(Wired) EXCLUSIVE: WHAT TO EXPECT FROM SONY'S NEXT-GEN PLAYSTATION

Both Microsoft and Sony leave it up to the devs to support keyboard and mouse in their games on consoles now, meaning with all the crybabies whinging about "muh competition" it will never happen on a large scale.
They tried it with UT3, not sure why they can't just group k/m users together, separate from gamepad users
 
A big see i told you so here. In the last 2-3 years i've been trying to tell internet trolls that ps5 or whatever they call it would not launch until 2020. and boom heres that confirmation. don't doubt me.
What if Sony comes out at E3 time and says guess what the PS5 is ready in November, just to throw everyone for a loop?
 
What if Sony comes out at E3 time and says guess what the PS5 is ready in November, just to throw everyone for a loop?
Well it’d be real weird with Death Stranding releasing then as well. I don’t see them splitting the game between two platforms at launch when they can just “remaster” it later for sales on the PS5. They ain’t Nintendo releasing a new Zelda on two systems at once.

But it could happen
 
Well it’d be real weird with Death Stranding releasing then as well. I don’t see them splitting the game between two platforms at launch when they can just “remaster” it later for sales on the PS5. They ain’t Nintendo releasing a new Zelda on two systems at once.

But it could happen

They did practically confirm PS4 games will run on the PS5.
I hope PS1-PS4 will (they did file a patent for it)
But I'm not holding my breath.
 
They're using AMD because they're not giving AMD a lot of money, and because they don't want to pay for better quality Intel and Nvidia parts.
Hey now, it can be argued that AMD parts are just as high quality.

But I may be odd in the sense that quality to me is not a measure of performance. More reliability in a way I suppose. Which outside of drivers and the test escapes debacle I’d hardly determine any of them to be more or less reliable than the others. Iunno, I’m just arguing for the fun of it.
 
Hey now, it can be argued that AMD parts are just as high quality.

Well, to continue for the fun of it ( ;) ), I think I used the wrong word. AMD ships quality parts. However, if Sony and MS were willing to pay for it, they'd be able to get more performance elsewhere if they so desired.

Though they'd need to as for significantly more performance than they are offering for this next generation of consoles for it to be outside of AMD's capabilities. Intel could get them higher single-core performance at a lower wattage, and Nvidia could get them more rendering performance at a lower wattage and bring hardware ray tracing to the table. You know, if anyone was up for a US$2,000 console :D.
 
What if Sony comes out at E3 time and says guess what the PS5 is ready in November, just to throw everyone for a loop?

After they told their investors that it won't be out until later next year? Won't happen. Beyond that, it would be completely impossible to do as they haven't had enough time to build enough systems. Assuming AMD is mass producing the new PS5 APUs, and they might not be ready to, they wouldn't have been doing so for more than a month or so.
 
Well, to continue for the fun of it ( ;) ), I think I used the wrong word. AMD ships quality parts. However, if Sony and MS were willing to pay for it, they'd be able to get more performance elsewhere if they so desired.

Though they'd need to as for significantly more performance than they are offering for this next generation of consoles for it to be outside of AMD's capabilities. Intel could get them higher single-core performance at a lower wattage, and Nvidia could get them more rendering performance at a lower wattage and bring hardware ray tracing to the table. You know, if anyone was up for a US$2,000 console :D.

I think it's very possible with Zen 2 that AMD will be the faster single thread.
 
I think it's very possible with Zen 2 that AMD will be the faster single thread.

...than Skylake that is five years old, possibly. We're still waiting for independent reviews, but we can say with high certainty that they're 'close enough'.

However, Intel could offer Ice Lake, given the release window involved, and AMD hasn't produced a part that could compete with Intel in the lower wattage envelopes desirable for consoles since Intel released the original Core / Pentium M processors. And when you cap wattage, on consoles the same as with laptops (and phones and tablets and...) the variables change.

From a requirements perspective, Intel could absolutely deliver a faster console CPU. The only problem is that they'd charge for it.
 
...than Skylake that is five years old, possibly. We're still waiting for independent reviews, but we can say with high certainty that they're 'close enough'.

However, Intel could offer Ice Lake, given the release window involved, and AMD hasn't produced a part that could compete with Intel in the lower wattage envelopes desirable for consoles since Intel released the original Core / Pentium M processors. And when you cap wattage, on consoles the same as with laptops (and phones and tablets and...) the variables change.

From a requirements perspective, Intel could absolutely deliver a faster console CPU. The only problem is that they'd charge for it.

