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Next-Gen PS5 & XSX |OT| Console tEch threaD

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DaGwaphics

Member
MS paid more for their APU because they used ESRAM to make up for the slow DDR3. They aren't using ESRAM this time so the above doesn't matter at all.

It was a smart choice, too, initially. When xbone was in the design phase, going with GDDR5 would have limited the system to 4GB of memory. The fact that GDDR5 dropped significantly in price close to launch really stung MS. With the ESRAM and that 16 channel MC configuration already baked into the APU, no last minute changes to the memory system could be made. On the flip-side it was very easy for Sony to double the chips per channel.

At any rate, future costs are built on guaranteed orders, not past success/failure. MS is investing big in Xcloud, they have untold millions of units already sold (to themselves LOL), everything gets figured in.
 
Guess who also creates other products with hardware from AMD? I wouldn't just assume that Sony gets a better price when Microsoft doesn't only build consoles with hardware from AMD.

I work in manufacturing (not gaming related) and it's kind of how the business works, you buy more of something or if you can show that you can sell more of something you're going to get a better price. Sony also has a ton of other divisions, TV, Audio, Cameras, etc. which all use components from suppliers that are also used in the Playstation hardware, so just with that alone they are going to get a better cost on components that Microsoft can, they have way better buying/negotiating power.
 
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TBiddy

Member
Is this the big February PS5 news everyone has been eagerly anticipating? That Sony is concerned to announce the price of their console next to MS.

I'm becoming less and less optimistic about how things are going at Sony headquarters by the day.

More or less the only difference, right now, is that Microsoft has shown their console and has given us very rough ideas about the performance of the XSX. I wouldn't worry about the PS5. It'll be great, have great games and have a price that is fitting for a next-gen console.
 

DrDamn

Member
True, cooling will not be the key price driver. That SSD on the other hand... We'll see in a couple of weeks/months

I think either the SSD won't be that much more expensive than the one in X1X due to tech/controller/patents owned by Sony. I.e. it's the method rather than the components which help. Or that the extra speed is notable enough to make a difference. I can't see them eating a substantial additional cost when an off the shelf solution is cheaper and comparable in real application performance.
 
It was a smart choice, too, initially. When xbone was in the design phase, going with GDDR5 would have limited the system to 4GB of memory. The fact that GDDR5 dropped significantly in price close to launch really stung MS. With the ESRAM and that 16 channel MC configuration already baked into the APU, no last minute changes to the memory system could be made. On the flip-side it was very easy for Sony to double the chips per channel.

At any rate, future costs are built on guaranteed orders, not past success/failure. MS is investing big in Xcloud, they have untold millions of units already sold (to themselves LOL), everything gets figured in.

Correct. Sony played the lottery and won. They went with 4 GB and prices dropped and they could upgrade to 8GB without too much of a fuss.

No matter the APU, if Sony has 4GB last gen as designed it would have been a tough road for them.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
Sony also has a ton of other divisions, TV, Audio, Cameras, etc. which all use components from suppliers that are also used in the Playstation hardware, so just with that alone they are going to get a better cost on components that Microsoft can, they have way better buying/negotiating power.

I have to say that statement is hilarious. Azure says hi, MS/Google/Amazon purchase 50 to 100x more tech relevant to the manufacture of a console in comparison to Sony. And that is being very generous to Sony.
 

On Demand

Banned
Sony is finally spending money on better cooling after all the complaining about the noise of PS4 and the conclusion people come too is that the high BOM and expensive fan means a weaker 9.2tf console and high clocks?

I can not wait until these consoles are fully announced cause some of you are coming up with most nonsensical stuff based on this.

desetera is really having fun with this new information. Confirmation bias all over the place over that excuse of a so called "gaming discussion" site.
 
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hemo memo

Gold Member
Yeah, but a Pro essentially is just a PS4+, the CPU is slightly faster, so is the RAM, and the GPU a bit over double faster - but with the upcoming PS5 we are talking major differences. Not only the GPU, but especially CPU and storage speeds. Optimizing for the previous gen as well is far from trivial.

