More Totally Unsupported PS4 “Orbis” Rumours

This is a tricky one to report. On the one hand, it’s a story about technical specifications in a console that is still publicly ignored by its manufacturer – so totally unsubstantiated speculation. On the other hand, there’s thousands of people who want to read this sort of rumouring and it’s fun to speculate and have a bit of discussion.

All we can do is clearly mark that this is not anything to put your faith in. It’s speculation, and as fun as that may be, totally without grounding until one of these “unnamed sources” is willing to put their name to it. So, approach with a healthy sense of cynicism.

IGN has published a report stating that the next PlayStation will utilise chips from AMD and Radeon. The chips in question are AMD’s A8-3850 APU and the Radeon HD 7670 GPU which gives a separate graphics chip as well as one integrated into the main processor. This is said to enable a little bit of a power boost over the next Xbox, which is rumoured to use the same graphics chip (the HD 6670, which is identical to the rebranded HD 7670).

These graphics chips are decidedly mid-range in today’s PC graphics market so by the predicted end of 2013 release dates, they’ll be well behind currently available PC hardware. That said, the fact that consoles won’t be hampered with so much background activity, as is often the case on PC, will likely mean that these chips can concentrate all their power on the task at hand.

So, there you go. Maybe next week we’ll find our own “source” who will tell us that the PlayStation 4 is powered by unicorn tears and leprechaun sweat.

Source: IGN

36 Comments

  1. AMD and Radeon? Radeon is a graphics brand that AMD uses.

    • yes, I know. But the APU is based on an AMD branded off-the shelf chip and the GPU is based on a Radeon branded off-the-shelf chip. Allegedly.

  2. If these turn out to be true, including pre-owned game rumors, I can’t see these selling well. By next year or so, the components will be cheap enough to buy yourself anyway and not have the hassle of drm…but I guess we’ll see…

    • Yeah… couple of upgrades to the PC instead…

  3. Odd thing about the GPU, would have thought they’d have done the same thing as the PS3, put the most powerful GPU at the time, keep it strong for as long as possible, which allows it to be as future proof as possible, for 4K and possibly qHD.

    • The GPU in the PS3 was well over a year old when the PS3 launched – it was a slightly tweaked Nvidia 7800GT (a mid range card at the time!) and the PC market was onto the 8000 series and beyond when it finally launched. So this would really be fairly similar to the PS3 situation…

    • And price it at $599 again? Let’s just say it would take more than RIIIIIIIIDGE RAAAACER to make me buy it at that price…

      • @bmg_123
        I agree with you there. Personally, it would take a giant enemy crab to get my attention :)

    • GPU is crap, a real bottleneck luckily the Cell is so great to help out problem is its own shit ton of work for 3rd party devs who make the bulk of the games

      Going for off the shelf component is very un-Sony like but given their billions of pounds losses it the only thing that makes sense in this economy, but if the next generation is out next Chrimbo with production in the summer it where near capable of excellence a dX11 class games that are around, coming out because of the budget a console needs to be made for… If so, roll on PS5

      • Typos… Stupidly keypad & freezing fingers

  4. With AMD as the processor is my MAIN reason that I wont be buying this forthcoming hunk of junk. And secondly the processors may not need to run background tasks/services as do PCs the hardware will still be fookin ancient and by 2015 the games will look like shit compared to what games looks today with todays tech…

    Go for an Intel or Cell processor and Nvidia GPU less faults less bugs and for pc Less driver bugs compared to cheap AMD/ATI!

    • It’s all about the price tag

      • Jessie J disagrees. But seriously; one of the reasons nvidia aren’t on board -supposedly- would be that they don’t like to manufacture old architecture for a whole cycle, so AMD are jumping in to save the day, and win the entire market of course…

    • Leave AMD alone! (Britney fan)

      But seriously, you won’t need drivers on a console, and ever since the 6xxx series I never had a problem with them. I agree though that Intel processors are stronger, but I still think AMD is a good company who makes great processor. Duron <3

      As for graphics in 2015 don't worry, devs will develop mostly for them so the consoles will hold back graphics. On the otherhand graphics are already pretty good, I'd rather they get to be rendered in 1080p60 and more focus on the idiot AI in games would be nice.

      As for price, I'd rather have the next generation of consoles with a launch price of $350 instead of $650.

      • AMD make terrible CPU’s Bulldozer was the biggest load of crap ever. Their GPU’s on the other hand are great not Nvidia great but get you the best bang for your buck no doubt.

    • Never had a problem with AMD processors and drivers. Given they’re cheaper and have a bit more flexibility in their application, they’re definitely the better option for a console.

      Thoroughly agree with you on ATI though. When the graphics cards work, they work well. Problem is they’re a nightmare to update and have a tendency to bug out on you. So Nvidia all the way for graphics!

  5. I didn’t even bother reading it. It’s all BS :D

    • go on… read the first two paragraphs, just for me :P

    • Why click on an article, not read it, then proceed to put a meaningless comment on it? It just doesnt make sense…

    • You’ve gone and hurt Peter’s feelings now. Now he’s up in the rafters again and it will be 1 month before i can get him down from there. :P

  6. Ah the best part of any generations life. The naming of the successor. My money is on Unicorn tears and Bunimo’s “special” hair powering it. Oh and Stevens dribble will act as coolant.

  7. means if it is the current spec, we could see 64 player FPS games on Battlefield, nice.

    On the other hand, this current speculation is getting on my nerves.

    • “Palm trimmings” for the win!

    • Almost anything will “run” battlefield 3 as long as it isn’t single core but a single 6670 won’t be playable at 1080p even on low, you’d have to take it down to 720 to get averages above 30fps which is basically what the battlefield plays like on a console. Although there would be plenty of improvements if the code was optimized for that card.

  8. Of course this may just be an early development machine, with the actual CPU/GPU speed not being decided until closer to release. One advantage of AMD CPU/GPU is they may be able to make a single chip slim console later in cycle.

  9. I don’t know about this. It does seem rather unlikely that Sony would choose these, especially the HD 7670. These are mid ranged by today’s standard on PC’s. It certainly won’t be pushing 1080p in every game either. By 2013/14 the HD 7670 would be pretty far behind and I can’t see it being all that future proof.

    I’m taking these rumours with a big pinch of salt for now. Hopefully we will get some solid facts soon.

  10. Any confirmation of Folding@home with new weather channels?!

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