Playstation 5 [PS5] [Release November 12 2020]

Generally speaking, you offset processing power with storage, precalculating values. If the SSD can supplant processing power, it'll be at the expense of larger games and more data, bringing with it some other issue like download sizes and how many games can fit on the SSD.

 

First of all are you just purposely inflating the percentage difference now? It's 18% power difference and that's a ceiling, realistically it won't reach that much due to other factors mentioned in my previous post. And where's that 2+TF Navi2 come from? Math tells me 12.14 - 10.28 = 1.86TF. The split pool ram is obviously a cost saving decision which in turn makes it a hindrance if game graphics require over 10GB and hell I'll bet my house games a few years down the line would more than likely go past that amount. Also this minuscule difference in CPU power is pretty much non existence when you're rendering over 1800p. Again, clock speed vs more CU is load dependent and how you program your engine to take advantage of such, DF actually mentioned it in their video and you just omitted that part like you always do. Look, there's a lot we don't know but for what we do know let's not inflate those numbers to suit your narrative shall we?

 

I very much doubt it's one of the deactivated CU's.
Considering it works differently than the usual CUs.

 

You can't use redundant CUs for anything; the moment you use something, it's no longer redundant. Tempest was engineered and included deliberately. It remains to be seen where it fits into the SOC, whether part of the GPU or isolated as an independent unit. Though given it has its own controller and memory accessing, I expect the latter, a stand-alone audio processor that happens to be derived from an RDNA CU as opposed to derived from a Tensilica DSP or Cell SPU or bespoke ground-up design.

 

I can only go on what has been reported, and as far as I know, they dont make GPUs with 41 Cu's?
"The Tempest Engine is a re-purposed GPU compute unit, inspired by the PS3’s SPUs with an SIMD performance and bandwidth comparable to eight PS4 CPU cores combined."
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vg247.com/2020/03/18/ps5-3d-audio-tempest-engine/amp/

 

It might be a repurposed CU from the extra 4 but I doubt very much any of the 4 can be used for the job depending which CUs have the defects but I might be wrong.

 

Nothing, because they're redundant - I don't think it works like you're suggesting but I'm low down on the tech food chain here (bottom rung )

Well that's my question - how to they know? Devs, magic or another solution?

No, I'm suggesting that RDNA2 didn't exist when Github was run - I believe (and could be completely wrong) that it was not RDNA2.

You're right but wrong (kind of) as Cerny said 'PS5 CU <>= PS4 CU, and to be more accurate I think it was 36CU = 58CU so over 50% better...so whilst the XSX is 12TF it's acting nearer 20TF - or rather over 3x the Xbox One X. So in 3 years if you double the power then that's significant power to RT and shoring up performance that I for one would buy.

lol, it did seem odd and fanboyish which is why I said what I said about trolling...so apologies back.

Sorry, I tend to dip in and out and often stuff goes over my head to I miss bits out. I don't know if I could find it either, if you could link? But essentially I assume you're saying that although the different speeds are for different types of work, it doesn't affect devs workloads?

My thought...I would have thought it's 'just' an extra bit on the chio as apposed to 1 of the assumed 4 disused CUs being repurposed.

I think it just means they took a CU and reworked it into a new design.

 

Never use a second hand source when the first hand source is available:



YouTube transcript:

It meant we had to bite the bullet and design and build a custom hardware unit for 3d audio collectively we're referring to the hardware unit and the proprietary algorithms we run on it tempest 3d audio Tech the meaning of 3d audio and technology should be pretty obvious here as for tempest I feel it really reflects our goals with audio it suggests a certain intensity of experience and also hints at your presence within it we're calling the hardware unit that we built the tempest engine it's based on AMD's GPU technology we modified a compute unit in such a way as to make it very close to the SPU is in PlayStation 3​

Very clearly, in creating a bespoke solution, they took a CU as a starting point. AMD SOCs already include a discrete audio processor in PS4, XB1, and the mid gen refreshes. Expect the Tempest Engine to be in the PS5's 'audio block' rather than dangling off the GPU.

 

The hardware architecture would have had all or most of the capability from scratch. Technically, the current gen did as well, although Jaguar's architectural turbo feature was mostly unused until a new revision on a different process.
The PS5's disclosed clocking method looks to be a tailored subset of AMD's existing DVFS and boost capability. That could have made it easier to make the choice and maybe that leaves the possibility open for a later decision point, although a platform architecture choice like that is still usually made some time in advance. Getting the characteristics for the idealized SOC the PS5 is set to use would be the result of analyzing accumulated data or possibly some simulated data in the early phases. If getting physical data, the data points would be gathered over the course of manufacturing runs, which could be months apart if dealing with steppings or revisions.

