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[WIRED] Exclusive with Mark Cerny, PS5 specs detailed

The comment about the SSD is cryptic.

Cerny says it has bandwidth higher than any PC SSD. But what exactly does that mean? SATA SSD or NVMe? Or maybe it has some kind of cache that allows very high burst speeds?

If he means faster than any PC NVMe drive then that's both very impressive and very confusing.

We are talking about loading times for games here, and despite NVMe being 5-7x faster than SATA based SSD's, the load times on NVMe only offer a ONE SECOND advantage over SATA SSD's. I don't know why but you can check any number of NVMe benchmark videos and they will show you HDD = 47seconds, SSD = 17 seconds, NVMe = 16 seconds. And that kind of ratio repeats itself again and again.

So if NVMe only offers a minor advantage over SATA SSD's then why bother with something faster and presumably more expensive?

BTW - My first post! Happy to be here.
 
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Ivellios

Member
This surpassed my expectations easily, might be the first console i buy on the first month after launch.

Im so glad it will be able to run raytracing, i can only imagine what Last Of Us 2, God of War, Horizon, Uncharted will look like with raytracing.
 
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ethomaz

Banned
I actually think it will be a soldered BGA NVMe, not M2.... same speed but smaller and cheaper

0e4c7af4df1b6a67fffd608f51217b1f_XL.jpg
It will probably use PCIe 4.0 that is part of Zen 2 that is why Cerny says it is faster than any actual tech because both M2 and BGA NVMe uses PCIe 3.0 bus.
 
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DragoonKain

Neighbours from Hell
Might have been mentioned in here already, but With how expensive SSD’s are, and the fact that being PS5 game installs are going to be huge, to I’m guessing at least 1tb drives, if not even 2tb drives are going to be default at launch, they are either going to take a huge hit at launch to keep it at $400 or under, or it’s gonna be really expensive. Can’t see them launching a console more than $400 again after the ps3 disaster. Maybe they have a $400 1tb model and a $450 2tb model or something.
 

ethomaz

Banned
The comment about the SSD is cryptic.

Cerny says it has bandwidth higher than any PC SSD. But what exactly does that mean? SATA SSD or NVMe? Or maybe it has some kind of cache that allows very high burst speeds?

If he means faster than any PC NVMe drive then that's both very impressive and very confusing.

We are talking about loading times for games here, and despite NVMe being 5-7x faster than SATA based SSD's, the load times on NVMe only offer a ONE SECOND advantage over SATA SSD's. I don't know why but you can check any number of NVMe benchmark videos and they will show you HDD = 47seconds, SSD = 17 seconds, NVMe = 16 seconds. And that kind of ratio repeats itself again and again.

So if NVMe only offers a minor advantage over SATA SSD's then why bother with something faster and presumably more expensive?

BTW - My first post! Happy to be here.
That means PCIe 4.0 that is part of Zen 2 specification... M.2 NVMe uses PCIe 3.0.

AnandTech said better...

Presumably, this is a veiled reference to PCIe 4.0, which we know that AMD’s Zen 2 processor family supports and would allow for peak transfer rates that are twice as high as one of today’s equivalent PCIe 3.0 drives. But as this is a custom console, proprietary solutions are not off the table.
 
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joe_zazen

Member
The comment about the SSD is cryptic.

Cerny says it has bandwidth higher than any PC SSD. But what exactly does that mean? SATA SSD or NVMe? Or maybe it has some kind of cache that allows very high burst speeds?

If he means faster than any PC NVMe drive then that's both very impressive and very confusing.

We are talking about loading times for games here, and despite NVMe being 5-7x faster than SATA based SSD's, the load times on NVMe only offer a ONE SECOND advantage over SATA SSD's. I don't know why but you can check any number of NVMe benchmark videos and they will show you HDD = 47seconds, SSD = 17 seconds, NVMe = 16 seconds. And that kind of ratio repeats itself again and again.

So if NVMe only offers a minor advantage over SATA SSD's then why bother with something faster and presumably more expensive?

BTW - My first post! Happy to be here.

Because there are no games or engines built to take advantage of what nvme on pcie has to offer—which is enormous number of iops, huge bandwidth, & exponentially better queuing—you cannot just look at pc ssds and understand the potential. Load times are only on facet. It is a shame that it looks like only Sony will be building games fully leveraging this tech.
 
