Next Generation Hardware Speculation with a Technical Spin [2018]

[anexanhume]

Well high volume doesn't necessarily mean cost effective, but we should still be happy EUV wasn't delayed once more. They've been saying 2019 for a while now.

There seems to be a continuous stream of articles about the progress of euv and 7nm on semiengineering.com, a bit too advanced for me but at least I get to learn new words like "stochastic".

I would imagine/hope that eventually EUV will beat DUV in cost on the same node. Single vs. quad patterning’s impact on throughput alone seems significant.

 

[novcze]

True. Perhaps a middle ground then?

Each console comes with an HDD, and you may install games to it - maybe that's even encouraged by the system - but you may also just put the disc in and play.

Is your desire driven by a lack of decent internet connection or perhaps second-hand market for the games?

IMO next-gen could have optical drive as an optional accessory which you slide into some slot if you want it in console.

 

[DieH@rd]

IMO next-gen could have optical drive as an optional accessory which you slide into some slot if you want it in console.

Andrew House [not the head of Playstation anymore] thinks that discs are still here to stay.
https://www.polygon.com/2018/4/11/17225834/playstation-5-next-generation-andrew-house

 

[novcze]

Andrew House [not the head of Playstation anymore] thinks that discs are still here to stay.
https://www.polygon.com/2018/4/11/17225834/playstation-5-next-generation-andrew-house

Sure, I'm only saying that some people would welcome a console without optical drive while still having ability to add it if needed. Also BR/DVD playback capability could be enabled via app purchase.

 

[mpg1]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/989258151345229825

 

[Tkumpathenurpahl]

Is it fair to assume that comes from TSMC?

 

[Mihailjones]

Is your desire driven by a lack of decent internet connection or perhaps second-hand market for the games?

IMO next-gen could have optical drive as an optional accessory which you slide into some slot if you want it in console.

Not all of us like or value digital games.

For most collector-gamers I know, digital games are almost worthless.

Few points:

Digitals cannot be sold. Physicals can be sold. So many buy em on launch and sell for 60-80% of what they paid after few weeks. And I like to buy these almost new games for cheap.

You cant have nice collection of digital games on shelf (some like it, some dont)

Faster installs for many. I have 100/10 cable so installs are reasonably fast, but disc is still faster. I have friends with 10/1 and it takes hours and hours to download big patches and full game would be almost a day in worst case.

In my country there are no data caps, but what i have read is that in US and many places there are crazy low caps, so that is another problem for some.

IMO digital games have maybe ~10-20% value of physical game, so no way I would play 69.95€ for digital launch game, 10-20€ max is my max for any digital. (Because they cant be sold, traded or kept on shelf).

I have 700-900 physical games from 80's to this date so fully digital console would be no-no to me.

Optical add-on, well it could work but common consumer can be stupid/ignorant(wiiu = wii addon is good example) so dunno how well it would work? People would buy disc games and cry that they dont work. And more parts to be broken I guess.

 

[Entropy]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/989258151345229825

Is it fair to assume that comes from TSMC?

Not really. All AMDs current graphics products are made at GF, and AMD has very close ties with them. Also, we don’t know what this chip is, or how complex, or how far from volume production the process line is. If it is a radeon product I’d actually guess GF on this one, and that volume production is a fair distance off in the future.
(Actually, GFs 7nm process looks pretty competitive. The proof of the pudding is in the eating though, so we’ll see what products come out of it. For once AMDs CPUs won’t necessarily be at a huge process disadvantage vs. Intel. Will be interesting. )

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Not really. All AMDs current graphics products are made at GF, and AMD has very close ties with them. Also, we don’t know what this chip is, or how complex, or how far from volume production the process line is. If it is a radeon product I’d actually guess GF on this one, and that volume production is a fair distance off in the future.
(Actually, GFs 7nm process looks pretty competitive. The proof of the pudding is in the eating though, so we’ll see what products come out of it. For once AMDs CPUs won’t necessarily be at a huge process disadvantage vs. Intel. Will be interesting. )

It's pretty much confirmed that this is Vega 20 and it's on TSMC's 7nm.
AMD had already announced that Vega 20 would be the only 7nm GPU coming out this year and it would be exclusive (at least at launch) to HPC applications, and TSMC is the only one doing volume 7nm right now.

 

[egoless]

Not all of us like or value digital games.

For most collector-gamers I know, digital games are almost worthless.

Few points:

Digitals cannot be sold. Physicals can be sold. So many buy em on launch and sell for 60-80% of what they paid after few weeks. And I like to buy these almost new games for cheap.

You cant have nice collection of digital games on shelf (some like it, some dont)

Faster installs for many. I have 100/10 cable so installs are reasonably fast, but disc is still faster. I have friends with 10/1 and it takes hours and hours to download big patches and full game would be almost a day in worst case.

In my country there are no data caps, but what i have read is that in US and many places there are crazy low caps, so that is another problem for some.

IMO digital games have maybe ~10-20% value of physical game, so no way I would play 69.95€ for digital launch game, 10-20€ max is my max for any digital. (Because they cant be sold, traded or kept on shelf).

I have 700-900 physical games from 80's to this date so fully digital console would be no-no to me.

Optical add-on, well it could work but common consumer can be stupid/ignorant(wiiu = wii addon is good example) so dunno how well it would work? People would buy disc games and cry that they dont work. And more parts to be broken I guess.

