Current Generation Hardware Speculation with a Technical Spin [post GDC 2020] [XBSX, PS5]

[Jay]

Out of interest, why was the Spiderman demo Sony was showing off behind closed doors was so fast if we shouldn't expect faster loading on PS5?

I'm saying it won't be any faster than the same bc game on xsx, not that it won't be fast.
We've seen that there's big speed boosts from the nvme drives on the xsx.
The point is, that there's other aspects when loading a bc game for example that bottlenecks it, so you don't get the full io that you may expect.

I don't know what changes was made to the spiderman demo. Also the raw throughput may have been enough to do it anyway.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

This demo has been patched to use the new architecture of data streaming.

I don't think we know that for sure. The Spider-Man on PS5 devkit was back in early 2019 and the Wired article made it clear that the version of Spider-Man was running on an early (and slower) devkit. It seems unlikely that Insomniac would have spent time optimising Spider-Man for this intermediate hardware target that was never intended to be released to the public.

 

[JPT]

I don't think we know that for sure. The Spider-Man on PS5 devkit was back in early 2019 and the Wired article made it clear that the version of Spider-Man was running on an early (and slower) devkit. It seems unlikely that Insomniac would have spent time optimising Spider-Man for this intermediate hardware target that was never intended to be released to the public.

Is it known if the devkit had Kraken hardware at that time?
If you look at the Spiderman postmorten,

you see that he moves 32 m/s, they have to load 3 to 5 tiles and have them ready in 0.8 seconds to keep up.
So they might actually restrict him to 32 m/s, so just that part might need modifications.
If kraken and ssd stuff was ready, then how much work would it be to use it. They run decompresson/io on its own thread I think, so maybe gutting that and patching it could have been easy, especially if its just for a few seconds long demo ie no need for specific QA

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Is it known if the devkit had Kraken hardware at that time?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[iroboto]

Only one report for now, might be false or a defect unit.

Its not first unit to have these types of reports, likely we will see more than 1 report from prototype units reporting toasty.

We will need to see retail reviews if the situation is any different, but I have doubts on this. But yes, the heat is real. High powered chip and nvme running fixed everything = more power and heat.
I've never had a doubt that nvme drives get hot; and have to bear the label of being called a concern troll here on several occasions by standing by those beliefs.

On the other side of that lens however, the thing is, for human touch, we feel things are too hot once you get to about 50C - 60C. That's usually considered scalding. But for nvme drives that's actually operational. You get into throttling at 70-90 depending, and you get into damage at 90+. But this is the reality of hardware. No one in the PC world, having just ran their NVME drive hard, would just open their case and grab it by the fingers. You're just asking for a burning. It's no different than touching hot components on a PC having just completed a workout. You know not to do it.

But the console world, I don't know what to say, I suppose the expectations are different because you have this cute little device in a non-menacing box and you think it's going to run as cool as your other consoles, it's deceiving. I have active cooling built onto my mobo right now and I've never needed active cooling on my mobo before.

So we won't know what is 'hot' yet, until they have a thermal gun to measure the temperature of the ssd, but none of this is surprising, perhaps validating really. Even with the massive heatsink it's attached to on the inside, you need to cool this external drive running 40-60C the whole time the duration of the game console being on for the next 7 years. I hope they built it to last. The costs of these drives certainly seems like it better be designed for it.

I hope this provides a better picture as to my concern with just jamming any 3P external nvme drive into the PS5 that has enough 'speed', I believe more so now that rigorously tested whitelist is critical for PS5 on the onset of this news. This is only a 2.4GB/s drive, 5.5+ is more than double.

 

[Deleted member 7537]

As already shown by Microsoft Series X teardowns and discussed in various interviews early in the year, the external NVME Storage Cards will use the internal heatsink cooling to dissipate the heat.

I like that in this thread we take the manufacturer word at face value, it should be like that until proven otherwise.

Some PC NVMe SSDs have heat sinks and are able to dissipate heat well, however there are some that can get quite hot. My "concern" (as I'm not going to buy the console) is that XB external SSDs are encapsulated in a very small space. So yes, the heatsink dissipates the heat but, to where? Inside of ATX case you have "a lot" of room and active ventilation, but not in those cards. Again, I'm sure they have come up with a clever way of mitigating this issue. I'm not going to argue that the SSD is going to throttle down like other trolls have with PS5s SSD.

 

[iroboto]

I like that in this thread we take the manufacturer word at face value, it should be like that until proven otherwise.

Some PC NVMe SSDs have heat sinks and are able to dissipate heat well, however there are some that can get quite hot. My "concern" (as I'm not going to buy the console) is that XB external SSDs are encapsulated in a very small space. So yes, the heatsink dissipates the heat but, to where? Inside of ATX case you have "a lot" of room and active ventilation, but not in those cards. Again, I'm sure they have come up with a clever way of mitigating this issue. I'm not going to argue that the SSD is going to throttle down like other trolls have with PS5s SSD.

There's a large difference here. The manufacturer already has a set laid out requirements. And they built the drive specifically for this device and it's specifically tailored for the exact specifications of XSX; MS has already gone out to say that their drive will not throttle from 2.4 GB/s, the speed is fixed as with the expansion drive. I have no reason to doubt them that it should work as the reality is, nothing else is allowed to go in there.

Contrasting, there are large variety of 3P nvme drives with different performance levels and all of them are designed to throttle to ensure the hardware doesn't damage itself. The contradiction I'm seeing is that claim from Cerny is that the 5.5GB/s is exotic and special (which it is imo) and nothing on the market today can compete with it, however, with respect to expansion drives suddenly everything in the 3P space can compete with it for cheaper than the much lower performance but higher priced XSX expansion drives. One of those statements are likely to be more true than the other.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-inside-xbox-series-x-full-specs

On the hardware level, the custom NVMe drive is very, very different to any other kind of SSD you've seen before. It's shorter, for starters, presenting more like a memory card of old. It's also rather heavy, likely down to the solid metal construction that acts as a heat sink that was to handle silicon that consumes 3.8 watts of power. Many PC SSDs 'fade' in performance terms as they heat up - and similar to the CPU and GPU clocks, this simply wasn't acceptable to Microsoft, who believe that consistent performance across the board is a must for the design of their consoles.

The form factor is cute, the 2.4GB/s of guaranteed throughput is impressive

 

[BRiT]

I like that in this thread we take the manufacturer word at face value

It's not only their word. We have internal view of the console, all the internal parts, how everything comes together, how the heatsinks are structured, how the expansion drive interacts, and how the cooling airflow happens. We're able to look at it collectively to try to break it down as to what won't work or where trouble might happen.

This is why many are looking forward to the Tear Downs -- so they can see and reason for themselves how it all works.

 

[Deleted member 7537]

It's not only their word. We have internal view of the console, all the internal parts, how everything comes together, how the heatsinks are structured, how the expansion drive interacts, and how the cooling airflow happens. We're able to look at it collectively to try to break it down as to what won't work or where trouble might happen.

This is why many are looking forward to the Tear Downs -- so they can see and reason for themselves how it all works.

Still information about how hot the console runs is under embargo. A tear down can show a heatsink and airflows but you don't how much each heat each chip generates, how much each heatsink dissipates and how effective is the airflow. I don't think much people would had been able to predict the PS4 sounding like a jet engine from a console teardown.

There's a large difference here. The manufacturer already has a set laid out requirements. And they built the drive specifically for this device and it's specifically tailored for the exact specifications of XSX; MS has already gone out to say that their drive will not throttle from 2.4 GB/s, the speed is fixed as with the expansion drive. I have no reason to doubt them that it should work as the reality is, nothing else is allowed to go in there.

