Predict: Next gen console tech (9th iteration and 10th iteration edition) [2014 - 2017]

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What are the chances of Xpoint making it into next gen consoles? Xpoint is supposedly cheaper than RAM so you can get 128 GB XPoint instead of 32 GB of DDR4 or something like that. Then you can have 8GB of HBM caching for 128 GB of XPoint and then a regular HDD for mass storage.
Slim to none, it requires Intel CPU to work and I doubt Intel will be giving the controller/driver (whichever it is) magic away
 
Slim to none, it requires Intel CPU to work and I doubt Intel will be giving the controller/driver (whichever it is) magic away
Intel won't be the only company that makes xpoint. Micron also can and there is nothing stopping micron from allowing their stuff to work on AMD since it's all just NVMe storage.
 
Not really, if you follow Occams Razor. If they could give you the current PS4 Experience with only 1GB of RAM out of 8GB they'd only use that. It's obvious they couldn't so that's why they increased it. If they only used 1GB of RAM everyone would have a very limited experience.
What constitutes 'very limited' though? If you look at what XB360 and PS4 managed with <100 MBs, how does 10x that result in a very limited experience, and 25x or far more even be required for what we have?
 
What constitutes 'very limited' though? If you look at what XB360 and PS4 managed with <100 MBs, how does 10x that result in a very limited experience, and 25x or far more even be required for what we have?

Do you not remember your complaints about the PS3 experience? Or maybe it was others, but it very much was hell at times, so much that I read about gamers using the X360 or PCs to get their game sessions setup and working. On the PS3 you didn't have a cross-game chat system with simple invites to chat or game. You do on the PS4. But MS had that on the X360. Not sure why Sony couldn't / didn't get that put in place on the PS3. Dont know if they didnt have the memory or if their Cell / CPU wasnt powerful enough. You have cross-game chat systems on current gen. (I'm not counting Nintendo Switch as current gen because Nintendo is so far behind on user experience here)

On the oldgen you didnt have any of the social gaming aspects like sharing achievements or videos. MS backported the friends game feeds, but that loads an app and takes time. To view a screenshot or video that loads another app. Its functional but feels very slow and cumbersome because of the delays in loading. I assume that's caused by the very limited memory those systems have. You have this on current gen.

You also didnt have game streaming/broadcasting like Mixer or Twitch. You might be able to watch streams on oldgen but you couldnt stream yourself without dedicated equipment and a pc to do so. You have this on current gen.

I dont think the PS3 had cloud saves across the board. But then again MS worked out a way of that on the X360. I think you have this on current gen.

On oldgen you didnt have multiple seamless app switching, everything is an explicit task that requires time to switch between. You have this on current gen.

On the PS3 you didnt have playing games from external hard drives. But then again MS worked that out on X360. Maybe Sony could have worked that out too if they wanted to. You have this on both PS4/XB.
 
Do you not remember your complaints about the PS3 experience? Or maybe it was others, but it very much was hell at times, so much that I read about gamers using the X360 or PCs to get their game sessions setup and working. On the PS3 you didn't have a cross-game chat system with simple invites to chat or game. You do on the PS4. But MS had that on the X360. Not sure why Sony couldn't / didn't get that put in place on the PS3. Dont know if they didnt have the memory or if their Cell / CPU wasnt powerful enough. You have cross-game chat systems on current gen. (I'm not counting Nintendo Switch as current gen because Nintendo is so far behind on user experience here)

On the oldgen you didnt have any of the social gaming aspects like sharing achievements or videos. MS backported the friends game feeds, but that loads an app and takes time. To view a screenshot or video that loads another app. Its functional but feels very slow and cumbersome because of the delays in loading. I assume that's caused by the very limited memory those systems have. You have this on current gen.

You also didnt have game streaming/broadcasting like Mixer or Twitch. You might be able to watch streams on oldgen but you couldnt stream yourself without dedicated equipment and a pc to do so. You have this on current gen.

I dont think the PS3 had cloud saves across the board. But then again MS worked out a way of that on the X360. I think you have this on current gen.

On oldgen you didnt have multiple seamless app switching, everything is an explicit task that requires time to switch between. You have this on current gen.

On the PS3 you didnt have playing games from external hard drives. But then again MS worked that out on X360. Maybe Sony could have worked that out too if they wanted to. You have this on both PS4/XB.

I distinctly remember the reason cited was memory limitations, since the reserved memory for the OS wasn't very much and was set in stone at the start, and so even though they managed to further reduce the OS memory footprint to enable things like in-game invites and in-game XMB later, cross-game was still beyond what they had available.
 
You also didnt have game streaming/broadcasting like Mixer or Twitch. You might be able to watch streams on oldgen but you couldnt stream yourself without dedicated equipment and a pc to do so. You have this on current gen.

Interestingly, I don't think game streaming was in the cards for the PS4 until the bump to 8 GB. It'd have been tough to do any sort of decent game streaming if the system OS was limited to only 1 GB or less.

