Why no Zen 3 in PS5 and XSX?

mili2110

mili2110

Member
I mean zen 3 CPUs, rdna 2 GPUs and the consoles launch around the same timeframe. Why didn't they go for zen 3 then? It kinda is a missed opportunity since gaming performance is much higher than zen 2.

They use a 1 yr old CPU arch and the newest edge GPU architecture available !? Makes no sense to me.

Please someone explain it to me.
 
Price,
Sorry to be so quick, but basically they have a responsibility to the consumer to keep costs down.
The Zen 2 is more than capable.
 
mili2110 said:
I mean zen 3 CPUs, rdna 2 GPUs and the consoles launch around the same timeframe. Why didn't they go for zen 3 then? It kinda is a missed opportunity since gaming performance is much higher than zen 2.

They use a 1 yr old CPU arch and the newest edge GPU architecture available !? Makes no sense to me.

Please someone explain it to me.
Click to expand...
There's no low-power variant of Zen3 available.. You can't compare a full fledged standalone CPU with a SoC package.
And also, Zen2 is tried & tested, they know what they get, so easier to "design" the GPU portion of the SoC
 
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These consoles are not quick to bring to market, the CPU and GPU are all together on the same chip so its not like they can just design the rest and wait for the newer CPUs to become available and then just slot it on the main board later in the project. When they were nailing down the final specs of the consoles the Zen2 was bleeding edge tech and will have been in early prototype stage. If they'd have waited for Zen3 then by the time the console was coming to market the Zen4 would be coming out.

This is one area that the PC with separate components has a major advantage over consoles.

Let's be honest though, any Zen architecture CPU is a massive leap over the previous CPUs in consoles and even a Zen1 would have probably been OK for these consoles.
 
I mean it's not like zen2 will suck or anything.
zen2 will rotfstomp last gen like it was nothing.
Looking at it from a PC standpoint it doesn't seem like a big jump.
But as far as consoles go it's HUUUUUUGE.
 
It is probably a combination of :

- Bigger focus on the GPU is more important for gaming consoles
- Zen 2 with 8/16 is already amazing and a gigantic jump from current gen consoles
- Zen 3 would've been too expensive for Sony/Microsoft

The "Zen 3 wasn't ready for 2020 consoles" doesn't make much sense imho because consoles are getting RDNA2 GPUs that we haven't even seen yet.
 
AMD APU's (combined CPU+ Radeon Gfx) have a CPU component that is always behind the latest gen, in fact the Gfx component is also behind. It takes time to integrate them and make them play nice together.
 
They plan it for awhile. I think when Zen 3 in development run, the console makers already finalize the design to final assembly.
 
mili2110 said:
I mean zen 3 CPUs, rdna 2 GPUs and the consoles launch around the same timeframe. Why didn't they go for zen 3 then? It kinda is a missed opportunity since gaming performance is much higher than zen 2.

They use a 1 yr old CPU arch and the newest edge GPU architecture available !? Makes no sense to me.

Please someone explain it to me.
Click to expand...

I'm gonna offer that it's one or more of the following.

1) The tech in these consoles was locked in at least a year ago now. So the timing didn't work.

2) Price

3) For high res gaming, GPU bottlenecks the CPU. More critical to optimise GPU efficiency. The CPU just needs to be good enough.

4) Power consumption/thermals. The versions presented by AMD had a TDP of 105W. The Zen 2 in the next gen consoles will need to have a TDP of about half of that.

5) Custom silicon takes a lot of the work a CPU might do in a desktop so a weaker cpu can be equivalent in gaming functions to a more powerful one in a PC.

6) The Zen 3 pushes higher clocks - that would mean a different thermal "sweet spot" for the gpu/cpu. It might even necessitate reducing the max clocks to remain within the power and thermal budget or even bigger consoles with more cooling

7) Manufacturing capacity.
 
Oh c'mon, back in late 2018-early 2019 all the leaks and rumors pointed out Zen1+RDNA1-based APUs in next-gen consoles, some were hoping to see Zen+, it wasn't until late 2019 when it turned out both will actually be based on Zen2 and RDNA2 architectures, which was a huge, pleasant surprise to everyone, and that was also the period when the first devkits were being send out to the devs for testing/games development, so Zen3 obviously arrived waaay to late. Besides, Zen3 is still based on the same 7nm process, so there would be little to no benefits for the consoles anyway other than maybe some IPC uplift, which still wouldn't do anything since the consoles target 4K and therefore are 100% GPU bound. Relax, Zen2 arch is just one year old, and RDNA2 is yet to be released, the consoles will do better than fine with their APUs.
 
According to RedGaming tech there is a possibilty that PS5 CPU uses one feature of Zen 3; unified L3 cache/1 ccx cluster. But that's just speculation at this point.
 
mili2110 said:
I mean zen 3 CPUs, rdna 2 GPUs and the consoles launch around the same timeframe. Why didn't they go for zen 3 then? It kinda is a missed opportunity since gaming performance is much higher than zen 2.
Click to expand...
A. You don't design a console overnight.
B. You don't want it to cost $800 at launch.

tldr; Sony employees engineers, not magicians.
 
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The same reason the cpu in your cars are 2-3 years older than the model year because r&d takes time and the parts are configuring during development and not a last minute thing they can just throw in.
 
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Zen 2 is still very good, although I wish they could've clocked them at 4 to 4.2GHz. It still has better than Skylake IPC and since devs will be optimizing for the architecture it bodes well for Ryzen on PC as well, maybe even the older 1xxx and 2xxx chips.
 
The main boost over zen2 is from the single cluster of 8 cores with access to the same cache.


