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Pachter: PS5 to be a half step, release in 2019 with PS4 BC

longdi

Banned
Make no sense for Sony to make ps5 too early. Amd gpu is in a rut cycle, ps4 is cruising-2 more price drops to go, xbox1x ain't gonna compete and the threat of mobile devices have waned.

Wiser to wait for 18tflops gpu with 24gb of hbm3 and the likes. The fastest gpu today barely runs today's game at 4k 60.
 

12Dannu123

Member
It is pretty clear Sony are setting up PSNow for the future. Streaming devices are getting more and more, with computing power in all sorts of devices going up as well. In a few years dedicated consoles might not be THAT important anymore. At some point in the future you will be able to stream games to many devices, not just Playstations and PCs. THAT is what they are setting up. Sony wants to remain in business when physical consoles lose their relevance.

So does that mean PSVR ecosystem is a dying platform then?

If you get rid of BC, you get rid of PSVR ecosystem, and also for what you're saying to work, you need OS level access.
 

Shin

Banned
I wish I was so confident even if PS5 is 3 years out which really isn't that long in this game. Looking at Vega FE and it's 300W TDP I can't see that Sony/AMD could get close to a whole system with 11-12TF+4/8 CPU cores in the 150-200W at the wall range from mainly a die shrink to 7nm. Even if Navi is used, what realistically could be expected of arch improvements? Power consumption looks like a real problem for AMD right now.

I don't know if the power consumption is different between FE and the other variations, what I'm seeing on Videocardz is 285w.
RX480 is 150w so that's a big difference between that GPU and the rest and probably paved way for the console manufacturers to make better use of it (less cut down in perf.).
60% power reduction over 14nm is a lot, if I calculated it correctly that would result in a 120w Vega solely based on the shrink, there's probably more to this so let's say 150w realistically.
Zen2/3 mobile will draw somewhere between 15-25w, so yeah it's possible they could even push the envelope to 250w (I'd hope they do seeing the increase power of the system).
You get some "free" graphical power from newer architecture, don't know how much, just saying that 11-12TF is within the realms of possibility especially if they'll go for $499.

I think Navi power consumption will be the real determining factor. That architecture has different leads on it than Vega, right?
Yes, first GPU under Raja Koduri's leadership (not sure if he's designing it or whether he just calls the shots).
 
Make no sense for Sony to make ps5 too early. Amd gpu is in a rut cycle, ps4 is cruising-2 more price drops to go, xbox1x ain't gonna compete and the threat of mobile devices have waned.

Wiser to wait for 18tflops gpu with 24gb of hbm3 and the likes. The fastest gpu today barely runs today's game at 4k 60.

Define "too early". Because the thing you're waiting for is stuff for a 2022/3 console / PS5 Pro.

There are several reasons for a "early" 2019 release, having a proper head start towards the competition and inevitaby declining PS4 sales and PSN subs are one of them. Sure, XBOX could - and probably will - launch a stronger one shortly after, but it's them who'll set the benchmark for next generation games.
 

MilkyJoe

Member
Games perform OK for the most part, their approach is inherently inaccurate but that's subjective I suppose. The problem, which in part leads to the really poor compatibility is they force you to DL a package of the game with the 360 OS for every game, this isn't really a good BC solution at all. There were also hard technical limitations with it until recently namely multi-disk games.

No, the games more often than not outperform the 360 version. And the download is a small price to pay. The OS does not add any significant size to the download. Do you even use it?

What % of X360 library does X1 BC currently?

401 out of 1220 games, to date, and counting. Not too shabby at all.
 

c0de

Member
Not sure how the system works exactly, generally when you play as you go you're usually still waiting on a large chunk of a game (PC space/MMO's) to be downloaded/be ready before you can play.

It copies every data read from disc to disk.

How long does it take to install and play a game on PS4?

It depends completely on the game. Some games can be played almost immediately with opening levels while the rest is copied over in the background, other games take way longer to actually start the game. It depends on the devs how they use the system.
 

Shin

Banned
Tidux any good at prediction or being insider or is he even one?

