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[Shin]

No, Sony didn't counter Microsoft with a brief announcement of the PlayStation 5 at its annual E3 event, but some fascinating details have emerged about the PS5, its graphics solution and just how involved in the process AMD was this time around. This isn't just a story for eager console gamers, either. It's part of a larger narrative about AMD's identity and its semi-custom chip business.

Speaking to industry sources this week under conditions of anonymity, I've learned that the PS5 will use both AMD's Zen and Navi graphics architectures. What isn't clear is whether the PS5 will incorporate a beefy SoC (system on a chip) or use separate Ryzen and Navi-based components.

Right now little is known about AMD's Navi graphics architecture, other than the fact it will use the 7nm process. That detail, however, is important. As it has done numerous times with its semi-custom clients, AMD has a solid history of developing integrated and discrete GPUs with low power envelopes perfect for a console.

Forbes contributor: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasone...nys-playstation-5-vega-suffered/#60a34a7824fd
Supporting (rumor) article for the dedicated route: https://www.tweaktown.com/news/57845/playstation-5-feature-full-discrete-gpu-apu/index.html

 

[GoldenEye98]

Very interesting....this makes it sound like PS5 may be closer than we think. If 'Navi' was developed for Sony and it's supposedly finished development I don't see them waiting until 2020. Sounds like 2019 to me.

 

[THE:MILKMAN]

We'll see if this gets further corroborated but I'm not that surprised as it is what I've been seeing and saying for while now. Just need a smoking gun that shouts 2019.

 

[Shin]

After reading the whole thing it does sound very plausible, especially if you look back at Vega and everything surrounding it.
Plus PlayStation is a "sure" bet to sell x and z millions, it is a market they can gain as the high-end face-off against nVidia isn't cutting it for them.
AMD proved that they can manage the mid-range market so that along with this potential deal does makes sense to me, curious to see this how this develops further.

 

[xool]

Forbes source is an interesting read. (thnx)

Second source could be a lot of nothing, and either way what is there is open to subjective interpretation

After I had found out what this person did, I had a few questions to ask about the PS5 and what it will arrive as - especially when we look at Microsoft's upcoming Project Scorpio console. The first question I had was "will it feature a discrete GPU" to which I received a smile and a "I can't say exactly", and then I said would it feature an APU like Project Scorpio, and then there was a "no".

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/57845/playstation-5-feature-full-discrete-gpu-apu/index.html

That said there is a middle space that could fit the answers given - separate silicons on an interposer - thus GPU is not "separate", and it is not an APU either..

 

[Insane Metal]

*Forbes contributor

This should be interesting, let's see if any of it is legit.

 

[NahaNago]

It really does make it seem like the ps5 is coming out at then end of next year and the 3 year talk was simply support for the ps4. Now that I think about it with the xb1x being on sale for $450 and it being an almost decent 4k machine the ps5 could easily come out at the end of 2019 at $400-$450 and be a alright 4k machine.

edit: if you count this year and next we would have 2 years of ps4 and add in support for at least the first year of the ps5 we would have a full 3 years of ps4 and would explain the weak E3 this year.

 

[Gander]

I think it's a hard sell to get people to think about moving off their current consoles at this point. I mean a game would have to be ungodly to get me to throw down another 399.

 

[UnwrittenZero]

After this years e3 I’m in the ps5 2019 camp. That’s fine with me personally I’m ready for a new console.

 

[Leonidas]

Tweaktown put up another article a few days ago.

Industry Source: Navi will be an "RX 500 successor" and not something that kicks Vega's ass.

read more at https://www.tweaktown.com/articles/8643/ps5-powered-navi-2020-amd-making-sony-input/index.html

AMD is in no shape to compete against NVIDIA's high-end GeForce GTX 1080 Ti let alone a GTX 11 series card. This won't change in 2018, nor will it change in 2019. Vega on 7nm won't compete with GTX 1080 Ti or the next-gen Turing GPU architecture, and neither will Navi.

read more at https://www.tweaktown.com/articles/8643/ps5-powered-navi-2020-amd-making-sony-input/index2.html

Seems it's another mid-range GPU, like Polaris. Hoping it's enough to compete with nVidia's mid-range in 2020...

 

[demigod]

*Forbes contributor

This should be interesting, let's see if any of it is legit.

Yeah contributors are iffy but he did say he spoke to insiders. But really, who the hell thinks its vega instead of navi? PS4 Pro uses polaris and that only got released a couple months before the Pro.

 

[iconmaster]

*Forbes contributor

I've started to wonder if Forbes actually employs anyone.

 

[LordOfChaos]

I'm hoping they can sneak Zen 2 in there by ~2020.

