PlayStation 5 Leak Reveals New ‘Low Power’ Mode, Fueling Handheld Console Reports

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NeoGAFs Kent Brockman


thegamepost.com

PlayStation 5 Leak Reveals New 'Low Power' Mode, Fueling Handheld Console Reports

A new leak suggests Sony is rolling out a "low power" mode for the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro to developers, with ongoing rumors about a PlayStation handheld console in the works
thegamepost.com thegamepost.com

In his latest livestream, he revealed Sony is quietly rolling out a "low power" mode for the PS5 and PS5 Pro, something that might tie directly into all the handheld talk.

Details on PS5 and PS5 Pro's Low Power Mode
According to Moore's Law Is Dead, Sony has started briefing developers about a new "low power" mode for both the PlayStation 5 and the PlayStation 5 Pro. This information comes from multiple documents and sources he says he's seen, although Sony hasn't said anything officially just yet.

In simple terms, this low power mode is meant to let the PS5 use less electricity while still playing your favorite games. The insider explained, "Sony is briefing their developers and sending out documentation on a new low energy mode for the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro… This is a new flag like 'base' mode or 'trinity' mode." He also pointed out this isn't required yet, but it could be made mandatory for developers down the line.

"It limits the PlayStation 5 or PlayStation 5 Pro to eight threads," he said talking about the low power mode. "It reduces 3D audio processing to 75%. It clocks the GDDR6 to half its speed. Core clocks are reduced around 10 to 20%."
Click to expand...

Here are the specs revealed about the PlayStation 5 Low Power Mode (according to the leak):

Limits CPU usage to 8 threads
Cuts 3D audio processing power to 75%
Clocks down GDDR6 memory to half speed
Reduces core (CPU/GPU) clocks by about 10–20%
Sets GPU to the minimum frequency needed for compatibility
Limits the console to 36 Compute Units
No PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution), or VR support in this mode
So, how is this connected to the rumored PlayStation handheld? Moore's Law Is Dead speculates that Sony is setting things up for the future. By getting developers to support this low power mode now, Sony would make it much easier to get PS5 games running on a portable PlayStation device if and when they launch it.

"This could be the beginnings of PlayStation handheld support," he said. "They're adding a flag early on where you have a game keep compatibility but it runs at significantly lower power with slightly different specs."
Click to expand...
 
So, how is this connected to the rumored PlayStation handheld? Moore's Law Is Dead speculates that Sony is setting things up for the future. By getting developers to support this low power mode now, Sony would make it much easier to get PS5 games running on a portable PlayStation device if and when they launch it.

It makes much more sense that this mode is intended to facilitate Switch 2-PS5 parity
 
Geometric-Crusher said:
So, how is this connected to the rumored PlayStation handheld?
Click to expand...
Handheld only has 1/3 the memory bandwidth of the PS5 (although more cache and improved memory compression), it's pretty obvious that a mode that cuts bandwidth in half is meant to simulate the handheld.
Geometric-Crusher said:
It makes much more sense that this mode is intended to facilitate Switch 2-PS5 parity
Click to expand...
Lmao why would Sony want to help devs port their games to Switch 2?
 
Changing the subject, how do we calculate teraflops on an AMD GPU? clock x stream processor x something, I don't remember.
 
Excited Great Job GIF by Sesame Street
 
It could also be for Portal because why push a PS5 or PS5 Pro at full power when your're sending a 1080p or even 720p signal to a streaming device?

Or it could be PS5 mini that can be powered by USB-C
 
KeplerL2 said:
CU count * 64 (for GCN until RDNA2) or 128 (for RDNA3+) * 2 Flops per cycle * clock speed.
Click to expand...

nah, even for RDNA3 and 4 you can do *64. the dual issue FP32 of RDNA3/4 has shown basically zero performance benefits.
the PS5 Pro shows the exact raster performance you'd expect from a 16TF RDNA2 gpu, while technically being a 32TF RDNA3+ gpu.
 