64183a57aa.png
 

Theonik

Member
360 games run better on Xbox One than 360, so Xbox One BC program is bad.

What's wrong with your mind?
It's not accurate. There is also small glitches that happen because of it. The vsync also adds lag. But again the bigger sticking point is compatibility and having to dl the games.
 

MilkyJoe

Member
It's not accurate. There is also small glitches that happen because of it. The vsync also adds lag. But again the bigger sticking point is compatibility and having to dl the games.

It beats the shit out of the "alternative" method, or none at all.
 

MilkyJoe

Member
No shit. That doesn't make it good. I'll quote what you originally replied to:

Which is completely wrong, BC on Xbox One is absolutely fine. Is it ideal to have to DL the whole 7GB? No, but leave it for 30 minutes, do off and have a slice of toast and a cup of tea, come back, play with a better frame rate and in silent, compared to the 360.
 

Theonik

Member
Which is completely wrong, BC on Xbox One is absolutely fine. Is it ideal to have to DL the whole 7GB? No, but leave it for 30 minutes, do off and have a slice of toast and a cup of tea, come back, play with a better frame rate and in silent, compared to the 360.
Wake me up when I can play Mushihimesama Futari on the Xbox One.
 

bombshell

Member
Tidux any good at prediction or being insider or is he even one?

64183a57aa.png

lol tidux

Also there is 0% chance that PS5 will be revealed 1.5 years before release. XB1 sales have already cratered, so it's a very bad strategy and not desirable to do for the market leader.
 

THE:MILKMAN

Member
I don't know if the power consumption is different between FE and the other variations, what I'm seeing on Videocardz is 285w.
RX480 is 150w so that's a big difference between that GPU and the rest and probably paved way for the console manufacturers to make better use of it (less cut down in perf.).
60% power reduction over 14nm is a lot, if I calculated it correctly that would result in a 120w Vega solely based on the shrink, there's probably more to this so let's say 150w realistically.
Zen2/3 mobile will draw somewhere between 15-25w, so yeah it's possible they could even push the envelope to 250w (I'd hope they do seeing the increase power of the system).
You get some "free" graphical power from newer architecture, don't know how much, just saying that 11-12TF is within the realms of possibility especially if they'll go for $499

The problem as always in these discussions is that there is only talk of what the GPU/CPU (includes RAM though!) power consumption is. A console is a whole system that uses power/watts for:
APU
RAM (8GB GDDR5)
Blu Ray drive
Bluetooth/WiFi
HDD
Network Co-Processor
1GB GDDR3 for above (PS4 Pro)
Various other chips
System Fan (this alone is rated for 25W in PS4 Pro!)
Power supply loses

The above adds up to 150W/155W at the wall for PS4/PS4 Pro. As for how much power reduction a die shrink delivers, 60% is pretty optimistic. One S (albeit with a slight GPU upclock) saw a 25-40% power reduction and a 34% shrink going from 28nm to 16nm TSMC according to DF's numbers.

I highly doubt Sony or anyone can/will go to 200W again though One X might push around this because 6TF of Polaris is just so power hungry.
 

Shin

Banned
The problem as always in these discussions is that there is only talk of what the GPU/CPU (includes RAM though!) power consumption is. A console is a whole system that uses power/watts for:

You were talking only about the GPU of which I answered and how much power they could reduce from just a die shrink.
I think we're all aware of what's inside a console :p or at least I'd certainly hope so.
 

THE:MILKMAN

Member
You were talking only about the GPU of which I answered and how much power they could reduce from just a die shrink.
I think we're all aware of what's inside a console :p or at least I'd certainly hope so.

That isn't true as I even said whole system in the post you quoted but it doesn't matter.....The point is I'm being much more conservative than most in this thread and that served me well since the PS4 Pro rumour thread.

I'm just confused why you keep coming off as very defensive, Shin? I hope I don't come off as someone having a go at you?
 

Shin

Banned
That isn't true as I even said whole system in the post you quoted but it doesn't matter.....The point is I'm being much more conservative than most in this thread and that served me well since the PS4 Pro rumour thread.

