Could next gen consoles focus mainly on CPU?

A ~31% increase in clock speed does wonders in BF4. It's still not locked, but not too far off.

Certainly a big improvement as you say, though I think it's still an advert for new architectures and higher clock speeds yet.

If 7nm could net another 25% on clock speeds you still wouldn't be looking at scope for a large jump in scale and complexity - at least using this as an example.

It's a great example of how much a mid-gen upgrade like the PS4Pro has to offer too...
 
Then Next Gen is xbox one x for MS.

Then they just have to say it openly... it's not difficult... why would they maintain an ambiguity ? Do you expect the same ambiguity for the PS5 ?

It's just PR marketing. At best, they will try to sell the XBX as a next-gen console near the PS5 launch but its specs don't lie...
 
Working on 1x as lead probably means they can get a game ip and running faster and iterate quicker, not that One S is going to be any less optimized than it would if it were lead.
 
Working on 1x as lead probably means they can get a game ip and running faster and iterate quicker, not that One S is going to be any less optimized than it would if it were lead.
Yea thats true too. Lots of ways to interpret that comment.
 
It makes sense for there to be a point where, instead of taking an X1 game and scaling up with limited effectiveness, you build to get the most out of 1X and simply scale back for X1.

If Fable 4 is in super early development then you're probably looking at late 2020 for release. You'll be wanting to get the most out of the 1X by then as it'll probably have been shrunk and be your main platform. X1 will be in its twilight and a decent downport will be enough.

In terms of the CPU I guess they'll save some work by streaming in / decompressing lower quality assets, reducing LoD and the associated CPU workloads there .... and also being prepared to drop under 30 fps more often.
 
Last edited:
Then they just have to say it openly... it's not difficult... why would they maintain an ambiguity ? Do you expect the same ambiguity for the PS5 ?

It's just PR marketing. At best, they will try to sell the XBX as a next-gen console near the PS5 launch but its specs don't lie...

We're getting OT here, but you're still trying to pigeon hole the 1X into generations in the traditional sense. It would be an enormous mistake for MS to use language that would help people reinforce their misunderstanding of what MS are doing.

This discussion belongs in the appropriate thread though, as all it can do here is derail the topic of CPUs.

Edit: More OT, the extra work MS put into the 1X CPU - pushing for very high clocks from a low-power architecture, and increasing IPC in all the ways they reasonably could - shows what they intend for the machine.
 
Last edited:
We're getting OT here, but you're still trying to pigeon hole the 1X into generations in the traditional sense. It would be an enormous mistake for MS to use language that would help people reinforce their misunderstanding of what MS are doing.

This discussion belongs in the appropriate thread though, as all it can do here is derail the topic of CPUs.

Edit: More OT, the extra work MS put into the 1X CPU - pushing for very high clocks from a low-power architecture, and increasing IPC in all the ways they reasonably could - shows what they intend for the machine.
that's more or less what I was trying to point towards. The main customizations to the command processor have been doubled down when going from xbox one to one X. These customization have still yet to used in games. If more CPU is absolutely required to make next gen complexity, there is an opportunity for developers to take advantage of these customizations and reduce loads where necessary; essentially allowing these current hardware devices to function even if the next generation device comes out with significantly more CPU power.
 
Last edited:
essentially allowing these current hardware devices to function even if the next generation device comes out with significantly more CPU power.

So, you expect the gap between the XBX/PS5 CPU would be smaller than the one between the XB1/XBX CPU ?

Here is what should happen :

XBX CPU > XB1 CPU

PS5 CPU >>> XBX CPU

In other words, any game that runs on XBX could theorically runs on XB1 at a much lower resolution. The same can't be said for the next gen.

It would be an enormous mistake for MS to use language that would help people reinforce their misunderstanding of what MS are doing.

Then they only have to say what they are trying to do... it's the simplest way to avoid any misunderstanding...
 
Last edited:
So, you expect the gap between the XBX/PS5 CPU would be smaller than the one between the XB1/XBX CPU ?

