Estimate a BOM delta for PS5 and XBSX

The 2.4gb/s is the sustained guranteed rate, the SSD itself has rates higher then that most likely. That and the SSD is nearly 200GB bigger in size. I doubt theres a considerable difference in cost for Sony and MS regarding the SSD itself.

From what they presented 2.4 GB/s is the raw speed of the SSD like 5.5 gB/s is raw speed of SSD but it is nearly the sustainable speed if you have the right I/O, games(asset and menus) are optimized for not having 4kb file and the cooling system is good enough to not throttle.
 
Custom doesn't mean more expensive. It means more R&D cost and probably cheaper BOM cost because you don't pay a third party to do the SSD controller and the I/O. Storage is I/O + NAND Flash price. Sony has less NAND but faster but the I/O probably cost less than MS I/O(if the guy said true on linkedin, this is a Phison controller). Phison paid the company doing the component they take a profit and Phison sold it to MS with a profit. On PS5 Sony paid the company doing the component and they take a profit.

I completely agree, but custom doesn't always means cheaper either. There are many factors that can, over the entire life of a semiconductor and the device it's embedded in, can swing that the cost one way of the other. That said, given Sony's decades of experience with semiconductor manufacture, it is very difficult to envisage a situation where for Sony, at worst their custom design is no more expensive overall than licensing an existing part (but with potentially better performance) but more likely leaning towards being overall cheaper in real terms.

Why? What's your comparison SSD pricing of similar performance parts that leads you to think it can't be that expensive? A quick search, Samsung 970 Evo Plus is Gen 3 M.2, at 3.5 GB/s and 1 TB capacity, priced at ~£200 retail.

I understand the point you're making here but using consumer pricing as a basis for what Sony or Microsoft will pay for components is folly. They bear no relation at all - speaking as somebody who has bought many a commodity item for my personal use and thousands/millions for of the same things for large-scale operations. Things that making pricing pretty much impossible to determine with any degree of accuracy, is when the deal to purchase was inked, how long it ran for, the quantities, what other items may be included. You as well ask a Magic 8 Ball! :yes: If you buy a lot of individually varied things over a long period of time, the prices will radically shift. The consumer market is predicated on manufacture-supply-and-demand pricing for the most part.
 
Don't forget BOM cost does not equal cost at retail. Packaging and shipping at retails cost are missing.

Yes, I keep saying that size will affect costs - for example, if the XSX box ends up 25% bigger than PS5 that translates into 25% more shipping and storage costs...it all adds up!
 
Yes, I keep saying that size will affect costs - for example, if the XSX box ends up 25% bigger than PS5 that translates into 25% more shipping and storage costs...it all adds up!

Yes the xsx can cost more that way. It can also cost less if MS makes a big order for azure and xcloud . If say they were planning on making 1m for launch for consumers but also need 1m for xcloud and compute on azure then they will surely get much better deals on components. The same goes with the hard drives. If sony and ms are both making 1m systems for consumers that's one thing , but if MS then buys 1m more drives for cloud compute they have doubled the order vs sony and should see additional savings. But then MS is making the same drives into memory drive cards which will have them ordering even more.

So who knows. I find it really interesting that all the negative pricing information is coming from the sony side however. It reminds me of the ps3 fiasco. What if sony has limited quantities of systems at launch , with a higher cost and with a negative visual disparity. It wont be as bad as the $200-$300 price difference and the year late , but it could really shake them. Add in the rumor of lock heart and what if MS has two cheaper systems than sony ?

This is all getting really interesting. I love console launches
 
Yes the xsx can cost more that way. It can also cost less if MS makes a big order for azure and xcloud . If say they were planning on making 1m for launch for consumers but also need 1m for xcloud and compute on azure then they will surely get much better deals on components. The same goes with the hard drives. If sony and ms are both making 1m systems for consumers that's one thing , but if MS then buys 1m more drives for cloud compute they have doubled the order vs sony and should see additional savings. But then MS is making the same drives into memory drive cards which will have them ordering even more.

So who knows. I find it really interesting that all the negative pricing information is coming from the sony side however. It reminds me of the ps3 fiasco. What if sony has limited quantities of systems at launch , with a higher cost and with a negative visual disparity. It wont be as bad as the $200-$300 price difference and the year late , but it could really shake them. Add in the rumor of lock heart and what if MS has two cheaper systems than sony ?

This is all getting really interesting. I love console launches

Just to clarify, I don't think the SSD will be over $100 in either unit, however regarding your comment about Azure implying MS 'double' their order - well Sony would point to their sales last gen of evidence that they will be ordering ~twice that of their competition, so in that regard the SSD is a wash baring any bespoke changes that Sony make to their internal solution.

I think the assuption of a cheaper PS5 is based on the SoC with it looking like Sony have a ~15% smaller chip (if I've kept up with things) - but that could be countererd by an expensive cooler. Certainly very interesting, I'm expecting $500 vs $500-550 depending how much MS want to eat into profit/pay.
 
Regardless of architecture, the price of the SSD solution will be dominated by the cost of the flash dies themselves. One TB of TLC flash is currently around $90. That will be the same for both companies. The cost for the DRAM is also going to be the same.

Assuming a 7nm wafer costs $10,000 and perfect yield, the XBSX SOC will cost around $65 and the PS5 SOC roughly $54.

Sony will run their CUs slightly faster and hotter, MS have more CUs so I would expect TDP to be the same and thus the cost for the cooling solution to be the same.

I would be surprised if there is more than 10% difference in BOM between the two systems; Console hardware from competing vendors has never been more similar.

Cheers
 
Regardless of architecture, the price of the SSD solution will be dominated by the cost of the flash dies themselves. One TB of TLC flash is currently around $90. That will be the same for both companies. The cost for the DRAM is also going to be the same.

Assuming a 7nm wafer costs $10,000 and perfect yield, the XBSX SOC will cost around $65 and the PS5 SOC roughly $54.

Sony will run their CUs slightly faster and hotter, MS have more CUs so I would expect TDP to be the same and thus the cost for the cooling solution to be the same.

I would be surprised if there is more than 10% difference in BOM between the two systems; Console hardware from competing vendors has never been more similar.

Cheers

I can't see the SoC being around half last gen surely? Also after Cerny comments I am totally expecting their cooling solution to be more expensive, even if it's a drop in the $500 ocean.
 
Just to clarify, I don't think the SSD will be over $100 in either unit, however regarding your comment about Azure implying MS 'double' their order - well Sony would point to their sales last gen of evidence that they will be ordering ~twice that of their competition, so in that regard the SSD is a wash baring any bespoke changes that Sony make to their internal solution.

I think the assuption of a cheaper PS5 is based on the SoC with it looking like Sony have a ~15% smaller chip (if I've kept up with things) - but that could be countererd by an expensive cooler. Certainly very interesting, I'm expecting $500 vs $500-550 depending how much MS want to eat into profit/pay.

how ? Yes yes our last console sold X amount over 7 years so why don't you cut us a deal up front when prices are at their highest because maybe in 7 years we will want these things dirt cheap ? Dram manufacturers care about current orders not orders 8 years early. Also yes the ps4 has sold extremely well but what about the ps4 pro ? How well has that sold compared to the ps4 ? What about the ps3 that had only sold 80m units ? That's what over 30m less units than the ps4 generation ?

It wont give you as much buying power as literally buying 2-3 times the amount. Its the same with ram and all the components. The xcloud servers will need the same SOC / Ram/ nand and everything else in the system.

The last point to counter what your saying is that sony wont be buying the same nand through out the generation. Launch day units will not have the same nand chips that year 4 or year 6 consoles will have and may not have the same supplier either.