Contrasting, there are large variety of 3P nvme drives with different performance levels and all of them are designed to throttle to ensure the hardware doesn't damage itself. The contradiction I'm seeing is that claim from Cerny is that the 5.5GB/s is exotic and special (which it is imo) and nothing on the market today can compete with it, however, with respect to expansion drives suddenly everything in the 3P space can compete with it for cheaper than the much lower performance but higher priced XSX expansion drives. One of those statements are likely to be more true than the other.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-inside-xbox-series-x-full-specs

No, not true at all, there is no point in having a discussion if you manipulate what Cerny says to your own advantage.

Review his presentation, he dedicated probably 5% of the time he used to talk about the SSD to talk about speed, the rest was aimed at how they created a custom controller to eliminate all the inefficiencies they could identified related to storage and its use to stream gaming assets. The exotic part about the PS5s SSD is the custom controller, not the SSD itself. And he actually did say that PCIe 4.0 SSDs would be faster which completely contradicts your point about him saying 5.5GB/s was exotic.

And I'm going to stop here, we already have one console thread full of useless post. Let's not turn this thread into another mess.

edit: just one thing. Cerny "PS5's 5.5 GB/s is exotic but let me show you this slide"



edit2: Also I love the "MS has set requirements" and then you forget how Cerny said they were going to test and certificate drives. Again, useless conversation.

 

[iroboto]

The exotic part about the PS5s SSD is the custom controller, not the SSD itself. And he actually did say that PCIe 4.0 SSDs would be faster which completely contradicts your point about him saying 5.5GB/s was exotic.

The controller is the hottest part of any nvme or ssd.

I'm just going off this:

And then, Sony needs to validate them to ensure that they will work properly. The PS5 will have an NVMe slot, but drive compatibility will be paramount. It's not just a bandwidth issue either, though clearly that is a factor. PS5's spec delivers six priority levels to developers, while the NVMe spec has just two.

"We can hook up a drive with only two priority levels, definitely, but our custom I/O unit has to arbitrate the extra priorities - rather than the M.2 drive's flash controller - and so the M.2 drive needs a little extra speed to take care of issues arising from the different approach," says Cerny. "That commercial drive also needs to physically fit inside the bay we created in PS5 for M.2 drives. Unlike internal hard drives, there's unfortunately no standard for the height of an M.2 drive, and some M.2 drives have giant heat sinks - in fact, some of them even have their own fans."

While the internal SSD solution is proprietary, with what might be considered a non-standard capacity, this will have no impact on the storage available from compatible M.2 drives, if you buy a 1TB or 2TB drive, that's the storage you'll have available. "The M.2 drive will have its own flash controller with its own (invisible) internal interface to its NAND flash dies. We don't know, or need to know, the details of that internal interface, or the size and type of NAND flash attached via that interface," Cerny explains. "What's relevant is the M.2 drive's external interface (eg four lanes of Gen4 PCIe so it can hook up to our flash controller) and the read bandwidth it can support via that interface."

In short, expandable storage is possible and you won't need proprietary drives from Sony to get the extra space you want. However, in the short term at least, the advice is simple: don't buy an NVMe drive without Sony validation if you plan to use it in PlayStation 5. Also remember that extreme bandwidth PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives are likely to be very expensive - in the short term, at least. This is cutting-edge technology, after all. Obviously though, the outlook should improve significantly as the next generation progresses - and prices do tend to drop significantly over time.

The last point being the most important, as I have said, wait for the validation list before making any assumptions on what can and cannot go in there. There are obvious requirements beyond simple read speeds.

edit2: Also I love the "MS has set requirements" and then you forget how Cerny said they were going to test and certificate drives. Again, useless conversation.
I didn't. My whole point was around the fact that Cerny and team would need to certify drives and to wait to see that drive list before making the assumption 3P drives would be cheap. But thank you for putting words into my mouth

 

[Deleted member 7537]

So 5.5GB/s is not exotic, gotcha.

 

[iroboto]

So 5.5GB/s is not exotic, gotcha.