Regards,
SB
 
Do you not remember your complaints about the PS3 experience? Or maybe it was others, but it very much was hell at times, so much that I read about gamers using the X360 or PCs to get their game sessions setup and working
PS3's implementation was sucky. Consider XB360 versus PS4. XB360 used something like 32 MBs of RAM. Scale that up to 1 GB on a 4 GB system (which we'd all complain was too much!) and you'd be able to do loads.

As I say, Sony might have legitimate reasons but it'd be nice if someone could get inside and actually see what's using what RAM. The moment we're shown it's being put to good use, we won't feel so bothered about it. But I guess that's never going to happen.
 
From a die area perspective, is it realistic to think that a PS5 APU around 300 - 350 mm² could fit an 8c/16t Zen CPU in a similar footprint to the PS4's 8c Jaguar (plus cache)?

I think the actual core sizes are in a similar ballpark, i.e. 3.1 mm² for Jaguar core (minus cache) at 28nm and ~7mm² for a Ryzen core at 14nm (so perhaps at 7nm the Ryzen core might be 50-70% of that size?)
 
A quad core complex in PS4 using 28nm process tech is around 26mm², a Zen CCX in 14nm is 44mm².

So yes, very realistic to expect eight Zen cores in next gen consoles.

Cheers
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:-? Zen CCX at 14 nm is 44 mm². At 7 nm it'll be about half that, 22mm², comparable to the quad core unit in PS4. Where do you read sarcasm coming in?
 
From a die area perspective, is it realistic to think that a PS5 APU around 300 - 350 mm² could fit an 8c/16t Zen CPU in a similar footprint to the PS4's 8c Jaguar (plus cache)?

I think the actual core sizes are in a similar ballpark, i.e. 3.1 mm² for Jaguar core (minus cache) at 28nm and ~7mm² for a Ryzen core at 14nm (so perhaps at 7nm the Ryzen core might be 50-70% of that size?)
Maybe a follow up question, but what are the physical constraints for die sizes for the whole APU? And if possible, why?

Is there a reason why dies are always squarish? Why can't they be circular (real question)?
 
:-? Zen CCX at 14 nm is 44 mm². At 7 nm it'll be about half that, 22mm², comparable to the quad core unit in PS4. Where do you read sarcasm coming in?
Yes, you are right.

But: AMD has shown a naked RR-APU (possible Great Horned Owl with 4C and upto 11 CUs), it was as big as a Ryzen die. Even if it has more I/O stuff (PCIe lanes etc), how big would be a custom APU for consoles with 2 CCXes and more than 40 CUs (56 CUs?)?
 
For me what this gen has proven time and time again, it's not just about when tech becomes available, but when it becomes financially viable for a console.

So 7nm, zen 8C16T, big gpu.
I think it's a given it will be zen based, otherwise no point in releasing it.
Maybe 4C8T at 3Ghz though, to give space for gpu (at least 12TF)? Or wouldn't that be enough cpu for a next gen jump?
 
Is there a reason why dies are always squarish? Why can't they be circular (real question)?
Efficiency. If you cut round dies out of a wafer, you lose all the silicon in the spaces between them. Rectangular dies are easy to cut and have no waste. The only other sensible geometry would be triangles (or hexagons) which could be cut with no waste, but that's an unnatural space to work in - functional units in a chip are always arranged in rectangles and rectilinear groups.
 
Maybe a follow up question, but what are the physical constraints for die sizes for the whole APU? And if possible, why?

Is there a reason why dies are always squarish? Why can't they be circular (real question)?

I would imagine the obvious answer for this would be maximizing the number of dies which can be cut from a given area of silicon wafer, together with the shape being probably the most space-efficient for the actual IC/SoC layout itself.

Edit:
Shifty explained it much more eloquently than I could.
 
For me what this gen has proven time and time again, it's not just about when tech becomes available, but when it becomes financially viable for a console.

So 7nm, zen 8C16T, big gpu.
I think it's a given it will be zen based, otherwise no point in releasing it.
Maybe 4C8T at 3Ghz though, to give space for gpu (at least 12TF)? Or wouldn't that be enough cpu for a next gen jump?
Why not 6C/12T?
 
Yes, you are right.

But: AMD has shown a naked RR-APU (possible Great Horned Owl with 4C and upto 11 CUs), it was as big as a Ryzen die. Even if it has more I/O stuff (PCIe lanes etc), how big would be a custom APU for consoles with 2 CCXes and more than 40 CUs (56 CUs?)?

If the 8ct/16t Zen @ 7nm falls within a similar footprint as the Jaguar on the Liverpool APU, and if we assume the PS4 was the maximum CU count you could achieve in 2013 in a console die size (i.e. 300 - 350mm²), then if we assume linear scaling, we could see a 52 - 56CU Navi GPU within a similar GPU footprint on the APU as the GPU in Liverpool:

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While the Zen cores maybe of similar size to Jaguar, they do utilize an L3 cache that will take up a decent size area. If PS5 moves to a 384-bit bus for GDDR6, the interface area will also go up so ultimately I don't know if CU counts will be able to scale linearly unless the dies size also grows next gen.
 
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