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Ovech-King

Gold Member
Even if Microsoft go more powerful, they really need to work on their software and that's where it draw the line for me . I had an Xbox One X for 8 months before it started crapping on me with random errors messages with no real solutions.

I had more disappointement with their OS capabilities and stability in 8 months that I ever had with my playstation 3 , 4, and 4 PRO in 8 years.
 
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demigod

Member
The comment about the SSD is cryptic.

Cerny says it has bandwidth higher than any PC SSD. But what exactly does that mean? SATA SSD or NVMe? Or maybe it has some kind of cache that allows very high burst speeds?

If he means faster than any PC NVMe drive then that's both very impressive and very confusing.

We are talking about loading times for games here, and despite NVMe being 5-7x faster than SATA based SSD's, the load times on NVMe only offer a ONE SECOND advantage over SATA SSD's. I don't know why but you can check any number of NVMe benchmark videos and they will show you HDD = 47seconds, SSD = 17 seconds, NVMe = 16 seconds. And that kind of ratio repeats itself again and again.

So if NVMe only offers a minor advantage over SATA SSD's then why bother with something faster and presumably more expensive?

BTW - My first post! Happy to be here.

Yeah I’m not sure why people think pcie 4.0 will make a difference when benchmarks prove otherwise right now between ssd and nvme.

Because there are no games or engines built to take advantage of what nvme on pcie has to offer—which is enormous number of iops, huge bandwidth, & exponentially better queuing—you cannot just look at pc ssds and understand the potential. Load times are only on facet. It is a shame that it looks like only Sony will be building games fully leveraging this tech.

No because Spiderman is not a game thats built for the new tech. Cerny has some magic up his sleaves.
 
Because there are no games or engines built to take advantage of what nvme on pcie has to offer—which is enormous number of iops, huge bandwidth, & exponentially better queuing—you cannot just look at pc ssds and understand the potential. Load times are only on facet. It is a shame that it looks like only Sony will be building games fully leveraging this tech.
You may be right. For some reason NVMe just offers practically no advantage in game loading times. It's possible that game engines have to be designed to take advantage of the extra speed.
You say it's a shame that only Sony will be building games that fully leverage this tech, but really that's a good thing. As soon as someone does it, everyone else will have to as well.
 

TLZ

Banned
You may be right. For some reason NVMe just offers practically no advantage in game loading times. It's possible that game engines have to be designed to take advantage of the extra speed.
You say it's a shame that only Sony will be building games that fully leverage this tech, but really that's a good thing. As soon as someone does it, everyone else will have to as well.
Especially with DF doing all the comparisons and possibly making 3rd parties look bad, then having to jump aboard to not stay behind.
 

EDMIX

Member
Might have been mentioned in here already, but With how expensive SSD’s are, and the fact that being PS5 game installs are going to be huge, to I’m guessing at least 1tb drives, if not even 2tb drives are going to be default at launch, they are either going to take a huge hit at launch to keep it at $400 or under, or it’s gonna be really expensive. Can’t see them launching a console more than $400 again after the ps3 disaster. Maybe they have a $400 1tb model and a $450 2tb model or something.

ok, but that is only assuming they'll only have 1 hdd. They might likely have 2. The SSD for the OS and other functions, a normal 2.5 HDD for storage.
 

manfestival

Member
The only thing I don't like is the inclusion of ray tracing.... Like... we can't even do proper 4k releases yet and they want to hop on ray tracing? Don't get me wrong, I love my 2080 but I never use ray tracing on this thing.
 
i've got a samsung 970 evo nvme drive with all my games on it, and they certainly don't load in 1.5 seconds. hell, frostbyte games are so slow you'd think it was a 5400 rpm wd green drive if you didn't know any better

curious what other tricks they have up their sleeves
 
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I think we will see massive improvements in ray tracing next gen (duh). But mostly I think what we will see is the cost go down while the quality goes up... massively. Right now we need cutting edge RTX cores but I think that may change due to nothing more than optimization and innovation. Just look at how far we've come in a short time. We went from ray tracing ON destroying performance all the way down to a mere 1080p 30fps but now 1440p and 60fps is possible. We went from ray tracing being for RTX only to being done on a Vega 56 by Crytek. Wish they would release that demo so the rest of us could try it out.

I'm sure that the BEST ray tracing will definitely be done on future Nvidia RTX cards, I'm just saying I think we'll be surprised at how far ray tracing will be able to go running on "limited" next gen consoles.
 
