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

[mrcorbo]

Die shot measurements and the like speculated 410+ mm². DF's article on 'breaking the rules' that looked at the case led us to imagine a huge, hot die and fancy cooling. Turns out the case is pretty mediocre in airflow design, from the looks of it, that had us scratching our collective heads. And then it turns out the die isn't huge and hot. It's a normal console, but engineering has allowed a decent generation advance within the same die size. Although cost wise, is it dependent on 100% perfect dies without redundancy?

It's 56 CUs with 52 active, 4 disabled for yields.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Anyone willing and able to drum up a realistic BOM? Assume the anciallary costs of the other consoles like PS4 and XB1, just cost up the SoC, RAM, SSD, anything else that's deviant from what you'd expect from a standard console BOM.

 

[RDGoodla]

A lot of people believe xsx is 380mm2 or even 400mm2 and they think the number from Aquariuszi in Taiwan is fake.

Now the official number is 360.45 mm2, and Aquariuszi again proves his credibility.

He said 350 mm2 for xsx and PS5 is 300mm2.

 

[Picao84]

Two separate memory pools? 10GB @ 556 GB/s, 6GB @ 336 GB/s

The article says 56 GB/s.. I did find it weird. It's a typo then?

 

[tunafish]

The article says 56 GB/s.. I did find it weird. It's a typo then?

Refresh the page, it was already fixed.

 

[Picao84]

There was so much emphasis on locked clocks, no boost that maybe MS is suspecting sony is going to try to do some kind of dynamic clocking? Dynamic clocks would allow for nice peak numbers but then what is sustainable is whole another matter.

Also thought this.

 

[KeanuReeves]

"[Series X] goes even further than the PC standard in offering more power and flexibility to developers," reveals Goossen. "In grand console tradition, we also support direct to the metal programming including support for offline BVH construction and optimisation. With these building blocks, we expect ray tracing to be an area of incredible visuals and great innovation by developers over the course of the console's lifetime."

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-inside-xbox-series-x-full-specs
I wonder what this means for performance.
Like what kind of performance can we expect compared to the current Nvidia solution? Is 4k60fps at all possible? or is it still a dream.

 

[PSman1700]

Yea, they said they are bringing DirectStorage to Windows PC as well. Very cool. Wonder what other improvements and changes they have in store for the PC side of the equation?

Rhen why the DF article claims you would need 13 zen cores to match xsx?

 

[chris1515]

Rhen why the DF article claims you would need 13 zen cores to match xsx?

Because they will probably make a new Direct Storage line of SSD with SSD controller with hardware decompression hardware. MS is the only one able to set a standard. It will be accessible using DirectStorage API on Xbox Series X, S and PC.

 

[rokkerkory]

https://community.amd.com/community...rcharge-console-gaming-with-the-xbox-series-x

The Xbox Series X is the biggest generational leap of SoC and API design that we’ve done with Microsoft, and it’s an honor for AMD to partner with Microsoft for this endeavor. The Xbox Series X is going to be a beacon of technical innovation leadership for this console generation and will propagate the innovation throughout the DirectX ecosystem this year and into next year. It is a privilege to be Microsoft’s trusted partner, and we look forward to a successful launch this holiday season!

 

[BRiT]

"It likely comes as no surprise to discover that Series X can technically run the entire Xbox One catalogue, but this time it's done with no emulation layer - it's baked in at the hardware level."
Looks like it's just for XB1 which makes sense. Also unlike the XB1X they're allowing the full CPU/GPU to be available for BC. On the OneX only 50% of the GPU was made available.

I think that was only on Unpatched titles because of the size of the data structures they exposed. Meanwhile with the current Xbox SDKs they can probably map the entire full stack of Series X hardware into those structures.

I'm thinking the OneX SDK update was like how Sony expanded the possible values of ShaderEngine when they updated sdk for 4Pro.

 

[PSman1700]

Because they will probably make a new Direct Storage line of SSD with SSD controller with hardware decompression hardware. MS is the only one able to set a standard. It will be accessible using DirectStorage API on Xbox Series X, S and PC.

Yeah makes sense, they have a stake in it afterall.
Will be intresting to see sonys solution, will ps5 users also be able to expand storage?

 

[Shortbread]

Anyone willing and able to drum up a realistic BOM? Assume the anciallary costs of the other consoles like PS4 and XB1, just cost up the SoC, RAM, SSD, anything else that's deviant from what you'd expect from a standard console BOM.

* APU = $149
* 16GB GDDR6 = $80-$90
* 1TB NVME SSD = $55
* Motherboard = $35
* 250w PSU = $20
* Case = $20
* Misc = $110

BOM = $474-$484
Retail = $499 or $399 w/ $75-$85 BoM loss.

 

[chris1515]

Yeah makes sense, they have a stake in it afterall.
Will be intresting to see sonys solution, will ps5 users also be able to expand storage?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1239528829305192452

I think it will be the same.

 

[BRiT]

Anyone able to drum up a realistic BOM?

No. We've never seen one yet, doubt it's possible this time around.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1239550959975612417

Humm.. proprietary storage for expansion. Let's hope the price-per-GB is at least not very far from street prices on competing M.2 drives of similar speeds.


Kleegamefan so far seems vindicated on CPU frequency, storage speed and others.
Tommy Fisher (who had been discredited due to posting a fake picture of the DS5) had claimed 52 CUs at 1.82GHz.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/ne...r-see-staff-post.159131/page-31#post-27421178

I had completely set this guy aside, but narrowing the CU count and frequency down to tens of megahertz should make him at the very least a very lucky fake insider.

 

[tunafish]

Yeah makes sense, they have a stake in it afterall.
Will be intresting to see sonys solution, will ps5 users also be able to expand storage?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1239528829305192452

I think it will be the same.

As I have posted on here n+1 times already, a 4x PCI-E interface is simply too good and cheap solution to dismiss, and next-gen consoles desperately need expandable storage. I would be genuinely shocked if PS5 did not have some kind of a hole you can plug some kind of PCI-E expandable storage.

 

[Remij]

As I have posted on here n+1 times already, a 4x PCI-E interface is simply too good and cheap solution to dismiss, and next-gen consoles desperately need expandable storage. I would be genuinely shocked if PS5 did not have some kind of a hole you can plug some kind of PCI-E expandable storage.

I bet they'll have a proprietary solution just like MS and will use it to make back money offset by the loss on the console itself.

 

[PSman1700]

Really cool with those small expension cards. Wonder what the price of those will be, and what pc users have to set back for those direct storage ssd drives. Even those with nvme drives will have to upgrade.

 

[mrcorbo]

I bet they'll have a proprietary solution just like MS and will use it to make back money offset by the loss on the console itself.

I'm not sure this is the best approach. To my mind you want to encourage the consumer to invest in as much storage as possible to prevent available storage from being an impediment to more content purchases. I think they price these as close to cost as possible.