Previous gen got more than enough amazing first party games. All Sony teams should move to PS5.
 

splattered

Member
Guess who also creates other products with hardware from AMD? I wouldn't just assume that Sony gets a better price when Microsoft doesn't only build consoles with hardware from AMD.

People seem to forget (or choose to ignore) this very point... AMD goes into more than just consoles. Next gen AMD may also power Azure which sells cloud to an insane amount of companies, even huge corporations (cough*sony*cough) as well surface laptops and tablets etc etc.

Just because Sony has sold 100 million ps4 consoles over the course of 7 years doesnt mean AMD will strike some huge deal with them.

Most likely either Sony and MS are on equal footing with pricing costs or MS has a small advantage due to the business side of Azure and their Surface line.

If Sony still had their VAIO line of computers I think things would be different with pricing negotiations for them in general.
 

DrDamn

Member
Ahhh I dont know about that though. Sony always shoots for "elegance". That could mean a smaller form factor box closer to what is on the market now, but with need for a more expensive cooling solution even with an 8.5tf box.

That then brings me back to the point that the source for the "more expensive" cooling is pricing it at a couple of $. So the cooling system itself is still not a significant factor in over all cost. My take away is that Sony is probably spending more on cooling because they know it was a weak aspect of the PS4 family and/or it has a lot of heat to cool.
 
(Hypothetically) Even if the ESRAM was $10 of that cost then they are still paying the same amount for a ~35% slower APU.

MS and Sony were given the same set of options. MS went with a chip 20mm2 bigger that had embedded ESRAM. This cost them $10 more in total. The ESRAM was not $10. PS4 had 6 more compute units. The APU that MS went with was likely around $80 with the ESRAM costing an incremental $30 to embed.

You are seriously discounting how much of an impact the ESRAM had on the cost of the chip.

11.jpg
Annotated-Poly-PS4.jpg
 
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Roronoa Zoro

Gold Member
They are already optimizing for PS4/PS4Pro.
I don't think that's all PS4 Pro is capable of. If it were a new system that all the games didn't need to be playable on PS4 for I think they could accomplish a lot more. But that's ok the Pro was always just meant for some simple bumps. A PS5 exclusive would hopefully have animations, models, effects, world's, and other things not possible on PS4
 
I have to say that statement is hilarious. Azure says hi, MS/Google/Amazon purchase 50 to 100x more tech relevant to the manufacture of a console in comparison to Sony. And that is being very generous to Sony.

In the Azure datacenters, does Microsoft built their servers custom themselves or are the leasing them from another manufacturer? If they had such powerful purchasing power, then why on earth are the BOM items higher than Sony's?
 

joe_zazen

Member
Also, there's no Kinect bundled. That alone was probably about 100$.



She also has a duty to maximize sales. If Microsoft (or Sony) were to present her with a great offer to buy a lot of CPU's for their own line of laptops in exchange for an additional 5% discount, she would listen.

She isnt running a corner store.

i dont see how microsoft buying off the shelf cpus and apus for laptops decreases what amd can charge ms for custom work. & why would ms tax laptop buyers to subsidise console buyers.

amd isnt going to torpedo certain customers by overcharging them to help the competition. They want successful partners on all fronts.
 

Roronoa Zoro

Gold Member
In the Azure datacenters, does Microsoft built their servers custom themselves or are the leasing them from another manufacturer? If they had such powerful purchasing power, then why on earth are the BOM items higher than Sony's?
If it's 3tf higher in performance and say only $50 more to make that would be them getting better deals I would think
 

IkarugaDE

Member
Haha, I'm reading it. I thought you could at least lurk after a Ban, but it doesn't seem to be the case given the images he posted. Funny stuff.
If this guy isn't 12 he has some major issues. Really, it's absolutely not normal a fully evolved human does somethin like that. He needs some help and I hope he'll know that any time.
 