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DragoonKain

Neighbours from Hell
ok, but that is only assuming they'll only have 1 hdd. They might likely have 2. The SSD for the OS and other functions, a normal 2.5 HDD for storage.

Well the point of the SSD is for faster game loading and stuff, they were promoting the improved game speeds on the SSD. So it appears game installs will be on the SSD. I don’t see the point in even having a traditional 2.5 HDD. Unless it was for just game save data storage, but that stuff takes up such little space in comparison to game installs and video captures and stuff that it would be pointless. Might as well use the SSD for everything.
 
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EDMIX

Member
Well the point of the SSD is for faster game loading and stuff, they were promoting the improved game speeds on the SSD. So it appears game installs will be on the SSD. I don’t see the point in even having a traditional 2.5 HDD. Unless it was for just game save data storage, but that stuff takes up such little space in comparison to game installs and video captures and stuff that it would be pointless. Might as well use the SSD for everything.

" I don’t see the point in even having a traditional 2.5 HDD " Ok....per your own comment.

"they are either going to take a huge hit at launch to keep it at $400 or under, or it’s gonna be really expensive"

So why ? Well....you said it, it would be really expensive and they'd take a huge hit. So I don't know how the SSD would work with the other HDD, but it could offload a certain amount of data to run the game. So games are indeed going to keep getting bigger so I don't know if they'd legit only go with 1 hdd, on top of that it being a SSD that is using some really new tech.
 
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Punished Miku

Gold Member
Sounds very good. But I have to wonder, why release this info now and why release it like this?

Typically we'd hear about a PS5, then hear the specs way, way, wayyyyyyyyy later. Like after it launches almost for some of the final touches. Here we seem to be getting some pretty specific info right off the bat.

Doesn't this put them at risk of tipping off the competition? From what I understand, Sony and MS were changing the specs of the PS4/Xbox One up until the last minute to outdo each other. Here, Sony seems to just be broadcasting their whole plan for others to copy or one up. What is the strategic benefit of this?

And why release this in Wired first? Has that ever happened for a console ever? Is this a response to Google? Does Sony know MS is not launching a typical console at all, so they are free to throw out details like this without fear of being copied?

I honestly cannot figure out what the tactics of this release are. And why release this NOW, when they don't even have an E3 this year? All this stuff could have been big individual announcements, but it's just buried in a magazine article instead. What the fuck.
 

EDMIX

Member
Sounds very good. But I have to wonder, why release this info now and why release it like this?

Typically we'd hear about a PS5, then hear the specs way, way, wayyyyyyyyy later. Like after it launches almost for some of the final touches. Here we seem to be getting some pretty specific info right off the bat.

Doesn't this put them at risk of tipping off the competition? From what I understand, Sony and MS were changing the specs of the PS4/Xbox One up until the last minute to outdo each other. Here, Sony seems to just be broadcasting their whole plan for others to copy or one up. What is the strategic benefit of this?

And why release this in Wired first? Has that ever happened for a console ever? Is this a response to Google? Does Sony know MS is not launching a typical console at all, so they are free to throw out details like this without fear of being copied?

I honestly cannot figure out what the tactics of this release are. And why release this NOW, when they don't even have an E3 this year? All this stuff could have been big individual announcements, but it's just buried in a magazine article instead. What the fuck.

"Doesn't this put them at risk of tipping off the competition? " Maybe Sony doesn't see MS that way. They are putting very expensive tech in their new system, it will pay off if EVERYONE gets to use it vs just them.

Consider this.

https://venturebeat.com/2018/06/29/shawn-layden-9-takeaways-from-sonys-worldwide-game-studios-chief/

" It’s there to provide something for our third-party partners to succeed with and reach out to their fans. "

So this means, Sony and MS actually BOTH understand in order for both of them to do well, they both on some areas need to be on the same page. So MS doesn't want to not have a SSD while Sony brags about it, Sony doesn't want to have a SSD ONLY and have 3rd parties not support it. So this is a situation where they might be showing their hand to allow MS to alter what they must or even for THEM to alter what they must based on 3rd party desire for that type of tech.

The market just doesn't run with 1 company, it needs many to really keep it going and this info might be better off known now, then only at reveal.

"when they don't even have an E3 this year?" Well many systems have never been revealed at E3 anyway. Sony likely wants to release info on their time, not rush it for someone elses event. Also look at how we take in content.....you know about this and you are talking about it....

Soooo you didn't need E3 to know what Sony is now telling WIRED....

