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Rumour: PS5 Devkits have released (UPDATE 25th April : 7nm chips moving to mass production)

THE:MILKMAN

Member
What are you talking about?
The way that reads is like you're under the impression that "being stuck" with 12 chips (2GB each) is a bad thing when it's rather good.
12x 1.35v = 16.2v, PS4 is at 8x1.50v = 12v, very small increase in power draw for 3x the amount of memory and it might be higher because initially PS4 was supplied with 512MB chips (x16 = 8GB).
It's partially a technical reason as console manufacturer's depend on 3rd parties for memory chips, but beside that the capacity of said chips and the price per chip.
Balancing out power draw, price and space on the PCB, heat, etc etc all comes into play but that's with pretty much any large component and stuff R*D goes into.

I'm talking about Sony's obsession with doing cost reducing iterations and slims with their hardware. I can't see them changing their ways for PS5.
 

Shin

Banned
I'm talking about Sony's obsession with doing cost reducing iterations and slims with their hardware.
Once again what are you on about as I'm really having a hard time finding any logic behind the last 2 comments you posted.
Why would they or any company not want to reduce costs?
 

TheMikado

Banned
Here's a good site about RAM prices for the last couple of years/decades, it seems to go up/down a lot.
So whatever is happening at the moment doesn't necessarly reflects what it will be by 2020-ish.
https://jcmit.net/memoryprice.htm

I could see Sony going for 24GB of GDDR6 with a 18/6 split, that still runs it on a 384-bit bus.
CPU is predictable at 3.0GHz and 3.2GHz being the max if it's a 8/16 setup (Zen2 with some feats from Zen3).
Navi GPU with maybe some feats from the GPU that comes after that, but this I doubt case for me due to AMD's GPU side of the business as a whole.
The 7nm process will be mature by then and the rest is already available so they are good there, Sony will get a nice push in terms of bandwidth if they go with Samsung again.
Both companies know what lies ahead, I think it comes down to who is going to pull the trigger first and strangely enough I think MS might be the one.

EDIT: the slide sites are claiming to be true is from Twitter, it's the same one that Sony? used for PS4 "Neo" / Pro just edited to make believe.
The stock Ryzen clocks higher than that Zen+/2 is said to be capable of even higher clocks. Why would they underclock it out the gate? Why not just run stock?
 

THE:MILKMAN

Member
Once again what are you on about as I'm really having a hard time finding any logic behind the last 2 comments you posted.
Why would they or any company not want to reduce costs?

Sorry, our wires are crossing.....

The problem with 24GB/384bit is that the spec for the chips means Sony wouldn't be able to halve them in a later revision (must be multiple of 12 chips) and I'm saying they wouldn't do that (you seem to agree?)

So therefore for me PS5 will have 16GB or 32GB GDDR6 on a 256 bit bus. They could actually stick with 8 chips for 16GB until a slim is doable or go for broke with 16 chips for 32GB and reduce to 8 chips later if higher densities come through.
 
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Shin

Banned
The stock Ryzen clocks higher than that Zen+/2 is said to be capable of even higher clocks. Why would they underclock it out the gate? Why not just run stock?
For the same reason they and MS underclocked the current Jaguar CPU on the original/base models (base was 2.0GHZ, PS4 is at 1.7xGHz and XBox is at 1.8xGHz IIRC).
Termal issues could restrain them or make them underclock it (not passing it as fact but if they go 8/16 for core by core emulation (BC) that could draw a lot of power).

Sorry, our wires are crossing.....

The problem with 24GB/384bit is that the spec for the chips means Sony wouldn't be able to halve them in a later revision (must be multiple of 12 chips) and I'm saying they wouldn't do that (you seem to agree?)

