Next Generation Hardware Speculation with a Technical Spin [2018]

[anexanhume]

I remember there was some talk of Navi using AMD's Infinity Fabric process. If so, Sony could go for a scalability design as seen in AMD's Ryzen/Threadripper CPUs. Depending on the chips efficiency, TDP, and disabled cores (yield purposes), the scalability route on a die/SOC could offset any negative effects (lower clocks / disabled cores) on reaching a certain Tflop performance metric. Just a possibility...

Raja confirmed Vega was AMD’s first IF GPU.

 

[iroboto]

Was that KUMA for post GCN? Mentioned in those recent Sony = Navi articles, iroboto.

If the articles are accurate from Wccftech and forbes etc. Then perhaps yes that was likely the threads I was following that sourced them
Kuma is a weird name because I recall it being used in AMDs past.

If there are truths in these documents and sources, that would leave MS with either Navi or post Navi.

If there are exclusive rights to Navi i would lean post Navi for MS. Navi seems like it’s all about maximizing 7nm launch period and removing those CU restrictions, post Navi looks like it was supposed to be launched during refined 7nm process if earlier marketing slides indicate anything.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

The article telling a story inside AMD comes across as believable except for the suggestion that two thirds of the engineering team are working on "Navi for Sony". More likely it's "Navi for nextgen consoles" perhaps with Sony being named as their timetable is further up (closer) than Microsoft's. If not, I really don't know what they means for the next Xbox GPU.

 

[Shortbread]

If not, I really don't know what they means for the next Xbox GPU.

I'm starting to believe Microsoft next system will not be AMD related.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I'm starting to believe Microsoft next system will not be AMD related.

It's definitely a possibility. Xbox started with Nvidia and smartly went AMD for 360 but, like Sony, had little real choice except an AMD APU for Xbox One. Microsoft aren't a company renowned for sentimental strategic alliances, especially with a company that aren't going great financially and Microsoft have decades of experience of abstracting code through APIs for very different hardware.

 

[Flappy Pannus]

I just can't see how they could go anywhere but AMD. There's no other usable APU offering.

 

[shiznit]

It's definitely a possibility. Xbox started with Nvidia and smartly went AMD for 360 but, like Sony, had little real choice except an AMD APU for Xbox One. Microsoft aren't a company renowned for sentimental strategic alliances, especially with a company that aren't going great financially and Microsoft have decades of experience of abstracting code through APIs for very different hardware.

Is the A76 sufficient for 2.3 GHz Jaguar emulation?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I just can't see how they could go anywhere but AMD. There's no other usable APU offering.

1) Why does it have to be an APU? Why not two chips?
2) nVidia could certainly do an APU with ARM. The question then becomes if they can get x64 emulation running fast enough on ARM for BC, or if they can get some other solution.

Anything other than AMD is highly unlikely as discussed in the rest of this thread, but alternatives aren't impossible.

 

[iroboto]

1) Why does it have to be an APU? Why not two chips?
2) nVidia could certainly do an APU with ARM. The question then becomes if they can get x64 emulation running fast enough on ARM for BC, or if they can get some other solution.

Anything other than AMD is highly unlikely as discussed in the rest of this thread, but alternatives aren't impossible.

Emphasis on improbable for the other alternatives.

MS has done a good job at making their platform flexible enough to possibly support a variety of solutions, but I think economically AMD and their history with them will likely still stand out as being the best possible solution.

I think Vega is out of the running for obvious reasons. Leaving really just Navi or the one after Navi as the remaining options.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

And when it comes to plausibility, the notion that Sony have console-exclusive rights on Navi and MS are going with some other solution is less plausible than this rumour being inaccurate.

 

[iroboto]

And when it comes to plausibility, the notion that Sony have console-exclusive rights on Navi and MS are going with some other solution is less plausible than this rumour being inaccurate.

Agreed. Thinking of a counter point but I’d assume MS generally has good influence on design of the hardware due to direct X. So perhaps the goal was always to go to the generation after Vega something along following the DX roadmap of some sorts.

And Sony wanted something sooner so they had joint development with AMD to produce an inbetween. Not entirely implausible if I look at it like that.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

To my mind, most likely situation is Sony are supporting AMD in getting Navi ready in time for their intended product timeline and have some degree of first dibs and maybe custom tech not to be used elsewhere, but AMD will own the Navi architecture and be able to supply whoever with a different flavour of Navi hardware. The sheer financial cost to Sony to lock out MS just wouldn't be worth it - MS will still release a console.