Maybe that is the point Sony is making so they don't have to keep rushing info and trailers and early games to fixed events. They'll do their own events, when they are ready and release the info when they feel like it. Its coming to us either way, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube lol NeoGaf lolz
 
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Aceofspades

Banned
Sounds very good. But I have to wonder, why release this info now and why release it like this?

Typically we'd hear about a PS5, then hear the specs way, way, wayyyyyyyyy later. Like after it launches almost for some of the final touches. Here we seem to be getting some pretty specific info right off the bat.

Doesn't this put them at risk of tipping off the competition? From what I understand, Sony and MS were changing the specs of the PS4/Xbox One up until the last minute to outdo each other. Here, Sony seems to just be broadcasting their whole plan for others to copy or one up. What is the strategic benefit of this?

And why release this in Wired first? Has that ever happened for a console ever? Is this a response to Google? Does Sony know MS is not launching a typical console at all, so they are free to throw out details like this without fear of being copied?

I honestly cannot figure out what the tactics of this release are. And why release this NOW, when they don't even have an E3 this year? All this stuff could have been big individual announcements, but it's just buried in a magazine article instead. What the fuck.

I don't understand this way of thinking, First of all Sony didn't give any detailed specs. they instead talked in high level about the feature set of the box.
secondly, designing these consoles take years so its not like MS will change their plans reactively to this news except for some clock changes.

The manufacturing supply chain for these consoles is huge including tens or hundreds of vendors for the parts, these things take planning and companies cannot simply change designs abruptly without delaying the entire supply chain by years.
 

GenericUser

Member
It's interesting that a (compared to microsoft) small company like sony is able to compete with microsoft in the hardware design department. Cerny (and his team) really are people to look up to, fascinating.

EDIT: now that some facts about the PS5 are known, I really got to hold myself back and not buy CP 2077 on the PS4. It seems like that game will benefit greatly from the ps5.
 
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Orpheum

Member
I'm so goddamn ready. I was expecting backwards compatibility but it's neat that we actually got the confirmation now. Let's go guys!!!
 

Imtjnotu

Member
It's interesting that a (compared to microsoft) small company like sony is able to compete with microsoft in the hardware design department. Cerny (and his team) really are people to look up to, fascinating.

EDIT: now that some facts about the PS5 are known, I really got to hold myself back and not buy CP 2077 on the PS4. It seems like that game will benefit greatly from the ps5.
Sony a small company?!

TkJZ.gif
 

Mattyp

Gold Member
It's interesting that a (compared to microsoft) small company like sony is able to compete with microsoft in the hardware design department.

Sony have always been a hardware company but compared to Microsoft being software, Microsoft never got a decent team in behind the xbox until the S revision being the Surface team. As long as the PS5 doesn't sound like a rocket ship and has some USB ports on the back they've done good work. I'm going to try and wait until next gen for 2077. Just hoping its launch isn't this year and then I think I'll be able to put it off enough :messenger_anguished:

NVMe is intresting, but I can see why on size format if they want to put another 2.5" also in the console for game sizes. I assume the SSD will be used to cache what ever you're spinning up. How this will work I'm not sure because a 1TB NVMe wont go far in next gen if they plan on it being the only HDD in the console. I expect $499 price.
 

cormack12

Gold Member
Sounds very good. But I have to wonder, why release this info now and why release it like this?

I think this is a litmus test to gauge out the market reaction and price speculation. Release the tech, and monitor the discussions to see if people think it's high end enough to warrant a retail price of £399+. It seems most people are open to the console costing £429-£449, and announcing it this early - with fan led expectations - gives an opportunity for people to start getting their finances in order in case they need to start saving. The cross gen titles probably help in those that want to wait a bit longer while early adopters seem to feel that extended price range is 'fair' without being extortionate.

If they are going after the mid tier market share at launch then they really need to have a competitor to Microsoft's subscription box because most millennial's only really care about the monthly affordability from my experience and care less about %APR etc. If the jump in price is too high at launch, then the UK market is fickle and there will be users jumping back to Microsoft for the launch of Fifa etc. if they can play the next gen version day 1
 

ZehDon

Gold Member
Out of nowhere! Love it.

The impact of US$599 has been burned into their collective corporate memory. That's the ceiling. Sony have also seen the benefit of being the powerhouse console. It carried the PS4's first year. $549 for ray tracing, next-gen SSD, gen 3 Ryzen, next-gen GPU, and pull PS4 backwards compatibility.
 