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kevboard said:
nah, even for RDNA3 and 4 you can do *64. the dual issue FP32 of RDNA3/4 has shown basically zero performance benefits.
the PS5 Pro shows the exact raster performance you'd expect from a 16TF RDNA2 gpu, while technically being a 32TF RDNA3+ gpu.
Click to expand...
TFlops are TFlops and RDNA4 definitely has better perf/CU.
 
This is the best way, the right way to do it. Most importantly, the memory pool is not reduced which is great news so we can expect the handheld to have 16GB of ram.

No that XSS + XSX engineering failure. In the case of XSS the main problem was the lack of memory.

We can also expect that machine to have 36CUs so all PS4 (maybe in Pro mode) games should run without a patch and this was meant to run PS5 games with a patch.
 
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EDMIX said:
This.

So much of this sounds like a wild reach.
Click to expand...
Thing is that modern AMD x86 machines are not the monster of power inefficiency you think about.

This is meant to give an easier power envelope, you can imagine a Zen6c or Zen7c like low power core used in PS6 on a more advanced lower power process (probably lower voltage than the PS5 CPU). So a lot less power consumption.
 
KeplerL2 said:
4MB L2 + 16MB MALL
Click to expand...
🤔 how does it compare to PS5 GPU again (main bandwidth abuser)?

Looking again it is the same L2 but with the addition of this 16 MB MALL cache pool. Very very small compared to Infinity Cache on RDNA2 desktop chips:
SqmH5YX.jpeg


I think prohibiting PSSR is a way to simulate performance and energy usage (PS5 is energy usage focused, whole thing about dynamic clock speed being dependent on energy usage over temperature).
 
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You motherfuckers were crying like little bitches about how the Series S was "holding back gaming" and now you masturbate over a low-spec Playstation SKU, which developers will have to target.
 
KeplerL2 said:
4MB L2 + 16MB MALL
Click to expand...
16MB L3 cache is very nice for a handheld. So we can expect PS6 to have L3 cache too. Finally.
Panajev2001a said:
Would they launch with this type of memory few years down the line still though?


RDNA5 or RDNA6 though? Isn't this a spin off of the PS6 die?
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AFAIK he calls it RDNA5 but it won't be called that. It will be called UDNA and will be used by PS6 too.

Hudo said:
You motherfuckers were crying like little bitches about how the Series S was "holding back gaming" and now you masturbate over a low-spec Playstation SKU, which developers will have to target.
Click to expand...
Completely different than XSS trainweck. Remember the main problem was the lower amount of memory in the case of XSS, nothing more. The games will have the same features, albeit with reduced resolution/framerate. But the game code should pretty much have the same content. Devs won't have to optimize for months to reduce memory footprint. Textures resolution should even stay the same.
 
Other than an internal / developer debug testing profile, I don't see how this will benefit current PS5/Pro owners at all. The last thing they'll want to do is toggle a performance degrading 'power saving' mode on.
 
Hudo said:
You motherfuckers were crying like little bitches about how the Series S was "holding back gaming" and now you masturbate over a low-spec Playstation SKU, which developers will have to target.
Click to expand...
Not sure anyone is celebrating this in and of itself, let's see if they learn the right lessons from MS's train wreck.

Are you pissed off because you came to terms on how the Series S was a badly executed ill thought idea? I will have to concede it was worse executed than the idea was bad fine ;).

You could say the same about PS5 and PS5 Pro or PS4 and PS4 Pro… but you will notice how it was handled differently there compared to XSS and XSX.
 
Hudo said:
...masturbate over a low-spec Playstation SKU, which developers will have to target.
Click to expand...
I don't know about that. If I was Sony I would never mandate games have to run on the low-spec device. But for games like Lumines and Marvel Tokon... those would be the target for a device like this.

Sony sees how Steam, Nintendo, and soon Microsoft, all offer games in the handheld space. Sony wants to compete in that space with an untethered device. If they ever want Japanese gamers to start caring about Playstation again, they have to have a handheld.
 
