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

[MrFox]

I thought the estimates were closer to $100-110 at launch, so that’s a 20-50% jump in cost there if any of the estimates are even close at all.

There has to be much more steps and expenses per chip than just the wafer divided by yield. Packaging a 2000 pin chip must cost a bit. Testing and optical inspection for defects before packaging too.

And would AMD get a cut per chip? Or would sony pay maybe hundreds of million up front for making any number of them?

 

[Esrever]

"FIVE HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE US DOLLARS"

 

[Xbat]

I think quick means cheaper, the cheaper the price point the more purchases that will be made.

Not necessarily it could mean more stock available quicker, don't the consoles usually sell out at launch?

 

[RDGoodla]

Samsung announced 16GB HBM2E last week. It has 2x density and will be in volume production during the first half of this year.

This case is like the 8GB GDDR5 RAM for PS4. The GDDR5 RAM of PS4 also has 2x density of previous RAM and available in 2013.
I expect similar things in PS5. That is PS5 adopts latest 16GB HBM2E RAM of Samsung along with some DDR4 RAM for OS and Apps.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Not necessarily it could mean more stock available quicker, don't the consoles usually sell out at launch?

They'll have plenty of stock if they launch at 599, maybe they should go to 799 just to be sure.

 

[iroboto]

Not necessarily it could mean more stock available quicker, don't the consoles usually sell out at launch?

PS4 was supply constrained for the first 6-8 months at $399.
XBO was only supply constrained for the first month at $499.

By default, to transition people faster, you need a function of both supply and demand. The price has to be low enough to trigger those to purchase and there has to be enough stock available.
Those are both achievable the lower the price/cost of the console is. At least, a general statement assuming all things equal.

This being a regular length console generation combined with a mid-gen refresh console in the middle; i'm honestly not sure what to expect for launch demand.

 

[PSman1700]

I also agree that $399 just seems very unlikely at this point in time given the specs we know so far.

I do think it fits in line with what we are getting, 399 doesn't seem impossible atleast, more could be possible in special if we think either company wants to earn on every plastic box sold. Maybe the SSD, if it is 1TB, could be expensive?

"FIVE HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE US DOLLARS"

Just get two jobs

By default, to transition people faster, you need a function of both supply and demand. The price has to be low enough to trigger those to purchase and there has to be enough stock available.

Or if people are willing to buy at high prices, just over-price the console and earn on each box sold?

 

[Xbat]

XBO was only supply constrained for the first month at $499.

XBO also had a shocking start because of a bunch of negative press and was weaker than a machine that was $100 cheaper, I don't care about what anybody says about power doesn't sell consoles but when the most powerful console is $100 cheaper it sure as hell has a big impact.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Do not forget about the 4GB of DDR4, or the 450W PSU.

4GB DDR4 is going for ~$2 nowadays.
I don't know why a 12TF GPU + 8x 3.2GHz Zen console would need more than a 350W PSU, but they probably woudln't need to pay more than $15 even for a 450W unit.

And let's assume Sony would also need to pay an extra $25 for a significantly better cooling solution than they had with the PS4.
We're still with a BoM that inflates less than say $125 over the PS4's BoM, unless the SSD components are super expensive.

I think for consideration 28nm was sort of the last time Moore's law of doubling really worked with respect to transistor doubling in the same area but being at the same price.
So I think if we're thinking about $150 for the original xbox ones for instance, 7nm at the same die are should cost more than 28nm at the same die area. And it's larger by ~40mm^2.

So you're probably right the $80 is pretty low, curious to see how much everything else will cost to put it together.

The "less than $10 000 per 7nm wafer" info I remembered actually comes from May 2019, so it could actually be substantially lower right now:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1146806732494168064

I'm also expecting that both consoles, if they come with 7nm SoCs, should quickly transition to 6nm EUV since TSMC has been saying most 7nm chips with a multi-year lifespan will cross to the new node.
6nm should allow them to make more chips per wafer and somewhat reduce power / cooling demands. Those are some savings that both console makers should take into consideration.

 

[Nesh]

The 9 TF console was tought to be a 2019 release ? Seems yes. Is it still acceptable in 2020 or WORST in 2021 ? I ask whom want to answer. Till end 2021 there are two years and they can think to something more powerful...