Here is what should happen :

XBX CPU > XB1 CPU

PS5 CPU >>> XBX CPU

In other words, any game that runs on XBX could theorically runs on XB1 at a much lower resolution. The same can't be said for the next gen.



Then they only have to say what they are trying to do... it's the simplest way to avoid any misunderstanding...


How so ? We've had cross generation games in the past that ran on vastly different hardware sets. The year the XO and PS4 hit there was still a similar looking COD on X360 and PS3 . I think it would be much easier to put a game on The XBX and PS5 (Esp if PS5 is 2020/2021) then it was to put a game on XO and PS4 and target the x360 and ps3 . With wanting to move forward we need to think about what a future console would look like . Will the system have 12 gigs ? 18 gigs , 24 , 32 ? What CPU will it have , Ryzen or Jaguar ? How powerful will the gpu be ?

I don't see a huge jump coming up if next gen hits before 2021 to be honest. A Xbox Next , PS5 with A zen 8 core / 16 thread , 18 or 24 gigs of ram and a 12tflop cpu will not make it impossible for XOX to get ports nor really the ps4 pro.
 
I just dont see Sony trowing into the toilette millions of PS4.... They'll try whatever to keep forward compatibility at least for a couple of years after next gen release. So next gent still Jaguars maybe 16 cores, maybe 3 ghz... Maybe even bettered at 7 nm....
 
I just dont see Sony trowing into the toilette millions of PS4.... They'll try whatever to keep forward compatibility at least for a couple of years after next gen release. So next gent still Jaguars maybe 16 cores, maybe 3 ghz... Maybe even bettered at 7 nm....

Sony most probably isn't putting BC in danger if they still go with x86-64.

As for using Jaguar instead of Zen in the PS5, at 7nm we should think if the performance/area of Zen-based CPUs would be that much different from Jaguar-based CPUs.
I think it's not, to be honest. And the only reason we didn't see Zen cores in the XboneX is because the console had a rather long development time so Zen cores weren't on time.

The Jaguar CPU complex in the PS4 Liverpool is 52mm^2 at 28nm. I don't know how much it occupies at 16FF, but some 30mm^2 is safe to assume.
A 4-core Zen CCX is 44mm^2 at 14FF. At 7nm we're probably looking at around 25mm^2. That would mean two Zen CCX at 7nm would be around 50mm^2, which is about the same CPU area budget the original PS4 had.
Cut down hyperthreading and L3 cache (not really useful in games and mostly used for coherency among CPU cores?), and I'd say 2*CCX Zen cores would be at around 40mm^2.

However, there's rumors about the Zen 2's CCX now being of 6-cores. In that case, maybe a single CCX with hyperthreading at ~3.5GHz would be more than enough to "emulate" the 8 Jaguars @2.1GHz.



One thing console SoC makers should definitely be looking at IMO is heterogeneous CPUs. A couple of ARM Cortex A55 cores at 1.8GHz (or Jaguar cores if they definitely have to maintain instruction set?) would probably be more than enough for the O.S. tasks, leaving all of the bigger Zen x86 cores available to the developers. They could have low-power O.S. cores independent from the App/Gaming cores, and the latter could even be treated as co-processors for the O.S.
 
majority of CPU cycles still being leveraged in render code. If they code offload that to the GPU there would be plenty of CPU for other things.
that's the nature of the beast. CPUs do a lot of things, but not very well, of all them. GPUs are dumber in the way they can't do as many things but they make a lot of things more efficiently. I can't see a CPU only system working, Larrabee sounded interesting, thought, would love to see that someday but got dropped.
 
that's the nature of the beast. CPUs do a lot of things, but not very well, of all them. GPUs are dumber in the way they can't do as many things but they make a lot of things more efficiently. I can't see a CPU only system working, Larrabee sounded interesting, thought, would love to see that someday but got dropped.
Gpus are more and more like Larrabee with every interation. They'll get there, eventually.
 
Back
Top