You can't "make up" for having shared memory unless the developer is just using it to pretend that they have a machine with like 6 GB of vram.

Of particular relevance is the fact that the PS4 has cache coherent shared memory. Which is a separate ball game entirely.

nitrogen12y ago

I can't wait until there's a PC that has that kind of memory architecture, though, if we ever get one.

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criley212y ago

Also, a $50 price difference doesn't invalidate my answer of $600-$650 --- in fact you'll notice that it lands exactly in my stated error range of $50.

EDIT: My bad, I found a super off-brand cheap bad-warranty version of the 7870 for $170.

But speaking from experience, don't buy a shit card from a shit company with a shit warranty.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse