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

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Well, I'm on board with SonGoku here that it's a wattage budget that we're talking about, not frequency. Meaning the wattage could change while both being at max all the time, same with other PC GPU's that will throttle when they hit too much heat.

Yeah I getcha; shifting watts around doesn't necessarily mean changing clocks.

I don't care enough about what part of the tech fits AMD"s marketing slogan I guess lol

Sometimes power budget is shifted, sometimes downclocks happen. The former is awesome that it happens, the latter is what really matters to the games though.
 
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Welcome back Bo_Hazem Bo_Hazem

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That's the rumor I've seen as well, but I have seen people say 8. The speeds look really out of place for an 8 channel SSD (too slow). The XSX SSD would use modules with greater density, but nothing ridiculous (you can get 1TB and even 2TB I think in a single nand chip, but those are pricey).
You can't get 1TB or 2TB with a single NAND chip lol

There is only NAND chips of 512Gb (64GiB), 1Tb (128GiB) and 2Tb (256GiB) density... and I'm not sure if the 2Tb modules are in commercially in mass production.

What you see in SSDs is a stacked 3D with various NAND chips.... it is not just one.

PS5 uses 12x 512Gb modules.... total 768GiB or 825GB.
 
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A buddy and I used to do this with DOOM and other games with two TVs and a link cable. Those were the days!

Some games you didn't even need to put in another disc, you can play without one in it.

Around here you pay like $156 to mod/tweak/hack the system in the shop and then buy pirated games for like $1.3-2.6. We used to use some for car decorations (I was pretty young at that time anyway, no license). I feel sinful for buying those hacked games, although I've bought around 300+ 🙏 :messenger_crying:

That trick only heard about it on later stages, but no one bothered with it.


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Todays Bloomberg article repeats what we have known earlier, DRAM prices have gone up which have raised the BoM (for both Sony and MS). Due to COVID-19, every major manufacturer is facing challenges from Apple to Samsung to Sony and Microsoft. DRAM is something which goes in every smartphone too which is leading to scarcity. It's not a problem exclusive to Sony, MS are facing the same hurdles and they actually need more DRAM for every Series X they build. This is without accounting for another potential SKU in form of Lockhart. I still think there's a difference between BoM of two consoles which will be reflected in the MRP. I expect Sony to undercut Series X by at least $50.

This is the part I don't get, won't Microsoft and Sony have negotiated DRAM prices with manufacturers through contracts MONTHS before production even starts? That's the only way you can keep costs the same even if something happens in the future that causes prices to go up by a lot. Can someone explain this to me?
 
This is the part I don't get, won't Microsoft and Sony have negotiated DRAM prices with manufacturers through contracts MONTHS before production even starts? That's the only way you can keep costs the same even if something happens in the future that causes prices to go up by a lot. Can someone explain this to me?
You can't negotiate a fixed price for all the life of the product, you fix the price based on a quantity and renegotiate it along the way , otherwise you would never have a reduction during the life of the product. They have some clauses usually so neither of the subject can change the agreement without breaking contract (for example i choose samsung for the ram, i guarantee that i'll not change supplier, and samsung guarantees that can deliver 5 million unit per month and to reevaulate the price every 6 months). A bit simpified but more or less work like this.
 
But PCIe 4? At what speed?
This is almost irrelevant because we don't know what pcie4 m2 drives will cost in 6 months or in 3 years or in 7 years. Consoles are priced based on projections for their lifetime, not just current prices. If a m2 drive costs an mfr $100 to make and they want good margins, they'll sell it for $150 and reduce price when a new model releases. A console can cost the same for 2-3 years even though by year 2, the cost of parts would have fallen by 30-40%.
 
