Baseless Next Generation Rumors with no Technical Merits [post E3 2019, pre GDC 2020] [XBSX, PS5]

[Jay]

Are consoles lead platform on 3rd party games any more though? With both consoles using being essentially PCs I’d have thought that PC would be the lead platform and both consoles would get ports and be optimised.

If consoles are still lead platform then, if there’s no marketing deal with one side or the other, I’d have thought it would be worth spending the extra effort on whichever console is the market leader as that’ll be where there are more sales.

Consoles still have a lead platform even with the way they are now. Spend time optimising and getting your vision for the game right on that platform. PC scales based on cost.

And your right if no marketing deal (even with sometimes) its usually the market leader.
I never specified which would be market leader.
So it's not necessarily which is most powerful.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Are consoles lead platform on 3rd party games any more though?

Yes. They give you a fixed platform to target. Let's say it's 80 million Steam users versus 80 million PS4s - targeting PS4 means your optimised game is optimal for all those PS4s, whereas prioritising PC means optimising for whatever flavour of PC you happen to target, which is a tiny subset of all PCs, and then you either under-use the console if your lead spec is lower than it, or you have to get your high-than-console target down onto the consoles. It's better to pick a solid target platform and then scale that up/down to the PC crowd who are free to jiggle settings to get an experience they're okay with.

 

[BRiT]

It's still unknown what sort of performance we can expect from AMD RTRT. I don't even care that the next consoles have it. Everything else they bring is what has me excited and ready to upgrade on day one.

 

[HBRU]

From your posts in the last few weeks, I fear you’ll be disappointed whatever they come out with, all because of one number that really doesn’t mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, but somehow has become the new “thing” to talk about, which is a huge shame.

Tflop numbers are not meaningless, however when looking at the big picture and the overall tech we’re getting this time around, PS5 will be a monster, and apparently a balanced one at that too.

Remember, up until last year a lot of us here were 100% sure that RT would never even have been considered for a console in 2020 due to cost limitations, and here we are not only with RT but also with a super fast SSD, a CPU which can only be described as a godsend compared to Jaguar, new GPU that more than doubles the Pro, a UHD player thrown in - and I might be weird for having bought a player but anyone with a good 4K HDR TV who hasn’t watched a good UHD Blu-ray movie is in for a nice surprise - and whatever else they put in that box that they have not announced. Personally I don’t care and I don’t understand the fuss with backward compat, but they’re including that too.

For a price that we know will be around £400-ish? Come on! Who cares if it’s 9.2 or 9.7 or 10 Tflop!

Holy words...

 

[HBRU]

IMHO there is a small possibilty that ps5 will be available earlyier than Xbox Series... maybe June [emoji1]

 

[AbsoluteBeginner]

When thinking about price of consoles, its good to keep in mind...

It cost one billion dollars to tape out 7nm chip

https://www.fudzilla.com/news/49513-it-cost-1-billion-dollars-to-tape-out-7nm-chip

2013 / 28nm

Radeon R7 260X - $139 MSRP - 160mm2 (Xbox One - 360mm2 ESRAM)
Radeon R9 270X - $179 MSRP - 212mm2 (PS4 - 348mm2)

2016 / 16nm

Radeon RX470 - $179 MSRP - 232mm2 (PS4 Pro - 325mm2)

2017 / 16nm

Radeon RX580 - $229 MSRP - 232mm2 (XBX - 359mm2 + 4CUs)

2019 / 7nm

Radeon 5700/XT - $349/399 MSRP - 251mm2

 

[Nisaaru]

When thinking about price of consoles, its good to keep in mind...

https://www.fudzilla.com/news/49513-it-cost-1-billion-dollars-to-tape-out-7nm-chip

Sorry but I don't believe that. That would make the business unmaintainable unless you're Apple or Intel. A fixed cost of 1B to set up the production stage for any cpu, cpu, SoC, whatever makes no sense economically.

That the IP to develop products cost a *lot* of money during R&D is a given but then the IP is reused/adapted/tuned for a lot iterative products with far less R&D costs.

 

[AbsoluteBeginner]

Sorry but I don't believe that. That would make the business unmaintainable unless you're Apple or Intel. A fixed cost of 1B to set up the production stage for any cpu, cpu, SoC, whatever makes no sense economically.

That the IP to develop products cost a *lot* of money during R&D is a given but then the IP is reused/adapted/tuned for a lot iterative products with far less R&D costs.

Yes, obviously its not 1B for every chip. But I do wonder, there are only few big guys who are using TSMC 7nm (Apple, Qualcomm, Huawei, Mediatek, AMD). Is there anyone left? Designing new 7nm chip must be very lenghty and expensive process.

In Sony/MS case its obviously lowered by quite a margin since they are reusing existing IPs and framework.

 

[Esrever]

Why does everyone think the ps5 could clock above 2ghz and nobody putting forward a 2ghz xsx rumor?

 

[temesgen]

Why does everyone think the ps5 could clock above 2ghz and nobody putting forward a 2ghz xsx rumor?

I see many of us questioning a 2ghz PS5... It doesn't make much sense.

