GPU : Xbox 360 vs PS3

Both of the console which is Xbox 360 and Playstation3 already a well known console in the gaming industry. But not many knows about the graphical processing unit in both machine. So right now I will give a little comparison between Xbox 360 that use ATI Xenos and Playstation3 that use nVidia RSX. From what I've read, Xenos is more likely to ATI Radeon HD 2000 series and nVidia RSX is more likely to GeForce 7000 (G70).

Xbox 360 : Xenos

• 500 MHz
• 16 vertex fetch units with built-in tesselation
• 48 unified shaders (can do vertices or pixel)
• All 48 have to be doing either verticesor pixels in one clock cycle
• Can change from cycle to cycle
• Rumored to have more than 48 perchip; gets higher yields
• 16 texture interpolating (filtering) units
• 16 texture fetch (addressing) units
• 8 render output units 10 MB video buffer eRAM die includes some custom logic for color, alpha compositing, Z/stencil buffering, and anti-aliasing
• Does not include textures
• 256 GB/sec bandwith to GPU
• Currently on separate die on same package
• Guess will later probably put on same die
• Buffer in eRAM is copied to main memory for output
• GPU renders for a 720p,16:9 display

PS3 : RSX “Reality Synthesizer”

• 550 MHz
• 24 pixel shaders
• 8 vertex shaders
• 24 texture filtering units
• 8 texture addressing units
• 8 render output units
• Video buffer part of 256 MB video RAM
• Cell FlexIO bus interface
• 20 GB/s read to the Cell and XDR memory
• 15 GB/s write to the Cell and XDR memory
• Display up to full 1080p

* The one in bold is most likely the advantage of the GPU.

Conclusion here, both GPUs have their own advantages and disadvantages. For overall performance and supporting future technologies, I think Playstation3 will beat Xbox 360 since blu-ray win against HD-DVD.

ATI Catalyst 8.3 release

Its been a while since i updated my blog. Now I want to give a review about the new ATI driver which is Catalyst version 8.3. For this driver release, ATI have unlock the multi-GPU performance for Windows Vista which is the -quad and the triple-GPU. As I reviewed before, ATI graphic card have the highest resolution to view 2560x1600 dpi compare to NVIDIA. Higher resolution means gamers can have a very smooth and nice display thus the game will be more realistic in term of display. In term of gameplay, its up to the game itself. :P.

In advancing the Multi-GPU Gaming with CrossFireX through three- and four-GPU configurations in CrossFireX, gamers can see multi-GPU performance scaling across a range of today’s most popular DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 games on Windows Vista - up to 3.2 times the performance over a single GPU2 in some scenarios. The flexible architecture of CrossFireX allows for the mixing and matching of high-performing ATI Radeon GPUs. Any ATI Radeon HD 3850, ATI Radeon HD 3870 or ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 cards can be combined to harness the power of up to four GPUs.

The new features in this ATI Catalyst 8.3 :

• DirectX 10.1 and Tessellation Support: ATI Catalyst 8.3 marks the first time DirectX 10.1 support for the ATI Radeon HD 3000 series, and tessellation support for the ATI Radeon HD 3800 series have been made available to developers.
• Anti-Aliasing enhancements: ATI Catalyst introduces anti-aliasing support for all Unreal Engine 3.0-based games running in DirectX 9 mode. ATI Catalyst also allows users to enable the Custom Filter Anti-Aliasing filters
• (box and wide tent) while running in CrossFire Super Anti-Aliasing modes, providing superior image quality.
• HydraVision support for Windows Vista: HydraVision support is now included in ATI Catalyst Control Center for Windows Vista. HydraVision enables users to efficiently organize multiple applications across single or multiple displays. You may configure up to nine virtual desktops, and divide the Windows Vista desktop into definable areas helping to easily move and organize multiple applications.
• Digital Panel GPU image scaling: For those using widescreen displays, ATI Catalyst now allows users to enable GPU-accelerated scaling to maintain the aspect ratio of the display while providing superior image quality.
• Advanced Video Quality controls: With ATI Catalyst 8.3, multimedia enthusiasts get further control over video quality. Using the new edge enhancement feature, the level of sharpness of video content can be adjusted. Through the new noise reduction feature, ghosting artifacts can be removed while preserving the details of the original video. The new slider controls can be found in the All Settings page of the Avivo Video tab found in ATI Catalyst Control Center.

So for ATI Radeon's user, you can have this driver at
http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html

Before I end this post, I give a benchmark made by AMD comparing ATI Radeon GPUs with Nvidia GeForce GPUs:
Platform
Cost per 3DMark determined based on AMD internal benchmark results in 3DMark06 v1.1.1.0 at 1920x1200 4xAA 8xAF on an ASUS P5E (X38) or EVGA 780i platform running an Intel X9650, 2GB DDR2-800 (5-5-5-12 timings), Windows Vista RTM 64bit, and 8.471-Beta2_080214a-059709E-ATI or ForceWare 169.28beta.
Price
Based on the average price at Newegg.com as of March 3, 2008, two ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 cards at $900, and two Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX cards at $900
Score
Two ATI Radeon 3870 X2 cards combine to score 16412 3DMarks while two GeForce 8800 GTX cards combine to score 12748 3DMarks resulting in the two ATI Radeon™ HD 3870 X2 cards delivering 28% more performance for the same price as the Nvidia solution.

To sum up, ATI Radeon wins. But let us wait for the GeForce 9800, and I'm pretty sure Nvidia will come out for something that is more outstanding.
For the conclusion, competition in technology will never ends. :P