If Kepler is comparing it to a 5080 and it's releasing next year, that's the equivalent of a $999 GPU on the market. AMD of course would be a lot cheaper in comparison, but the total BoM would still justify a > $1000 price tag. I don't think they have the luxury to subsidize this like Sony as it is likely not going to move the kind of volumes that would be needed to make it profitable at lower price tags. Having said that, I wouldn't be surprised to see lower performance variants at lower prices, or higher performance variants at even higher prices down the line.
TBF, that $999 is not the production BOM. It's the price Nvidia wants in order to get fat profits. Plus from what I've heard, they're slashing prices on 50-series GPUs this month due to slow sales, so they clearly have had room to sell the 5080 for less than $999.
As a rule I wouldn't go by PC GPU pricing to determine pricing for a console with equivalent performance, because those specific GPU cards will always sell magnitudes less than a mass-market mainstream console, and don't benefit from the same economies of scale.
The only major differences between a discrete GPU and a console is the form factor and the console has SSD + a game controller. I don't expect the console using the equivalent desktop GPU to be more than $200 more expensive than the discrete GPU.
I think the AT2 chip is $500 MSRP, just like RX 9070 XT.
Personally I think that same hypothetical console would be at worst same MSRP, but likely cheaper. But that does depend on some factors, like what economies of scale the console can get (influencing bulk pricing and special pricing deals at massive volumes), and keeping in mind what profit margins those desktop GPUs go for.
We all know Nvidia's not selling a 5080 for only 10% profit margins, it's well in excess of that. Probably closer to 40%-50% margins on their end.
The console also needs cpu, ram, storage, power supply, mobo, etc etc etc. The cost of a discrete GPU vs the cost of a complete fully equipped console are apples and oranges conversations. Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're going for here.
TBF the discrete GPU also needs RAM, a power supply, cooling, and motherboard. Plus some type of chipset for BIOS or driver update keys/key registration data (I assume GPUs have this even if updating drivers is an OS-side task), and some chip handling some security stuff, plus connectors for video out.
I always tell myself if anyone was going to incorporate the SSD controller within the SoC to bypass PCIe low bandwidth and high latency, would be Mark Cerny.
The Nand flash would be directly connected to the SoC in the same way as the GDDR.
I think CXL 3.0 would be a solution to the problem you're describing, particularly if it were laid on top of another technology (I forgot it's name, but I found slides describing it a couple years ago, and it's derived from an IBM high-bandwidth bus technology for memory, processors & peripherals, mainly in the server and data markets).
So not even a soft-launch from Microsoft in time for the 25th anniversary? I thought they'd at least be doing that.
Considering the timing of all these leaks, seems probable.
ML based texture decompression requires a lot of TOPS, you are converting bit-rate into computing power which doesn't sit well with 160w. And RT needs a lot of bandwidth. I'm assuming Sony wants to do Path Tracing on the PS6.
The PS5 and XSX over delivered compared to what we thought they would be in 2019, just one year before launch. No one thought they will have RT and an SSD. This leak sounds way off and we are more than two years away from the PS6. This leak targets are very low, most of the specs sound not very Sony like, and I see no reason why a console maker will target 160W. And in the age of chiplets, there are many ways to make the bus wider and cheaper. Sony would rather have 256-bit bus (for the fifth time in a row) paired with slow and cheap 28Gbps (currently 10$ per 3GB) memory than narrow bus with fast expansive memory.
I doubt this "leak" will age well.
Well, here's my hope/read on it. Either one or combination of:
1: They're going back all-in on genuine exclusives
2: They're doing some big stuff with VR/MR BTS to have a cheap entry version standard in the base SKU
3: They're adding a bunch of neat non-technical features to improve QOL, multimedia functions, community function etc.
4: They're adding a bunch of technical features at the hardware level to do smart processing related to RT/PT/AI workloads alongside great texture/geometry compression/decompression, advancements with PSSR, PNM/PIM etc. to reduce need for excess raw silicon & raw bandwidth
At the very least it has to be one of those things, preferably multiple or even all of them, to make a PS6 gen work with some of these leaked specs so far. I'd also mention price, but IMO a "sufficient" price depends on what's on offer. A PS6 doing all four of the things I just mentioned? I'd think $599 or $699 even for a base version would be worth the money. A PS6 doing
NONE of the four things mentioned? $699 or $599, maybe even $499 might be DOA (or something analogous to that) outside of the very limited rush of early adopters in the launch period.
) then I may look into buying one.
