Talk:RSX Reality Synthesizer

message: This is the true spec below. so if any one wants to talk let talk about the spec
* 550 MHz G70 based GPU on 90 nm process 
** 300+ million transistors ( 600 million with Cell CPU ) 
** Multi-way programmable parallel floating-point shader pipelines
*** Independent pixel/vertex shader architecture
*** 24 parallel pixel pipelines
**** 5 shader ALU operations per pipeline per cycle ( 2 vector4 and 2 scalar (dual/co-issue) and fog ALU )
**** 27 FLOPS per pipeline per cycle 
*** 8 parallel vertex pipelines 
**** 2 shader ALU operations per pipeline per cycle ( 1 vector4 and 1 scalar, dual issued )
**** 10 FLOPS per pipeline per cycle
*** Maximum vertex count: 7.5 billion vertices per second (24 pixel shaders x 8 vertex x 550 MHz / 4 )
**** Minimum (worst case) polygon count: 366.6 million polygons per second ( 1.1 billion vertices per second / 3 vertices per triangle)
****Maximum (optimistic case) polygon count: 750 million and more depending on how many triangle strips are used in a game.
*** Maximum shader operations: 136 shader operations per second
*** Announced: 1.8 TFLOPS (trillion floating point operations per second) ( 2 TFLOPS overall performance )
** 24 texture filtering units (TF) and 8 texture Addressing unit (TA) 
*** 24 filtered samples per clock 
**** Maximum texel fillrate: 13.2 gigatexel per second ( 24 textures x 550 MHz )
*** 32 unfiltered texture samples per clock ( 8 TA x 4 texture samples )
** 8 Render Output units
*** Maximum pixel fillrate: 4.4 gigapixel per second ( 8 ROPs x 550 MHz )
*** Maximum Z sample rate: 8 gigasamples per second ( 2  Z samples x 8 ROPs x 550 MHz ) 
*** Maximum anti-aliasing sample rate: 8 gigasamples per second ( 2  AA samples x 8 ROPs x 550 MHz ) 
** 100 billion shader operations per second 
** Maximum Dot product operations: 51 billion per second 
** 128-bit pixel precision offers rendering of scenes with high dynamic range rendering ( HDR)
** 256 MiB GDDR3 RAM at 700 MHz 
*** 128-bit memory bus width 
*** 22.4 GiB/s read and write bandwidth
** Cell FlexIO bus interface
*** 20 GiB/s read to the Cell and XDR memory 
*** 15 GiB/s write to the Cell and XDR memory 
** Support for OpenGL ES 2.0
** Support for DirectX 10
** Support for S3TC texture compression 
--
Those are not the true specs of the RSX. The true specs are here -> http://world.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=ja_en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.watch.impress.co.jp%2Fgame%2Fdocs%2F20060925%2F3d_tgs.htm
Please read the article. I know it may be hard because it is translated from Japanese, but the mistakes that you have pasted from a trade show article that is over two years old are glaringly obvious. The RSX was DOWNGRADED. It is only 500MHz, and several other things changed as well. Aleksael 20:52, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the specs you posted are not the actual specs. The site that I linked to verifies it. As I already stated, here on this discussion page as well as at the main article, those specs are from the SONY PRESS RELEASE which was given at the TOKYO GAME SHOW in SEPTEMBER 2006. If you are keeping up with the timeline here, the specs that you and others constantly upgrade to were from a CES press release made WAY BACK IN EARLY 2005. You are also dead wrong about the RSX comparison to the 8800. The 8800 destroys the RSX completely and utterly, not even a GTX, a 320MB GTS will still stomp the living daylights out of any benchmark that you can provide. Sony OVERPROMISED on the RSX and couldn't deliver. Nvidia has never stated anywhere that the RSX is more powerful than the 8800 either, they only ever made comparisons to it outperforming two 6800 Ultras in SLI. A 7800GTX is even faster than dual 6800's in SLI OR the RSX, because the RSX has half the bit depth to the pipelines at only 128. What you have here is a custom GPU that was cheapened from a 7800GS, and the 7800GS is already the low-end chip. Put it to you this way, the 7800 die when it was new cost as much as half of the PS3's ultimate $800+ cost estimate. With BluRay also expensive, and the Cell itself gobbling up the rest of the development costs, do you really honestly believe that the RSX could have been that high up on the food chain? This is a commodity chip we are dealing with here.Aleksael 02:47, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  RSX specs 

message: 90.8 billion shader operations per second [( (24 Pixel Shader ALUs X 5.6667 shader operations per cycle X 550 MHz) + (8 Vertex ALUs X 4 shader operations per cycle X 500 MHz)) X (10^5)]  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.64.116.8 (talk) 19:42, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  shader operations? 

