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Next-Gen PS5 & XSX |OT| Console tEch threaD

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Lysandros

Member
Nearly all of Sony's assembly on PS4 was automated. I expect PS5 to be mostly automated as well, including the liquid metal. Too crucial of an item to leave up to human error. And of course once it's assembled, it goes through rigorous testing to ensure it wasn't seated improperly.

It's clear to me that Sony and Microsoft had a different goal in mind when designing their systems. For Sony, they wanted a single machine that was both powerful, yet cheap for the masses and could be produced in high volumes. It all makes sense now why they went narrow and incredibly fast. Their APU being over 20% smaller will reduce the system cost by an estimated $40. Knowing that fab was going to increase significantly, they opted for this smaller chip and clocked the hell out of it to basically allow the chip to reach the power limits of a console. I expect their overall power envelope to be similar to the XSX. My utilizing a huge heat sink, large fan, and liquid metal it is a bit more exotic than PS4, but it's also not a huge departure and should still be cheap to build. They save $20 over a vapor chamber cooling setup. They also save money on having a more uniform memory set-up, and less SSD ram even though their I/O may be slightly more expensive. I'd estimate we are looking at around $70-80 less expensive than XSX to procure and assemble.

Another focus of Sony's was obviously the developers, hence why we got an insanely fast SSD. This mattered far more than 18% more compute to them, and I think it will be worth it. Easier to develop for/optimize, really lets first party spread their wings too. With dynamic scaling such a thing, nobody is going to even notice resolution differences.

Microsoft on the other hand, knowing that they were going with a two console strategy, decided to not care at all about cost nearly as much in their design, hence a traditional wide and slow approach. It gets them the paper crown for specs, but it is considerably more expensive to produce. With Sony pricing the console the same as the XSX, they are losing significantly more on each console sold. Sony may not be losing much at all. I guess what's disappointing is that MS didn't decide to go even crazier in their design and up the price to $599. It seems that they really wanted to not be beat much on cost of the high end console.

This also is reflected in the way the consoles look. With vapor cooling, Microsoft was able to condense their set-up, whereas Sony needed to be more spreadout.

Now I can't wait to see the XSX vs PS5 third party comparisons. Hearing a lot of comments about how Sony's PS5 is extremely easy to develop for and there may be some surprises in terms of performance being better in certain cases.
Very nice post. I still think PS5 has a highter production cost mostly because of the amount and quality of the building materials though.
 

silent head

Member
Bo_Hazem Bo_Hazem

nYtoTBd.jpg
 

Zoro7

Banned
FUD, I am sure people applying it at home by hand without being in a sealed chamber means it leaks and so has a base of truth for DIY applications.

The Sony patent seals in the liquid metal. Therefore no.
Sorry I don’t buy it. Surely some thermal paste smeared inside the machine will last longer....
 

Sw0pDiller

Banned
I just want to understand why Sony puts so much effort into achieving an almost similar result.
well, i am no tech guy but with all the info we got from cerny's talk and common sense i got this:

Cenry and others told us that transferring data is the most (time) expensive part in any workload. When you have to wait for cores to "fetch" data it stalls and NO work is being done. When you optimise the fetching data "time" that means you dont have to stall you cores as much and so you can do more work in the same time. That means you can make your GPU smaller because it works more efficient. So Sony invested in better IO so they could make their GPU smaller and cheaper. To keep up with it's fast IO they can make the GPU run at 2,23mhz when needed. Fluctuating frequencies is nothing new. just look at some 5700xt benchmarks and you can see it's frequency fluctuating between 1,8 and 2,0 mhz .

So in short:
Sony PS5 went with fast and efficient architecture. so they could keep SOC expenses down. it's achoice
Microsoft XBSX went with higher SOC power and less fast ssd. So they could keep SSD expenses down. its a choice. Maybe kind of influenced because the SOC needs to work in servers for xcloud also?

How it all works out remains to be seen. Will the xbsx get enough data to keep all those 52 cores at work? Will the smaller GPU in PS5 be able to keep up with the GPU of xbox just becasuse it can work faster? it's up to developers now and the tools both companies gives them to work with.

