But that’s just the cost of the wafers. 7nm vs 5nm has roughly a 45-50% density improvement so the same design on 5nm vs 7nm will require far fewer wafers (assuming similar yields) in addition to benefits in power consumption allowing cheaper cooling. It’s a pretty complex design and optimization puzzle.
Predict: Next gen console tech (10th generation edition) [2028+]
- Thread starter RDGoodla
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cheapchips
Veteran
Unless they're just after volume, do you think they can be more efficient than TSMC? (Intel might be after volume customers)
Charlietus
Regular
TSMC has around 37% profit margin, with plans to increase that next year. Intel and Samsung would probably accept below 5% profit margin to keep their foundries occupied, and consoles can keep them occupied for a long time. I don't think that the next consoles will have a cutting edge process nodes like PS5 and Xbox series, and it's alright, if they can keep costs down.
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Charlietus
Regular
If it was cheaper overall, than PS5 slim would probably be 5nm. If they aren't using it, then it's sadly not worth it. I'm sure they did the math on those things.
cheapchips
Veteran
Margin doesn't tell us about relative costs unfortunately. They may only be able to undercut TSMC slightly at lower margins if they're less efficient/low yield etc.
I'm not strongly disagreeing with you on consoles being on conservative nodes, but closer they can get to cutting edge would be interesting.
Charlietus
Regular
I really hope they can undercut TSMC, or we're screwed with prices. Or maybe they can get a favorable agreement with TSMC, but why would they accept it? They got AI hardware to make for years
raytracingfan
Newcomer
Frenetic Pony
Veteran
Pre building BLAS is pretty much a universal feature of RT on console now, which DXR doesn't allow (among other issues). That the API has issues matching console for BVH stuff is the biggest problem that I know of generally for matching PC to console. That Nvidia pushed Microsoft into such arbitrary limitations is definitely an issue.
But even moreso is that a lot of this hardware could be useful for generalized functions. Ray sorting is just as applicable to tracing SDFs as triangles through BVHs. As is things like smart prefetch hw as going through say, a sparse SDF should be just as predictable and latency bound as going through a BVH tree.
If AMD were smart they'd leverage their position as console provider to MS to include as much flexibility as they can, make the API conform to their standards instead of the API conformign to Nvidia's.
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Frenetic Pony
Veteran
The most promising thing I can see for a mobile only next gen console is pushing the Switch/Switch Go model further.
Let's say you have Steamdeck 2 with a 16cu mobile only version for $399. "Docked" version could easily be a 32cu version (yay chiplets) with a solid state cooler for $499, the extra 16cu only activating in docked mode with the cooler on.
That solid state cooling is expensive power wise wouldn't matter, you only use it docked to a 65w charger or whatever. This also allows a specific low end mobile only chip version on top of mobile only physical casing.
Maybe it'd be $549 and 40Cu AMD wise (say, RDNA4/5), 4070(s?)ish Nvidia wise etc. as this is the hockey stick point where I feel like return on investment in visual quality and performance both really starts to drop off for modern games. You could go out and get a 5090 by the time Steamdeck 2 comes out, but the frank difference between 120+ and 60 is that 60 is above flicker/fusion threshold for human vision so 95% of people don't actually care. Similarly you can turn up the visual quality but noticeable difference just gets less and less, and you're still not going to get Hollywood vfx levels of image quality in terms of 0 aliasing/ghosting/etc. (at least on modern games).
Let's say you have Steamdeck 2 with a 16cu mobile only version for $399. "Docked" version could easily be a 32cu version (yay chiplets) with a solid state cooler for $499, the extra 16cu only activating in docked mode with the cooler on.
That solid state cooling is expensive power wise wouldn't matter, you only use it docked to a 65w charger or whatever. This also allows a specific low end mobile only chip version on top of mobile only physical casing.
Maybe it'd be $549 and 40Cu AMD wise (say, RDNA4/5), 4070(s?)ish Nvidia wise etc. as this is the hockey stick point where I feel like return on investment in visual quality and performance both really starts to drop off for modern games. You could go out and get a 5090 by the time Steamdeck 2 comes out, but the frank difference between 120+ and 60 is that 60 is above flicker/fusion threshold for human vision so 95% of people don't actually care. Similarly you can turn up the visual quality but noticeable difference just gets less and less, and you're still not going to get Hollywood vfx levels of image quality in terms of 0 aliasing/ghosting/etc. (at least on modern games).
So 32 CUs in the handheld, but disabled in handheld mode and enabled when docked with a high-end cooling solution?
Yes, and a mobile 80-100 CU eGPU can be connected to the dock.