I'm just confused why you keep coming off as very defensive, Shin? I hope I don't come off as someone having a go at you?

Nothing to defend or be defensive about so not sure where you got that idea from :p
Just hard to keep up with conversation since things escalate from one thing to the other really fast.
 

THE:MILKMAN

Member
Nothing to defend or be defensive about so not sure where you got that idea from :p
Just hard to keep up with conversation since things escalate from one thing to the other really fast.

Okay Shin, thanks for clearing that up. Just for the record I'll list what specs I think PS5 will sport unless or until solid leaks (or Matt!) claim otherwise:

+-10TF APU with custom Vega/Navi GPU and 4/8 Ryzen mobile-based Zen cores
16GB RAM (GDDR5x, GDDR6, or even HBM2)
Everything else is just standard parts as seen in PS4/Pro updated/iterated for PS5.

The above for a late 2019 launch. They could increase a bit if late 2020.

Anything more than that would be a bonus for me personally.
 
Okay Shin, thanks for clearing that up. Just for the record I'll list what specs I think PS5 will sport unless or until solid leaks (or Matt!) claim otherwise:

+-10TF APU with custom Vega/Navi GPU and 4/8 Ryzen mobile-based Zen cores
16GB RAM (GDDR5x, GDDR6, or even HBM2)
Everything else is just standard parts as seen in PS4/Pro updated/iterated for PS5.

The above for a late 2019 launch. They could increase a bit if late 2020.

Anything more than that would be a bonus for me personally.

Pretty much what I believe as well. Could go up to 12TF and 24GB of RAM if the stars align, but I wouldn't bet on it.
 
The problem as always in these discussions is that there is only talk of what the GPU/CPU (includes RAM though!) power consumption is. A console is a whole system that uses power/watts for:
APU
RAM (8GB GDDR5)
Blu Ray drive
Bluetooth/WiFi
HDD
Network Co-Processor
1GB GDDR3 for above (PS4 Pro)
Various other chips
System Fan (this alone is rated for 25W in PS4 Pro!)
Power supply loses

The above adds up to 150W/155W at the wall for PS4/PS4 Pro. As for how much power reduction a die shrink delivers, 60% is pretty optimistic. One S (albeit with a slight GPU upclock) saw a 25-40% power reduction and a 34% shrink going from 28nm to 16nm TSMC according to DF's numbers.

I highly doubt Sony or anyone can/will go to 200W again though One X might push around this because 6TF of Polaris is just so power hungry.

As of Sony's own published max. power consumption figures for the systems (see: here) they are much higher than that:

PS4: Max. 165 W
PS4 Pro.: Max. 310 W

Of course these will be the absolute maximum numbers, based on Sony's own internal stress testing of the consoles for their designed cooling systems.

Since the discussion here is about design of PS5, Sony's target TDP for PS5 will be much closer to the 165W figure of the base PS4 system, which is already higher than your quoted 150-155 W.

PS4 Pro being designed to cope with more than 300 W, with a forced convective air cooling system, means Sony has no problems going as high as this, even though I suspect they won't for the base PS5 console.
 

Theonik

Member
These numbers are the power supply design wattage but power supplies can overload, just not safely so. People talk about the power draw of major components only because they are the main consideration for cooling. You can get away with a much higher total wattage on a separate GPU/CPU than in an APU simply because the two components occupy different spaces.

Edit: HBM2 has been completely superseded by GDDR6 for mainstream designs HBM3 needs to hurry up or HBM might end up the way of Rambus.
 
Okay Shin, thanks for clearing that up. Just for the record I'll list what specs I think PS5 will sport unless or until solid leaks (or Matt!) claim otherwise:

+-10TF APU with custom Vega/Navi GPU and 4/8 Ryzen mobile-based Zen cores
16GB RAM (GDDR5x, GDDR6, or even HBM2)
Everything else is just standard parts as seen in PS4/Pro updated/iterated for PS5.

The above for a late 2019 launch. They could increase a bit if late 2020.

Anything more than that would be a bonus for me personally.