By definitions of todays' standard, it still is considering that this particular drive internal to PS5 is assumed to not throttle but maintain this performance.
The point I was making came down to cost to the consumer, not whether or not a drive would be able to eventually go in there. I'm not even sure what you're arguing.

If I went and bought the 980 Pro 7GB/s from Samsung today will you promise with 100% certainty to me right now that it will work in PS5?

No? So would a cheaper less performant drive have a higher probability of working then?

Okay, then you get my point.

 

[Deleted member 7537]

By definitions of todays' standard, it still is considering that this particular drive internal to PS5 is assumed to not throttle but maintain this performance.
The point I was making came down to cost to the consumer, not whether or not a drive would be able to eventually go in there. I'm not even sure what you're arguing.

No, the point I'm making is you are just making stuff up.

Your argument: "they said 5,5GB/s is exotic, I cannot believe tech evolves and 3P will be able to offer that without throttling and cheaper than MS. MS has requirements but Sony not, so throttle, ps bad, 5.5GB lie"
My argument: "they never said 5.5GB/s was exotic, and they actually said they will be testing and certifying 3rd party drives to review if they meet performance requirements"
Your argument: "controller gets hot"

 

[Jay]

Still information about how hot the console runs is under embargo.

I wouldn't consider either companies embargos as trying to hide anything.
They just are really controlling the speed and duration of information up till launch.
Also has anyone actually said its embargoed? I'm guessing not a lot of the current people that have one has access to temperature testing equipment, and given what they are allowed to talk about it could be low on list to do.
Although wouldn't surprise me if it is embargoed.we know it's quiet but no measurements either yet.

Also I love the "MS has set requirements" and then you forget how Cerny said they were going to test and certificate drives. Again, useless conversation.

its more about that xbox has defined requirements that have been set and is known, and convered by their custom cartridge.
Sony will release a validated list.
But what happens if you put one in that fits, had the speed but throttles that's not on that list? Not that this was being discussed but i am curious and not right thread for specific PS talk.
No one is saying they don't have a set of requirement. That's the whole point of validation.

 

[iroboto]

No, the point I'm making is you are just making stuff up.

Your argument: "they said 5,5GB/s is exotic, I cannot believe tech evolves and 3P will be able to offer that without throttling and cheaper than MS. MS has requirements but Sony not, so throttle, ps bad, 5.5GB lie"
My argument: "they never said 5.5GB/s was exotic, and they actually said they will be testing and certifying 3rd party drives to review if they meet performance requirements"
Your argument: "controller gets hot"

Wow, okay.
For starters, once again you're putting words into my mouth.

I did not say that no drive would ever go into there.
I did not say that those 3P drives could not be cheaper than MS drives.
I did not say that Sony has no requirements for their SSD, and that because of the custom nature of their drive their requirements are likely higher.
Controllers do get hot, that's the reality of it. The faster the SSD, the hotter the controller gets.

I wanted to refute the argument that at launch you're going to be given this wonderful list of cheap nvme drives you can just slot in; the reality is it's going to be expensive too.
That's all I wanted to make the point of, and I have tried and often fallen on deaf ears why this might be the case.

I don't have a problem explaining this, if my point isn't clear, you should tell me it's not clear. And I'd rather have that as feedback, and re-write my posts to not offend you or others than to be just labelled as some anti-Sony person. Just ask me where I'm going with it, I'm not a journalist, I don't have an editor looking over my posts; most of the time I'm just writing off the cuff. But no that doesn't mean I actually think the outcome is going to be doom and gloom. Sony will not release a device that is non-functional. Be logical.

 

[Deleted member 7537]

I wouldn't consider either companies embargos as trying to hide anything.
They just are really controlling the speed and duration of information up till launch.
Also has anyone actually said its embargoed? I'm guessing not a lot of the current people that have one has access to temperature testing equipment, and given what they are allowed to talk about it could be low on list to do.
Although wouldn't surprise me if it is embargoed.we know it's quiet but no measurements either yet.