 

[Karamazov]

fall 2019 believe !

 

[iroboto]

To my mind, most likely situation is Sony are supporting AMD in getting Navi ready in time for their intended product timeline and have some degree of first dibs and maybe custom tech not to be used elsewhere, but AMD will own the Navi architecture and be able to supply whoever with a different flavour of Navi hardware. The sheer financial cost to Sony to lock out MS just wouldn't be worth it - MS will still release a console.

indeed. And even if they did it’s not like they stopped MS from producing one, as they were confident in already letting the news out that they were well on their way for their next gen hardware.

I can’t see MS customizing less for next gen given their process for creating Scorpio.

If they profiled Scorpio by taking current gen Xbox games to 4K, they are going to do the same thing except actually have real 4K code to profile against.

There’s little doubt that this next console from MS will be every bit as effective if not more effective than Scorpio is from a price/performance viewpoint. Consider that most of their profiling code was very much intended for Xbox One, using Scorpio enhanced code will be a significantly stronger data set to work with. With where Xbox One X is headed into 2019+ we can expect major improvements over the 2017/2018 “tack” on enhancements.

Now the question is what their next performance target is to profile against. I will assume 4K@60fps and perhaps some 120fps variants. But that may be wishful thinking.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

The article telling a story inside AMD comes across as believable except for the suggestion that two thirds of the engineering team are working on "Navi for Sony". More likely it's "Navi for nextgen consoles" perhaps with Sony being named as their timetable is further up (closer) than Microsoft's. If not, I really don't know what they means for the next Xbox GPU.

IMO it just means Microsoft is less picky about the GPU arch and they'll use whatever AMD has available at the time.
That's why Scorpio ended up with a Polaris GPU and Neo with a 2xFP16 arch closer to Vega.

At this point, Microsoft is probably stronger on the software front and Sony is more demanding on their hardware.
Microsoft could e.g. just get a Vega derivative iGPU whereas Sony demanded significantly more customizations, to the point of AMD calling it a new uarch.

In the end, I think it all boils down to the preferences of their 1st parties. Sony's ICE team could have lots of particular demands whereas Microsoft may just get more from raw power out of their hypervisor/virtual machine implementations.

 

[mpg1]

From a tech speculation/tech analysis perspective it would be a lot more fun and interesting to have Microsoft go with a different vendor. Be it Intel or Nvidia. It would sort of feel like prior generations where there was actual uniqueness and differences in the hardware used. Now we just have two fairly similar closed-box AMD PC's battling it out.

I also kinda wondered with these Sony/Navi rumors could Microsoft go with someone other than AMD. In mind the most obvious question would be could they maintain backward compatibility. If they have enough of an abstraction layer and enough experience with BC now to get an idea of what needs to be done...maybe if the hardware is powerful enough it would be possible? I mean when you see what is happening in the PC space with regards to emulation....it should theoretically be easier with consoles because the emulation is happening on a fixed single spec box. Now it would obviously be more work than if you went with an AMD box. Also when it comes to emulating Xbox One games...while it would be nice to get the X enhanced versions.....I could see them just emulating the base model code. That might make it easier....

 

[Megadrive1988]

Microsoft should just go with a Zen 2 based Threadripper and custom Navi 20 or AMD Next Gen GPU.
Separate dies to make yields reasonable, more so than an APU.

32GB HBM3 at 1.2 to 1.5 TB/s bandwidth

Price $500 (eat the cost MS)

Be done with it and let the hype and games that become possible carry them.

Hehe.

 

[Wynix]

I think marketing is another reason why AMD is the only GPU choice.
Both MS and Sony have picked Tflops as the metric to inform their customers of graphics performance.
MS don't want to be the one trying to educate console gamers about Tflops and differences in architecture.

 

[anexanhume]

It would be completely possible for MS to go with an AMD CPU and discrete Nvidia GPU. It would make it tougher to combine on die for cost reductions, but Nvidia is ahead in perf/Watt, so there is some advantage.

 

[ultragpu]

Does anyone have a solid guess on the amount of performance increase from 2019-2020? If it's 10-20% then might as well push it to 2019, 40-50% however is kinda major and would be well worth the wait I say even if you get a one year head start.