Not to come across as confrontational, but you claim to be more conservative than most and yet your speculated specs. are simply a mirror of what many people in this thread have already said.

I know one or two have come in and speculated at 16-20 TFLOPs GPUs, but they certainly haven't been the majority as I've seen.

Your specs. above aren't what I would consider (more) conservative for a late 2019 launch. In fact, the fact that you're considering the possibility of an 8c Zen or HBM2 (Samsung's low power HBM would be much more likely than HBM2, imho -- even if the likelihood of HBM at all is low) indicates that you're just as hopeful as the rest of us
*wink*
.

And I know we've gone back and forth on the feasibility of a late 2019 launch over a 2020. So it's nice to see that you're now a believer on that point :) lol
 
It's probably good to note that even Samsung which is leader in the memory market space doesn't list HBM2 for consoles, but it could be specific to these 8GB chips: http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/about-us/news/26761/hbm2
Case in point I think we can let that dream sail because even if they would get it at a discounted price it would still cost too much (if 8GB is $160 for AMD).

Source?

That can't possibly be right, can it?
 
These numbers are the power supply design wattage but power supplies can overload, just not safely so. People talk about the power draw of major components only because they are the main consideration for cooling.

Which numbers?

Also, yes cooling is the primary consideration for system power consumption, but iirc, there are some European regulations on power consumption that system designers have to consider. That may be on idle power consumption only, though.

You can get away with a much higher total wattage on a separate GPU/CPU than in an APU simply because the two components occupy different spaces.

Actually, I whilst I agree in principle, you still have an upper limit on the max. amount of heat you can dissipate using a given max. flow of air through a given console volume (fan noise is a consideration here). The more total heat you're required to dissipate, crudely, the larger your console volume needs to be in order to do this effectively while minimizing noise. Of course you will have some wiggle room with the operating temperature profile, but not that much.

Additionally, your cooling system is both simpler and cheaper with a single "chip" solution, since you have only one heat source, e.g. you can plop the heatsink directly on-top of the chip.
 
Which numbers?

Also, yes cooling is the primary consideration for system power consumption, but iirc, there are some European regulations on power consumption that system designers have to consider. That may be on idle power consumption only, though.

They're supposed to self regulate bearing game mode power consumption in mind but it sounds ineffective, the latest two models demonstrate that.
 

THE:MILKMAN

Member
As of Sony's own published max. power consumption figures for the systems (see: here) they are much higher than that:

PS4: Max. 165 W
PS4 Pro.: Max. 310 W

Of course these will be the absolute maximum numbers, based on Sony's own internal stress testing of the consoles for their designed cooling systems.

Since the discussion here is about design of PS5, Sony's target TDP for PS5 will be much closer to the 165W figure of the base PS4 system, which is already higher than your quoted 150-155 W.

PS4 Pro being designed to cope with more than 300 W, with a forced convective air cooling system, means Sony has no problems going as high as this, even though I suspect they won't for the base PS5 console.

Those figures are just the rated power of the PSU, right? Sony just confusing things! I always thought the main reason Sony did this is that a PSU is most efficient at 40-50% load and therefore kicked out the least amount of heat in the smaller internal space of Sony consoles?

Although saying that Microsoft only have 245W PSU in an even smaller space so maybe not?

TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
Not to come across as confrontational, but you claim to be more conservative than most and yet your speculated specs. are simply a mirror of what many people in this thread have already said.

I know one or two have come in and speculated at 16-20 TFLOPs GPUs, but they certainly haven't been the majority as I've seen.

Your specs. above aren't what I would consider (more) conservative for a late 2019 launch. In fact, the fact that you're considering the possibility of an 8c Zen or HBM2 (Samsung's low power HBM would be much more likely than HBM2, imho -- even if the likelihood of HBM at all is low) indicates that you're just as hopeful as the rest of us *wink*.