Not so sure about this Navi created for PS5 thing...it's been on their roadmap for a long time. Perhaps, most probably, they saw potential for synergistic development, and funds from Sony helped bolster their research for the PC part as well. Vega was slim on R&D with the compute part and gaming part not being separated out like Nvidia.

I hope Navi isn't as behind in perf/watt as Vega, at any rate (Vega 64 consumes 150W more power at load than the GTX 1080, which is crazy).




I'm also now wondering if Microsoft is pulling the 360 again, where Sony funded part of IBM-and-co's research into the Cell, and Microsoft lifted a PPE to modify and triple for the 360. Zen and Navi seem like obvious choices for both consoles.

 

[Trogdor1123]

Is this good or bad for the next PlayStation?

 

[GoldenEye98]

The thing is the majority of the gains will come from 7nm...so releasing in 2019 will get you the biggest jump as soon as possible. After that it will be diminishing returns for years down the road.

 

[rokkerkory]

Navi has always been on AMD's roadmap. I am sure a customized 'Navi' for PS5 makes much more sense. I am happy to hear that however and probably means late 2019 or early 2020 launch! WOOT!

Exciting times again!

 

[LordOfChaos]

Here's the real lede. Interesting if true, if this is why Vega is so inefficient compared to Pascal, and if we can't expect the same from Navi because of it.

But the collaboration came at the expense of Radeon RX Vega and other in-development projects. Allegedly, Koduri saw up to a massive 2/3 of his engineering team devoted exclusively to Navi against his wishes, which resulted in a final RX Vega product Koduri was displeased with as resources and engineering hours were much lower than anticipated. As I mention in my companion report, the implication is that AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su wanted to devote more energy into its semi-custom business than its desktop graphics division.

Also, Raja left (and sounded like he was gently shoved out...) because Vega was so underperforming, but it was working with 1/3rd the resources he wanted against his wishes?

 

[GoldenEye98]

Here's the real lede. Interesting if true, if this is why Vega is so inefficient compared to Pascal, and if we can't expect the same from Navi because of it.

Yeah there's a bunch of different stories all intersecting there...it's pretty interesting. I kind of believe because I'd have to imagine the semi-custom buisness has been more lucrative for AMD than the PC gpu market. I mean a rough estimate of over 110M PS4's and Xbox Ones have been sold. That has to be a lot more than what they has sold in consumer pc gpu's over the past 4.5 years...

 

[LordOfChaos]

Yeah there's a bunch of different stories all intersecting there...it's pretty interesting. I kind of believe because I'd have to imagine the semi-custom buisness has been more lucrative for AMD than the PC gpu market. I mean a rough estimate of over 110M PS4's and Xbox Ones have been sold. That has to be a lot more than what they has sold in consumer pc gpu's over the past 4.5 years...

For units sold yeah, but console hardware also notoriously has thinner margins. Several of Nvidias pet projects are larger than all of AMDs console cashflow even with those units sold.

 

[GoldenEye98]

For units sold yeah, but console hardware also notoriously has thinner margins. Several of Nvidias pet projects are larger than all of AMDs console cashflow even with those units sold.

Yeah but if am reading that correctly it seems like the 'Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom' category is the only one not loosing money...

 

[thelastword]

Navi in PS5 was always a nobrainer and if you go to the PS5 specualation thread, you would realize these guys were not the first to deduce as much. Moreover, the amount of GPU power you will get with a new architecture at 7nm is palpable even now. People lowballing PS5 to be some low fruit 9-10TF GPU are going to be so disappointed...

 

[rokkerkory]

Navi in PS5 was always a nobrainer and if you go to the PS5 specualation thread, you would realize these guys were not the first to deduce as much. Moreover, the amount of GPU power you will get with a new architecture at 7nm is palpable even now. People lowballing PS5 to be some low fruit 9-10TF GPU are going to be so disappointed...

It’s going to be 10.1 TF!

 

[GoldenEye98]

People lowballing PS5 to be some low fruit 9-10TF GPU are going to be so disappointed...

They better start working on a decent cooling solution then..

 

[thelastword]

Of course, because MS is the only company who has ever given a decent cooling solution in a console ever and they will be the last......

Forget that the chip on 7nm will require less powerdraw aside from prior GPU solutions and architectures, forget that there are a million companies that have ultra cheap cooling solutions for GPU, CPU and APU's atm, any of which Sony could choose or perhaps even develop their own. Forget about all the NUC PC systems they had on display recently and reviewed, where the form factor is smaller than XBONEX, more powerful than XBONEX and is more than adequately cooled with a million more ports et al....... These things were shown in 2017, PS5 releases in November 2020. Technology is just at a standstill and Sony is just twiddling it's thumbs eh

 

[xool]

They better start working on a decent cooling solution then..