The theory that this was in reaction to the competition would need to pick a time frame for when Sony discovered it needed to react. Even though it might not be entirely locked-in like core count or memory bus width years in advance, there would have been non-trivial time and investment to get the feature implemented. Marketing pressure to get over 10 TF or to open more margin over the Xbox One X could have been longer-term pressures for opting for variable clocks. The stated reason that Sony didn't want to run into the same problems it had in prior generations with accurately predicting cooling and platform clock requirements would be a plausible motivation.

The Tempest CU is described as not having caches, so that would bypass the caches used by the rest of the architecture. It's not clear where the unit is in the overall system, so whether it is covered by the cache scrubbers mentioned for the disk I/O block isn't clear. The SPU-model does well with getting high vector utilization out of highly regular streaming workloads. The motivation is to combat the memory wall with explicit control of all memory access, which in algorithms where the access patterns are regular or predictable can be more efficient than relying on the standard CU's dependence on heavy concurrency over a long-latency memory pipeline.

 

I don't see the Variable Clocks as a negative in the context of the PS5's implementation. It's providing more power than would have otherwise been available with conventional fixed clocks given the same thermal/power/cost envelope.

Fixing clocks based on edge case scenarios is throwing away power in more general workloads.

There's a lot of getting caught up in comparisons to the other box, but what's most important in this regard is in comparison to itself:

If there were two identical PS5s sat next to each other except one had fixed clocks which were defined based on edge case scenarios and one had Cerny's variable clock implementation; the former would leaving power (as in watts) on the table much of the time, whereas the latter is making all of that power available to the system across all workloads. The latter is simply giving you more bang for your buck.

 

I think it's a compromise in terms of development complexity versus the realities of a physical implementation, just like having non-symmetric memory chip capacities adds some additional complexity to memory allocation.
I think Sony's decision might give more complexity than a simple capacity check, but it seems like they made an effort to keep it consistent enough such that it was an incremental increase in complexity over the sort of performance profiling a game would need to do anyway.
Whether such design decisions turn out to be noticeable sources of complication for developers, or if their upsides outweighed the negatives will be discovered over time. Perhaps we'll publicly know the answer with the generation after next.

 

In the history of consoles, PCs, cars, houses, TVs, MP3 players etc, having the most powerful hardware has never equated to sales except those rare storms where most powerful inexplicably was also cheaper, e.g. PS4.

Which has served Sony well with PlayStation, PS2 and PS4. Sony's only stumble, and their stumble sold 90+ million units, was PS3. Aiming for the stratosphere is not a strategy in any market that has resulted in success unless the crown you pursue is 'most powerful' rather than 'most profitable' or 'most popular'.

 

How often do we have the more powerful system come out at the same time as the weaker system?

The only one I can think of is the ps4/xbox one. The xbox 360 came out a year before the ps3 was $200-$300 less and more powerful. The Ps2 came out a year before the xbox / gamecube and a year after the dreamcast.

The saturn and PlayStation came out in the same year and the PlayStation was more powerful and easier to design 3d games for.

So I don't see much evidence backing up your claim

 

MSFT also handed them PR win after win before the current gen launch on top of the 2/3 GPU performance. That's not happening this time, quite the opposite.

 

My claim is that more powerful hardware doesn't outsell less powerful hardware and there is evidence everywhere b y virtual that the highest-end items in any product line never outsell models lower down the tier.

But even if you think my 'claim' lacks evidence, you disagreeing with it provides zero evidence that powerful hardware is more appealing than lower-powered hardware. The position I have maintained forever is that price is the most important factor. Typically less power = cheaper but not always.

And Sony handled Microsoft a PR win with PS3, the fact that Cell was theoretically more powerful (but that power largely went untapped or was used to compensate for the GPU) didn't stop Sony selling as PS3s as Microsoft sold 360s, launching 12-18 months later and at almost twice the price. How does make the case for power selling?

 

I agree with your point that you don't need the best hardware. That said PS4 did have the best hardware, and PS2's competition wasn't that serious. I also wonder how well the PS4 would have done (at least in US/UK) had MSFT not made so many mistakes.

 

Probably marginally worse but still a huge success. Because Sony didnt fuck up this time, whereas they did last time. Sony's success isnt dependent on MS failing.

That's why i say Sony is in an advantagous position this time. Even if MS has a lot of goodwill in America and 360 era territories, it took Sony flatlining for years and Xbox selling double what PS3 did in America for years for them to come about even in global sales.

In this generation, as long as Sony brings the heat we expect, they will never lose that badly to MS, even if their lead in America is reduced somewhat due to MS's stronger position this time.

 

I honestly don't think goodwill from the 360 era will carry Microsoft very far. Consumers viewed playstation 4 as the best option this current gen, and I imagine they'll stay with Playstation unless Sony royally fucks something up like pricing, reliability. Microsoft would really have to come out with something remarkable to get people to consider switching.