Sorry, I don't get the wow effect. I saw GI, water reflections and god rays years ago. Faked but still almost the same in perception. It's a terrible waste of compute resources.
Dude I cannot agree with that. Check out the DF video demonstrating the effects. The subtle color of the shadows, transparent objects becoming light sources when illuminated, perfectly reflecting and refracting, generally reflections that don't disappear if you look down or up and so on. Crazy what the future holds.
Know one thing NO RAY TRACING = NO TRUE PHOTOREALISM
Because your subconscious perception will notice when reflections and shadows are imperfect approximations, as they are when using rasterization
 
i said it once before and i'll say it again, if you don't get why a path traced demo is awesome you shoudl refrain to speak about graphics. ever. It's like finding the real holy grail and saying "geez this thing sucks, i prefer the indiana jhones version"...
 
I just dont understand why u need to talk technical when u have no idea what u r talking about ? Lol 😬👀😂 just let it go.
This impression is deceptive. I counted (incorrectly) from the memory controller and the number of memory banks. (thinking about Nvidia GPUs at that moment..)
 
Pretty much, his exact words were less than a million rays a second for audio and 100s of millions rays/sec for shadows/reflections
Thanks for that, I didn't remember his exact wording. Less than a million rays per second is less than 34K rays per frame which is a joke compared to something like RT reflection (which was confirmed for the XSX version of Halo Infinite BTW) that requires millions of rays per frame.
 
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i said it once before and i'll say it again, if you don't get why a path traced demo is awesome you shoudl refrain to speak about graphics. ever. It's like finding the real holy grail and saying "geez this thing sucks, i prefer the indiana jhones version"...

Yup
Ray Tracing is the Holy Grail of Graphics.
It will make everything better.
The best part is it makes things easy on developers.
 
Is there some sort of storage medium for games that will load the game instantaneously instead of all the reading/copying from the OPTICAL ULTRA BLU-RAY DISK.
I think that is the true bottleneck now. I hate optical drives, it's obsolete. Can Sony, Microsoft, IBM, Toshiba, Intel, AMD, Apple, Google come together for a storage medium in which write/write is instantaneous and can hold large amounts of data (1 TB+). For XsX Pro and PS5 Pro, you would include the optical ultra blu ray disk for legacy reasons.

What are they gonna make next?
8K UTRA VIOLET RAY DISKS? Costs $500+ LOL with the same shitty slow ass diode. Seriously 100GB Ultra Blu Ray Disks is going to fill up FAST.
 
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Thanks for that, I didn't remember his exact wording. Less than a million rays per second is less than 34K rays per frame which is a joke compared to something like RT reflection (which was confirmed for the XSX version of Halo Infinite BTW) that requires millions of rays per frame.

First of: Love your Vollgas/Full throttle Avatar one of my all-time favourite games!

i said it once before and i'll say it again, if you don't get why a path traced demo is awesome you shoudl refrain to speak about graphics. ever. It's like finding the real holy grail and saying "geez this thing sucks, i prefer the indiana jhones version"...


Back to topic: The idea of raytracing is absolutly fantastic and will make games and animations so much easier to create/render.
However and this is my point im trying to make I don't believe next-gen consoles will be able to rely on it. They may be able to use some RT funtioncs and features but not to an extend that would a) reduce workloads for developers b) reduce workload of gpu for other stuff c) make an visible stunning impact in AAA Games.

PC Graphic Card on the other hand will probably outmatch consoles in a year or two and make raytracing a must have and heavily used.
Anyhow - I expect RT to be omipresent and used after the next gen and maybe even once they release the upgraded/pro versions. I guess they'll then even add some AI Cores or something along those lines.
 
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I don't care enough about what part of the tech fits AMD"s marketing slogan I guess lol

Sometimes power budget is shifted, sometimes downclocks happen. The former is awesome that it happens, the latter is what really matters to the games though.
There's key difference in how it operates on PS5 though. Its limited only to scenario in which there's left over CPU resources so downclocks due to smartshift are not happening
Both CPU & GPU have fixed power budgets, smartshift can only divert left over power from CPU.
 
There's key difference in how it operates on PS5 though. Its limited only to scenario in which there's left over CPU resources so downclocks due to smartshift are not happening
Both CPU & GPU have fixed power budgets, smartshift can only divert left over power from CPU.
But.. downclocks happen.