I never said they are trying to hide anything, I said his argument cannot be validated until we get an independent review from DF, GN, or whomever.

its more about that xbox has defined requirements that have been set and is known, and convered by their custom cartridge.
Sony will release a validated list.
But what happens if you put one in that fits, had the speed but throttles that's not on that list? Not that this was being discussed but i am curious and not right thread for specific PS talk.
No one is saying they don't have a set of requirement. That's the whole point of validation.

The initial point was pretty much "I cannot believe Sony's 3P drives are going to be cheaper and sustain speed when they said 5.5GB/s is exotic":

The contradiction I'm seeing is that claim from Cerny is that the 5.5GB/s is exotic and special (which it is imo) and nothing on the market today can compete with it, however, with respect to expansion drives suddenly everything in the 3P space can compete with it for cheaper than the much lower performance but higher priced XSX expansion drives.

So his issue is that there cannot be a bunch of manufacturers (like this little known company like Samsung) that can produce high quality SSDs and, because they are universally compatible parts instead of using a propietary format, selling them cheaper than the ripoff MS is selling for 270€ (lol). There has to be some hidden downside, there always is for these guys. You should check the PS5 thread.

Again, now this time for good. Not posting anything else.

 

[function]

No, not true at all, there is no point in having a discussion if you manipulate what Cerny says to your own advantage.

Review his presentation, he dedicated probably 5% of the time he used to talk about the SSD to talk about speed, the rest was aimed at how they created a custom controller to eliminate all the inefficiencies they could identified related to storage and its use to stream gaming assets. The exotic part about the PS5s SSD is the custom controller, not the SSD itself. And he actually did say that PCIe 4.0 SSDs would be faster which completely contradicts your point about him saying 5.5GB/s was exotic.

And I'm going to stop here, we already have one console thread full of useless post. Let's not turn this thread into another mess.

edit: just one thing. Cerny "PS5's 5.5 GB/s is exotic but let me show you this slide"

View attachment 4719

edit2: Also I love the "MS has set requirements" and then you forget how Cerny said they were going to test and certificate drives. Again, useless conversation.

This isn't really the thread to be discussing PS5 SSD, but there are a couple of points worth clearing up.

I just want to point out that the controller is part of the SSD. And it's probably the most interesting part of an SSD from a casual observers perspective.

PS5 has an entirely custom controller with more channels and more priority levels than a typical PC Nvme drive. I'd say that qualifies as exotic - at least as much as anything can be in SSD land.

Edit: XSX SSD otoh is not so exotic. But its relatively small production numbers (especially early on) and custom enclosure will drive the price up, as will the lack of competition from other providers.

 

[Deleted member 7537]

This isn't really the thread to be discussing PS5 SSD, but there are a couple of points worth clearing up.

I just want to point out that the controller is part of the SSD. And it's probably the most interesting part of an SSD from a casual observers perspective.

PS5 has an entirely custom controller with more channels and more priority levels than a typical PC Nvme drive. I'd say that qualifies as exotic - at least as much as anything can be in SSD land.

I was referring to the I/O controller. And again, the initial point was that 5.5GB/s was exotic, not the controller. I really can't handle moving goal post. So, the third time is the charm, not posting anything else. Please don't quote me as I have an irresistible need to argue.

edit: clearly I wasn't wording the part about the controller part correctly in my previous post. apologies.

 

[BRiT]

Alright, I think this is a bit of a better fit for the cross manufacturer discussion about thermals and storage. Please pardon any rough cuts, as its tough with some posts covering multiple aspects.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

These tests are probably torture tests for the series X. All the journalists can report on (and so I assume have focused in on) is IO hammering both the internal and expansion drive. Smart resume may well be hitting both at once if the game is on the external drive and the saved state will be internal.

What tests? Backwards compatibility tests?

If anything, when running in BC both SSDs will be on very light loads compared to what they can achieve with native games. On BC they're emulating a hard disk drive that has a typical 40MB/s throughput, and the system is probably limited by CPU data decompression well before ever reaching their 2.5GB/s maximum throughput.