Also the SOC cost difference can easily be made up for buy tempest or their custom ssd controller. Heck even the new stuff they put into the controller can raise prices over what the xbox controller will cost. The last thing is bad chips. What does sony do with chips that aren't fast enough for the ps5 ? Microsoft can use them for azure / xcloud. They already talked about how many instances of xbox one and xbox one x the soc can run at the same time. So a soc that doesn't work for a xsx can work to to serve xbox one or xbox one x instances on xcloud. At the same time what is lockheart ? If lockheart exists does it use defective xsx soc? Does it use the same ram ? at least the slower portion of ram ? what about the ssd ? does it use the same ssd ? That is again another area in which MS can use purchasing power to drive down costs at the front end.

That's why all this is so interesting. You have something that could have been super uninteresting with and amd soc and similar ram and then you get stuff like tempest or their nand control or locked vs variable clocks and then how does the cloud affect things in terms of pricing or what about launching two consoles at different price points at once and so on. Its going to be really interesting.
 
how ? Yes yes our last console sold X amount over 7 years so why don't you cut us a deal up front when prices are at their highest because maybe in 7 years we will want these things dirt cheap ? Dram manufacturers care about current orders not orders 8 years early. Also yes the ps4 has sold extremely well but what about the ps4 pro ? How well has that sold compared to the ps4 ? What about the ps3 that had only sold 80m units ? That's what over 30m less units than the ps4 generation ?

It wont give you as much buying power as literally buying 2-3 times the amount. Its the same with ram and all the components. The xcloud servers will need the same SOC / Ram/ nand and everything else in the system.

The last point to counter what your saying is that sony wont be buying the same nand through out the generation. Launch day units will not have the same nand chips that year 4 or year 6 consoles will have and may not have the same supplier either.

Also the SOC cost difference can easily be made up for buy tempest or their custom ssd controller. Heck even the new stuff they put into the controller can raise prices over what the xbox controller will cost. The last thing is bad chips. What does sony do with chips that aren't fast enough for the ps5 ? Microsoft can use them for azure / xcloud. They already talked about how many instances of xbox one and xbox one x the soc can run at the same time. So a soc that doesn't work for a xsx can work to to serve xbox one or xbox one x instances on xcloud. At the same time what is lockheart ? If lockheart exists does it use defective xsx soc? Does it use the same ram ? at least the slower portion of ram ? what about the ssd ? does it use the same ssd ? That is again another area in which MS can use purchasing power to drive down costs at the front end.

That's why all this is so interesting. You have something that could have been super uninteresting with and amd soc and similar ram and then you get stuff like tempest or their nand control or locked vs variable clocks and then how does the cloud affect things in terms of pricing or what about launching two consoles at different price points at once and so on. Its going to be really interesting.

Are you suggesting brand and previous sales (and obviously projected sales) will not benefit Sony’s price? They have consistently for 7 years bought twice the product MS have and you think that will not carry any weight moving forward because what? Their sales will fall off a cliff like PS3 based on what exactly? (Also bear in mind PS3 wasn’t a complete failure).

I appreciate the rest of what you’re saying, although I’m unsure how guaranteed 2-3x Sonys orders would be, but I wouldn’t underestimate the buying power of Sony regardless of MSs deep pockets.

I guess MS will get such great deals they will be cheaper than Sony right? That’d certainly be nice.
 
From what they presented 2.4 GB/s is the raw speed of the SSD like 5.5 gB/s is raw speed of SSD but it is nearly the sustainable speed if you have the right I/O, games(asset and menus) are optimized for not having 4kb file and the cooling system is good enough to not throttle.
MS guaranteed this number. Meaning it won't throttle below this number. The number isn't impressive except to think out loud that they felt guranteeing this number for developers was important. That means they can depend on it working for 3 hrs straight, hard.

As I understand it, throttling on nvme drives occurs at north of 60C to protect the silicon. We do want it to last 5-7 years not 20 months.
And most consumer and even enthusiast nvme drives are not meant to be running capacity for 3 hrs straight, articles have them hit at 15 minutes of max performance before they need to throttle down.