I don't understand this urge to be so precise with the semantics of whether that is SmartShift or not.

But maybe I'm missing something and it's more than semantis?
 
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But.. downclocks happen.

I don't understand this urge to be so precise with the semantics of whether that is SmartShift or not.

But maybe I'm missing something and it's more than semantis?
They do but not because the power budget is shifted like on AMD APUs but because its exceeded
On PS5 smartshift will only have the effect of raising clocks not hampering
 
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Bach to topic: The idea of raytracing is absolutly fantastic and will make games and animations so much easier to create/render.
However and this is my point im trying to make I don't believe next-gen consoles will be able to rely on it. They may be able to use some RT funtioncs and features but not to an extend that would a) reduce workloads for developers b) reduce workload of gpu for other stuff c) make an visible stunning impact in AAA Games.

Not saying you're wrong but why do you feel this way?
 
So, with the PS5 going to mass production in june, Sony definaly needs to show its design next month, right?
I think May is our best bet. Otherwise they run the risk of it getting leaked. They should take the same approach with the console as they did with the controller.
Middle may is a safe bet
 
So, with the PS5 going to mass production in june, Sony definaly needs to show its design next month, right?
I think May is our best bet. Otherwise they run the risk of it getting leaked. They should take the same approach with the console as they did with the controller.
Middle may is a safe bet

Source?
 
They do but not because the power budget is shifted like on AMD APUs but because its exceeded
On PS5 smartshift will only have the effect of raising clocks not hampering

I'm not talking about SmartShift.

That's my point lol

The PS5 downclocks when needed.
 
Bloomberg

Thanks for that. So is anyone else a bit concerned about this Bloomberg bit?:

Covid-19 travel restrictions have prevented Sony engineers from flying to China to direct final adjustments before assembly plants go into mass production.

I absolutely do not intend to sound as though I am leaning towards spreading FUD here but I couldn't help but to wonder if that is a bad thing?

My knee-jerk thinking response fo that bit was "so then...will Sony's engineers have any chance to fly to China for final adjustments before mass production begins?" What do you guys think?
 
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But.. downclocks happen.

I don't understand this urge to be so precise with the semantics of whether that is SmartShift or not.

But maybe I'm missing something and it's more than semantis?
The SmartShift from CPU to GPU (on PS5) is conventional thermal latency wattage redirection AFAIK and will be minimal in the MHz clocking – hence Cerny saying a couple extra pixels or something of that ilk when it shifts.

Independent of that, the GPU will clock at a fixed frequency for a given workload to eliminate operating thermal latency - regardless of ambient room temp. Although I presume SmartShift will still raise the fixed clock value by a small delta when it has to shift spare wattage, but is well within tested tolerance and probably isn't worth mentioning for fear of muddying the explanation like I just did :)

How the GPU knows what fixed clock to use before it does the work got me thinking. How would you design a system that could 'analyse' the workload like that? If you simulated the chip design and then validated the design with real world tests, you could use that information to design a multiplexer that would passively take copies of the GPU L1 cache lines and multiplex those bit patterns to output lines that set a clockrate (for each unique pattern). In reality, I suspect the multiplexer would be a full chip with persistent memory, so that the bit pattern to clockrate conversion could be modified if needed. Either downclocked or boosted if further realworld testing showed the multiplexing to be too aggressive or too conservative for the power and thermal latency setup.
 
Thanks for that. So is anyone else a bit concerned about this Bloomberg bit?:



I absolutely do not intend to sound as though I am leaning towards spreading FUD here but I couldn't help but to wonder if that is a bad thing?

My knee-jerk thinking response fo that bit was "so then...will Sony's engineers have any chance to fly to China for final adjustments before mass production begins?" What do you guys think?
you dont need to be on site at factories to make final adjustments to hardware like that. they can do that in their own labs and/offices without ever stepping foot in chinese factories.
 