Plus, its a lot less complicated (read: expenensive) to design a cooling system for a single chip than two separate chips, which is something they'd need if they went with an Intel CPU. There's also the fact that Nvidia seems to have managed to piss off both Microsoft and Sony to the point where those bridges are effectively burned in terms of consoles. So they'd have to go with Navi anyway and, at that point, it just makes a heck of a lot more sense to do a custom APU.
 
From a requirements perspective, Intel could absolutely deliver a faster console CPU. The only problem is that they'd charge for it.

I didn’t think consoles were necessarily trying for much faster CPUs, as they are usually Graphics and Energy constrained
 
I didn’t think consoles were necessarily trying for much faster CPUs, as they are usually Graphics and Energy constrained

They did go after CPUs, for a while- the raw computing needs of current games in a console environment are satisfied in a large part by current CPU performance. At the same time, if one wanted to crank stuff like environment destruction, do significant amounts of audio processing, and perhaps do it at 120FPS or faster?

Well, then you buy a PC :).

So no, they really aren't targeting faster CPUs, but that's largely due to self-imposed limitations. The main point is that if a certain power target were set, Intel (and Nvidia) could deliver higher performance.

design a cooling system for a single chip than two separate chips, which is something they'd need if they went with an Intel CPU

I'm skipping over the 'burned bridges' because all parties involved would get over their differences if the demand was there. Beyond that, there's no technical reason that Intel and Nvidia couldn't co-design an SoC to be produced by TSMC and used in a console, again, if the demand was there.

I'll note that I'm quite aware that the demand for such a console doesn't exist- at the unit cost involved, let alone the cost of designing and licensing, they'd never ship enough units to make a profit.

But if Sony and Microsoft wanted a console that could push out a steady 120FPS (read: sub 8ms frametimes) for 4k and for VR, well, such a beast could certainly be built today.
 
They did go after CPUs, for a while- the raw computing needs of current games in a console environment are satisfied in a large part by current CPU performance. At the same time, if one wanted to crank stuff like environment destruction, do significant amounts of audio processing, and perhaps do it at 120FPS or faster?

Well, then you buy a PC :).

So no, they really aren't targeting faster CPUs, but that's largely due to self-imposed limitations. The main point is that if a certain power target were set, Intel (and Nvidia) could deliver higher performance.



I'm skipping over the 'burned bridges' because all parties involved would get over their differences if the demand was there. Beyond that, there's no technical reason that Intel and Nvidia couldn't co-design an SoC to be produced by TSMC and used in a console, again, if the demand was there.

I'll note that I'm quite aware that the demand for such a console doesn't exist- at the unit cost involved, let alone the cost of designing and licensing, they'd never ship enough units to make a profit.

But if Sony and Microsoft wanted a console that could push out a steady 120FPS (read: sub 8ms frametimes) for 4k and for VR, well, such a beast could certainly be built today.
I'd go so far as to say there is potential for a market with such a product, but the demand is already met by the PC market, and they would likely lose money even if it weren't stupid expensive.
 
They did go after CPUs, for a while- the raw computing needs of current games in a console environment are satisfied in a large part by current CPU performance. At the same time, if one wanted to crank stuff like environment destruction, do significant amounts of audio processing, and perhaps do it at 120FPS or faster?

Well, then you buy a PC :).

So no, they really aren't targeting faster CPUs, but that's largely due to self-imposed limitations. The main point is that if a certain power target were set, Intel (and Nvidia) could deliver higher performance.



I'm skipping over the 'burned bridges' because all parties involved would get over their differences if the demand was there. Beyond that, there's no technical reason that Intel and Nvidia couldn't co-design an SoC to be produced by TSMC and used in a console, again, if the demand was there.

I'll note that I'm quite aware that the demand for such a console doesn't exist- at the unit cost involved, let alone the cost of designing and licensing, they'd never ship enough units to make a profit.

But if Sony and Microsoft wanted a console that could push out a steady 120FPS (read: sub 8ms frametimes) for 4k and for VR, well, such a beast could certainly be built today.

Everything you post is wrong or misinformation. All of it.

They aren’t targeting faster CPUs?
 
Everything you post is wrong or misinformation. All of it.

Solid refutal!

They aren’t targeting faster CPUs?

Nope. They have requirements that limit power usage, just to start, and that's for the whole SoC, and then there are costs. Throw power limits and cost out of the window and they could get a significantly faster product (from AMD or Intel / Nvidia).
 
I didn’t think consoles were necessarily trying for much faster CPUs, as they are usually Graphics and Energy constrained

Apparently you haven't been paying attention to this entire generation of consoles. The PS4, PS4 Pro, XB1, and XB1X all had solid GPUs and were fine when it came to energy consumption. The major problem with all four of them were the abysmal Jaguar CPU cores. Sony and MS consoles had severe CPU bottlenecks. This has been a problem with them since day 1. The XB1 also had some major bandwidth limitations due to their bad memory set up compared to the PS4. Despite the PS4 and XB1 being not terribly far apart in terms of CPU and GPU power, the XB1's bandwidth bottleneck caused the system to end up being a lot weaker.
 