1, Xbox handheld that connects to a TV with the dock: $400
2. Optional powerful Xbox eGPU for handheld kit: $400
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Frenetic Pony
Veteran
Yeah, but the cool thing (heh) would be that the cooling is built in. No "dock", an EGPU is almost entirely dependent on cooling not fitting into a thin and light which is already solved here, nothing to lose, everything is fully portable in the actual handheld itself which is nigh as thin and light as the standard version.
Solid state cooling is a new cooling solution with no moving parts, it's super tiny and thin but costs way more power (even a watt or 2 is super costly for a handheld) than a fan and can cool up to 50w at the highest end today. If you're plugged into an outlet you don't care about that power cost, go ahead and have your thin and light draw 50w+.
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DavidGraham
Veteran
WCCFTECH spoke with a game developer at Gamescom 2024, who confirmed PS5Pro specs is already in the wilds among devs.
wccftech.com
PS5 Pro Was an Open Secret at Gamescom 2024
Wccftech can confirm that PS5 Pro was an open secret at Gamescom 2024, having also heard that PS5 Pro specs have been shared with developers.
wccftech.com
Given PS5 Pro's announced pricing and deriving a realistic BOM (98% confidence interval), and analysing the side-by-side improvements PS5 Pro's tech brings over PS5 using a bleeding edge Intelligence based comparator, and applying some very advanced Big Data meta-analysis to build a highly robust working model for tech predictions, I can conclude, pending peer review, that PS6 and the next generation is going to be expensive and shit.
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Well, not really. They should have said MEMS, it's equally useful as marketing fluff and more accurate.
Is Frore willing and able to sell 10 coolers per console at a reasonable price though? 50W is still probably far less than the silicon can push, so it leaves performance on the table.
It's a non-starter, right? This would be it. There could not be any more generations. $1000 for a PS6 doesn't work. The gaming industry couldn't support that and the much smaller install base that this would cause. PS5/XSX would essentially become the 'base' consoles indefinitely.
Though I'm confident PS5 Pro will drop in price, and Sony are not selling it for 'what they have to', but what they are hoping to get away with. It's not gonna be the end. Performance per dollar can still improve, it's just gonna take longer to see a bigger lift. Which further supports my idea that these consoles need to last til like 2030.
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Yeah, but it's 4 years of tech advance and an increase in cost. Unless Sony have 50% margins on this thing, better tech is making very little impact. We're almost at a point where every technological advance is a 25% increase in performance (optimistic) at a 50% increase in price. To get a 10x everything generational improvement you can actually see will cost the earth. You'll need 10 years of progress coupled with double the silicon. Plus PS5 Pro is only achieving its somewhat better on 4K rendering with the addition of ML upscaling. That's low-handing fruit now used, so not an option to advance PS5 Pro to PS6 in any meaningful way.
Diminishing returns are hitting hard, and will only hit harder for the next 5+ years of silicon. There's very little scope for anything new and better without a completely new tech to power it. Either that or $2000, 500W machines with silicon area measured in acres, not mm².
Half this console generation are still happy on last gen hardware! PS5 is going to be around a long time and there's not really anything to look forwards to, unless PS6 is 20 years out and somehow chip developments find somewhere new to go to do something over that 20 years. Otherwise everything shown on PS6 I've already seen in promissory videos. Racer RTX will be great, eventually, when the hardware exists that can actually run it years after it was shown and claimed to be running on hardware that exists.
Diminishing returns are hitting hard, and will only hit harder for the next 5+ years of silicon. There's very little scope for anything new and better without a completely new tech to power it. Either that or $2000, 500W machines with silicon area measured in acres, not mm².
Half this console generation are still happy on last gen hardware! PS5 is going to be around a long time and there's not really anything to look forwards to, unless PS6 is 20 years out and somehow chip developments find somewhere new to go to do something over that 20 years. Otherwise everything shown on PS6 I've already seen in promissory videos. Racer RTX will be great, eventually, when the hardware exists that can actually run it years after it was shown and claimed to be running on hardware that exists.
50% increase in consumer price, yes. But that's not what the real cost increase is. You keep making this assumption that these companies are not greedy and pass value onto consumers whenever they can, instead of realizing they've largely stopped doing anything resembling that in recent years and want to gouge for the highest margins possible, even at the cost of lower sales.
CPU's are proving that there isn't actually some massive and necessary cost increase that consumers must pay for for more performance or else these companies will lose money. Funny how when there's actual close competition, prices can stay somewhat reasonable, eh? Probably just a coincidence....
These companies can afford to lower prices/offer bigger improvements in performance per dollar, they're simply choosing not to. Maybe not on the same level as in the past, but we've not reached some point where they are simply unable to offer better performance per dollar at all anymore, and certainly nothing is justifying a 75% increase in total cost for PS5 Pro over the base PS5, especially after PS5 went through a pretty heavy round of cost decreases itself(which never got passed to the consumer).
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