And I know we've gone back and forth on the feasibility of a late 2019 launch over a 2020. So it's nice to see that you're now a believer on that point :) lol

Not just Zen as in desktop but a custom version of the Mobile version. I listed the three types of RAM just to cover all possible options. I'm not necessarily a believer in 2019 (or any date) just from what I've read about the foundries and the design process of these chips the last week I'm not confident at all right now a 7nm chip in the size and quantity of a PS5 APU can be delivered in exactly two years (full production would have to start around August 2019).
 

Theonik

Member
Which numbers?

Also, yes cooling is the primary consideration for system power consumption, but iirc, there are some European regulations on power consumption that system designers have to consider. That may be on idle power consumption only, though.
The 'Max Draw' figures that manufacturers specify.
As far as the EU regulation goes, it regulates distinct operating modes, stand-by and forces the use of certain auto-shutdown features. They don't set a power limit for primary modes though.

Actually, I whilst I agree in principle, you still have an upper limit on the max. amount of heat you can dissipate using a given max. flow of air through a given console volume (fan noise is a consideration here). The more total heat you're required to dissipate, crudely, the larger your console volume needs to be in order to do this effectively while minimizing noise. Of course you will have some wiggle room with the operating temperature profile, but not that much.

Additionally, your cooling system is both simpler and cheaper with a single "chip" solution, since you have only one heat source, e.g. you can plop the heatsink directly on-top of the chip.
That implies your cooling is near 100% efficient, which it is unlikely to be. It's how Microsoft managed to make the XBO X smaller than the XBO S despite the former consuming more power. The vapour chamber solution they use adds more expense though. These are all trade-offs and depend on what you wish to achieve. You may well just plop a heatsinc on an APU but that doesn't do much work spreading and dissipating heat. The goal is to distribute heat in as large a surface area as you can so that you can dissipate it into the air.
 

Shin

Banned
As of Sony's own published max. power consumption figures for the systems (see: here) they are much higher than that:

PS4 Pro.: Max. 310 W

Of course these will be the absolute maximum numbers, based on Sony's own internal stress testing of the consoles for their designed cooling systems.

That's higher than I thought, guess I was confused with base model drawing somewhere in the 150w.
On the other hand it also bode well for PS5, there's only so much Sony can do to bring the consumption down.
 
As of Sony's own published max. power consumption figures for the systems (see: here) they are much higher than that:

PS4: Max. 165 W
PS4 Pro.: Max. 310 W

Of course these will be the absolute maximum numbers, based on Sony's own internal stress testing of the consoles for their designed cooling systems.

Since the discussion here is about design of PS5, Sony's target TDP for PS5 will be much closer to the 165W figure of the base PS4 system, which is already higher than your quoted 150-155 W.

PS4 Pro being designed to cope with more than 300 W, with a forced convective air cooling system, means Sony has no problems going as high as this, even though I suspect they won't for the base PS5 console.
OG PS4 does not exceed 151W (KZ:SF).

Sources:

http://energyusecalculator.com/electricity_gameconsole.htm
http://www.psdevwiki.com/ps4/Power_Usage
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/11/playstation-4-hardware-review-off-to-a-mixed-start/

IIRC, PS4 Pro can go up to 170W while running RoTR at 1080p60 (1080p30 Enhanced graphics mode goes up to 130W).

For reference, OG PS3 had a 380W PSU and it didn't exceed 200W at most.

It's probably good to note that even Samsung which is leader in the memory market space doesn't list HBM2 for consoles, but it could be specific to these 8GB chips: http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/about-us/news/26761/hbm2
Case in point I think we can let that dream sail because even if they would get it at a discounted price it would still cost too much (if 8GB is $160 for AMD).
HBM3/LCHBM is where it's at.

At the very least, we should expect 16 x 2GB GDDR6 chips, for a total of 32GB RAM at 256-bit bus (clamshell mode).

Why do people think this is unreasonable? By 2020 this should cost the same as 8GB of GDDR5 (16 x 512MB chips) in 2013 ($88).

Lithography progress alone (28nm -> 7nm) should easily enable a 4x jump (I know that DRAM chips use slightly different nodes, but my point still stands). 4x compared to what we used to get (16x every gen) is not that far-fetched IMHO.
 