Apparently you haven't been paying attention to this entire generation of consoles. The PS4, PS4 Pro, XB1, and XB1X all had solid GPUs and were fine when it came to energy consumption. The major problem with all four of them were the abysmal Jaguar CPU cores. Sony and MS consoles had severe CPU bottlenecks. This has been a problem with them since day 1. The XB1 also had some major bandwidth limitations due to their bad memory set up compared to the PS4. Despite the PS4 and XB1 being not terribly far apart in terms of CPU and GPU power, the XB1's bandwidth bottleneck caused the system to end up being a lot weaker.

So I’m not convinced

Let’s look at PS4 vs PS4 Pro

CPU clock went up by 30%. That’s a decent bump. So sure, they could use a bit more CPU.

Graphics power, however, went up by a almost a factor of 4x.

That shows me where the priorities lay.
 
I mean it’s fairly obvious there are limitations on consoles. They have to meet a sub 500 price point and there’s not a chance in hell it happens with a hybrid Intel/NVidia setup. Be it a single APU or multi chip setup.

AMD has far more authority in the single SoC designs that meets the requirements for Sony/MS. It’s the right choice especially now with Zen 2, Navi, PCIe 4, etc.
 
So I’m not convinced

Let’s look at PS4 vs PS4 Pro

CPU clock went up by 30%. That’s a decent bump. So sure, they could use a bit more CPU.

Graphics power, however, went up by a almost a factor of 4x.

That shows me where the priorities lay.

They could only increase the CPU so much without replacing it. Doesn't change that the system is still CPU bottlenecked.
 
So I’m not convinced

Let’s look at PS4 vs PS4 Pro

CPU clock went up by 30%. That’s a decent bump. So sure, they could use a bit more CPU.

Graphics power, however, went up by a almost a factor of 4x.

That shows me where the priorities lay.

Not really priorities, more like realities of the situation. There was 0 point adding a different CPU.
 
They could only increase the CPU so much without replacing it. Doesn't change that the system is still CPU bottlenecked.

CPU went from 1.6 to 2.4 GHz. Seems like there’s still plenty of clock there if you wanted to throw TDP budget at it and it was the biggest bottleneck. But instead the engineers decided to triple down on graphics.

That’s before even talking about changing uArch.
 
CPU went from 1.6 to 2.4 GHz. Seems like there’s still plenty of clock there if you wanted to throw TDP budget at it and it was the biggest bottleneck. But instead the engineers decided to triple down on graphics.

That’s before even talking about changing uArch.

Throwing more money at it isn't an option as they had a price point to hint. Getting a brand new CPU wasn't an option either as it would require a ton of work within the OS and API, also increasing cost. Both Sony and MS did they best they could within the constraints of a mid-generation update. If Sony didn't care about CPU power they wouldn't be paying for a Zen 3 based APU. It seems like they're trying to remove as many bottlenecks as possible, so they don't have the same issues that plagued the PS4/Pro.
 
Throwing more money at it isn't an option as they had a price point to hint. Getting a brand new CPU wasn't an option either as it would require a ton of work within the OS and API, also increasing cost. Both Sony and MS did they best they could within the constraints of a mid-generation update. If Sony didn't care about CPU power they wouldn't be paying for a Zen 3 based APU. It seems like they're trying to remove as many bottlenecks as possible, so they don't have the same issues that plagued the PS4/Pro.

I never said they should or would change the CPU. I am implying they could have bumped the CPUclock a lot more than they did instead of a going from 1.8 to 4.2 gflops on the graphics... if you really think cpu is the biggest bottleneck there.
 
CPU went from 1.6 to 2.4 GHz.
It was actually ~2.13GHz on the PS4 Pro.
Even if they clocked it to 3GHz, it would still be quite the bottleneck, but all of this is being fixed by using Ryzen 2, and should absolutely no longer bottleneck the GPU on higher-end games with high resolutions and higher frame rates.
 
It was actually ~2.13GHz on the PS4 Pro.
Even if they clocked it to 3GHz, it would still be quite the bottleneck, but all of this is being fixed by using Ryzen 2, and should absolutely no longer bottleneck the GPU on higher-end games with high resolutions and higher frame rates.