1 - This benefit is already available in the Renoir laptop APU's with great results and they are still "zen2" cores.
2 - This benefit is likely also present in PS5 and XSX APU's.
3 - PS5 and XSX APU's dont have the full 32MB of cache. They are cut down to 8MB - exactly the same as the Renoir laptop APU's.


In other words. Things are good in the console space.
 
Ellery said:
The "Zen 3 wasn't ready for 2020 consoles" doesn't make much sense imho because consoles are getting RDNA2 GPUs that we haven't even seen yet.
Click to expand...

THIS!

As Zen 3 is releasing around the same date as PS5 and XSX, you can't tell me that RDNA2 was ready and zen 3 was not 3-4 years ago. AMD is probably working on ZEN 5 and 6 as we speak.

In 1999 AMD was already working on K8 aka Athlon 64. 4 years before launch. (

Only argument I can see is price. Sony and MS could probably choose between zen 2 and zen 3 3 years ago and decided to go with zen 2 because AMD offered them a better deal for it and put the majority of the budget into the GPU.
 
Zen 3 probably wasn't viable to be included into a APU solution at the time MS/Sony were making decisions on their solutions.
 
Because Zen 2 is a mature core at this point and they have to balance price, performance and power consumption.

Zen 2 is already a massive upgrade over current gen.
 
If you want to buy the flagship cpu for this new line from amd it'll cost more than both consoles. So I'm assuming to repurpose that power into a console it'll cost even more.
 
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Mid Gen Refresh has a chance with Zen 3 Processors.

Phills in the kitchen definitely cooking something up 3-4yrs from now pls believe that. Sleeker, smaller Elite Series X with Zen 3, holla!!!!
 
Isn't this hard to say without a die shot of the PS5 CPU? The XSX CPU has L2 cache split in 2, with 4 cores sharing a cache pool, and the 2 pools are linked by a bus. But the configuration of the 8 cores in the PS5 is still unknown. If RGT is to be believed, they might still share a central L2/L3 cache somewhere on the die.

That said, others have pointed out the obvious reason for lack of firm Zen3 support, timing. Lead time on console design is years. Zen3 might or might not have been inspired by decisions made for the PS5, but there's no reason to expect that PS5 will share much with it other than the stated common cache pool for all 8 cores. And that is probably a longshot, at this point.
 
mili2110 said:
THIS!

As Zen 3 is releasing around the same date as PS5 and XSX, you can't tell me that RDNA2 was ready and zen 3 was not 3-4 years ago. AMD is probably working on ZEN 5 and 6 as we speak.

In 1999 AMD was already working on K8 aka Athlon 64. 4 years before launch. (

Only argument I can see is price. Sony and MS could probably choose between zen 2 and zen 3 3 years ago and decided to go with zen 2 because AMD offered them a better deal for it and put the majority of the budget into the GPU.
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It's already been explained in this thread. Based on the Hot Chips presentation, the consoles use the mobile version of Zen 2 (Renoir), which was released in Q1 of this year. The mobile version of Zen 3 isn't available yet.
 
Lysandros said:
According to RedGaming tech there is a possibilty that PS5 CPU uses one feature of Zen 3; unified L3 cache/1 ccx cluster. But that's just speculation at this point.
Click to expand...

We've known for over a year that this isn't the case. Latency graphs from when AMD/Sony benchmarked the chip:

EADW-CJVAAA7sEz


The CPUs in XSX/PS5 are exactly the same except for clock speeds.
 
Xyphie said:
We've known for over a year that this isn't the case. Latency graphs from when AMD/Sony benchmarked the chip:

EADW-CJVAAA7sEz


The CPUs in XSX/PS5 are exactly the same except for clock speeds.
Click to expand...
How does this graph proves this? I am not saying that's not the case, i am asking genuinely.
 
Would anyone like to watch AMD try and stock shelves with a processor that's going into tens of millions of consoles? Has anyone thought of the supply problem launching these consoles with their brand new processor would have created? I doubt AMD would want to shit on their established PC customer base by releasing a new line of cpu's that no one can get their hands on.

Can't take customers away from intel if your product is out of stock.

Also all the other reasons already listed. 😎
 
spyshagg said:
The main boost over zen2 is from the single cluster of 8 cores with access to the same cache.

1 - This benefit is already available in the Renoir laptop APU's with great results and they are still "zen2" cores.
2 - This benefit is likely also present in PS5 and XSX APU's.
3 - PS5 and XSX APU's dont have the full 32MB of cache. They are cut down to 8MB - exactly the same as the Renoir laptop APU's.
Click to expand...

That's wrong. Renoir still has the split cache.
www.anandtech.com

AMD’s Mobile Revival: Redefining the Notebook Business with the Ryzen 9 4900HS (A Review)

www.anandtech.com www.anandtech.com
 
Lysandros said:
How does this graph proves this? I am not saying that's not the case, i am asking genuinely.
Click to expand...

Up to 4MB data width = low latency, which means everything is in L3 cache or lower (L1/L2).
8MB data width = half in RAM, half in cache so latency is at the halfway point.
16MB data width = ~75% RAM latency, 25% cache latency.
>32MB data width = ~100% RAM latency, basically entirely in RAM.
 
Ellery said:
It is probably a combination of :

- Bigger focus on the GPU is more important for gaming consoles
- Zen 2 with 8/16 is already amazing and a gigantic jump from current gen consoles
- Zen 3 would've been too expensive for Sony/Microsoft

The "Zen 3 wasn't ready for 2020 consoles" doesn't make much sense imho because consoles are getting RDNA2 GPUs that we haven't even seen yet.
Click to expand...

As much as MS boasts about Server class config, Zen 2 is ready for APU's now and has been for a while. Zen 3 has just premiered now for high end desktops, it would have not fit the timelines either of the console makers had.
 
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