If only there was a clean, universal, platform level way to accomplish all of that this generation....

 

[DieH@rd]

(Actually, GFs 7nm process looks pretty competitive. The proof of the pudding is in the eating though, so we’ll see what products come out of it. For once AMDs CPUs won’t necessarily be at a huge process disadvantage vs. Intel. Will be interesting. )

Intel is still struggling with [their] 10nm, next batch of CPUs [Whiskey Lake] will again use [their] 14nm
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-cpu-10nm-earnings-amd,36967.html

 

[Entropy]

Not really. All AMDs current graphics products are made at GF, and AMD has very close ties with them. Also, we don’t know what this chip is, or how complex, or how far from volume production the process line is. If it is a radeon product I’d actually guess GF on this one, and that volume production is a fair distance off in the future.
(Actually, GFs 7nm process looks pretty competitive. The proof of the pudding is in the eating though, so we’ll see what products come out of it. For once AMDs CPUs won’t necessarily be at a huge process disadvantage vs. Intel. Will be interesting. )

It's pretty much confirmed that this is Vega 20 and it's on TSMC's 7nm.
AMD had already announced that Vega 20 would be the only 7nm GPU coming out this year and it would be exclusive (at least at launch) to HPC applications, and TSMC is the only one doing volume 7nm right now.

Seems like TSMC judging by that quote alright.

 

[chris1515]

More expense for R&D + 11% last fiscal year for Games and network on Sony side. Only semiconductor R&D expense are slightly bigger...

 

[MrFox]

More expense for R&D 11% more last fiscal year for Games and network on Sony side. Only semiconductor R&D expense are slightly bigger...

Besides slim revisions, psvr, and ps5... Their game streaming service would need a lot of r&d to bring it up to higher res and they might be upgrading the infrastructure to reduce power and rack space.

I'm expecting next gen will have at least instantaneously playable demos via PS Now. And hopefully streaming the game immediately while it downloads or install.

 

[anexanhume]

Not really. All AMDs current graphics products are made at GF, and AMD has very close ties with them. Also, we don’t know what this chip is, or how complex, or how far from volume production the process line is. If it is a radeon product I’d actually guess GF on this one, and that volume production is a fair distance off in the future.
(Actually, GFs 7nm process looks pretty competitive. The proof of the pudding is in the eating though, so we’ll see what products come out of it. For once AMDs CPUs won’t necessarily be at a huge process disadvantage vs. Intel. Will be interesting. )

It will be interesting, as current timelines could put Zen 2 7nm and Intel 10nm desktop launching in the same neighborhood of time.

It's pretty much confirmed that this is Vega 20 and it's on TSMC's 7nm.
AMD had already announced that Vega 20 would be the only 7nm GPU coming out this year and it would be exclusive (at least at launch) to HPC applications, and TSMC is the only one doing volume 7nm right now.

I believe Su said they’ll split this and APU/CPU across GF and TSMC, so neither surprises me. I am thinking console APUs will be TSMC most likely, but you still can’t count GF out.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

I believe Su said they’ll split this and APU/CPU across GF and TSMC, so neither surprises me. I am thinking console APUs will be TSMC most likely, but you still can’t count GF out.

Well GlobalFoundries' 14LPP has served Zeppelin and Raven Ridge pretty well.
Not so much for GPUs, though.

I expect AMD to continue using GF for CPUs and APUs, but I'm hoping they'll transition their discrete GPUs to TSMC. At least their high-end lines (like Vega 20).

 

[anexanhume]

Here we go, another DRAM price fixing lawsuit:

https://iphone.appleinsider.com/art...keep-dram-prices-high-class-action-suit-filed

 

[Entropy]

Well GlobalFoundries' 14LPP has served Zeppelin and Raven Ridge pretty well.
Not so much for GPUs, though.

I expect AMD to continue using GF for CPUs and APUs, but I'm hoping they'll transition their discrete GPUs to TSMC. At least their high-end lines (like Vega 20).

If GF can deliver in a timely fashion compared to TSMC (which to be honest is a big question mark) a process that is suitable for IBMs Big Iron is likely pretty good for GPUs as well. One of the interesting wrinkles of the fab scene is that TSMC and Samsung are spearheaded by mobile products, whereas GF early customers AMD and IBM are interested in CPUs and GPUs. Not that there is a world of difference process wise, but it may mean that desktop products from TSMC and GF may not be as far apart in time as the difference in ”7nm” node introductions might imply.

I hope that AMD will use the same high end process IBM does for their CPUs. That was not the case on 14nm.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Here we go, another DRAM price fixing lawsuit:

https://iphone.appleinsider.com/art...keep-dram-prices-high-class-action-suit-filed

About fucking time IMO.
Smartphone shipments decreased in 2017 but DRAM price increased almost 50%, "because smartphones"?
They were practically asking for it.

 

[Grall]

Well GlobalFoundries' 14LPP has served Zeppelin and Raven Ridge pretty well.
Not so much for GPUs, though.

Yeah, but what I've never seen a good explanation of is how zen can hit 4GHz on what I understand is the fundamentally same low-power process which won't let vega scale past 1450 roughly without power starting to explode out of control... *shrug*

Smartphone shipments decreased in 2017 but DRAM price increased almost 50%, "because smartphones"?

Maybe total amount of RAM used went up during the year? iPhone X for example has 4GB IIRC, previous gen topped out at 2. Some other smartphones have up to 8 gigs these days it seems.