message: Is it real or not? 550mhz to 500mhz.
--
I restored the previous revision that had the RSX at 550mhz, as that is the last official word anyone has gotten out of Sony.  If anyone has an official statement or concrete evidence (i.e., not random forum posters) to the contrary, that should be provided in this article, I think. Jonabbey 07:51, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Downgrade 

message: Where are these measurements coming from? StealthHit06 06:57, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vertices per second 

message: Also the theoretical floating point performance of 1,8 terraflops seems insanely high to me. As far as I know, this number comes from aprox. 2 years old (by early 2007) PR material claiming that the whole game console has floating point performance of 2 terraflops. In my opininon, these numbers are totally incorrect. Note that the GeForce 8800 GTX with G80 GPU is believed to have floating point performance of 500 gigaflops, the previous generation 7900GTX part - on which RSX is based - has 250 gigaflops.
On this ground (well, it's more like basic logic), I removed the 1,8 Terraflops floating point performance line.
8.3. 2007: I see the number is coming back - unless evidence is provided, it shouldn't be brought back. Removed.
15.3. 2007: Do I have to phrase it again and again? This number just can't realisticaly be true. /Anyway: "Encyclopedic content must be attributable to a reliable source."/
Agreed, removed this figure since I couldn't verify it--it has also "changed" at some point, from 1.8 teraflops to 1 teraflop, either way I could not find any thing confirming this at all. Aleksael 05:24, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Floating point performance 

message: where did you get your info that the RSX can produce over 600 mil polygons a second? Not even the ps3 fanboys at gamespot make this claim. The 360 can produce almost twice as many polygons a second something even ps3 fanboys. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.134.225.134 (talk) 03:26, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  600 mil second? 

message: Vetrex? I'm all for comparison against retro consoles, but this is silly. It's spelt "Vertex". There are probably other spelling mistakes there too, but since this is likely to be overhauled, I didn't check. I would have edited this myself, but it's currently protected. Hinges 15:39, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spellings 

message: Isn't it true that all the specs in this article are based on hearsay..  The problem is, this article presents it as fact..  For example, DirectX 9c support!!!  (Since when has the PS3 used DirectX APi?) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mgillespie (talk • contribs) 14:29, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the specs in this article are not based on hearsay. Hit the link to the Tokyo Game Show from September 2006. Only two months before the console's release, the specifications were done and cast in stone, few reviews have reflected this however and gone by earlier press releases that were overly optimistic instead, and so the real GPU speed is 500MHz, not 550. (i.e. those original specs were downgraded.) Additionally, the RSX is G70 based. That chip supports DirectX 9. It does not matter if Sony chooses not to develop their software with that API or not. Aleksael 04:03, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Saying it supports DirectX 9 is misleading, a better wording would be that it "could support at least the DirectX9", but even that would still be misleading, as supporting DirectX 9 is just as much an issue of drivers as it is of hardware (cf. DirectX 9 intel integrated chips). DirectX9 is an API, not a feature set (contrary to the urban myth). 83.159.9.78 19:50, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, saying it supports DirectX 9 is not misleading. You are very correct, DirectX 9 is an API, and that is precisely why the RSX/G70 supports it. It isn't an urban myth to mention it here when the die that the RSX was built from was designed to work with its features. Just because Sony chooses not to use the API in their development environment is irrelevant to the functionality of the chip. If it were so wrong to mention the DirectX 3D set which the chip can run it would be just as wrong to mention its OpenGL ability. The only thing that you can really question here is relevancy as the development environment from Sony works from uses OpenGL and not DirectX. This does not have the same kind of bearing on the engineering of the chip however, which is perfectly capable of both APIs.Aleksael 00:48, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article nonsense 

message: Might want to chuck this on here for continuity:

