Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[anexanhume]

It's not so bad, if the PS has an 80% efficiency, 7W for HDD, 7W for Bluray drive, 5W misc hardware:
170W to 200W power consumption means there's about 115W to 140W for the SoC and it's memory.

I made the same assumption earlier but someone pointed out we don't know if that 170-200W is an at the wall figure or what the console is rated at and has an external brick, which I would expect both orbis and durango to have.

I'm also curious about the rumored MS gaming portable/tablet. Will it share design elements with the home console so that developers only need to make "one" general version.

I think we can assume, that if it exists, it's some sort of tablet and not a conventional handheld like the 3DS or vita. I think MS understands that dedicated form factor seems to be dieing due to the proliferation of phones and tablets as ubiquitous, always-on-hand devices. It's not that they're better for that purpose, it's that they are good enough and always at the ready. Of course, we could see some smartglass or Wii U like interactivity with such a device, as was mentioned. I would entertain getting one to augment my purchase in lieu of Kinect if it could take voice commands and give me persistent access to menus and settings, both in game and xbox settings itself. Imagine being able to manage inventory, toggle a download or live party chat settings without leaving the game. In the same vein, I think persistent games, where we can go to the dashboard and back without restarting, as a must for next gen. I assume that's one driver behind 8 GB of RAM.

 

[MrFox]

I made the same assumption earlier but someone pointed out we don't know if that 170-200W is an at the wall figure or what the console is rated at and has an external brick, which I would expect both orbis and durango to have.

For MS it's a given, but why do you expect Sony to have an external power brick?

At such a high current I think it's a very bad idea to make it external. My wild guess is that MS made that decision because it allowed them to have a much faster worldwide regulation approval (CL, UL, etc...). Because the power brick is the device being approved, and it's purchased from a power supply manufacturer, it's an off-the-shelf part that's already approved.

 

[anexanhume]

For MS it's a given, but why do you expect Sony to have an external power brick?

At such a high current I think it's a very bad idea to make it external. My wild guess is that MS made that decision because it allowed them to have a much faster worldwide regulation approval (CL, UL, etc...). Because the power brick is the device being approved, and it's purchased from a power supply manufacturer, it's an off-the-shelf part that's already approved.

It's cost reduction for Sony. It's more engineering effort to design it into the box and it's more heat they have to deal with. It's also easier to RMA and ship a replacement brick rather than a whole console. Historically, the majority consoles have external bricks. It also makes the console bigger, which makes the retail box bigger. Those things matter for shipping volume, retail space, etc.

Remember that MS did it with Xbox 1 (and it was huge) and went for external on xbox 360.

I am not at all worried about the current or total power. There are 330W bricks out there for desktop replacement laptops that have 125W desktop GPUs and dual 100W mobile graphics cards.

 

[shiznit]

Just don't make it louder than the actual console like the brick that came with my 360 slim and it's all good.

 

[MrFox]

It's cost reduction for Sony. It's more engineering effort to design it into the box and it's more heat they have to deal with. It's also easier to RMA and ship a replacement brick rather than a whole console. Historically, the majority consoles have external bricks. It also makes the console bigger, which makes the retail box bigger. Those things matter for shipping volume, retail space, etc.

Remember that MS did it with Xbox 1 (and it was huge) and went for external on xbox 360.

I am not at all worried about the current or total power. There are 330W bricks out there for desktop replacement laptops that have 125W desktop GPUs and dual 100W mobile graphics cards.

MS had no experience with consumer electronics, they are not a reference. They are the odd ones in the consumer electronics space, and they made a lot of mistakes with the first 360 model, including Heat Management, DVD drive, and yes, the Power Supply.

The PS1, PS2 and PS3, along with the Slim and super Slim all have internal power supply. If there was a cost reduction possible, Sony would have given at least the latest super slim an external one (for god's sake they even removed the disc tray to save a dollar!), so we're not there yet. The other consoles in history that had an external PS are all low power. I suppose the next PS3 shrink might have it external?