Is there some sort of storage medium for games that will load the game instantaneously instead of all the reading/copying from the OPTICAL ULTRA BLU-RAY DISK.
I think that is the true bottleneck now. I hate optical drives, it's obsolete. Can Sony, Microsoft, IBM, Toshiba, Intel, AMD, Apple, Google come together for a storage medium in which write/write is instantaneous and can hold large amounts of data (1 TB+). For XsX Pro and PS5 Pro, you would include the optical ultra blu ray disk for legacy reasons.

What are they gonna make next?
8K UTRA VIOLET RAY DISKS? Costs $500+ LOL with the same shitty slow ass diode. Seriously 100GB Ultra Blu Ray Disks is going to fill up FAST.

It's getting more of a security matter. Cartridges can be hackable, I guess. And indeed the game must be installed totally in the SSD.

Still worried about 100GB, seems small. But are you willing to pay like $100 for the same game or more? No one, I guess. Still a cheaper choice and still being convenient.
 
B_Boss B_Boss : I have a friend who manages the hardware production of a gaming related product and for whatever reason he spends quite a bit of time in China visiting factories. That time ramped up before the launch of the product. But I'm not sure if that's engineering related or more of a relationship thing; I'll try to ask him next time I chat with him.
 
It's getting more of a security matter. Cartridges can be hackable, I guess. And indeed the game must be installed totally in the SSD.

Still worried about 100GB, seems small. But are you willing to pay like $100 for the same game or more? No one, I guess. Still a cheaper choice and still being convenient.
If it makes you feel batter a 3 layered BR disk is actually 93.22GB, not 100GB :)
 
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B_Boss B_Boss : I have a friend who manages the hardware production of a gaming related product and for whatever reason he spends quite a bit of time in China visiting factories. That time ramped up before the launch of the product. But I'm not sure if that's engineering related or more of a relationship thing; I'll try to ask him next time I chat with him.

Thanks!
 
Correct. That is what I understand for:

"Our goal with DualSense is to give gamers the feeling of being transported into the game world"

Then it says:

"as soon as they open the box"

What does it mean, what box? It sounds like a hint for a ultra fast OS booting time.

I have a theory about that. Sounds like the new sleep mode will even use less power than before due to how fast the I/O is. So basically when you put the console to sleep it just shuts everything off but leaves what you were doing last in the SSD. Then when you pull it out of sleep it can resume where you left off almost instantly.

That's assuming that everything works as fast as I think it does.
 
It's getting more of a security matter. Cartridges can be hackable, I guess. And indeed the game must be installed totally in the SSD.

Still worried about 100GB, seems small. But are you willing to pay like $100 for the same game or more? No one, I guess. Still a cheaper choice and still being convenient.

Im not saying it should be cartridges, that is like 1980's archaic crap. I am talking about all the big dogs coming together to create a standard for a physical storage medium that is scalable (like microSD to SD), security proof, instantaneous, and doesn't require SSD to save the progress of your game (of course you can always save it to the cloud). The only external medium for software still currently being used is DVD, Blu-Ray, Ultra Blu-Ray.

Do you see games, software movies on:
SD card, MicroSDcard? No
USB Flash stick/drive? No
SSD drive, HDD drive? No.

Yes internet is going to get faster with Wifi6 and 5G, and most people will download, but who wants to download 100GB+ and hog up your SSD/HDD drive with 1 TB being the standard in purchasing the console? Also your security thing falls flat considering that PlayStation 1, dreamcast, were easily hackable and people went to jail for bootlegging those games.

Developers also have to consider the size of the storage medium when developing games especially cross gen. With Xbox360, and Playstation 3, Playstation had the advantage of 25GB Blu-Ray disk, but Xbox 360 was still stuck with DVD-9. Games could have had more levels, story, characters etc with extra disk space.

So with the new storage medium being 'scalable' the publisher/developer can decide how much a software/game should fill up. 1 game can be 120GB, another one can be 320GB. Up to them.
 
