I know enough about hardware to not need Digital Foundry to form my views. I do watch them because I find their content interesting. At the same time, they have been caught to base their opinions on who is sponsoring them, but that's another story for another time.
PCs are expected to have less stable performance than a console, because the user can tweak as much/little as he/she wishes. Consoles generally have to go for many years, and the hardware is what it is. The main way to optimize for it and squeeze everything out of it, is to have a set system. If you make things variable, it inevitably makes the optimization more difficult. Sony is known to make things more difficult than necessary though. Look at the PS3....
Obviously, yes. But that was not the point. The point is that the XSX design is in such a way that the cooling is sufficient to run the system at a constant speed at all times. In other words, no part of the hardware is being hampered from working at its max design capacity.
The PS5 is different. The combination of the CPU and GPU are obviously exceeding the cooling capabilities, meaning they have to do some load balancing to keep power usage in check. And even then, the CPU and GPU are less powerful.
I actually suspect that they went with a smaller GPU, because GCN had a scaling issue. The most obvious example was the Vega 56 and Vega 64, where they both performed exactly the same despite the Vega 64 having 14% more CUs. Sony most likely figured out that past 40CUs, scaling was bad, so, they didn't want to risk spending die size and thus cost on a larger GPU. This is why Cerny was talking about the whole clock speed vs CU thing. Apparently RDNA has fixed that though, so, despite their good initial intention, it didn't turn out right for them. If the XSX has issues scaling towards 52 CUs, we'll find out soon enough.
The question is whether this is because of a need, since they are weak in comparison to the XSX specs, or if it really was intended like that from the beginning. The former is more logical, although the second one is not impossible.
Not at all. Having two modes is a sound strategy. SMT also produces additional heat, so, it is simply a logical way of operating things. They are aware that as the years go by, SMT will become more relevant. In the early years, 8 cores are more than enough. The developer can choose either one from the beginning.
In contrast, the whole load balancing the PS5 is doing it by itself. The developers cannot choose, but have to experiment to somehow find the optimal load for each component.
Not to mention there is zero reason to panic for the XSX, considering the specs are higher than the PS5....
In terms of TFLOPS it's over 17% when the PS5 is boosting. So it's
at least 17%. Add in the RAM bandwidth difference, and the difference widens quite quickly.
You are right though, that mindshare wise, the PS5 will still outsell the XSX. That has more to do with Sony brand loyalty more than anything else. Look how many people are trying to defend the PS5 in here, vs the ones supporting the XSX...
That's funny. The only viable reply to that, is this meme;
In any case... I'm extremely annoyed at all the threads here trying to defend the PS5, or even try to justify how it is actually superior to the XSX. Maybe if there was some humbleness after the inferior PS5 specs were announced, the PS5 wouldn't be trashed so much. Still, it's a fact that it looks inferior. But some people have issues dealing with that.
That still doesn't change the fact that they have to experimentally determine (i.e. a slow and tedious process) what the optimal way of doing things is.