You clearly never went into next gen speculation thread. Especially after UE5 presentation.
AFAIR There were speculations, that they could get away with slower (and cheaper) modules thanks to using 12 channels.
They could, and likely did. However I have reasons to speculate MS are probably using similar smaller/slower modules as well, it comes down to pricing.
It's relatively easy to "mux" multiple NAND chip modules in parallel to a channel. The main hit you could potentially take is price depending on the number of chips, but it would still be cheaper than a smaller number of larger and faster NAND modules going by market averages, and we know NAND costs have been a factor for both companies for a long while now.
18% difference or a 2TF is not a lot when we're comparing a 10TF GPU to a 12TF GPU.
RTX 2070 Super 9TF
RTX 2080 Super 11.1TF
PS4 and XBOX GPUs are about 40% apart. This is not the case with the XSX and PS5.
Anyone who has been gaming on PC knows that reaching that target frame-rate will only result in a small reduction of resolution.
You can watch reviews when it comes to the difference between both GPUs and they'll tell you that the difference is not big, it's small.
XSX should have better RT due to more CUs, but we still don't know how much of a better performance the PS5 is going to receive due to a higher clock.
Higher clocks will only affect some RT intersection bounces and pixel fillrate, and speed of operation of data on the GPU caches. All other GPU performance metrics are generally influenced by more CUs, TMUs, physical cache amounts, ROPs etc.
One thing people should remember with PS4 Pro and the X is that games for those did not natively target that hardware; they were always bound to the base consoles and simply used as resolution upgrade boxes and little else. It's arguable that the full potential of both mid-gen refreshes was never realized due to this fact.
PS5 and XSX are not in that same position (inb4 someone screams "but Lockhart! Lockhart!!"), so we will see games, even at launch, targeting their specs as their baseline. This isn't to suggest some magical growth in assumed performance deltas, just to illustrate that you can assume that conclusion without erroneously using the mid-gen consoles as a basis for the argument since, again, they were always restricted by the PS4 and XBO in terms of what they could do in the first place.
Not much new but AMD had a corporate presentation today
RDNA 2 is definitely made to scale better than before to higher clock speeds
But it still depends on a host of other factors. For example the process; the consoles are using DUV enhanced, rather than EUV. It's safe to assume that you'd get better performance on EUV than DUV enhanced.
RDNA1 had a sweetspot of 1.7 GHz - 1.8 GHz. Going by the PS5 cooling patent and the XSX's GPU freq, I think we can rightly guess that the sweetspot for RDNA2 on DUV enhanced is somewhere around 1.8 GHz to 1.95 GHz or maybe 2 GHz if we're pushing it. Higher than that though and we're outside of the northern tip of that sweetspot, so then you're seeing smaller freq gains for power load.
Going by Cerny's own 10% power reduction for 2% frequency drop claim (and this is with their cooling system factoring in), you have a 5:1 ratio of power to frequency outside of that sweetspot at the frequencies PS5's GPU is at. I don't know if that's much better than RDNA1 once you start overclocking those GPUs, tbh (I understand the PS5 isn't overclocking, but Cerny did refer to it as a continuous boost mode).
So in terms of RDNA2's better scaling to clock speeds, there's still a limit and I'd venture that's at the 2 GHz figure. After that you still run into worst-than-linear scaling WRT power load for freq gains, and the cooling needs to be all the more capable to help sustain those clocks for prolonged periods. Even then, it's beneficial to implement something like Smartshift; I wouldn't be surprised if AMD's RDNA2 desktop GPUs implement it to push for insane performance when competing with Nvidia's absolute top-of-the-line cards.
soulbait
You're right in that both systems are going to be awesome, and have amazing tech. I'm trying to gather thoughts together to express this in the best way possible and I think when people put the flags down and just look at the systems for what they are, they will be very impressed with the similarities and differences both bring to the table.
However, as for why we get passionate in discussing these systems? Well for some of us, we're just really into discussing console technology. I love learning about console architectures, from SNES to MegaDrive to Saturn, Jaguar, PS1, PS2, Dreamcast, Gamecube etc. Arcade and microcomputer architectures, too. And I also love reading up on console history, as much as possible.
So one thing I've noticed is the influence the media and, nowadays, online forum and social media discourse, can have in putting certain narratives out there when it comes to these systems. If you look back to the past you can see that even with gaming magazines of the day, not all reporting was honest and truthful. Companies like Nintendo literally ran slander editorials against rivals, and big companies like EA put out false performance narratives on certain gaming platforms that fed to narratives that weren't necessarily true (both of these examples are WRT SEGA). There's also instances of gaming magazines intentionally giving bad scores to games on certain platforms simply because they didn't get free gifts (one European gaming magazine did this with a computer game maker back in the day for a review of their game on the Amiga IIRC).
Nowadays there are game journalists and content creators with massive platforms who can basically either use their influence to either discuss these consoles fairly, or to stoke fanboy flames and console wars. Some unfortunately DO choose the latter, and the thing is the discourse they cause there spreads outwards to other parts of the gaming community. It damages genuine discussion with people who are generally in the middle. Worst still, a lot of the tactics used to create those type of divides when it comes to console brands, is borrowed from what we see currently by the media in driving political divides, so you get a lot of fanboys/fangirls with extreme POV and who fall into echo chambers to reinforce their strong biases, to the point they don't even realize they are doing it anymore!
As someone who likes pretty much every gaming platform and brand in one way or another, and has a lot of appreciation for their contributions to the industry and hobby, it's
sooo frustrating to see when people (either unknowingly or outright intentionally) fabricate FUD against a given platform or system simply to support their preferred brand. That stuff spreads outwards and can influence other people to behave similarly, and can outright ruin genuine discussion. So whatever I can do to stem that type of thing, I will gladly do, because I'm passionate about this stuff.
Now, I have a tendency to do that moreso for one given side over the other but it really depends on what I perceive is the trend in terms of which system/platform/brand gets the short end of the stick more often than the other in these kind of discussions. Right now, IMHO, that unlucky one tends to be MS and Xbox, so I gravitate on focusing more speculation around that in hopes of clearing misconceptions or even being more enlightened on some things from time to time. But that isn't to say I don't focus speculation on Sony or PS to clear up what I think are misconceptions (either in embellishing them or being FUD against them); it's just that on this forum for example there are already a lot of other people who do that, so there's less of a reason for me to do so in possibly being redundant.
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