10TF is around 200W at 16nm, and 7nm is ~40% power of equivalent 16nm part. plus clock increases (maybe 35-40%) .. so that would be (extrapolating) 13.5TF @ 80W -well within typical console power ranges

 

[Strife In a Teacup]

So first it was 2019 PS5, then no it's years off, now it's looking like 2019 PS5 and 2020 Xbox 2?

Either way, Xbox 2 will likely be largely backwards compatible. PS5...hmmmmm.

 

[Insane Metal]

Is this good or bad for the next PlayStation?

Probably good, even if it releases in 2020 the CPU would at the very least be decent, and so would the GPU.

 

[LordOfChaos]

So first it was 2019 PS5, then no it's years off, now it's looking like 2019 PS5 and 2020 Xbox 2?

Either way, Xbox 2 will likely be largely backwards compatible. PS5...hmmmmm.

I think it would be a pretty big blunder not to be BC. I know Sony came out and said they still like solid generations, but the hardware is shaping up to be so similar, it won't be as forgivable as the completely different PS3-PS4. Still going to be 8 far more powerful x86 cores, still going to be more powerful GCN based graphics.


This has the potential to be a more seamless generation switch, where the new box already plays a killer library with upgrades, and new exclusives that really take advantage of it.

 

[Strife In a Teacup]

This has the potential to be a more seamless generation switch, where the new box already plays a killer library with upgrades, and new exclusives that really take advantage of it.

This seems the route the Xbox 2 will almost 99% certainly take. There will probably be some compromising in certain areas due to licensing issues I'm sure, but I bet overall it'll be fairly good from the get go. Or at least that's the hope.

 

[IbizaPocholo]

Ps5 - November 2019 for 399$.

 

[demigod]

Here's the real lede. Interesting if true, if this is why Vega is so inefficient compared to Pascal, and if we can't expect the same from Navi because of it.




Also, Raja left (and sounded like he was gently shoved out...) because Vega was so underperforming, but it was working with 1/3rd the resources he wanted against his wishes?

I’m glad Raja is gone, that Polaris reveal was an embarrassment. Then came Vega, another embarrassment.

So first it was 2019 PS5, then no it's years off, now it's looking like 2019 PS5 and 2020 Xbox 2?

Either way, Xbox 2 will likely be largely backwards compatible. PS5...hmmmmm.

In the thread months ago someone said it was backwards compatible. Really there shouldn’t be a reason why it wouldn’t unless sony is arrogant.

 

[bitbydeath]

MS also appears quite adamant that they will have the higher powered system so perhaps they know Sony will release a year before them aka 2019.

 

[LordOfChaos]

I’m glad Raja is gone, that Polaris reveal was an embarrassment. Then came Vega, another embarrassment.

I mean, if this story is true, I don't know about Polaris but it seems Vega was a dud because 2/3rds of his workforce were taken against his will to a future project, Navi and the semicustom PS5 thereof.

The biggest tell for all of this will be if Navi is substantially more competitive than Vega.

Remember also that AMD was only spending 1/3rd as much as Nvidia per new architecture, the results were kind of predictable just looking at that, and Raja had been behind better times there and at other companies also.


His leading of Intels GPU project will also be telling.

 

[mango drank]

I wouldn't mind a 2019 release, since I'm still on OG PS4. But as a general rule, I don't buy the first iteration of a console, so I'm glad it's looking like it'll be an early release, because I'll be able to buy a hardware revision in 2020.

 

[Fbh]

If they do release in 2019 it will be interesting to see how the strategy of releasing a year before works out for them.
On the one side they'll have a full year of being the only "next gen" console. On the other side they will probably be the weaker console for several years after 2020. Most third parties are probably not going to fully support it either and simply release their Ps4/Xb1 games on it with some enhancements. By the time most big publishers are ready to fully get into next gen Microsoft would be the ones offering the more powerful system.

 

[bitbydeath]

I just hope they get the cooling right. Pro is soooo noisy.

 

[{insert code here}]

If they do release in 2019 it will be interesting to see how the strategy of releasing a year before works out for them.
On the one side they'll have a full year of being the only "next gen" console. On the other side they will probably be the weaker console for several years after 2020. Most third parties are probably not going to fully support it either and simply release their Ps4/Xb1 games on it with some enhancements. By the time most big publishers are ready to fully get into next gen Microsoft would be the ones offering the more powerful system.

Whomever gets first to market usually becomes the market leader. PS1, PS2(kinda first), 360, and now PS4.

I think Sony is aware of this and are intent on beating MS to the market when next gen arrives.

 

[Xiaoki]

Whomever gets first to market usually becomes the market leader. PS1, PS2(kinda first), 360, and now PS4.

I think Sony is aware of this and are intent on beating MS to the market when next gen arrives.

The Saturn came out before the PS1, the Dreamcast came out before the PS2, the 360 was beat handily by the Wii and tied with the PS3 and PS4 did come out first but by a week.