So therefore for me PS5 will have 16GB or 32GB GDDR6 on a 256 bit bus. They could actually stick with 8 chips for 16GB until a slim is doable or go for broke with 16 chips for 32GB and reduce to 8 chips later if higher densities come through.
Ah yeah I get what you mean, though IIRC GDDR6 chips are supposedly going to have a higher capacity (not 100% sure about this and I might be confusing capacity with density).
Samsung's semiconductor site used to have the available modules of GDDR6 but now it's hidden from public view and I'm too lazy to go snooping, so it's up in the air.
2GB chips might be a sweet spot in terms of price/amount/power draw and the improvements could come from EUV and to some extent even 5nm later on or a model without a disc-drive.
It all depends what their setup is, could be 16+8, 20+4, 20+6 or 24...I just hope there's a model for me and I don't mean 3 years later after PS5 launches -_-
 
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THE:MILKMAN

Member
The basic gist is:

Each 2GB GDDR6 chip has a 32 bit bus and so 32 bit x 8 chips = 256 bit for the I/O bus of the APU and so for 32x12 chips = 384 bit bus. Is that clearer?

To be fair it wasn't something I even thought about until it was pointed out by a poster at the other place and it's a big deal I think.....
 

Shin

Banned
If they stick to the $399 price model what can we realistically expect for a late 2019 launch?
They could, but 1 year extra in the oven is more beneficial to both Sony and MS for that reason I think they'll both wait till 2020.
Process maturity, parts availability and/or couple cents cheaper (it adds up when you're talking about millions in sales) saved here and there.
 
What are you talking about?
The way that reads is like you're under the impression that "being stuck" with 12 chips (2GB each) is a bad thing when it's rather good.
12x 1.35v = 16.2v, PS4 is at 8x1.50v = 12v, very small increase in power draw for 3x the amount of memory and it might be higher because initially PS4 was supplied with 512MB chips (x16 = 8GB).

eh, i don't think that's how electricity works :p
 

FranXico

Member
I don't know why people are expecting Sony to wait just because it would "be convenient to them and MS". It is in their best interest to get next gen started as soon as possible, and with the possibility to drop price later on when the next Xbox comes.
 
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bitbydeath

Member
I don't know why people are expecting Sony to wait just because it would "be convenient to them and MS". It is in their best interest to get next gen started as soon as possible, and with the possibility to drop price later on when the next Xbox comes.

I think they’d wait for the right tech over releasing the same thing a year later just so they can say the price is a bit cheaper.

#Team2019
 
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Ar¢tos

Member
Was the Pro considered a success for Sony?
I never heard any estimate of how many they expected to sell, unlike they do with the base model.
 

Toe-Knee

Member
Was the Pro considered a success for Sony?
I never heard any estimate of how many they expected to sell, unlike they do with the base model.


I think the Europe lead (Jim Ryan?) said they expect it will be 5 million by the end of the generation and they were only expecting it to be a small percentage of the total sales.
 
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Txx3

Neo Member
game consols are kinda old pc nowadays ...so its not that exciting tbh ....if you wanna know what the ps5 will be like ..just look at last years PC´s
 
I think they’d wait for the right tech over releasing the same thing a year later just so they can say the price is a bit cheaper.

#Team2019
Exactly. Plus I don't see a $399 price tag as set in stone. A $449 PS5 would be extremely viable, especially for the enthusiast early adopters. Additionally, Sony could bring back the subsidy for a year to make up any small deficit. The increased market share advantage of starting the next gen before Microsoft would be worth it, and reclaiming the high end power title would do wonders to thwart any boost the XB1 X would get from a price drop.

The PS4 is killing it this generation. The sooner Sony can transfer its leading market dominance to the next generation, the better it will be for them. If the history of consoles has taught us anything, it is that nothing is guaranteed from one generation to the next. Taking your market dominance for granted is a sure way to lose it.
 