Lets not forget that we are looking a better than 5700xt performance level in a €399,- box. Thats just crazy. this videocard is worth €399 alone. And this €399 ps5 also has an SSD, a zen2 core and bluray drive build in.
 

geordiemp

Member
Sorry I don’t buy it. Surely some thermal paste smeared inside the machine will last longer....

Did not work out for my Ps4 pro, got loud after about 5 months, paste likley dried up.

I welcome the metal TIN, its nice to be reassured the cooling performance will stay for years which is great.
 
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Zheph

Member
It’s weird how suddenly things that you’ll only do once or twice in the time you own a console are huge deals? How often will you switch from horizontal to vertical? How often will you change SSDs?
Some people take every ”win” they can, just show how starved they really are.

the teardown was good, having some kind of T1000 straight outta Skynet to cool it down is pretty sweet
 
D

Deleted member 775630

Unconfirmed Member
It’s weird how suddenly things that you’ll only do once or twice in the time you own a console are huge deals? How often will you switch from horizontal to vertical? How often will you change SSDs?
It's just ease of use, but I do agree that it doesn't matter much. I do think that the stand could have been designed better. Couldn't they just have worked with a sliding system that locks into place, or with small magnets? Would have been cleaner too. But like we both said, it doesn't really matter that much.
 

chilichote

Member
well, i am no tech guy but with all the info we got from cerny's talk and common sense i got this:

Cenry and others told us that transferring data is the most (time) expensive part in any workload. When you have to wait for cores to "fetch" data it stalls and NO work is being done. When you optimise the fetching data "time" that means you dont have to stall you cores as much and so you can do more work in the same time. That means you can make your GPU smaller because it works more efficient. So Sony invested in better IO so they could make their GPU smaller and cheaper. To keep up with it's fast IO they can make the GPU run at 2,23mhz when needed. Fluctuating frequencies is nothing new. just look at some 5700xt benchmarks and you can see it's frequency fluctuating between 1,8 and 2,0 mhz .

So in short:
Sony PS5 went with fast and efficient architecture. so they could keep SOC expenses down. it's achoice
Microsoft XBSX went with higher SOC power and less fast ssd. So they could keep SSD expenses down. its a choice. Maybe kind of influenced because the SOC needs to work in servers for xcloud also?

How it all works out remains to be seen. Will the xbsx get enough data to keep all those 52 cores at work? Will the smaller GPU in PS5 be able to keep up with the GPU of xbox just becasuse it can work faster? it's up to developers now and the tools both companies gives them to work with.

Lets not forget that we are looking a better than 5700xt performance level in a €399,- box. Thats just crazy. this videocard is worth €399 alone. And this €399 ps5 also has an SSD, a zen2 core and bluray drive build in.
Yes, I've understood everything in the same way over the past few months. And yet it is difficult for me to understand how to put in all this effort when you (i.e. me as a user) cannot see anything of it yet. That doesn't mean that it won't be of any use to Sony or to me as a user at some point, I just want to understand the immediate advantage of going a more complex path as a company - I look in the direction of Microsoft and see that you can obviously a similar goal can be achieved with, as I understand it, less effort.

The size and weight of the PS5 cause additional costs for transport. I, as someone who is more of a technical layman, see 10.3TF vs. 12TF (not that I'm worried about it, I'm sure, there will be little or no difference to be made out of that), while one company has put an incredible amount of R&D effort into it, the other hardly (it seems), and In the end, both deliver an almost identical result (graphically) for the user.

Sure, the Unreal demo was impressive, but it was just a demo, we don't yet know if the quality is also possible in a video game. And the only reason I can think of to make this effort is that you can achieve a better result graphically in this way than with the path that Microsoft has taken for the Series X, because otherwise this effort would be completely unnecessary .

This is just something I was wondering and I thought this was the right place to do it since it's the speculation thread. And I also know that this question may be redundant, but since nothing specific has been seen or read about it so far, I still ask myself ^^
 

Mr Moose

Member
Nope you can't remove the stand on Xbox x this is going to be a problem


OMG just realized XBOX SX can't remove stand damn! it will be a problem mark my word.
It's because there's vents on the bottom and you don't want to remove it because it will block the vents. Not sure why they blocked half of the vents on the back of it, seems a bit odd.
 