So, your little adage of "whomever gets to market first becomes the market leader" is not true.

 

[Fbh]

Whomever gets first to market usually becomes the market leader. PS1, PS2(kinda first), 360, and now PS4.

I think Sony is aware of this and are intent on beating MS to the market when next gen arrives.

But all of those consoles have other reasons why they ended up being market leaders. Take the Ps4 for example, I don't think it's because they released a month before. It was combination of the bad PR Microsoft got from their original idea for the Xb1 and the fact that the Ps4 was not only $100 cheaper but even performed better in multiplatform games. Also the 360 had a strong lead early on but ended up pretty much in a tie with the Ps3 by the end of the gen
And as the person above me pointed out, Sega tried the whole "release first" strategy twice with terrible results.

 

[Bryank75]

I have that console money ready, one of my favorite events is buying a new console.

 

[Nikana]

Whomever gets first to market usually becomes the market leader. PS1, PS2(kinda first), 360, and now PS4.

I think Sony is aware of this and are intent on beating MS to the market when next gen arrives.

A. This is so wrong. Saturn and dreamcast beat both ps1 and ps2 too market.

It's not so much who gets out first, it's about who had the strongest start. The PS4 had the best advertising ever with the Xbox one being $100 more expensive and no PR disaster.

360 had a huge price advantage and the benefit of the arrogance of Sony at the launch of the PS3. Which both lost to the Wii.

 

[TONX]

I just hope they get the cooling right. Pro is soooo noisy.

Huh. Mine doesn't ever make a peep.

 

[bitbydeath]

Huh. Mine doesn't ever make a peep.

God of War and Ratchet and Clank are extremely noisy on mine.

 

[down 2 orth]

Well as long as they can enhance the texture output to upclock the megafeed, I'll be fine.

 

[MrRenegade]

God of War and Ratchet and Clank are extremely noisy on mine.

I don't understand how on earth people hear their consoles while limbs are flyin...

 

[Amerzel]

If they do release in 2019 it will be interesting to see how the strategy of releasing a year before works out for them.
On the one side they'll have a full year of being the only "next gen" console. On the other side they will probably be the weaker console for several years after 2020. Most third parties are probably not going to fully support it either and simply release their Ps4/Xb1 games on it with some enhancements. By the time most big publishers are ready to fully get into next gen Microsoft would be the ones offering the more powerful system.

I hope they do launch a PS5 in 2019. I think it would setup an interesting dynamic with Microsoft assuming they are launching in 2020. It will be interesting to see how both companies message new consoles to consumers and what they focus on.

The excuse for the mid-gen refreshes was 4K. Most new games run at or close to 4K already on those newer systems. They’ll obviously run, look, and feel better but games already run, look, and feel really damn good. I think most people here would point to framerate being the biggest potential improvement but that’s trickier to message to the average consumer.

 

[MrRenegade]

This whole GPU debacle... It's just shit and smokescreen. AMD provides graphics for Microsoft and Sony too. I don't know under what licensing and how they separate the two GPU development, but usually this looks somehow like this:

GPU for Sony - 2nd floor
GPU for Microsoft - 1st floor

Biggest headache for AMD? How to isolate the Y development team while X console developer's people are in for a visit.

This happened with the previous gen's cpu which was made by IBM for both sides. The PS3 had the cell processor, and the research that went into that CPU literally included into Xenos because IBM owned all the IP rights. There will be close to zero difference GPU wise.

 

[Dante83]

Rumored specs don't seem impressive. Not the generational leap that screams "next gen". I am expecting 4k at 30 fps at most. I want to see companies push for 4k, 60 fps with no problem...

 

[llien]

High End is too risky for AMD to focus on. Mid range is where they scored victory over nVidia back in Fermi times and had upper hand for some time after.

I wouldn't view this as "because consoles".

Rumored specs don't seem impressive. Not the generational leap that screams "next gen". I am expecting 4k at 30 fps at most. I want to see companies push for 4k, 60 fps with no problem...

We can have 4k 30fps today, if graphics complexity is dropped.
When GPUs get more beef, aside from upping resolution (because new TVs are out) the surplus "budget" is spent on improving graphics, rather than higher FPS.

So, I think we are at 30fps mainly because nobody is treating better framerates as high priority.

 

[Handy Fake]

High End is too risky for AMD to focus on. Mid range is where they scored victory over nVidia back in Fermi times and had upper hand for some time after.

I wouldn't view this as "because consoles".


We can have 4k 30fps today, if graphics complexity is dropped.
When GPUs get more beef, aside from upping resolution (because new TVs are out) the surplus "budget" is spent on improving graphics, rather than higher FPS.

So, I think we are at 30fps mainly because nobody is treating better framerates as high priority.

That's the way I've always seen it too.