game consols are kinda old pc nowadays ...so its not that exciting tbh ....if you wanna know what the ps5 will be like ..just look at last years PC´s
It's not like that at all. For one thing unlike PCs, consoles have unified memory and its chips are custom made. They include tech not in current PC CPUs or GPUs. As an example here are some custom modifications that when into the PS4.
The three "major modifications" Sony did to the architecture to support this vision are as follows, in Cerny's words:
  • "First, we added another bus to the GPU that allows it to read directly from system memory or write directly to system memory, bypassing its own L1 and L2 caches. As a result, if the data that's being passed back and forth between CPU and GPU is small, you don't have issues with synchronization between them anymore. And by small, I just mean small in next-gen terms. We can pass almost 20 gigabytes a second down that bus. That's not very small in today’s terms -- it’s larger than the PCIe on most PCs!
  • "Next, to support the case where you want to use the GPU L2 cache simultaneously for both graphics processing and asynchronous compute, we have added a bit in the tags of the cache lines, we call it the 'volatile' bit. You can then selectively mark all accesses by compute as 'volatile,' and when it's time for compute to read from system memory, it can invalidate, selectively, the lines it uses in the L2. When it comes time to write back the results, it can write back selectively the lines that it uses. This innovation allows compute to use the GPU L2 cache and perform the required operations without significantly impacting the graphics operations going on at the same time -- in other words, it radically reduces the overhead of running compute and graphics together on the GPU."
  • Thirdly, said Cerny, "The original AMD GCN architecture allowed for one source of graphics commands, and two sources of compute commands. For PS4, we’ve worked with AMD to increase the limit to 64 sources of compute commands -- the idea is if you have some asynchronous compute you want to perform, you put commands in one of these 64 queues, and then there are multiple levels of arbitration in the hardware to determine what runs, how it runs, and when it runs, alongside the graphics that's in the system."
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/191007/inside_the_playstation_4_with_mark_.php?print=1
 
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TheMikado

Banned
It's not like that at all. For one thing unlike PCs, consoles have unified memory and its chips are custom made. They include tech not in current PC CPUs or GPUs. As an example here are some custom modifications that when into the PS4.

Umm.... what do you think intergrated graphics chips are??
The PS4 is nothing more than a modified off the shelf design that's been customized for gaming. There's nothing magic about it and no secret sauce.
 
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Umm.... what do you think intergrated graphics chips are??
The PS4 is nothing more than a modified off the shelf design that's been customized for gaming. There's nothing magic about it and no secret sauce.
Consoles are far more powerful than chips with integrated graphics. Plus as I quoted, consoles add custom features to make more efficient use of that unified memory whereas in PCs the APU is just a normal CPU and GPU on a single chip. The PS5 is most definitely not going to be a Ryzen 5 2400G or Ryzen 3 2200G in a small form factor. It's the combination of the unified memory and custom modifications that make consoles unique.
 

TheMikado

Banned
Consoles are far more powerful than chips with integrated graphics. Plus as I quoted, consoles add custom features to make more efficient use of that unified memory whereas in PCs the APU is just a normal CPU and GPU on a single chip. The PS5 is most definitely not going to be a Ryzen 5 2400G or Ryzen 3 2200G in a small form factor. It's the combination of the unified memory and custom modifications that make consoles unique.

What, no that’s almost exactly what it will be, it will be whatever APU is available at the time which will be either a Zen/Vega pairing or a zen2/Navi pairing. The core will almost certainly be exactly the same and the modification will be to the number of compute units and memory bandwidth using GDDR6. With the very chips you mentioned it’s almost an absolute certainty that the next consoles will be nothing more than modified versions of those chips and almost exact copies of their cores with as I stated addition silicon for performance.
 
A friend who has a friend who works at a third party dev just told me the devkits run ps4 discs. It also recognizes ps3 discs although games won't run.
 

THE:MILKMAN

Member
A friend who has a friend who works at a third party dev just told me the devkits run ps4 discs. It also recognizes ps3 discs although games won't run.

According to Kotaku/Jason Schreier the only hint of devkits are in first-party hands and are PC-based Frankenstein's and not the more dedicated/closer to spec devkits.

I'm not completely convinced we're getting a true picture just yet but I don't think third-party devs have kits yet? Is the dev in NA or EU can you say?
 
According to Kotaku/Jason Schreier the only hint of devkits are in first-party hands and are PC-based Frankenstein's and not the more dedicated/closer to spec devkits.

I'm not completely convinced we're getting a true picture just yet but I don't think third-party devs have kits yet? Is the dev in NA or EU can you say?
NA. And the dev is EA.
 

bitbydeath

Member
game consols are kinda old pc nowadays ...so its not that exciting tbh ....if you wanna know what the ps5 will be like ..just look at last years PC´s

Games already look better now on consoles, next-gen will obviously greatly improve from this.

PC needs to raise the min spec of AAA games to keep up otherwise they’ll continue to move further and further behind.
 

demigod

Member
A friend who has a friend who works at a third party dev just told me the devkits run ps4 discs. It also recognizes ps3 discs although games won't run.

