I don't see the issue sticking with Zen 2 given majority of games have 60FPS performance modes and a lot of popular titles, even 120FPS. How many games have only maximum 30FPS modes on the standard PS5? Can't recall any first party games not having a 60FPS mode? Zen 2 is still very efficient, see chart below and should be even slightly more so at 6nm. It would have been even better if they ported Zen 2 to 4nm but looks like no one is willing to pay the cost hence no real slim consoles. Would people prefer to pay say $100 more for Zen 4 operating at the same power level which would likely only give minimal gains (Maybe only single digits) and would make the console less affordable. I doubt you would get a game that can only do 30FPS due to CPU to 60FPS given the IPC difference is not that big and you see top of the range PCs also struggling on games that are problematic on PS5 to hit a locked 60FPS at 3-4x the power consumption. Developers could do a lot more to optimise than the IPC improvement would allow. The increase in memory bandwidth should help too get more out of it and be less bottlenecked. Even though Series S for example has 100MHz lower SMT clock speeds than PS5, it seems to perform a lot worse in terms of CPU limited scenarios while running a lot less detail largely probably due to memory bandwidth.
The clock speed improvement is about where it should be given AMD boosted the base clock of 5900HS 7nm by 10% for the 6nm 6900HS so 10% for the high-end PS5 seems about right and seems the sweet spot without hurting GPU performance and should clean up frame times. Hopefully they give you option to use boosted clocks for games that are not patched.
I wonder if they will be using a chiplet design this time and potentially 5nm / 4nm GCD and Strix Halo is a by product of the work for the high-end PS5. That could help with form factor as they could make it either smaller than the PS5 Slim or similar size depending on the quality of the cooling solution as it should be similar in power consumption. I can't see AMD releasing a 60 CU desktop part on 6nm for the new RDNA GPUs so like Zen 2 being on 6nm, I think they would prefer to reuse IP already on existing process they originally targeted with them parts so ro save on R&D costs. They did however make a smaller RDNA 3 GPU on 6nm in the RX 7600. The RX 6800 was very efficient too so won't need to be a massive increase in power if they are indeed on 6nm for the GPU too.
Interestingly, looks like GPU clock speed is 56MHz increase over the RX 7800 XT Game Clock (60 CU RDNA 3) (2,124 MHz). The standard PS5 was also a 56MHz increase over the RX 6700 Game Clock (36 CU RDNA 2) (2,174MHz).
I don't get why people try and downplay consoles. PS5 launched with the fastest and most capable GPU AMD has ever had, no AMD consumer GPU on PC was better. The high-end PS5 will have a more technologically advanced GPU than any current AMD GPU on PC. What more do people expect for a mid-generation improvement, it is not a new generation of console. It fixes weakness of previous architecture and main advantages of going to PC have been minimised such as image quality and RT. Only a very small percentage of PC gamers going by Steam survey will have any meaningful advantage and likely gained at a considerable cost. I could see them sticking to 60 CU for standard PS6 but at above 3GHz clock speeds on 2nm process in say 2027 / 2028 if they leave it until then for a new generation. Sticking to Zen 2 will also help them if they choose to switch to ARM based CPU too for next-generation for potentially better performance per watt and ease of development if they also release a handheld before then as it should be possible to make a translation layer performant enough for backwards compatibility going by what Apple has managed.
I see another point being raised in that who would buy it but surely, the problem with this console will be, who can find it in stock to buy as it will be the most desirable console in the festive period it might release in and will stand alone as the most performant efficient gaming console given no competition this time until next-generation consoles arrive. Looks like there won't be any proper slim consoles this generation too so even less competition from cheaper models. You would have to spend a considerable amount more to get a PC as performant so it will be a performance bargain. I understand the arguments about display resolution target not really being higher but in that case, there is no point for any new generation of console or GPU to be released given most monitors and TVs will likely stick with the same resolution for a while. If standard PS5 was maxing out graphics details of all games at a locked 60FPS at native 4K, I could see that being a valid point but you see games below 1080p on PS5 so getting more image quality and smoothness out of your existing display will make this desirable. You see this in the PC space, the 7800 XT is one of the best selling GPUs too for that reason given that it provides a decent uptick in performance at an affordable price over older GPUs.
PlayStation really target the best bang for your buck parts since Mark Cerny took over and sell it close to cost which makes it so successful as on the PC side, they try and have a lot more profit margin to make new products viable. I think Sony have been fortunate too that this generation and last one, Microsoft have made consoles with substantially higher BOM without gaining any real advantage so although they are subsidising consoles at their record level, it makes it a closer match than it would otherwise have been at Sony's break even price point. Kind of crazy that the current Series X might still be around $100 more expensive to produce than the high-end PS5, die size might still be smaller. Sony can't afford to subsidise consoles like that as it would put the PlayStation division at a significant loss if they were to match Microsoft. I wonder if Sony implementing a cheap SSD solution over Microsoft's third party solution is one of the big cost savings other than chip size and less expensive cooler hence why both versions of PS5 have a sizeable advantage over their competition. They also got a big win implementing SmartShift too so having a higher power limit and being able to better use the power for their components makes it perform better in real-time rendering. Hopefully developers will start to optimise better for the console as a lot of multiplatform games are probably optimised for DX12 Ultimate first which has resulted in probably less than optimal performances in some PS5 game releases and as raw power being much higher, developers might feel less need to optimise. You see still games just using the CPU for loading and not take advantage of the I/O complex which would help in CPU limited scenarios too.
I wonder if they will call it PS5 Pro. I would prefer it if they call it Ultimate PS5 or Ultra PS5 like Ultra 64 back in the day.