TBiddy

Member
She isnt running a corner store.

i dont see how microsoft buying off the shelf cpus and apus for laptops decreases what amd can charge ms for custom work. & why would ms tax laptop buyers to subsidise console buyers.

amd isnt going to torpedo certain customers by overcharging them to help the competition. They want successful partners on all fronts.

That's how businesses work. If Microsofts offers AMD to use their processors in Surface-laptops in exchange for a small additional discount on the APU, AMD would probably be more than happy for that.

Noone is talking about overcharging. But if you're selling stuff, you'll sell it cheaper to the customer spending 2 billion, compared to the customer spending 1,5 billion. That's just how it is.
 

joe_zazen

Member
Do you have any source confirming that?

Because Sony just sold around 60M units more than MS in the last gen. Much better client, much better deal. This is how the market works.

But if you have inside info from AMD, please let us know.

ffs, if ms wants to sell their console cheaper, they will use their enormous wealth to do so. They arent going to go to amd and haggle like they were buying chickens at a street stall.

if you want a competitive advantage so you can root for you favourite USA World dominating trillion dollar corporation with blood on their hands to crush the competition, you only need to look at the fact they they are a world dominating Trillion dollar American corporation with ties to the cia and us military.

If MS wants to dominate, they will dominate. Might take ten years though.
 

joe_zazen

Member
That's how businesses work. If Microsofts offers AMD to use their processors in Surface-laptops in exchange for a small additional discount on the APU, AMD would probably be more than happy for that.

Noone is talking about overcharging. But if you're selling stuff, you'll sell it cheaper to the customer spending 2 billion, compared to the customer spending 1,5 billion. That's just how it is.

and why ms tax laptop buyers? or are they getting a discount too because of discounted xbox apus? And what is in it for amd, selling all these apus for less than market price?
 

DrDamn

Member
ffs, if ms wants to sell their console cheaper, they will use their enormous wealth to do so. They arent going to go to amd and haggle like they were buying chickens at a street stall.

Well they like to call it negotiation in business but it's something MS absolutely does, and has people employed and trained solely to do. It's part of how they amassed their enormous wealth.
 
ffs, if ms wants to sell their console cheaper, they will use their enormous wealth to do so. They arent going to go to amd and haggle like they were buying chickens at a street stall.

if you want a competitive advantage so you can root for you favourite USA World dominating trillion dollar corporation with blood on their hands to crush the competition, you only need to look at the fact they they are a world dominating Trillion dollar American corporation with ties to the cia and us military.

If MS wants to dominate, they will dominate. Might take ten years though.

I'm just trying to snub the whole doom and gloom about people saying Sony is in trouble because of the costly parts...I am willing to bet both consoles are using very similar components so if one of them is 'struggling on the costs' then so it the other. Everyone needs to realize that both sides are playing a chess game on the specs/pricing and neither of them want to have another PS3/X360 or PS4/XB1 pricing discrepancy again, both sides are on their game this gen so it is going to be interesting.
 

pasterpl

Member

That doesn't sound like it's going to be above 11TF of RDNA power. The $400 price point of the PS4 in 2013 is roughly equivalent to $450 today, and if Microsoft sells their console at a loss for $500 then expect Sony to sell their console at $500 as well, ensuring that they make $50 instead of lose $50 per console. Remember that they sold the PS4 at almost no loss. The PlayStation name alone should get the PS5 selling tons of units regardless.


More than one chip confirmed? Who knows. A bigger cooling system would need to support the APU if it's going to be 1.8-2ghz like the Github leak suggests.


That sounds like a $500 price. Not everyone will be able to afford it.

What does everyone else think about this?
and why ms tax laptop buyers? or are they getting a discount too because of discounted xbox apus? And what is in it for amd, selling all these apus for less than market price?