I can believe this. If Sony wants people to move to the digital ecosystem like Steam, they have to allow BC for psn and good chance if physical are BC.

Kotaku didn’t say much except 2020, i wouldn’t trust them. Their article read more like clickbait.
 

Audiophile

Member
This is somewhere in the vicinity of my hopes and expectations:

PS5 | Mar-Nov 2020 | £349/$399-£399/$449

AMD APU / 7nm Process:
Zen2+ w/ 6-8 Cores | 12-16 Threads @ 2.8-3.2GHz
Navi+ w/ 90-100 NCU | 5760-6400 SP @ 1100-1200MHz (~14TFlops)
Custom feature set, ARM Co-Processor & heavy VR optimsation.

24GB HBM2 RAM @ ~1.54TB/s (6x Gen1 4GB @ ~256GB/s)
/or/
32GB HBM2 RAM @ ~1.23TB/s (4x Gen2 8GB @ ~307GB/s)

64GB On-Board Flash Cache (wildcard!)
2TB 7200RPM 2.5" HDD

USB 3.1 x4 (2 Front/2 Back) + Proprietary I/O's
HDMI 2.x In x1 + HDMI 2.x Out x1
Gigabit Ethernet + Bluetooth 5 + Wi-Fi 802.11ac 2.4/5.0GHz

DVD/BD/UHD-BD/BD-XL Optical Drive

I'd wet my pants if this is close! A PSVR2 and better Motion Control/Tracking System released within ~18mths would be the cherry on top..

As for BC, while it doesn't matter to me much personally, I can certainly see the appeal for many, I'm hopeful in regards to PS4 BC. For PS1/PS2/PS3; they really need to up their game with PS Now, integrating it into the UI/UX better, making it more visible, improving it's performance, expanding the catalogue and making the pricing more competitive (maybe integrating into a tiered or modular PS+?).

To summarise, it would be nice to have PS Now for PS1/PS2/PS3 (& PSP/Vita in some form?) and hopefully a clean run of BC running through PS4/PS4 Pro, PS5/PS5 Pro and PS6 etc. And should eventual architecture changes break compatibility (assuming further console paradigm shifts do not negate the requirement), then begin integrating the back catalogues from PS4/PS5 etc. into PS Now.
 

LordOfChaos

Member
This is somewhere in the vicinity of my hopes and expectations:



I'd wet my pants if this is close! A PSVR2 and better Motion Control/Tracking System released within ~18mths would be the cherry on top..

As for BC, while it doesn't matter to me much personally, I can certainly see the appeal for many, I'm hopeful in regards to PS4 BC. For PS1/PS2/PS3; they really need to up their game with PS Now, integrating it into the UI/UX better, making it more visible, improving it's performance, expanding the catalogue and making the pricing more competitive (maybe integrating into a tiered or modular PS+?).

To summarise, it would be nice to have PS Now for PS1/PS2/PS3 (& PSP/Vita in some form?) and hopefully a clean run of BC running through PS4/PS4 Pro, PS5/PS5 Pro and PS6 etc. And should eventual architecture changes break compatibility (assuming further console paradigm shifts do not negate the requirement), then begin integrating the back catalogues from PS4/PS5 etc. into PS Now.


Speaking of, I also hope the ARM coprocessor isn't an afterthought, iirc they wanted it to do more but it ended up so underpowered it needed the main APU for standby downloads (it does have IO access directly and its own BSD so it should be able to on its own) greatly increasing power use and sometimes turning on the fan when in standby. It's also the reason SSDs don't improve load times as much as they could have, and SATA III didn't even help either, as the IO goes through the ARM subsystem in a fixed bandwidth allocation I'd guess. And then the slow screenshots, limited video recording quality, etc, the little guy does matter.

Any off the shelf high end ARM core should be cheap enough and powerful enough to cover all of this, but I don't want to take it for granted and not ask for it. And the more of the system it can run, the more the Zen cores can do their jam, best case the OS doesn't even have to reserve a thread of them.
 
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PS5 - 2020

NAVI 15Tflops
Zen(2) 8-Core 3.2Ghz
32GB DDR6

I don't know what they'll do with the price. But you can be sure that the console will be powerful. Write it down.
 