KeplerL2 said:
Yeah, LPDDR6 is too far away still
Click to expand...
I guess it depends on when the console gets out and if Sony decides another PS4 like surprise (LPDDR6 specs were finalised and released last year), but it is undeniable that Sony's move now seem to prepare for it not to be the case.

KeplerL2 said:
Both are a fork of gfx13 (RDNA5/UDNA/whatever AMD decides to call it)

PS5 and PS5 Pro are both 4MB L2 but with no MALL (Infinity Cache)
Click to expand...
Yeah, but it feels a bit small… I bet the PSSR ban will not apply to PSSR2 or whatever solution this handheld will use in portable mode. Easiest way to lower bandwidth and power consumption is to render at a dramatically lower resolution (sorry, doing sparse rendering :)) and upscale with PSSR-next-gen.

The PSSR ban of LowPower mode IMHO is another way to offer a closer to handheld mode performance profile (forcing devs to lower rendering resolution without relying on the power hungrier PSSR, compared to PSSR next gen). What do you think? I shudder to think about a handheld that does not use something like an advanced PSSR version and targets PS5 like visuals.
 
Based on these cutbacks I guess the PS5 handheld would be something like this:

8 core Zen 6/6c with HT disabled. 2.5 GHz or so? Considering the PS5 mode calls for a CPU clock speed reduction and the IPC gains over Zen 2.
16 GB LPDDR5x 9600
7-9 TF RDNA5/UDNA based GPU

I think that sounds about right? It would certainly need a hefty battery to get decent battery life with those specs.
 
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Presumably the CPU/SoC should be fairly similar to Medusa Point. Rip out the NPU (Upper left?), bunch of PCIe lanes, display PHYs (you need like 1-2) etc. Make the GPU block bigger and newer IP (8CU -> 16-20CU?). Maybe 8xZen6c instead of 4x6/4x6c as you wouldn't have higher clocks anyway. I guess the upper right is the 2xZen-LP and some cache?


ePklu7lR5fo5XJ6M.jpg
 
Zathalus said:
Based on these cutbacks I guess the PS5 handheld would be something like this:

8 core Zen 6/6c with HT disabled. 2.5 GHz or so? Considering the PS5 mode calls for a CPU clock speed reduction and the IPC gains over Zen 2.
16 GB LPDDR5x 9600
7-9 TF RDNA5/UDNA based GPU

I think that sounds about right? It would certainly need a hefty battery to get decent battery life with those specs.
Click to expand...
Why would they disable HT? to reduce CPU complexity and power consumption? The same way they get rid of some FPU power on PS5?
 
Honestly, this low powered mode makes very little sense unless there is a low power decive in the pipeline. I don't think there's any chance of a portable PS5 able to run at 20-25W in the next decade, let alone in the next 3 years. Games can for sure be patched to lower the resolution to 1080p (or even lower) but this strategy seems to be the best one to ensure compatibilty with most recent games at launch
 
Nice use of the word "Report" there instead of the usual "Rumor", "Speculation", etc.
It's click-bait shit and you know it. Stop sharing it.

Time to add the "rumor" tag to my blocklist as these massive wastes of time and space are in abundance these days.
 
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Zathalus said:
Based on these cutbacks I guess the PS5 handheld would be something like this:

8 core Zen 6/6c with HT disabled. 2.5 GHz or so? Considering the PS5 mode calls for a CPU clock speed reduction and the IPC gains over Zen 2.
16 GB LPDDR5x 9600
7-9 TF RDNA5/UDNA based GPU

I think that sounds about right? It would certainly need a hefty battery to get decent battery life with those specs.
Click to expand...

I've been hoping that Sony would utilize silicon carbon batteries in their next handheld and potentially utilize the scale purchasing of silicon batteries in future controllers to account for the cost.

Combining the supply chain for both their controllers and a new handheld would presumably give Sony a major cost savings compared to their competition.
 
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