Next Generation Hardware Speculation with a Technical Spin [post E3 2019, pre GDC 2020] [XBSX, PS5]

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Laser can be used to for additive manufacturing too, by combining it with a metal dust injector.
That's a super expensive process at the moment though, AFAIK.
 
I thought all consoles from the current generation were already using vapor chamber heatsinks.
 
They must have some good amount of cheaper access to cooling solutions, as a solid cooling solution for a dCPU alone is going to cost more then 'a few dollars'.
 
I thought all consoles from the current generation were already using vapor chamber heatsinks.
Only the OneX, ps4/ps4 pro are still using chunk aluminum:

PS4 heatsink:
s-l300.jpg

Not <$1 but not really >$2 either. PS4 Pro is a slightly big version.

OneX Heatsink. I would actually expect both ps5 and Xsx to use something similar:
xbox_one_x_vapor_chamber_cooler.jpg

I'd put it around $5-7.50. That's definitely more than $2 and certainly an expense in a whole life for the platform holder view but still doesn't reflect a meaningful concern for the bom.
 
Not sure but I don't think laser cutting works without cutting completely through.
Without any direct knowledge of laser machining, I'd have thought the amount of energy in the laser and pulse length should be pretty exact at drilling to certain depths. Probably not worth discussing here as we've real idea what production costs for different Things is anyway. ;)
 
Most sites I've seen test at 720p with lower settings. I'm fine with them turning off vendor specific stuff like hairworks, but I really think CPU testing should be performed with higher settings because lower setting are optimized to remove bottlenecks, and I think it would be more useful to find out where those bottlenecks are.

It's really hard to have any concrete comparisons between the console CPUs and a Core 2 Quad because AMD never released an 8 core Jaguar. I guess you could compare a Core 2 Duo to a quad core Jaguar to get a reference, since both CPUs would have exactly half the core counts, but I think when it comes down to it, the fact that those 8 core Jaguars are in a closed box allow developers to optimize for that thread count and IPC more effectively. I'm also not as down on those CPUs as many people here are. The fact that many games employ a resolution scaler or run sub-1080p more often than not means that the systems are GPU bound most of the time anyway.

Yes, there isn't really a good way to make concrete comparisons between console and PC CPUs. You either don't lower settings at which point you are putting a heavier burden on PC CPUs than you are on console CPUs or you attempt to visually match console settings on the PC (certainly not an exact science) which comes with the added benefit that you have no way of knowing if those settings are using the CPU in the same way on both console and PC. For example, you can theoretically push more effects to the GPU on console as you have fixed GPU features versus PC where a GPU may or may not support a GPU feature used on console. We see this with Doom, for example, where some but not all GPU capabilities that were used to offload effects from the CPU to the GPU are available depending on the GPU being used on the PC. For example, GCN supported and benefitted from more of these features than Maxwell and to a lesser extent Pascal. But even then, IIRC, not all of the GPU features that they used in order to reduce CPU usage were able to be used on PC.

Regards,
SB
 
He's also well connected to official sources. Maybe he reached for comment and got an off the record info about cooling, but was asked not to say. Hard to tell since he's being so vague.

The old sony patent about cooling through the PCB is still interesting. The machining necessary to pull it off would be expensive, and production would be slow.

Which patent was that? I saw a picture from a Sony Japan patent that had metal pillars through the PCB and into the underside of a chip. That seemed related to some kind of component or space constraint in the area on the upper side of the PCB or above the chip itself, rather than there being a normal heatsink on top.

It doesn't seem like the consoles are that space constrained, and I think the power situation is self-limiting with that method.
The first constraint is whatever is crowding the upper side of the chip, which places certain limits on the amount of heat that can be dissipated, as the through-PCB method is likely to be inferior to a solid metal base, much less a heatpipe or vapor chamber.
The other constraint is that thermally significant pillars of metal burrowing up to the bottom of the die are going to block out equally significant areas of the power/ground pads, removing whatever power they could deliver to the SOC.
It would seem like there would be a narrow power range for a device crowded by chips or components on one side, and missing significant pad area needed for the power delivery for devices we're assuming are in the 100+ W range.

It's possible that vapor chambers or an even greater number of heatpipes can be present if the chips are at a similar power envelope but need to deal with hot spots or overall power density at 7nm.

The following is marketing, but it gives some rules of thumb for heat sinks using heat pipes or vapor chambers:
https://celsiainc.com/heat-sink-blog/vapor-chamber-vs-heat-pipe/

A single heatpipe is likely preferred in the <15W/cm range, but multiple pipes can scale. A vapor chamber becomes more likely at higher heat densities, and also does better with keeping temperature uniform across the base of the cooler.
Something like Scorpio at 16nm was likely getting into the region where heat pipes were giving way to a vapor chamber, and the PS4 Pro might have been approaching that range.

A 7nm chip that was more compact could justify a vapor chamber even if its power consumption wasn't out of line with the Pro. If we're going to theorize about multiple components or nearby memory, the package and chips would do better mechanically if they were at similar temperatures, which a vapor chamber is better at.
A potential limitation is that it's possible that a chamber wouldn't have the physical range of a heat pipe, if we're theorizing the PS5 dev kit photos imply ranks of heat sinks mounted at an offset from whatever is generating the heat.
 
audio gateways into immersive worlds with spatial sound

Location: Moscone West Hall, Room 2009

Learn from the audio designers of Borderlands 3 and Gears of War 5 around how a collaboration between Microsoft, Dolby, and our middleware partners kicked off a revolution with spatial sound that turns any pair of headphones into a multi-dimensional gateway to another world. Attendees will dive deep into the audio design pipeline (Project Acoustics) and the relationship to dedicated hardware-acceleration on newer generation Xbox consoles.

Speaker: Robert Ridihalgh (Senior Technical Audio Specialist, Microsoft)

Dedicated 3D audio processor on Xbox Scarlett it seems. This a GDC 2020 session.

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/games/events/gdc-2019
 
The implies a more general AMD solution if both Sony and MS have it. Curious.

Anyone heard spatial audio on Borderlands 3? Are there some good examples?
 
Is there any reason to think it's anything but Tensilica DSPs again?
I'm more inclined to believe this is the case, just shape 2.0, beefed up.
It would make BC simpler and any critiques devs had could be addressed.
Unless amd's solution is a whole lot better I don't see why they would pay for it after all the in-house knowledge they have etc
 
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