Yeah, they'd need to include a much beefier GPU to bottleneck the CPU that they're using. Makes you wonder if they haven't planned that out for the inevitable 'Pro' release, where a die shrink a few years down the road will let them up the clockspeeds and bolt on a larger GPU without increasing the per-unit cost significantly.
 
Hey now, it can be argued that AMD parts are just as high quality.

But I may be odd in the sense that quality to me is not a measure of performance. More reliability in a way I suppose. Which outside of drivers and the test escapes debacle I’d hardly determine any of them to be more or less reliable than the others. Iunno, I’m just arguing for the fun of it.
It is more that AMD is selling comparable hardware for less. Nvidia might of offered something but wanted say $100 more then what AMD offers at similar performance or maybe even less. You see the crap Nintendo got for cheap from Nvidia. Sure AMD might not make much off each sale but they have sold over 100 million console between Sony and MS.
 
Nvidia might of offered something but wanted say $100 more then what AMD offers at similar performance or maybe even less.

If you take off the cost requirement, Nvidia has the faster solutions, and at any target power envelope.

You see the crap Nintendo got for cheap from Nvidia.

Nvidia's mobile SoCs are pretty successful, far more successful than AMD's, and again, at a target power envelope, Nvidia can provide a higher-performance part.

Sure AMD might not make much off each sale but they have sold over 100 million console between Sony and MS.

They're doing well if they break even. We can't know how much they're making, but given the margins in the console market, they're likely only getting a tiny slice of the pie. Aside from the recognition, much of the benefit to AMD comes from R&D dollars and having a volume product being produced at TSMC.
 
So I’m not convinced

Let’s look at PS4 vs PS4 Pro

CPU clock went up by 30%. That’s a decent bump. So sure, they could use a bit more CPU.

Graphics power, however, went up by a almost a factor of 4x.

That shows me where the priorities lay.
Noooooooo
 
Solid refutal!



Nope. They have requirements that limit power usage, just to start, and that's for the whole SoC, and then there are costs. Throw power limits and cost out of the window and they could get a significantly faster product (from AMD or Intel / Nvidia).

IIRC, original Ryzen/Epic beat the pants off everything else performance/watt wise in the low to mid 3 GHz range. To me that sounds like a very nice range for a console processor that will run heavily optimized code. If Navi is at least good on the performance/watt scale, it seems like a winner to me for the SOC.
 
IIRC, original Ryzen/Epic beat the pants off everything else performance/watt wise in the low to mid 3 GHz range. To me that sounds like a very nice range for a console processor that will run heavily optimized code. If Navi is at least good on the performance/watt scale, it seems like a winner to me for the SOC.

If you're considering desktop parts and performance envelopes, it did pretty well. Still short of what Intel was doing for mobile parts though, and that's what they could have targeted for the PS5, which is the point I made above.

I'll also repeat that for the purpose, I don't find Zen2 to be insufficient at all for the PS5 :)
 
Yeah, they'd need to include a much beefier GPU to bottleneck the CPU that they're using. Makes you wonder if they haven't planned that out for the inevitable 'Pro' release, where a die shrink a few years down the road will let them up the clockspeeds and bolt on a larger GPU without increasing the per-unit cost significantly.

Some would perceive that as planned obsolescence but I see it as smart, cost effective, forward thinking. Not much different than what some of us do for our more extreme builds in picking core parts that will continue for many gens of gpu or storage upgrades.
 
If you're considering desktop parts and performance envelopes, it did pretty well. Still short of what Intel was doing for mobile parts though, and that's what they could have targeted for the PS5, which is the point I made above.

I'll also repeat that for the purpose, I don't find Zen2 to be insufficient at all for the PS5 :)

I'm expecting this 3rd iteration of Ryzen with it's IPC gains since original Ryzen while within the same power envelope to be a great, not just sufficient, console chip clocked around 3.2 GHz Time will tell.
 
I use the word 'sufficient' because it's 'more than enough'. I don't use the word 'great' with consoles because... they aren't ;)

For the price point and the kind of performance/graphics than can be pulled out of the weaker hardware they definitely approach great. They'd qualify for "great" if not for the long ass load times and how common frame rate issues are in games.
 
For the price point and the kind of performance/graphics than can be pulled out of the weaker hardware they definitely approach great. They'd qualify for "great" if not for the long ass load times and how common frame rate issues are in games.

Not going to disagree on the outset.

It's more that what would now be considered a mid-range CPU, which beats the pants off the Jaguar crap they used for the current generation, which you also note, works, may not be enough going forward.

I'm mostly picking on consoles being underpowered. And I wonder if it will be enough to toss in a mid-range desktop part, this time, noting that cranking the clockspeed isn't really going to be able to be ramped up, and that the computing landscape looks to change significantly this coming generation.
 
Back
Top