Ulf blog Rule #1) No whining allowed.
Just post your rig, and have fun making it. Tell us why you chose the components you did, and why your console beats the socks off everybody elses.
Ulf blog Rule #2) Follow the rig-making rules.
The rules are as follows
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CPU + GPU, Power usage:
Under 180W (don't include other components, assume the rest of the power supply can handle them)
Reason: People don't buy consoles that sound like jet engines, or that need liquid cooling, in their cozy livingrooms. Manufacturer's can't afford to fix consoles that dumb users cause to overheat, either -- at least not at affordable prices, and expensive customer service is bad for the company rep. At 180W for the CPU and GPU, your console would likely require at a supply rated at about 300-350W, at least, and such a beast would probably need to be external, for heat and reliability reasons.
Cost: under $400 *retail* (motherboard, memory, CPU, GPU, sound hardware, optical disc drive, HDD -- motherboard onboard components are fine, if you think they're good for your console design.)
Reason: Consoles don't sell very well at high prices. Disregard the cost of the controller, the networking adapter, any included cables, the case, the power supply, the packaging, etc., when computing your cost. Also disregard any room for profit for the retailer, or the cost to ship the console to retail, etc. Consider all that stuff included, in the extra cost of parts @ retail prices, when you're making your build.
Handy links:
TechARP desktop GPU comparison guide -->
http://www.techarp.com/show...
Wikipedia i7 and Phenom CPU references -->
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...
Sony has refreshed the Holiday Sale, as new titles are added and a lot have been removed.
Here is a look at the exhibit from the early access preview.
Speed Factor throws players straight into a neon-lit highway of nostalgia, where punk rock riffs and pixel-perfect visuals collide in a furious symphony of speed. Inspired by the golden age of 80s and 90s arcade racers, this game invites you to tear through 50 diverse tracks across five vibrant locations, each brimming with retro flair. From customising traction assists to upgrading classic rides, Speed Factor is more than a race; it’s an adrenaline-fueled journey through the heart of arcade rebellion, demanding both skill and swagger from every driver who dares to take the wheel.
I began trying to make one for this blog, but soon realized I know absolutly nothing about this stuff. Might as well have been Chinese.
Under 400 retail...but, if we build our rig with retail pieces, we are not getting the same price/cost ratio, as you already stated, when a big company buys pieces a big discount is applied because of the massive stock usually ordered, so please understand if I skip the price ceiling part.If you're implying that a console final value (power/price ratio) is comparable to a pc, then no, I have to say for the public right now it takes at least 600~$ and 250wTDP to make a truly "Next Gen console" with PC parts.(I understand though, that SOME games will easily look better on a 300~$ dollar PC than on consoles, but I don't think we are exactly talking about that)
Besides, it takes more than just retail hardware to make a competitive console nowadays, exotic architectures are used, embedded memory, corners cut from hot GPU's, etc...They are essentially extremely custom mid range pc's.
So perhaps you mean to play today's games with tomorrow levels of AA, AF, and higher resolutions.There's a limit in the quality of the assets in games nowadays though, shitty textures everywhere or bland animations are, and will still be common on PC, except for some pretty examples like the witcher 2, etc.
With retail parts, low cost retail substitutes:
i3 2100 3.1Ghz (tdp aprox 65w)
Ati 6850 (tdp aprox 120w)1Gb GDDR5
DDR3 1333 CL7 4Gb
Shitty samsung spinpoint
DVD Drive
Asus H61
Cost Aprox.450~$
I usually prefer Nvidia, but this time I chose the 6850 because is balanced and one of the less power hungry of the 256-bit bus cards, that bandwidth is much needed for not bottlenecking the nice 1Gb gddr5 memory, and will allow better hardware tesselation support, among a lot of new software techniques.
I chose the LGA 1155 I3 variant for being a dual core processor with a performance superior clock for clock to 1156, which I3 was superior clock for clock to the 775 Wolfdale-C2D-7500,(for orientation's sake), while its new 32nm size allows for very low wattage.I don't quite think quad core is much needed in a console, less with the TDP restrictions described.
Lastly, about RAM, I consider latency more important in than clock speed for a console, for stability and temperature reasons.Also, there are no tangible gaming benefits yet for playing when using more than 4-6Gb.I'm not going to buy a console to encode video in realtime use autodesk MAYA or render the whole friggin solar system with autocad at molecular scale, those ridiculous ideas of 8 or 12 Gb of RAM got to go.Think of the price benefit return for gaming and it's clear...
Ideal Scenario, custom parts:
Cell B.E. 2@ 22nm, 4'2Ghz (2 core, 16 SPE) Direct bus with 1024XDR2 RAM (est. tdp 80w)
Ati 6850 1Gb(Again)with embedded 64Mb eDRAM
Hybrid SSD/HDD Solution (16Gb for O.S., On the fly caching & Installs, 500Gb for second priority data)
External BR Drive
Cost: ?
SAME OLD STORY
Whatever, you're just fapping to the wrong god.
The small benefits SLI provides for its temperature and TDP are absurd, an i7 920 is not so hot, some 1155 i5 can beat it (see tom's hardware), and of course you don't need 8Gb nor colourful dissipators, some of you PC dudes are just posh early buyers who try to buy the best of the best, but you're just throwing money at technology like retarded apes measuring their dongs. Do some research and stop using Crysis as the end all be all of graphical prowess, because people like you are not just utterly wrong; you're clearly compensating for something,I'm sick of the likes of you, because no one cares, no one asked about your rig, or the color of your 2500~$ underwear, or your Iphone 6, or your fucking hello kitty tamagotchi.