Leyasu

Banned
Games perform OK for the most part, their approach is inherently inaccurate but that's subjective I suppose. The problem, which in part leads to the really poor compatibility is they force you to DL a package of the game with the 360 OS for every game, this isn't really a good BC solution at all. There were also hard technical limitations with it until recently namely multi-disk games.

Wtf are you talking about dude?

360 bc kicks arse, and as others have mentioned normally gives a perf boost. The download is nothing as well. Whilst nothing is perfect, it does the job very well.
 
I'm with tapantaola on the more than 16GB RAM train. I don't know about 32GB, but at 16GB and only ~12 available to devs I'd bet that'd become a bottleneck really fast.
 

horkrux

Member
It's not accurate. There is also small glitches that happen because of it. The vsync also adds lag. But again the bigger sticking point is compatibility and having to dl the games.

Inaccurate? Wat

I've only ever read of an extremely small number of visual glitches, one of them was fixed (Halo Reach). What games are you thinking of in particular?
When I think of 'inaccurate' I think of emulators like PCSX2, and that's a whole different ball park of glitches. You get glitches everywhere with these things.
With 360 BC I can play entire games without encountering glitches. That's fucking unheard of, but not that big of a surprise, since it's not really emulation.
 

Shin

Banned
At the very least, we should expect 16 x 2GB GDDR6 chips, for a total of 32GB RAM at 256-bit bus (clamshell mode).

Why do people think this is unreasonable? By 2020 this should cost the same as 8GB of GDDR5 (16 x 512MB chips) in 2013 ($88).

Lithography progress alone (28nm -> 7nm) should easily enable a 4x jump (I know that DRAM chips use slightly different nodes, but my point still stands). 4x compared to what we used to get (16x every gen) is not that far-fetched IMHO.

Actually you just reminded me that Samsung will start manufacturing chips on 7nm.
It completely went over my head that there will be savings there as well which could affect the amount we end up seeing.
Though I'd say 24GB seems more realistic, no extra DD4L pool, but is it wise to have everything access the same memory at the same time?
 

THE:MILKMAN

Member
If a ps5 was within the next 2 years wouldnt dev kits or dev kit specs been sent out to developers?

I doubt any kits are in any devs hands quite yet but they won't have to wait too much longer if 2019 is the target launch date. Matt (a dev) has intimated vague details/specs have been shared.

Saying that though and given games now need at least three years dev time I do wonder how it all fits together!?
 

Theonik

Member
Inaccurate? Wat

I've only ever read of an extremely small number of visual glitches, one of them was fixed (Halo Reach). What games are you thinking of in particular?
When I think of 'inaccurate' I think of emulators like PCSX2, and that's a whole different ball park of glitches. You get glitches everywhere with these things.
With 360 BC I can play entire games without encountering glitches. That's fucking unheard of, but not that big of a surprise, since it's not really emulation.
Performance boosts require software to run with inaccurate timing that causes rare visual glitches, though MS has been able to address those in a relatively timely fashion like you mentioned. But that point is quite controversial anyway. Higher performance is in itself inaccurate which is why people like it to begin with! This has been very controversial with ports in the Shmup community for instance where ports are expected to match the original slowdown as seen in the original hardware.
 
Actually you just reminded me that Samsung will start manufacturing chips on 7nm.
It completely went over my head that there will be savings there as well which could affect the amount we end up seeing.
Though I'd say 24GB seems more realistic, no extra DD4L pool, but is it wise to have everything access the same memory at the same time?
24GB is a weird quantity. It would require a 384-bit bus, which would drive up costs (PCB traces, APU pin count etc.) 192-bit bus would feel really underwhelming.

256-bit bus might also be a perfect fit for PS4 BC.
 

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
24GB is a weird quantity. It would require a 384-bit bus, which would drive up costs (PCB traces, APU pin count etc.) 192-bit bus would feel really underwhelming.

256-bit bus might also be a perfect fit for PS4 BC.
I could see a 384 bit bus just to get the extra bandwidth out of it if they use GDDR6. I think we're going to see over 500gb/s.
 
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