This is not that complicated, AMD sells all their hardware with profit, margins vary based on quantity (wholesale discounts etc.). If MS placed an order for let say $2bn they will usually get all SKUs within this order at some discounted price compared to someone who placed an order for $1bn. I am sure that before starting the development of new consoles both Sony and MS sent pricing requests to like of nVidia and Intel, not only AMD, and selected AMD based on a,b,c etc. Same applies to SSDs, Microsft simply orders more of them than Sony (whole Surface family + Xbox + Azure). It is a simple business, bigger buyers are getting better prices.
 

NickFire

Member
I'm just trying to snub the whole doom and gloom about people saying Sony is in trouble because of the costly parts...I am willing to bet both consoles are using very similar components so if one of them is 'struggling on the costs' then so it the other. Everyone needs to realize that both sides are playing a chess game on the specs/pricing and neither of them want to have another PS3/X360 or PS4/XB1 pricing discrepancy again, both sides are on their game this gen so it is going to be interesting.
You will never, and I do mean never stop the doom and gloom predictions for either console. It could be 2022, with one system having somehow already sold 89 million units, and there would still be articles about "so and so if finished", "so and so is in trouble", "so and so is on the verge of closing a 2-1 gap", and countless internet users essentially screaming the same thing based on the feverish claims they make.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
In the Azure datacenters, does Microsoft built their servers custom themselves or are the leasing them from another manufacturer? If they had such powerful purchasing power, then why on earth are the BOM items higher than Sony's?

They don't lease anything for Azure, everything is custom designed. With that said, Azure was literally just entering initial availability when the purchase orders for xbone were being finalized. Azure has grown a lot since then.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
So let me get this straight, people think because the parts are expensive that the machine is weak? In what world does that make sense? The machine has been rumored at $499 at a loss. Take that number and run with it. $450 would be a blessing. Specs aren’t changing at this point For either machine.

True. Everything would be set in stone at this point. If MS weren't being so secretive with the development units (specifically the units based on production hardware), the pricing would be clear across the board. Nobody wants to jump out with a bad price. LOL
 

lynux3

Member
They don't lease anything for Azure, everything is custom designed. With that said, Azure was literally just entering initial availability when the purchase orders for xbone were being finalized. Azure has grown a lot since then.
Wrong. Microsoft picks a hardware vendor to provide servers and there's a range of them (HPE, Dell EMC, SuperMicro, IBM, etc.). Last I heard they selected Dell EMC for some of their deployments. If Microsoft designs and deploys their own servers they are in limited quantity... if at all. As far as leasing is concerned, a lot, and I mean a lot, of data center space Microsoft utilizes is leased. As a matter of fact, Microsoft is one of the biggest leasers of data center space. Not much different from anyone else.
 
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ffs, if ms wants to sell their console cheaper, they will use their enormous wealth to do so. They arent going to go to amd and haggle like they were buying chickens at a street stall.

if you want a competitive advantage so you can root for you favourite USA World dominating trillion dollar corporation with blood on their hands to crush the competition, you only need to look at the fact they they are a world dominating Trillion dollar American corporation with ties to the cia and us military.

If MS wants to dominate, they will dominate. Might take ten years though.

You are giving too much credit to MS like they were ruling the world and part of the Solar System. All those glory moments are gone man ;)

Anyways, I just say that what AMD is selling to Sony/MS is not a symple generic product but a custom hardware for a specific console.

When you want to buy a custom product you need to tell to the manufacturer how many units do you expect to sell in order they could determinate the cost per unit. Sony can say they expect to sell more than 100M. MS around 40M.
 
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44alltheway

Member
So let me get this straight, people think because the parts are expensive that the machine is weak? In what world does that make sense? The machine has been rumored at $499 at a loss. Take that number and run with it. $450 would be a blessing. Specs aren’t changing at this point For either machine.
Are you still sticking with PS5 being more powerful even after the news of MS having a higher BOM?
 
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