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So, with the PS5 going to mass production in june, Sony definaly needs to show its design next month, right?
I think May is our best bet. Otherwise they run the risk of it getting leaked. They should take the same approach with the console as they did with the controller.
Middle may is a safe bet
An hour before any Microsoft event scheduled in May is the best bet.
 
Im not saying it should be cartridges, that is like 1980's archaic crap. I am talking about all the big dogs coming together to create a standard for a physical storage medium that is scalable (like microSD to SD), security proof, instantaneous, and doesn't require SSD to save the progress of your game (of course you can always save it to the cloud). The only external medium for software still currently being used is DVD, Blu-Ray, Ultra Blu-Ray.

Do you see games, software movies on:
SD card, MicroSDcard? No
USB Flash stick/drive? No
SSD drive, HDD drive? No.

Yes internet is going to get faster with Wifi6 and 5G, and most people will download, but who wants to download 100GB+ and hog up your SSD/HDD drive with 1 TB being the standard in purchasing the console? Also your security thing falls flat considering that PlayStation 1, dreamcast, were easily hackable and people went to jail for bootlegging those games.

They can make that, it's easy, it's called 256GB NVMe m.2 PCIe 4.0 at a speed of 6-7GB/s raw to match the system, and even has saves internally. But for how much? It'll cut from the profit of Sony/MS or the dev, or added to the customer's overall price.

I think it's complicated, for PS5 there is nothing matching that speed, and won't be priced lightly at 256GB. We should endure until a new tech comes.
 
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Bigger APU
More RAM modules
Bigger memory bus
2 PCBs
More SSD NAND modules

I believe the only discussable point that Xbox is cheaper than PS5 is SSD but that is discussable because the most expensive part of SSD, NAND modules, is in bigger quantity on Xbox.

APU, Memory, PCB are all expensive on Xbox.

I still believes Xbox cost is around $70-90 more expensive than PS5 costs.

Where are you getting the XSX SSD having more NAND modules from? From everything we know so far it sounds like PS5 will have more NAND modules, at least 12, one for each of the 12 channels. Since XSX has fewer channels for NAND modules, then it should have at least less than 12 modules.

Also considering the physical differences between the PS5's internal SSD NAND module setup (going by the presentation) and the XSX's internal SSD (which seems structurally similar to the external expansion card just without the casing), I think it's safe to say XSX has fewer NAND modules with its setup. How much fewer we don't know, but I'd assume they're fewer.

Additionally, number of NAND modules won't be the only influential factor. The spec for the modules, i.e their bandwidth, speed, latency and other figures (which we don't know of yet) will also be big influences on price per module. We can assume that if PS5 is using 12 NAND modules for 5.5 GB bandwidth (and I'm being generous here because they've only specified the speed at 5.5 GB/s for raw data, bandwidth could be a different, lower figure), that is 458.3 MB/s for each individual module. Assuming XSX is using 6 modules, six of THOSE modules would be over their raw speed amount (2.4), so they might have slower speed modules, which in turn would be cheaper (but if the capacities are much larger, that would put the costs at closer parity).

The actual GDDR6 memory is also up for speculation. Are MS and Sony sourcing their memory from the same company? I thought MS was getting theirs from Micron and Sony from Samsung? Samsung's GDDR6 tends to be slightly more expensive than Micron's, and if MS is producing a sizable number of XSX boards for server racks, that'd help with economies of scale on their pricing. We could be in a situation where they are paying barely more than Sony for memory.

Conversely, in regards PS5 I honestly see their cooling being either about as much as XSX's or possibly more. By how much is up for debate. Also since their flash memory controller seems to be a bit more complex that'll also cost them more; again by how much is debatable. MS having two motherboards, again, is helped by economies-of-scale so they're not actually 2x the price for PCBs that Sony is.

Overall I honestly think the BOM between the two systems will be within $30 of each other at absolute most.
Gonna be cyberpunk related. Probably a damn controller.

Meh, kinda bleh if it's just a controller. Then again, I've never cared for special game-promo controller variants probably ever. Maybe the DK64 one, but that was ages ago xD
 
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