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Yagami_Sama

Member
A lot of people were expecting PS5 for 2020, and there is it. 8K resolution sounds absurd, at least for me, I barely have 4k content here to watch, imagine, video games running at 8k resolution ? That would be glorious.

So, now the odds to see the new Xbox at E3, will be very high. And thing might get tough for Switch, I mean the difference in power will be greater.
 

bitbydeath

Member
That’s just one consequence of an SSD. There’s also the speed with which a world can be rendered, and thus the speed with which a character can move through that world.

This means we’ll finally be able to mount the birds in Horizon 2.

On the other hand I think it also means we won’t be able to switch out the HDD’s and if we could it would be with proprietary HDD’s only as otherwise it would break the game.
 
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xrnzaaas

Member
The specs looks great and I love the BC confirmation, but how in hell will Sony be able to sell this at an affordable price?
 

cormack12

Gold Member
The specs looks great and I love the BC confirmation, but how in hell will Sony be able to sell this at an affordable price?

They might just be happy selling at 80% production cost. Make the console a loss leader and soak in the profits from the tied in consumers over time.

They've made a fairly hefty profit from the PlayStation division over the last decade and it is still growing. They may have offset some of those costs by revenue and fed them back to us. But we'll see. That's just one way. I'm still expecting £449 in UK at launch
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
This means we’ll finally be able to mount the birds in Horizon 2.

On the other hand I think it also means we won’t be able to switch out the HDD’s and if we could it would be with proprietary HDD’s only as otherwise it would break the game.

It depends: they could have a very fast software stack for external I/O and very fast I/O connection (next generation PCI-E with perhaps some custom enhancements) paired with say 512 GB or more of embedded flash memory that acts as a super fast disk cache. When you download a game or insert the disc and the game is “installed” a portion of the game is automatically added to the embedded flash cache... Let’s call it FastStart enhanced ;).

Then your user swappable HDD may be mechanical or an SSHD... and if you decide to buy your 2 TB SSD you will still feel a difference as you will ensure that the embedded flash cache is filled that much faster allowing you to have many more games ready for FastStart and will not have a FastStart preparation step when switching between many games or have it way less than before.
 

pottuvoi

Banned
"At the moment, Sony won’t cop to exact details about the SSD—who makes it, whether it utilizes the new PCIe 4.0 standard—but Cerny claims that it has a raw bandwidth higher than any SSD available for PCs."

I call bull shit; I'll believe that when I see it. If it's something proprietary they create, that's going to increase the cost for the console by a phat amount.
Would be interesting if it is part of the CPU/GPU/IO/Memory package.

Do not know if their tech allows so many chips yet in same package though.
 
My bet is that they were convinced MS would not release their console in 2019 but it looks like they will announce it at this E3 with release this holidays. SNIP

If MS releases console this year and Sony year after then Sony will basically lose all steam as their console will not be stronger or better than MS. It will be the same and released year after.

Whoever releases first console will not be threatened by any hardware released in next 2-3 years as AMD will not be able to increase power in next 2-3 years.

You really have no idea of AMD's release roadmap do you. It's impossible for MS to release a similar system this year unless they go with a second gen Ryzen only and weak and inefficient graphics based on the old Vega/Polaris arch again. They're not that stupid.

Navi desktop is not ready until Q4 this year I predict. But these consoles are powered by APUs. And Navi + Zen 2 (Ryzen 3rd gen) APUs will be months after Navi and only be ready for mass production in 2020.

Secondly, Sony is their biggest console partner and rumours started about their partnership on the PS5 way before we even heard anything about the new Xbox. So from that POV it would be a surprise if PS5 doesnt release first.

So in short, unless MS wants to release an Xbox X incremental (comparatively) upgrade this year, expect both consoles 2020 when the APUs are ready.
 
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scalman

Member
But just leting out dry numbers they could make some short video like tease and show numbers there or smt. Now its just this pre reveal. Its just for people to get hook
Your turn MS..
 
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But just leting out dry numbers they could make some short video like tease and show numbers there or smt. Now its just this pre reveal. Its just for people to get hook
Your turn MS..

They're taking a similar approach to MS and the 1 X launch. They're gonna build hype for this thing for a while, I mean the hype is huge slready. If you thought the 1X hype was big, this is going to dwarf that and then some.
 

Starfield

Member
The push for Ray tracing from consoles will only mean that developers will search for ways to make it less performance heavy which is a good thing. Imo ray tracing is the next big graphical leap!
 
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