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Grinchy

Banned
Interesting. So if true I now wonder what Kotaku's article is all about......Especially the fact it was so overly non-committal.
That "article" said basically nothing. It claimed that some people thought a PS5 was releasing this year (what kind of morons ever thought that?). Then it claimed that it might not be until 2020, which is a total guess.

I could have written that article myself, sprinkled it with extra words, and called it journalism.
 

TheMikado

Banned
This is somewhere in the vicinity of my hopes and expectations:



I'd wet my pants if this is close! A PSVR2 and better Motion Control/Tracking System released within ~18mths would be the cherry on top..

As for BC, while it doesn't matter to me much personally, I can certainly see the appeal for many, I'm hopeful in regards to PS4 BC. For PS1/PS2/PS3; they really need to up their game with PS Now, integrating it into the UI/UX better, making it more visible, improving it's performance, expanding the catalogue and making the pricing more competitive (maybe integrating into a tiered or modular PS+?).

To summarise, it would be nice to have PS Now for PS1/PS2/PS3 (& PSP/Vita in some form?) and hopefully a clean run of BC running through PS4/PS4 Pro, PS5/PS5 Pro and PS6 etc. And should eventual architecture changes break compatibility (assuming further console paradigm shifts do not negate the requirement), then begin integrating the back catalogues from PS4/PS5 etc. into PS Now.

Any specs featuring HBM2 would be fake.
 

EDMIX

Member
It will use gddr5x or gddr6. The prices of hbm make it very unlikely.
I agree. I don't think they are aiming to future proof it, simply make it affordable and make sense to their user base. They can always just make a PS5 Pro for anything extra.
 

EDMIX

Member
That "article" said basically nothing. It claimed that some people thought a PS5 was releasing this year (what kind of morons ever thought that?). Then it claimed that it might not be until 2020, which is a total guess.

I could have written that article myself, sprinkled it with extra words, and called it journalism.

10000% agreed. I don't see PS5 coming out this year as it makes zero sense. Sony would have started already marketing. Its too early and they have many, many projects still in development and yet to release on PS4 to be trying to release PS5.

Early 2020 announcement and fall release I think makes more sense
 

Ar¢tos

Member
Since Sony works with AMD to create a custom APU with modifications to suit their needs, what's stopping them from doing the same with Samsung or Hynix to create custom memory modules based on gddr5x/6? The amounts they need more than justify doing that.
 

THE:MILKMAN

Member
That "article" said basically nothing. It claimed that some people thought a PS5 was releasing this year (what kind of morons ever thought that?). Then it claimed that it might not be until 2020, which is a total guess.

I could have written that article myself, sprinkled it with extra words, and called it journalism.

The thing is I do trust Jason but it surprisingly does read like a piece to put the brakes on. Almost as if all the talk on forums about PS5 has got out of hand and the article is designed to calm things down!

Jason does have as his number one predictions this year for the first legit next-gen rumours so this article basically saying there is nothing except may be 2020 (whilst simultaneously not ruling anything out) is really confusing.
 

TheMikado

Banned
The thing is I do trust Jason but it surprisingly does read like a piece to put the brakes on. Almost as if all the talk on forums about PS5 has got out of hand and the article is designed to calm things down!

Jason does have as his number one predictions this year for the first legit next-gen rumours so this article basically saying there is nothing except may be 2020 (whilst simultaneously not ruling anything out) is really confusing.

Exactly, not buying it:

https://www.polygon.com/2018/4/11/17225834/playstation-5-next-generation-andrew-house

Vorhaus pressed House on the likely timing of a PlayStation 5, remarking that the machine is likely in an advanced state of design right now “in laboratories.” House deflected “the specifics,” but indicated a general view among hardware manufacturers, that hardware cycles can, and ought to be, a lot longer than they were in the past.

“I’m very bullish on longer life cycles for consoles,” House said. “Consoles are so under-represented and under-penetrated in so many markets around the globe. There’s so much potential. Let’s not forget that China is still largely [untapped].”
.....

House touched on the ability to upgrade consoles inside generations, such as PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X, as reasons to believe PS4 will have a long life. He also spoke of the power of mass data collection, which hardware companies can leverage to extend the life of their products “in a safe and manageable way.” (no idea what this means)
 
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