I'd give 99% chance the PS4 has an internal one.

 

[XpiderMX]

MS had no experience with consumer electronics, they are not a reference. They are the odd ones in the consumer electronics space, and they made a lot of mistakes with the first 360 model, including Heat Management, DVD drive, and yes, the Power Supply.

The PS1, PS2 and PS3, along with the Slim and super Slim all have internal power supply. If there was a cost reduction possible, Sony would have given at least the latest super slim an external one (for god's sake they even removed the disc tray to save a dollar!), so we're not there yet. The other consoles in history that had an external PS are all low power. I suppose the next PS3 shrink might have it external?

I'd give 99% chance the PS4 has an internal one.

First Xbox had internal PS.

 

[Blazkowicz]

The reason DDR3 is so cheap is that there is oversupply because of the state of the economy. This also makes all the foundries desperate for orders. They'd be happy to sell you DDR4 at a reasonable markup.

Thanks.
My trump card : AMD doesn't have a mature ddr4 controller, all their stuff does ddr3 even their future products (and future desktop/laptop Intel products)

AMD have been updating their ddr3 controller many times. So many chips on ddr3 : phenom II, thuban, bulldozer, llano, trinity.
Here they need both low latency for the CPU and high bandwith for the GPU (same deal as other APUs really)
Not to say they can't do it with ddr4, but what they have is proven. The Xbox's chip must have been designed a while ago already, too.

 

[Helmore]

Thanks.
My trump card : AMD doesn't have a mature ddr4 controller, all their stuff does ddr3 even their future products (and future desktop/laptop Intel products)

That's very weird reasoning. I'm not going to claim that the neXtBox will have DDR4, but your reasoning is just odd. You could apply the same reasoning to Intel or IBM or anyone else and claim that they'll never have anything that uses DDR4.

 

[Bagel seed]

Might just be the case where they don't have anything DDR4 consumer desktop related ready for this year but obviously the console designs are custom. Would it be easier to implement in a console system?

Apparently we'll see DDR4 first in laptops by next year, and desktops after.

 

[DieH@rd]

Aegis has stated that Durango has a monster SoC and that both next-gen consoles consumes around 170-200W (he did that in two different statement on GAF).

The current rumored specs leaves quite a large space for our "mistery sauce".

PS4 will fill that power with 4GB of GDDR5 and maybe little powerful GPU section. Bu on the X720 side... there is a power hole that only mystery sauce can fill.

 

[Helmore]

PS4 will fill that power with 4GB of GDDR5 and maybe little powerful GPU section. Bu on the X720 side... there is a power hole that only mystery sauce can fill.

Or the entire 1.2 TF rumor is bogus, or some other rumor is bogus, or.....

I think that we still don't know anything really. The only rumor that I'm putting any faith in is that it will have 8 Jaguar cores, but even those Jaguar cores might not be standard off the shelve Jaguar cores.

P.S. I'm only talking about the neXtBox. I'm more of an X-Box fanboy than a PS fanboy though, even if I haven't played on an X-Box in more than a year. I've never actually played on a PS3 .

 

[Bagel seed]

Well maybe could all be built on 32nm SOI. Bigger but more reliable process.

Old quote from seronx

Playstation 4 is using Thebe-J which hasn't finished yet nor is it related to the Jaguar or Trinity or Kaveri architectures. The only one that is showing any signs of finalization is Xbox's Kryptos which is a >450 mm² chip. To get back on Thebe-J it was delayed from Trinity side-by-side development to Kaveri side-by-side development.

 

[anexanhume]

Well maybe could all be built on 32nm SOI. Bigger but more reliable process.

Supposedly you can port bulk designs to FD SOI. Global Foundries is producing 28nm FD SOI chips for ST already.

I'm not saying it's a shoe-in, but it would be an interesting development and seems plausible. No idea if the proper volume is there though. It would help AMD's faltering relationship with their former fab, for sure.