:Ok, I've added it. -- Bovineone 23:29, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: nVIDA templates

message: This page currently includes a link (within the text "Maximum vertex count: 1 billion vertices per second (8 vertex x 500 MHz / 4)") to vertex, a disambiguation page. Can someone with the ability to do so please change it to vertex (geometry)? Thanks. —David Eppstein 21:22, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 21:41, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! —David Eppstein 02:27, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vertex 

message: Shouldn't it be mentioned that the RSX also handles sound related tasks for the PS3?
:I googled for this and found little concrete information. What was there was pretty far back and I'm not even sure how official it was. (i.e. Will RSX be the Soundstorm 2?) Would be an interesting addition if you have anything specific though? Aleksael 03:11, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Soundstorm

message: Okay, could I hear from anyone interested in this article, why does this reference keep getting deleted?
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20060925/3d_tgs.htm
English translation at altavista here.
http://world.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=ja_en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.watch.impress.co.jp%2Fgame%2Fdocs%2F20060925%2F3d_tgs.htm
Near as I can tell it's because it is the only article that shows lower specifications for the RSX--but it is also the newest, most up to date, and last official report from Sony on the specifications for this chip. Seriously people, I know that every other article in existence says the clock rate is 550MHz. I know that every other article out there says the RAM speed is 700MHz. I know that the anandtech article you keep putting in the place of this newer one direct from the Sony presentation at the Tokyo Game Show has higher specs. But if you actually take the time to READ this article, through the Translator if you don't speak Japanese, you can clearly see that the article states the higher specs were DOWNGRADED before the release. The Tokyo Game Show was in September 2006. The PS3 debuted less than two months later. Do you really think that Sony would tell everyone the video chip was downgraded with these specs, then reverse their whole operation and pump them back up again? The old information that keeps getting pumped on this page is INCORRECT. Aleksael 13:35, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tokyo Game Show Article 

message: 1. RSX does not, in any way support DirectX 10. Come on people, that is well understood, by anyone with even a slight interest in the subject matter.
Using Cell, could "in thory", allow for some of the gpu functions covered by the DX10 API, and perhaps even some that are not (educated guess) but RSX is not geared for such things on it's own. RSX has never, nor will it ever, be claimed to be DX10 compliant. Not by Sony, Nvidia, or anyone else.
"Perhaps" it could be listed, (if people insist on adding an api spec at all) it could be considered DX9+, in the same way NV2A was DX8.1. Considering, there are almost always features of gpus that are not exposed by DirectX, but would have no reason to be overlooked in a closed box such as PS3. I can dig up some of the extension lists if anyone wanted them. I believe them to be publicly available.
2. It is not 136 shader operations "per second". It is meant as "per clock cycle". Think about that for a second, and you will understand that it is a typo, and that 136 "per second" would make zero sense. (And it is even correctly cited as such, farther down, in reference to G70)
Those are the only two points I have ever bothered to edit, and they continue to be reverted back to the previous specification. 
I personally will not bother with anything else I could not give a credible link for. Leaked developer documents don't count, nor do comments made by developers in forums, nor does pure speculation. 
Such as the clock frequency change to 500 mhz, which I believe has been well known for a while now, but since I have not bothered to research it to give an official credible source, I have never edited it. That has been brought up here by others, not me.
I can point out, that (while it is interesting as a thought experiment), the polygon and vertex section, (best case, worst case, etc) is entirely ad-lib, and doesn't reflect an actual game of any sort, nor would RSX be capable of those figures, even in benchmark tests, for a laundry list of reasons. But I won't personally bother with those either.
And 1.8 teraflops is a pumped up, misleading marketing figure, probably not worth mentioning at all without proper context. It leads people to compare it, to the legit floating point ratings commonly given for other gpus, as they typically relate to programmable flops. 
It just mis-leads people like the few on this talk page to think that the RSX is magically "more powerful than even an 8800". But I will not bother with such things. That will be for others to decide, and debate.
Keep in mind, this is not meant to sound rude, or condescending in any way. It's just what I notice is wrong with this article. And those two points are incorrect, and should be changed.
Swapnil 404 14:28, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two points in which I will bother with. 

