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

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LiquidRex

Member
I'll be tuning into Sony CES on the 11th, in the hope they'll be some more details in what to expect from the PS5 in the future. 🤔

I'm sure Microsoft will be ready to counter if anything is revealed at all.
 

kyliethicc

Member
I doubt there will be a PS5 Pro. Instead, I bet we just get something boring like this:

PlayStation 5 "Slim" revision, fall 2023.

$300 for digital edition, 825 GB
$400 for digital edition, 1.65 TB
$500 for disc model, 1.65 TB

Basically same specs, but more storage for same price.
Smaller size and draws less power. SoC shrunk to TSMC 5nm process.
 
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Fishake

Neo Member
I doubt there will be a PS5 Pro. Instead, I bet we just get something boring like this:

PlayStation 5 "Slim" revision, fall 2023.

$300 for digital edition, 825 GB
$400 for digital edition, 1.65 TB
$500 for disc model, 1.65 TB

Basically same specs, but more storage for same price.
Smaller size and draws less power. SoC shrunk to TSMC 5nm process.
I am sure that the Slim will not come until 2024-2025.
And the orice will not go down until 2025-2026. Look at the PS4, he mantain His price very long time. Probably Sony will follow the same path.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I doubt there will be a PS5 Pro. Instead, I bet we just get something boring like this:

PlayStation 5 "Slim" revision, fall 2023.

$300 for digital edition, 825 GB
$400 for digital edition, 1.65 TB
$500 for disc model, 1.65 TB

Basically same specs, but more storage for same price.
Smaller size and draws less power. SoC shrunk to TSMC 5nm process.
Yeah, the storage is not gonna get cheap anytime soon. especially fast storage that sony went with.

that said, the 5nm chips arent gonna save sony a lot of money either. they will have to find new ways to keep the revenue stream going, and that means launching a $500 mid gen refresh to offset the low profit margins on the cheaper $300 consoles.

I think MS will have a mid gen console ready by 2023 and sony will have theirs out just to compete with it.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
Yeah, the storage is not gonna get cheap anytime soon. especially fast storage that sony went with.

that said, the 5nm chips arent gonna save sony a lot of money either. they will have to find new ways to keep the revenue stream going, and that means launching a $500 mid gen refresh to offset the low profit margins on the cheaper $300 consoles.

I think MS will have a mid gen console ready by 2023 and sony will have theirs out just to compete with it.

To be fair, Sony is not using incredibly fast Flash chips, but several of them in a custom parallel connection to drive up the necessary channels * bandwidth per channel and leading to the bandwidth they revealed?

It is not cheap to create and put the combination on the motherboard, but the Flash chips themselves are going down in price and they should be able to cut costs on this side of the console equation at some point soon.
 

kyliethicc

Member
I am sure that the Slim will not come until 2024-2025.
And the orice will not go down until 2025-2026. Look at the PS4, he mantain His price very long time. Probably Sony will follow the same path.
PS4 slim was 3 years after launch and $100 cheaper, so ... what?

PS4 - $400, Nov 2013
PS4 slim - $300, Sept 2016
 
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kyliethicc

Member
Yeah, the storage is not gonna get cheap anytime soon. especially fast storage that sony went with.

that said, the 5nm chips arent gonna save sony a lot of money either. they will have to find new ways to keep the revenue stream going, and that means launching a $500 mid gen refresh to offset the low profit margins on the cheaper $300 consoles.

I think MS will have a mid gen console ready by 2023 and sony will have theirs out just to compete with it.
Ehh the extra flash wouldn't even cost Sony $100 to add, even right now. And definitely not by 2023. The die shrink won't be much or any cheaper, true, but both PS5 and XSX will offer 1.65 TB and 2 TB models (respectively) in 2-3 years from now. For $100 extra price of course.

I just kinda doubt the Pro model would work again. PS4 Pro was for 4K TVs. It was easy to jump from 18 to 36 CUs, and bump up games res from 1080 or 30 to 60 FPS, etc.

The issue is that doesn't really scale forwards onto this new gen. People won't care about 8K TVs in 2023-24 enough to buy a new console, and plenty of games will already have 60 FPS or even 120 FPS modes. Plus, the PS5 already supports 8K TVs via HDMI 2.1 from day 1, where as the launch PS4 could not output at 4K. Launch PS4 lacked HDR, but PS5 already has that day 1.

The more I think about it, the less I think the mid-gen Pro model (higher spec) will work again. It doesn't scale, the PS4 Pro feels like a 1 time thing. Unique to the time and the TV market, along with fitting into where gaming tech and games were at. I can't see it repeating again. Not for Sony or Microsoft.

Consoles can't keep getting bigger and using more and more power, its not like gaming PCs. Sure a few of us would be cool with that, but not most buyers. Plus game devs won't be able to keep up with the tech. Making games is already hard enough, and adding more sku's to dev for only makes their job even harder. What's the point of adding a new spec sku to dev for every 3 years if games take 3-4 years to make?