 

[3dilettante]

PD-SOI is a cost adder that has only partly justified itself for high-margin x86 (and not particularly strongly in terms of performance or power-efficiency these days), and AMD is doing what it can to get to bulk.
SOI adds to wafer costs and engineering costs over bulk, and its history is poor even for chips targeting markets with higher price points.

The drama with AMD and Globalfoundries should have made the idea of building a high-yield low-margin console device a rather uncomfortable proposition for the console makers.

 

[anexanhume]

PD-SOI is a cost adder that has only partly justified itself for high-margin x86 (and not particularly strongly in terms of performance or power-efficiency these days), and AMD is doing what it can to get to bulk.
SOI adds to wafer costs and engineering costs over bulk, and its history is poor even for chips targeting markets with higher price points.

The drama with AMD and Globalfoundries should have made the idea of building a high-yield low-margin console device a rather uncomfortable proposition for the console makers.

PD-SOI requires unique designs from bulk that FD-SOI doesn't, according to what I've read. Also, look at this study on FD-SOI's affordability.

I also have a hard time seeing it as a loss leader if ST is committed to the process in the low margin SoC business.

 

[3dilettante]

I was referring to the idea of using 32nm SOI, which is PD-SOI used only for AMD's x86 CPUs.

edit:
And as a point against using FD-SOI, it would be helpful if a large-scale mature FD-SOI process line would be present relatively soon, if a console were to be built on it.

 

[anexanhume]

I was referring to the idea of using 32nm SOI, which is PD-SOI used only for AMD's x86 CPUs.

edit:
And as a point against using FD-SOI, it would be helpful if a large-scale mature FD-SOI process line would be present relatively soon, if a console were to be built on it.

Point well taken on availability (hence my volume comment). However, if the process were to be shopped to both sony and ms, the commitment to hundreds of thousands of wafers per year for the next 5+ years may be the kick in the pants needed to get the process going. Would also make GloFo attractive vs TSMC if they develop FD-SOI expertise before them. But I'm digressing, so I'll stop there. I still think it might have a small chance of showing up. I'm honestly very curious if TSMC is the fab partner on these given they can't even meet Qualcomm's 28nm demand (and likely Apple's demand soon too).

edit: I agree about PD-SOI though. I think it's pretty dead moving forward.

 

[Helmore]

Point well taken on availability (hence my volume comment). However, if the process were to be shopped to both sony and ms, the commitment to hundreds of thousands of wafers per year for the next 5+ years may be the kick in the pants needed to get the process going. Would also make GloFo attractive vs TSMC if they develop FD-SOI expertise before them. But I'm digressing, so I'll stop there. I still think it might have a small chance of showing up. I'm honestly very curious if TSMC is the fab partner on these given they can't even meet Qualcomm's 28nm demand (and likely Apple's demand soon too).

I believe that TSMC is only just now starting to see their supply keeping up with demand and they're still ramping up production.

Well maybe could all be built on 32nm SOI. Bigger but more reliable process.

Old quote from seronx

Where is that quote from and is it reliable? I don't know who seronx is....

 

[MarkoIt]

All the AMD component involved in the design of that chip were made at 28nm and on bulk process. I don't think that moving to 32nm@SOI it's worth the investment.

I don't know either if that quote is reliable. 450+ mm^2 it's a really huge SoC.
Heck, the "mistery sauce" can be over 200m^2.. What is it?

 

[Helmore]

All the AMD component involved in the design of that chip were made at 28nm and on bulk process. I don't think that moving to 32nm@SOI it's worth the investment.

I don't know either if that quote is reliable. 450+ mm^2 it's a really huge SoC.
Heck, the "mistery sauce" can be over 200m^2.. What is it?

Why would the mystery sauce have to be so big? Why not just go with a bigger GPU, like 20 CUs @ 800 MHz or something? That said, even then you'd need quite a lot of extra bits to fill up the blank space.

Damn, you're basically right. 20 CUs and 8 Jaguar cores would still mean 200 mm² of unused space if total chip size is >450 mm². Enough space for an even bigger GPU or large eDRAM or maybe even SRAM cache or maybe something exotic....