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[xexex]

both Playstation3 and Xbox 360 have 128-bit main memory busses. every highend PC GPU since ATI R300: Radeon 9700 Pro (2002) and Nvidia NV35: GeForce 5900 Ultra (2003) have had 256-bit memory busses. it seems like a HUGE downgrade for next-gen consoles to have the same main memory bus width (128) as PS2, Xbox (and Cube too, I think).

with Xbox 360, it should be much less of a problem because of the awesome "daughter die" and its 32 GB/sec link to "parent die" and the daughter die's internal 256 GB/sec bandwidth.

still, I think Xbox 360 should have had a 256-bit main memory bus so that when combined with GDDR3 memory, it would have had main memory bandwidth at or approaching 50 GB/sec.

the Playstation3 has several busses, for a total of close to 50 GB/sec, but it's graphics bus is only 128-bit, and only provides 22.4 GB/sec bandwidth from RSX to GDDR3 memory. and no eDRAM to help out and take away the rendering bandwidth burden this time.

so my question is, the fact that PS3 and Xbox360 have only 128-bit busses to GDDR3 memory, is this going to be a problem, and was it a mistake in the long run ? I feel that, cost and pin-count aside, PS3 and 360 would have more potential, longer lives, more headroom, etc, with 256-bit busses.

 

[Pimpbaa]

It isn't a problem with my Geforce 6600GT (I run at 1280x1024). I guess it could be a problem when you start throwing on some AA and Anisotropic filtering (at least in the case of the ps3). But I really don't think it will be that much of an issue.

 

[Juice]

Pretty sure the answer you're looking for is 42.

Beyond that, I'm afraid I can't help you. Although, if it were a problem I'm sure we would have heard it from a Nintendo fan by now, as they try to make the case for the possibility of Revolution having a single technological advantage over the competition.

Since this is the "256-bit generation" by the old standard of doubling the bits every time, if Revolution had said 256bit line, then it could claim such supremacy.

 

[gofreak]

the Playstation3 has several busses, for a total of close to 50 GB/sec, but it's graphics bus is only 128-bit, and only provides 22.4 GB/sec bandwidth from RSX to GDDR3 memory. and no eDRAM to help out and take away the rendering bandwidth burden this time.

To clarify, RSX can render to anywhere in memory, so it would have use of up to the full memory bandwidth in PS3 (but obviously the CPU takes a slice, as it does in 360).