message: I pulled this up from Answers.com http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20060925/3d_tgs.htm. The article was posted about TGS, and on September 2006, and I believe Game Watch is a reputable source (correct me if I'm wrong). Plus it would kind of make sense since Sony has been cutting down on the original PS3 hardware spec in order to increase yield percentage and lower costs. -- XenoL-Type 20:33 27 August, 2007 (UTC)
* How odd - that page says "core clock 550MHz" in the text, then "core clock 500MHz" in the 7800GTX/RSX comparison table. Seeing as the page includes two contradicting statements, I would say that it cannot be used as a reference to the core clock speed. Does that make sense? Oh, there's the text about the downgrade - but it looks as if Sony/NVidia didn't officially release this information, and it was leaked. I haven't looked all the way through Wikipedia's rules, but I suspect that if something's said to have been leaked, then it can't be trusted, and therefore can't be used as a reference. Someone should go badger Sony/NVidia to stick up a page on their site! Cam.turn (talk) 05:51, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Leaked? What in the world makes you think that info is a leak? It was from the press release at the Tokyo Game Show September 2006. Sony and nvidia made this statement themselves.Aleksael (talk) 19:02, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  About the 500Mhz downgrade 

message: I would like to point out that in the discription it says that the pixel piplines can perform 5 ALU ops per cycle, but when it state what operations it can do it says 2 vector4 OR 2 scalar/dual/co-issue and fog ALU, so should we leave or change it, it makes more sense if we say two ALU ops per pipe because a pixel shader is a vector4 op (R,G,B,a)?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.12.52.61 (talk) 04:00, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it can do vector3+scaler on both alus, with an additional fp16 normalize op. You typically see pixel shader ops as vector3. And doing an additional scaler with that, would be considered 2 operations, since it's not part of the same vector, afaik. Swapnil 404 (talk) 07:54, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

text: Well, same amount of data, as in, the same number of flops perhaps. But an operation is a collection of flops, they don't have to be a specific number of them. One alu doing vector2+vector2 is 2 operations also. Or 2 scaler, etc. Like Xenos's "vector4+scaler" is two ops. But if a vector2 op came up, it can only process that one vector2 with a scaler that cycle.Swapnil 404 (talk) 09:43, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

text: One of the things they changed between 6800 and 7800, was upgrade the second alu to MADD, from being simply ADD. So just saying 8, would ignore that fact. However, I doubt it'd really fit in the article at all, also considering it isn't "verified" by Sony in a specs sheet. Swapnil 404 (talk) 11:00, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  5 ALU ops per cycle? 

message: Removed the line on Direct X 10 support. There is no reference for this and it is a complete fabrication. In fact most of this article is unreferenced or comes from one source - Sony's September 2006 press release. That was nearly 2 years ago! Come on! I've also added the Primary Sources tag since this article relies on information provided by Sony, which is not sufficient. Kristmace (talk) 09:04, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I know there isn't a lot of hard info on the RSX. But if you will bother to notice, the majority of the specs from the article were pumped up from an anandtech article on a Sony presentation in the summer of 2005, and these inflated figures were then inserted into the press release from TGS September 2006. No offence to Swapinil and others for their good information to this thread, but every time I come looking at this page, everything is inflated. You are witnessing a console war and the kids are using Wikipedia as the battleground.Aleksael (talk) 19:11, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Direct X 10 support & Sourcing 

message: The figure listed seems to be from this slide:
http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/6577/rsxbandwidth6ae.jpg
Which combines numbers from both Cell and RSX. They also list 512mb of graphics memory, 2Tflops, etc, etc... It's pretty obvious it's meant for both..
Dot products would likely just be shader alus. They provide the vector and scaler op. I could list what an estimate is, or we could figure up what Cell would potentially be, since it's pretty open on how many spes, simd, etc.. And subtract from it... but there wouldn't likely be an acceptable link for that. Just like the vast majority of everything else.
Anyway, sure, you can use spe's for graphics processing, as it's designed with that in mind, but this is an RSX article, not PS3 as a whole.
Just sayin'. I won't likely edit it myself yet though. The only thing someone could really do is delete 51 totally. (or amend it as total system performance (Cell + RSX), since that can be linked and verified. Swapnil 404 (talk) 16:54, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dot Products 

message: Wouldn't it be a good idea to add a list or at least some information about the different iterations of RSX (90nm, 65nm, 40nm) and their associated die sizes, power dissipation, etc.? The Seventh Taylor (talk) 03:00, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Versions 

message: if the gddr3 clocks at 650 mhz wouldnt it be 1.3 ghz  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.216.171.153 (talk) 01:52, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  why is effective memory 1.4 ghz