This can't be right. He listed cabling (HDMI cable) as $3. No way Sony will be paying $3 for that. They will probably be paying $0.50 or so.
-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
About ~how much will 8gb gddr5 cost in the PS4's BoM?
- Thread starter Barack Lesnar
- Start date
Would not be suicide. PS3 launched for $599, and in the long run it has done very well. $499 for the premium SKU could happen, and it wouldn't kill them.
Their forecasts for the next fiscal year was worded in a way that they will not make profits on the PS4 and will probably eat a majority of the profits of the PS3.
DDR5 does not exist. PS4 will use GDDR5 which has been around for a long time. GDDR5 chips have been mass produced for a long time, although not the specific ones used in PS4. 2013Q1 the mass production of them started according to Samsung/Hynix.
Iced_Eagle
Member
He said "Cabling/Misc". Maybe it will be HDMI + Component cables + USB cables for controller + power cables, etc.
Marty Chinn
Member
$599 hurt Sony a lot. It was also a different time then as well. It would never fly today at that price. I think even $500 is pushing it in today's market.
1st Course
Member
According to the early rumors they wanted to go with stacked DRAM originally but they gave up in the idea latter because the tech was very new apparently. Such a shame really because stacked DRAM is supposedly at least 8-10x as fast as GDDR5.
That's the worry - reliability, power consumption, and noise. There's a good chance I'll wait for the 20 nm shrink in 2015.
@
!
V
Nothing stops the 20 nm train.
fuzzy.dunlop
Banned
Unknown Soldier
Member
GDDR5 doesn't even run that hot. The only thing on the GDDR5 VRAM on high-end videocards is a heatspreader.
SMT
this show is not Breaking Bad why is it not Breaking Bad? it should be Breaking Bad dammit Breaking Bad
However, these GDDR5 chips will also have to fill-in for running the OS system?
So do they replace the need for DDR4 within the system?
They are custom made.
fuzzy.dunlop
Banned
Right, but the entire card has access to cool air through a fan(s).
Back when it came out the Kinect cost about $50 according to iSuppli.
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4210649/Kinect-s-BOM-roughly--56--teardown-finds-
Three years and 24 million units later those costs have obviously come down a lot. Add some upgrades to camera resolution and it's probably still lower than $50. Most of the magic of Kinect is software, not hardware.
Unknown Soldier
Member
So will the PS4.
fuzzy.dunlop
Banned
That's exactly the discussion we are having. People are asking questions about the possible configurations in terms of size and noise. It won't be very large or loud, but it'll certainly be moderately so.
Pristine_Condition
Member
No way of knowing that, since we haven't even seen the form factor of the case. Not enough is known to issue any statement with the word "certainly" in it, as you have done.
fuzzy.dunlop
Banned
If you want to be so literal... OKAY.
My common sense tells me that the PS4 will certainly have some size and produce some noise. Because we can't possibly draw upon experiences of all the other computing devices in history to make statements without being open to nitpicking.
Add that eSRAM too
Teletraan1
Banned
I don't think these chips will run as fast or as hot as GDDR5 on any high end video card. The memory bandwidth is lower than a GTX670. The next round of cards are going to sport a lot of ram. I am not sure how those chips are laid out on the PCB but we have to be getting to the point that these will be a pretty standard density for GDDR5 on high end cards for the next few years. Prices should come down.
GDDR5 doesn't really get that hot. It requires SOME cooling but it's nothing like the APU.
IHaveCandy
Banned
With no knowledge of hardware, I'm going to assume the cost of Kinect and GDDR5 RAM/more CUs is about the same.
They do not need to be custom made because they are also acting as main RAM, that is not how RAM works.
Just about all hardware of any kind uses standard RAM chips.
The better GPU is unlikely to add to the cost of the APU above the xbone's APU due to the cost of the large SRAM on the xbone's APU die.
GDDR5 gets hot to the touch, ddr3 barely feels warm. with gddr5 you need heatsinks on the ram or a good amount of air moving over it constantly.
considering the ps4 is floating a much higher BoM i cant see sony putting a ton of money in high end quiet cooling. i have a feeling they will go with some sort of large high speed blower design. fresh air from the top, blow it out the back. it wont be original 360 loud but closer to that than say the slim ps3/360. its also something that will need fresh air so closed back entertainment cabinets are probably a no go this time around.
Cheesecakebobby
Banned
If it's really so expensive would it not have been better to have slightly less or slower RAM and used that budget for a better CPU or GPU? The RAM always seemed to be inordinately powerful compared to the other elements.
the reason they went with gdd5 is so that developers dont have to prioritize moving stuff around the memory. sony is very anal about making sure the ps4 isnt a horror to develop for like the ps3 was. they said going with ddr3 + eSRAM like the xbone would give similar performance but they're focus is on simplicity.
Its expensive now [and will be less than $100 IMO] but it will become cheaper in the long run. On the other hand, DDR3 will slowly became more expensive because imminent arrival of DDR4.
No, DDR3 also gets hot to the touch.
IHaveCandy
Banned
Yeah please don't touch your PC ram just after shut down.
no it doesnt, it gets warm but not hot like gddr5 unless you're jacking up the voltage and overclocking it.
thomasmahler
Moon Studios
Wonder if this is the component that'll make the PS3 more expensive than Xbox One.
If Xbone ships for 399 and PS4 ships for 499, Sony will have quite a big problem this holiday season.
If Xbone ships for 399 and PS4 ships for 499, Sony will have quite a big problem this holiday season.
zomgbbqftw
Banned
I see my thread has been linked above.
We're actually working on an updated version of a PS4 BoM and an Xbone BoM, but MS haven't revealed a tech spec so it's going to be tough unless we go on the rumours.