Zoro7

Banned
It's just ease of use, but I do agree that it doesn't matter much. I do think that the stand could have been designed better. Couldn't they just have worked with a sliding system that locks into place, or with small magnets? Would have been cleaner too. But like we both said, it doesn't really matter that much.
I agree for sure. The stand could have been better. But for me personally, I’ll put it vertical once and never move it again.
 

INC

Member
So had a thought, do you think the stand that comes with the ps5, is also a way of damping the noise, since it won't be vibrating on a surface, even when horizontal.
 

Mahavastu

Member
This thread has been chugging along for awhile now
It's not going anywhere unless it gets shut down by someone
On days like this you see there is a reason for this thread to exist, and there will be many days like this until the middle of november... hopefully

But when everything is said and done and everyone saw and played on the devices, the chatter will dry out
 

sircaw

Banned
The first time I saw the XSX I was really impressed with how everything is together and how well designed it looked, after the PS5 presentation, my perception has changed A LOT, I want the XSX to have more room to breath now, but hopefully, both machines can run without any heat issues, we already know they are really quiet.

you hit it on the head for me, i remember saying i liked the design of the xbox when i first saw it, Now after seeing the ps5 one, i think it looks really obtuse in design.
 
Okay, so what's left to know about these consoles to get everyone happy?
PS5, UI and software features like what does the Create button do, and maybe some more information about its GPU.
Xbox Series X, some more software features like how fast it is to take a screenshot or capture gameplay with the new Share button, and of course, next gen games running on the machine.
What will we get next? :pie_thinking:
 
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Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
That was Microsoft, making a bid to buy them. Remember the infamous (imagined) quote "you can can suck my little yellow balls"?

No, Sony also went to SEGA to partner on PlayStation (and Sony wanted to buy SEGA in the 80's) and co-develop the HW and take royalties of only the software they made on the platform and part of the third party software. Another public reference: https://mdshock.com/2019/03/18/sega-and-sony-new-insight-into-the-partnership-that-never-came-to-be/
 
As someone who used to fix electronic goods, I was blown away with the PS5 teardown. The attention to details, symmetry in the GDDR6 layout on the PCB, heatsink etc. is as poetic as it gets for tech design junkies.

Not to downplay XsX, the tech they put into it is cutting edge. I just feel the design of it looks like its a custom made mini tower gaming rig. Nothing wrong with that, just nowhere near as pleasing to the eye in my opinion.
 

bitbydeath

Gold Member
Okay, so what's left to know about these consoles to get everyone happy?
PS5, UI and software features like what does the Create button do, and maybe some more information about its GPU.
Xbox Series X, some more software features like how fast it is to take a screenshot or capture gameplay with the new Share button, and of course, next gen games running on the machine.
What will we get next? :pie_thinking:

We must be getting close to the PS5 UI because once they show that they can then do independent in-depth pieces such as showing off the create button in action or speed tests of BC/next-gen games.

I’d imagine the launch title list won’t be provided until either late this month or even next month.
 

FranXico

Member
Yes, I've understood everything in the same way over the past few months. And yet it is difficult for me to understand how to put in all this effort when you (i.e. me as a user) cannot see anything of it yet. That doesn't mean that it won't be of any use to Sony or to me as a user at some point, I just want to understand the immediate advantage of going a more complex path as a company - I look in the direction of Microsoft and see that you can obviously a similar goal can be achieved with, as I understand it, less effort.

The size and weight of the PS5 cause additional costs for transport. I, as someone who is more of a technical layman, see 10.3TF vs. 12TF (not that I'm worried about it, I'm sure, there will be little or no difference to be made out of that), while one company has put an incredible amount of R&D effort into it, the other hardly (it seems), and In the end, both deliver an almost identical result (graphically) for the user.

Sure, the Unreal demo was impressive, but it was just a demo, we don't yet know if the quality is also possible in a video game. And the only reason I can think of to make this effort is that you can achieve a better result graphically in this way than with the path that Microsoft has taken for the Series X, because otherwise this effort would be completely unnecessary .

This is just something I was wondering and I thought this was the right place to do it since it's the speculation thread. And I also know that this question may be redundant, but since nothing specific has been seen or read about it so far, I still ask myself ^^
The demo was a playable demo, not a cgi "look what this GPU can render" type of demo. So it really should tell you what is actually possible on this hardware and why the R&D put to place on a less standard approach paid dividends this time.
 
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