Considering how well the PS4 is selling I doubt Sony was planning for a 2019 release. 2020 always looked like a better date

 

[upnorthsox]

On a 12" wafer, a 400mm^2 is approximately 136 Dies.
So with a yield of 91%, then it's about 123 dies.
10,000 / 123 = $81 for silicon costs. I'm not sure how to factor in the other aspects here though.

10,000 sounds pretty cheap though, not sure how much a 12" wafer is



I think quick means cheaper, the cheaper the price point the more purchases that will be made.

I think $399 represented an optimal solid price/performance value point. And I think that's why we're so focused on that number in particular, but also why we saw 4Pro also launch at that price as well.
I also agree that $399 just seems very unlikely at this point in time given the specs we know so far.

My estimates:
27 x 15 mm (405mm^2) is the golden size where there's no losses on partial chips. That's 110 good chips at 82% yield
Last numbers I saw was that it was 11,000 per 7nm TSMC wafer start.
Add a generous royalty for AMD of 2,000 per wafer.
Add a very generous D & D amortized cost of 600 per wafer (900,000+ wafer starts over 7 yrs).
Add an additional 1000 per wafer start for special layers and packing.
That's 14,600 per wafer @ 110 chips per wafer = 132.73 per good chip @ 405mm^2 or roughly 0.33 per mm^2
Lower cost per chip with better yields and lower cost per wafer with volume discount from TSMC
80mm^2 (the est. difference between Arden and Oberon) @ 0.33 = 26.40

 

[PSman1700]

I don't know why a 12TF GPU + 8x 3.2GHz Zen console would need more than a 350W PSU, but they probably woudln't need to pay more than $15 even for a 450W unit.

For PS5 most likely around 9TF, 300w would suffice if its a quality component-

 

[upnorthsox]

I thought the estimates were closer to $100-110 at launch, so that’s a 20-50% jump in cost there if any of the estimates are even close at all.

Those were the estimates I saw too.

 

[iroboto]

4GB DDR4 is going for ~$2 nowadays.
I don't know why a 12TF GPU + 8x 3.2GHz Zen console would need more than a 350W PSU, but they probably woudln't need to pay more than $15 even for a 450W unit.

And let's assume Sony would also need to pay an extra $25 for a significantly better cooling solution than they had with the PS4.
We're still with a BoM that inflates less than say $125 over the PS4's BoM, unless the SSD components are super expensive.


The "less than $10 000 per 7nm wafer" info I remembered actually comes from May 2019, so it could actually be substantially lower right now:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1146806732494168064

I'm also expecting that both consoles, if they come with 7nm SoCs, should quickly transition to 6nm EUV since TSMC has been saying most 7nm chips with a multi-year lifespan will cross to the new node.
6nm should allow them to make more chips per wafer and somewhat reduce power / cooling demands. Those are some savings that both console makers should take into consideration.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1146815897266470915

So any idea what the margins are that the fab would try to get? 20%?

 

[AlphaWolf]

4GB DDR4 is going for ~$2 nowadays.
I don't know why a 12TF GPU + 8x 3.2GHz Zen console would need more than a 350W PSU, but they probably woudln't need to pay more than $15 even for a 450W unit.

And let's assume Sony would also need to pay an extra $25 for a significantly better cooling solution than they had with the PS4.
We're still with a BoM that inflates less than say $125 over the PS4's BoM, unless the SSD components are super expensive.


The "less than $10 000 per 7nm wafer" info I remembered actually comes from May 2019, so it could actually be substantially lower right now:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1146806732494168064

I'm also expecting that both consoles, if they come with 7nm SoCs, should quickly transition to 6nm EUV since TSMC has been saying most 7nm chips with a multi-year lifespan will cross to the new node.
6nm should allow them to make more chips per wafer and somewhat reduce power / cooling demands. Those are some savings that both console makers should take into consideration.

You are avoiding a lot of the costs associated. The wholesale price of components does not reveal the true cost in shipping a completed product to consumers. Every additional part means more power, more cooling and more quality assurance. The SSD alone could be $100 increase in BOM over last gen, unless 500GB is real in which case I hope you really enjoy those 3 games.

 

[PSman1700]

You are avoiding a lot of the costs associated. The wholesale price of components does not reveal the true cost in shipping a completed product to consumers. Every additional part means more power, more cooling and more quality assurance. The SSD alone could be $100 increase in BOM over last gen, unless 500GB is real in which case I hope you really enjoy those 3 games.