Eventually we will get one of each and break them open and take a look at the part numbers etc... and use our supplier contacts to get a better fix.
Getting to the point, our initial GDDR5 estimate is probably too high, I did say they were conservative estimates but from our latest contact with suppliers in the industry the cost of GDDR5 is tumbling much faster than they had originally estimated because demand for 4Gbit chips is not as high as they thought (could point to low PS4 orders) and there is a glut of supply building up. As an initial estimate it could cut the cost of the RAM from ~$110-140 to just under $90. Sony are the biggest consumer of GDDR5 chips atm and their discount is supposed to be humongous, much larger than the generic discount we applied in the initial analysis.
All of this will be taken into account for the second estimates once we get eyes on with the box.
We're actually working on an updated version of a PS4 BoM and an Xbone BoM, but MS haven't revealed a tech spec so it's going to be tough unless we go on the rumours.
Eventually we will get one of each and break them open and take a look at the part numbers etc... and use our supplier contacts to get a better fix.
Getting to the point, our initial GDDR5 estimate is probably too high, I did say they were conservative estimates but from our latest contact with suppliers in the industry the cost of GDDR5 is tumbling much faster than they had originally estimated because demand for 4Gbit chips is not as high as they thought (could point to low PS4 orders) and there is a glut of supply building up. As an initial estimate it could cut the cost of the RAM from ~$110-140 to just under $90. Sony are the biggest consumer of GDDR5 chips atm and their discount is supposed to be humongous, much larger than the generic discount we applied in the initial analysis.
All of this will be taken into account for the second estimates once we get eyes on with the box.
Interesting. Wouldn't Sony already have placed fc orders for the launch units though? I mean, they ought to know how much Sony really wants. But maybe they're keeping it tight so not too much information is out there in the "open". What I'm thinking is that if the demand is lower than thought and supply is available, couldn't there also be a lower demand from PCC vendors?
I bet DDR3 2133 would get hot.
Anyway...
Lots of GDDR5 chips run fine at high clock speeds with minimal or no heatsinks (even 6Ghz).
It is not a problem.
thats because they have a lot of air blowing on them directly. you can use heatsinks with less air or naked with lots of air.
there was a card manufacturer that had GDDR5 heat issues in the last few years, i want to say it was MSI but i dont fully remember. the ram had heatsinks for review units but retail models didnt and it was leading to crashes and early card deaths.
Captainsweatpants
Member
I still dont understand why chips are so expensive. They are mass produced by machines and the material costs are basically zero.
the more important questions IMO are 'what is the delta in cost for the new double density chips Vs the previous density with 4GB', and 'what is the delta in TDP between the previous and new chips'?
absolute cooling or cost isn't important
If sony were smart they'd have factored in at least the cooling question and given themselves enough overhead so they can just swap the chips out for the higher density, leaving cost the main issue.
absolute cooling or cost isn't important
If sony were smart they'd have factored in at least the cooling question and given themselves enough overhead so they can just swap the chips out for the higher density, leaving cost the main issue.
And you think the PS4 will not have air flow why?
fuzzy.dunlop
Banned
I don't believe he said that at all. The point of the discussion was to state that the cooling method(s) employed will have to consider the RAM because there is a non-negligible amount of heat being produced there.
CosmicGroinPull
Member
Oh that's why PS4 has so many huge air vents.
zomgbbqftw
Banned
It's possible that the demand shortfall is from PCC vendors. However, with the rumours of 6GB cards from AMD and Nvidia 4Gbit chips are probably in heavy demand from those guys. It could also be that either AMD or Nvidia have delayed their top line cards until late in the year.
So basically embedding 32 MB of eSRAM is free?
The way It seems to me is that MS never thought 8 GB of GDDR 5 were ever going possible for 2013 when thay designed the xbone a few years ago.. It was not a matter of cost rather than RAM quantity given the need for 3 GB for the OS alone. Thus designing the system with lots of DDR 3 with embedded RAM to mitigate the lower bandwidth, but almost at the same cost.
Sony probably was aiming for 4 GB of GDDR5 and got lucky densities doubled late last year.
The way It seems to me is that MS never thought 8 GB of GDDR 5 were ever going possible for 2013 when thay designed the xbone a few years ago.. It was not a matter of cost rather than RAM quantity given the need for 3 GB for the OS alone. Thus designing the system with lots of DDR 3 with embedded RAM to mitigate the lower bandwidth, but almost at the same cost.
Sony probably was aiming for 4 GB of GDDR5 and got lucky densities doubled late last year.
It's 1.6 billion transistors. It's anything but free...
I think the question is how are they going to cool the eight chips situated on the back of the motherboard since sufficient airflow is unlikely there. PS3s were engineered with conformal EM shields that also served as heatsinks for certain components:
I don't see why they wouldn't reuse this approach with PS4.
Actually, they said they won't be taking such a big loss this time. Not that they didn't want to take a loss. I'm guessing, that this time around they're not incurring the costs of manufacturing/R&D/facilities of creating the CELL.
I think that's a bit too high an estimate.
MS is probably paying around $50-$60 for their DDR3 (it's 2133 MHz after all) and Sony will be paying $100-$110, for a difference of ~$50. I think that should be more than made up for by a significantly smaller SoC and no Kinect.
It should be easily possible to sell both systems at $399.
As for cooling, I don't anticipate any problems. The total system TDP on PS4 is likely to be much lower than launch PS3.
Why do you assume there will be 8 chips on the rear of the board? XBONE has 16 chips all on the topside.
This is what I'm expecting too. The CPU is going to be damn cheap and the GPUs aren't too exotic so they won't jack up the price. All of it runs pretty cool and are reliably manufactured already.
That's my point, there might not be much difference in cost for both solutions, just that MS never thought possible to have 8 GB of GDDR5 a few years back, possibly.