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

I'm not sure, MS tends to live on the edge with psus, we have 175W to 200W max reported on xb1x from a 250W PSU... Also we have this from their tech support...
"If you connect the console to another surge protector, the console cannot reach the full power that is needed for optimal performance"

I expect 75% power which is the average of (175+200)/2/250... Wait that's exactly 225W nevermind I'm not disagreeing with you at all. The much simpler and restricted cooling that was unveiled was a dead giveaway it cannot be significantly above 200W.

For PS5 I'm not betting anything without seeing the cooling system. They have a design that could be anywhere between 125W and 250W with the exact same hardware and unveiled max clocks. But if I was a betting man, and i am, I would bet on 186W with a 310W PSU.

 

He said at or close, and close is a word that's not a known quantity. That's the point of this conversation, we don't know what that means. Is it 2ghz? Is it 1.85? I mean, 1.85 is close to 2ghz, right, and that's only a few hundred mhz off from the cap? Close is an opinion. We don't even know the range. It's not 2.23 all the time, though. That's the only thing we know for sure. If you watch what Cerny says, he states individually that they couldn't hit 2ghz on the GPU and 3ghz on the CPU without this power management system, but with it they are getting 2.23 on the GPU and 3.5 on the CPU, and he says the GPU has to be capped or the rest of the on chip logic stops working. What that means to me is that they can't hit 3ghz on the CPU and 2ghz on the GPU at the same time within their power/cooling/BOM budget, or else these variable clocks wouldn't be needed. Also, I would expect them to be closer to max clocks on the GPU side more often than the CPU simply because most games will be GPU limited at 4k.

 

Did it run God Of War at the time of teardown?

 

That's not correct. Cerny said they couldn't hit 2GHz consistently on the max power output.
I'm not sure why you believe MSFT and not believe Sony here?
I can also say: we know that every GPU or CPU throttles in PC when max power is reached. So XBSX will obviously throttle too.
Why not?
We can play this game both ways: MSFT just builds on a fact that their consoles are usually underutilized, and that would be the case here too. If nobody ever uses over 9TF than you can safely claim 12TF.

 

I'll be pedantic...

Close is not exactly an opinion, it's a subjective comparison which requires context, and which needs the majority of people to agree on the definition of the word in that specific context.

If I'm living 3 blocks from work I'm close. If I commute an hour I'm far. It's that way because most people people who also have to go to work agree on the definition of the words close/far in that context.

The developers are the ones in control of telling us, in their line of work, how close to 2.23 is considered close.

If the majority of developers say the actual clock they achieved was "close" to 2.23 for the majority of the time, then we can say it was a reasonable statement.

 

I can't recall exactly where i heard it, but the system will downclock based on the workload.
The problem is that AMD smart shift technology was first introduced when they shown the laptop presentation, and it would underclock one component and overclock the other based on the workload. This time it would underclock just underclock based on the workload, under normal conditions the PS5 will run with cpu at 3.5 and gpu 2.23.
I wonder if was digital foundry who said that, but this info has been already explained.

 

We basically won't know this until the end of the generation.

 

The post I was responding to said the CPU and GPU could never run at the max clocks simultaneously.

 

Makes sense, 2ghz gpu. Maybe you can link to where this was said?

 

However Cerny then said ‘worst case would drop a couple %’ right? Or am I misunderstanding that part of the presentation?

And yet we have Jason Schreier saying he’s heard from devs their very close (since the reveal).

 

In a closed platform where the toolset is controlled by the hardware maker, tdp and thermals are part of the r&d, keeping fixed clocks isn’t hard and it’s been the case for many generations.

 

Where did he said that? On the reveal presentation?

I watched it too and I think he said that GPU runs at 2.23ghz most of the time, and with few % of drop they can save 10% of power usage.

And that both cpu+gpu share power budget and it can be managed + if AAA game uses lot of power, clocks can drop, but on many games they stay at max/almost at max.

I didnt see or hear him saying that they cant hit even 2GHz. Or maybe when they talked about old tech?

 

Are we looking at this the wrong way round?

As an example, if I play some basic/simple game - any game that won't push either system...well, in that case neither machine will be running at their maximum, so what's the issue?

From what I can gather, if devs need the full 2.23ghz then they can access it because the system is designed to sustain the maximum clock, however, if there's a cenario where you need to free up power then you can lower the clock. The good news is that if you need 10% power you only need to drop a couple % - in which case most games won't need to drop any lower than a couple %.

That's how I'm seeing this, in what scenarios might we need to save more than 10% power and therefore drop lower?

 

He defintely said it, essentially they couldn't lock it at 2GHz but at variable had to limit it to 2.23GHz to help with logic or something? My take was if it goes higher it'll break other aspects of the setup.

 

If you listen to Cerny's presentation from about 37:10, the GPU seems quite willingly to reach it's maximum frequency with the new variable frequency strategy Sony have implemented. He even said that they had to cap the frequency at 2.23 GHz (implying it would try to run even higher if allowed) to secure that the on chip logic worked properly.

 

You will have a 100% sustained GPU/CPU combined... With fixed power, if you can do it one, you can do it all the time. Downclock will only happen if that estimated power budget envelope is passed. It is intended for a worst case scenario thing, not a common thing.
The downclock happens in cases where in another solutions the fan would fire up.
This is intended to keep the system stable at those high clock speeds, allowing them to be a reality on these extreme situations, and not something to be used regularly.
And 2% are 2%. All% extra is good!

 

Yes, when you have the closest machines based on paper specs ever, and people are using phrases like “quite staggering,” you have to cock an eyebrow. Especially who he’s replying to.

 

well the difference between hellblade 2 XsX and PS5 is quite staggering.