 

[BRiT]

Why does everyone think the ps5 could clock above 2ghz and nobody putting forward a 2ghz xsx rumor?

Have you not seen people spouting 16-18 TF? That would be close to what a XBSX at 2Ghz would be.

 

[Xbat]

Why does everyone think the ps5 could clock above 2ghz and nobody putting forward a 2ghz xsx rumor?

I seriously doubt the 2ghz clock rumor which means if the 36cu rumor is true I expect 8+ TFlops.

 

[KirkSi]

Why does everyone think the ps5 could clock above 2ghz and nobody putting forward a 2ghz xsx rumor?

Sony clocking at 2GHz is only talked about in conjunction with 36CU. If they’ve gone narrow on CUs then it makes sense to go fast on clock. The rumours for MS are that they’ve gone with 56CU, so they’ve gone wide on CUs, if they then go fast on clocks as well it’d generate a massive amount of heat. The heat 36CUs will generate at 2GHz will be bad enough but add on another 20CUs and the cooling for the series X would be crazy.

 

[3dilettante]

Sorry but I don't believe that. That would make the business unmaintainable unless you're Apple or Intel. A fixed cost of 1B to set up the production stage for any cpu, cpu, SoC, whatever makes no sense economically.

That the IP to develop products cost a *lot* of money during R&D is a given but then the IP is reused/adapted/tuned for a lot iterative products with far less R&D costs.

TSMC disclosed about $32.5 billion in revenue for 2018. TSMC's web blurb on 7nm included mention that 2018 had 40 customer tapeouts, so I'd say there's a significant discount from $1 billion.
It's a more significant shortfall if taking into account that this assumes TSMC did everything else it makes money from for free--like volume production of the chips that it charged a billion dollars to tape out.

Apple in particular could have paid much more for its products, as part of a pattern of subsidizing the forward progress of its manufacturing partners in exchange for schedule, volume, and exclusivity. That can push costs for that vendor above the expenses inherent to the process.

 

[MrFox]

Sony clocking at 2GHz is only talked about in conjunction with 36CU. If they’ve gone narrow on CUs then it makes sense to go fast on clock. The rumours for MS are that they’ve gone with 56CU, so they’ve gone wide on CUs, if they then go fast on clocks as well it’d generate a massive amount of heat. The heat 36CUs will generate at 2GHz will be bad enough but add on another 20CUs and the cooling for the series X would be crazy.

Binging stable power on larger chips might also be problematic. Yield might drop even more compared to 36 CUs if they need 56CU to pass at 2ghz at the same voltage. A lower clock would counter balance the yield issue.

 

[MrFox]

There is a rumor about the Zen engineers helping on clock and efficiency for RDNA2, which would increase clock if the consoles are using RDNA2. It would be on 7nm+, which also help clock higher.

 

[disco_]

There is a rumor about the Zen engineers helping on clock and efficiency for RDNA2, which would increase clock if the consoles are using RDNA2. It would be on 7nm+, which also help clock higher.

If XSX is ~400mm2, is it on 7nm+? I understand they can port some things from 7nm+ to 7nm but to what extent is that viable?

 

[AbsoluteBeginner]

Why does everyone think the ps5 could clock above 2ghz and nobody putting forward a 2ghz xsx rumor?

After additional looking into Github file, it seems config file clock was set to max 2.0GHz sckl (and its specified as upperlimit 100%).

Tbh I dont think it tells us how high will PS5 clock. I actually believe 1.8GHz shown in Gonzalo might be much closer to truth. 1.8GHz is still in sweetspot (~1.7GHz for Navi).

If XSX is ~400mm2, is it on 7nm+? I understand they can port some things from 7nm+ to 7nm but to what extent is that viable?

Why? I dont think so. Inside 400mm² there is enough space for 60CUs and Zen 2 with quarter of L3 cache (and btw as per AMD, CPU cache is now as big of a power consumer as compute).

Also I think consoles will be manufactured in 2nd gen 7nm node which is now in mass production since July and doesnt require a redesign. It provides 10% less consumption at same clocks or 7% more performance compared to 1st gen 7nm.

 

[disco_]

After additional looking into Github file, it seems config file clock was set to max 2.0GHz sckl (and its specified as upperlimit 100%).

Tbh I dont think it tells us how high will PS5 clock. I actually believe 1.8GHz shown in Gonzalo might be much closer to truth. 1.8GHz is still in sweetspot (~1.7GHz for Navi).


Why? I dont think so. Inside 400mm² there is enough space for 60CUs and Zen 2 with quarter of L3 cache (and btw as per AMD, CPU cache is now as big of a power consumer as compute).

Also I think consoles will be manufactured in 2nd gen 7nm node which is now in mass production since July and doesnt require a redesign. It provides 10% less consumption at same clocks or 7% more performance compared to 1st gen 7nm.

That was what I was getting at. I'd guess xsx isn't 7nm+. Maybe not even 7nP.

 

[AbsoluteBeginner]

That was what I was getting at. I'd guess xsx isn't 7nm+. Maybe not even 7nP.

I think N7P will be default tbh. I would be surprised if all next years 7nm DUV chips are not N7P.