Agree, we can't just calculate the total BOM for those consoles just by calculating hardware/component prices. On the subject i think 399 dollars for Sony seems very reasonable, they would want a quick transition, in special now with the PS4 BC.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Looking at Sony's investor relations presentation from last year, it seems even more obvious to me that when mentioning "quick transition", Sony is talking about backwards compatibility and not suggesting a low price on the PS5 at all.


Slide 5 mentions the "quick transition" and it's only referring Backwards compatibility:

Slide 14 mentions their marketing strategy, and it seems they want to put more weight into value of services / games /experience than the console price tag:

Sony doesn't really seem to be planning to use console price as an advantage.
In fact they seem convinced that very few people are driven by a lower console price.

My estimates:
27 x 15 mm (405mm^2) is the golden size where there's no losses on partial chips. That's 110 good chips at 82% yield
Last numbers I saw was that it was 11,000 per 7nm TSMC wafer start.
Add a generous royalty for AMD of 2,000 per wafer.
Add a very generous D & D amortized cost of 600 per wafer (900,000+ wafer starts over 7 yrs).
Add an additional 1000 per wafer start for special layers and packing.
That's 14,600 per wafer @ 110 chips per wafer = 132.73 per good chip @ 405mm^2 or roughly 0.33 per mm^2
Lower cost per chip with better yields and lower cost per wafer with volume discount from TSMC
80mm^2 (the est. difference between Arden and Oberon) @ 0.33 = 26.40

All of a sudden, a >30% difference in GPU power looks like a terribly high price to pay, just for $26.4 savings in the BoM that might not even bring any savings in PSU and cooling systems if it's clocked at 2GHz.

You are avoiding a lot of the costs associated. The wholesale price of components does not reveal the true cost in shipping a completed product to consumers. Every additional part means more power, more cooling and more quality assurance.

I did mention PSU and cooling price deltas in my post, though. Not sure what you mean by more quality assurance. Does a 400W system need considerably higher quality assurance costs than a 200W one?

The SSD alone could be $100 increase in BOM over last gen, unless 500GB is real in which case I hope you really enjoy those 3 games.

Thanks to SSDs not forcing devs to repeat the assets hundreds of times to avoid disk searching times, games are expected to become smaller this gen, actually.

 

[Esrever]

Add a generous royalty for AMD of 2,000 per wafer.

Lol this is very not generous in any way. This is rock bottom margins. AMD would probably aim for at least 30% margins even in this console space. This would mean wafer cost + production cost * 0.3 probably looking at more than $5000 as AMD's cut. AMD has a lot more negotiating power this gen than last and I expect them to actually negotiate much better margins on the consoles.

The cost of next gen SOCs will be significantly higher than last gens at launch given by the cost of 7nm wafers and production. Last gen is estimated at $100 per SOC, this gen I would expect at least $150 for both the increase cost of 7nm and the increase in size of the SOC over the last gen.

I'm going to base estimates off the ps4 vs what we expect now.

Cooling and power requirements will likely also increase this gen, price of these components probably won't change much. Most of the other BOM is going to be consistent.

1TB SSD will likely cost significantly more than the 500GB hard drive in last gen consoles. Last gen was estimated at $37. I think even a conservative estimate for this is $100 for the PS5 drive. TLC NAND spot price is going for >$100/TB right now and this isn't even considering the quality of NAND needed for a high speed SSD like the rumors are speculating.

RAM was $88 last gen. Article from a year ago seems to suggest GDDR6 being expensive and even if we assume you can get 18 Gbps chips as less than the price of the 12 Gbps ram back then, you will still arrive at about $100.

Just going by SOC + RAM + SSD, we are likely seeing almost a $150 increase in BOM from the PS4. Even if Sony eats some of the BOM costs, the console will likely retail at $499.

 

[RobertR1]

Heard Sony will share RAM schematics so people can download and 3D print it at home and double the performance.

 

[AlphaWolf]

I did mention PSU and cooling price deltas in my post, though. Not sure what you mean by more quality assurance. Does a 400W system need considerably higher quality assurance costs than a 200W one?

Adding 4GB of ddr4, means traces on the board, it needs a step in the assembly to be soldered in, then that specific part needs to be tested.

Thanks to SSDs not forcing devs to repeat the assets hundreds of times to avoid disk searching times, games are expected to become smaller this gen, actually.

Tell me another one. I don't doubt there is savings, but if they want to utilize 12TF of power or more they are going to have bigger and better assets to do it.