I love the ideas and creativity there is out there for the fast SSD usage, but the usage of it in the way people are discussing about how it could be used over the course of a 1 - 3 hr play session makes the cooling system of PS5 and the claims of it's performance worthy of dissection. Mainly because they are accomplishing innovation on several fronts, not just bandwidth.
 
Normal nvme drives are tiny and have Limited room for a heatsink. In a console i would expect all components with significant power consumption to be cooled by an integrated HSF solution, that is: Main soc, gddr6, nvme and vrms

Cheers
 
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Normal nvme drives are tiny and have Limited room for a heatsink. In a console i would expect all components with significant power consumption to be cooled by an integrated HSF solution, that is: Main soc, gddr6, nvme and vrms

Cheers
To my understanding Microsoft promises the 2.4 GB/s raw speed for the addon SSDs too, which have no space for heatsink at all other than what the tiny casing can provide
 
To my understanding Microsoft promises the 2.4 GB/s raw speed for the addon SSDs too

Disclaimer: Speculation on my part.

I would expect games to always execute off of the integrated, high performance storage solution; That is, assets are copied from any other device to a working area on the integrated flash to ensure very high performance. It is not so much a matter of bandwidth as one of guaranteed IOPS. XBSX uses a DRAM-less flash controller, which means they use host memory (GDDR6) for page caching/mapping, which points to a highly integrated solution.

If that is the case, the addon SSD would have a fairly low duty cycle. Once a game's assets is copied to the fast integrated storage, it would idle.

Cheers
 
Disclaimer: Speculation on my part.

I would expect games to always execute off of the integrated, high performance storage solution; That is, assets are copied from any other device to a working area on the integrated flash to ensure very high performance. It is not so much a matter of bandwidth as one of guaranteed IOPS. XBSX uses a DRAM-less flash controller, which means they use host memory (GDDR6) for page caching/mapping, which points to a highly integrated solution.

If that is the case, the addon SSD would have a fairly low duty cycle. Once a game's assets is copied to the fast integrated storage, it would idle.

Cheers

If that was the case then there would be no need for a specialized device. They would just use all external USB drives. They have said that Series X games only work on the add-on SSD. Can't run them from external USB drives.

Tommy McClain
 
Normal nvme drives are tiny and have Limited room for a heatsink. In a console i would expect all components with significant power consumption to be cooled by an integrated HSF solution, that is: Main soc, gddr6, nvme and vrms

Cheers
well noted.
as time has shown, heat generated from these drives are a result of higher bandwidths.
2.4 GB/s is about 1/2 what some NVMe drives can do today. But MS have ensured it won't throttle, while consumer devices in the 4.0 GB/s range will throttle well below 2.0GB/s when the temperatures cannot keep below 60C.

What Sony is putting out there is significantly faster than everything else, so it must run even hotter if pushed to it's 5.5 GB/s throughput.

So while I do _agree_ fully that Sony will have an integrated HSF solution - their competitors who have done exactly that but did so with a guaranteed but at less than half the speed.
And yet, both are still limited to console formats in which we seeing the cooling solution for XSX is already a significant and somewhat radical departure from older known console designs. But the largest difference is that XSX has their own custom external SSDs that work with the HSF. How will Sony manage to cool an external 3P drive of varying size as part of their integrated HSF solution? It will still need significant cooling as well.

Thinking on this, Sony will need to have more cooling power for their console whether the external drive is present there or not, on top of cooling that high clocked CPU and GPU. The reason being that consumer SSDs _will throttle_ even if Sony's doesn't. How does Sony guarantee a high level of sustained bandwidth to the graphics system, if they don't make that 3P SSD which could throttle?

Power usage will be an interesting discussion as well. And I am very curious to see what they did, or if there are some compromises to reach the marketed numbers.

Normally I would just hand wave it off as well; but if the storage device is highly integrated with the graphics system; then we must assume that it's usage level will be significantly higher and for much longer than what we have done with nvme drives today.
 
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