All the suits care about is money, so they'll be fine with whatever is cheapest and most profitable. And that would be continuing to sell the same console for the same price for as long as possible (like the Switch) in order to lower costs and maximize profits. And that'd be, for Sony, just keep selling the same PS5 for 3 years, then just do a minor revision to add more storage, slim it down a bit, and get onto to PS6 in 2027 or so.
 
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I doubt there will be a PS5 Pro. Instead, I bet we just get something boring like this:

PlayStation 5 "Slim" revision, fall 2023.

$300 for digital edition, 825 GB
$400 for digital edition, 1.65 TB
$500 for disc model, 1.65 TB

Basically same specs, but more storage for same price.
Smaller size and draws less power. SoC shrunk to TSMC 5nm process.

I’m not sure a die shrink to TSMCs 5nm node would be cost effective for them.

Considering the PS5 is fabbed on TSMCs N7P process which as I understand it doesn’t use EUV lithography, moving to 5nm EUV would be a considerably expensive engineering undertaking and the added cost of the additional process steps would likely mean the cost savings on smaller die size aren’t able to fully outweigh the added process cost to fabricate on the more expensive 5nm node.

I think we’ll definitely see a cost reduced PS5, but they’ll look for cost cutting opportunities outside of a process die shrink.
 

kyliethicc

Member
I’m not sure a die shrink to TSMCs 5nm node would be cost effective for them.

Considering the PS5 is fabbed on TSMCs N7P process which as I understand it doesn’t use EUV lithography, moving to 5nm EUV would be a considerably expensive engineering undertaking and the added cost of the additional process steps would likely mean the cost savings on smaller die size aren’t able to fully outweigh the added process cost to fabricate on the more expensive 5nm node.

I think we’ll definitely see a cost reduced PS5, but they’ll look for cost cutting opportunities outside of a process die shrink.
But would it be expensive in 3 years from now? Cause the main goal for the PS5 slim will be making the console physically smaller. To do that they need to reduce the heat generated, allowing them to shrink the heatsink inside.

Thus they reduce the cost of the console by using fewer materials. And various components like RAM and NAND will fall in price over the years.

Maybe they won't shrink the die onto 5nm, but it's definitely a possibility. They gotta find a way to reduce the power consumption and let them make a slimmer system with a smaller power supply.

A die shrink does usually give better yields and lets them make more dies per wafer, so thats a form of cost saving. Idk, is there a different version of 7nm they could use that's more power efficient/ cheaper?
 
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First, I doubt the truthfulness of the chart because VGChartz was never accurate.

But second, this is basically a backhand complement. You might as well try to cheer for the marathon runner who finally crossed the finish line LAST, when the race was already finished. Literally every Playstation console had outsold the SNES, and PS4 did that in 2016.
The PS4 out-sold the SNES in Dec of 2016, and we actually had the sales numbers to prove it.
that's horse shit... vgchartz is historically pretty close to the real hardware sales numbers even on a week to week basis. plus, every so often they review the numbers and correct them as soon as any new information comes to light (milestone announcements, investor calls for the 1st parties, etc)
so you might take it for granted as good info if you're looking at ballpark figures.
 
But would it be expensive in 3 years from now? Cause the main goal for the PS5 slim will be making the console physically smaller. To do that they need to reduce the heat generated, allowing them to shrink the heatsink inside.

Thus they reduce the cost of the console by using fewer materials. And various components like RAM and NAND will fall in price over the years.

Maybe they won't shrink the die onto 5nm, but it's definitely a possibility. They gotta find a way to reduce the power consumption and let them make a slimmer system with a smaller power supply.

A die shrink does usually give better yields and lets them make more dies per wafer, so thats a form of cost saving. Idk, is there a different version of 7nm they could use that's more power efficient/ cheaper?
Unlike in the case of previous consoles, the RAM and NAND chips are proportionally more significant additions to the BOM this time around. Even getting a cheaper deal on RAM and NAND will shave off considerable cost.

If GDDR6X becomes mainstream (or even a successor technology), that’s able to deliver chips twice as fast the existing 14Gbps chips in PS5 (and that’s a big “if”), Sony could move to a 128bit bus, halving the number of RAM chips per console from 8 to 4, and still maintain the same bandwidth. This is something they’ve done before.

Equally, the N7P process won’t remain static. TSMC will continue to develop the node to see improvements in perf per watt. In addition, there is also Global Foundries and Samsung who may come out with a competing 7nm-equivalent process delivering similar or better power efficiency.

Even without a die shrink there’s still scope to reduce power consumption at the same process node, and thus be able to reduce materials costs off the back of those savings.
 
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LiquidRex

Member
I doubt there will be a PS5 Pro. Instead, I bet we just get something boring like this:

PlayStation 5 "Slim" revision, fall 2023.

$300 for digital edition, 825 GB
$400 for digital edition, 1.65 TB
$500 for disc model, 1.65 TB

Basically same specs, but more storage for same price.
Smaller size and draws less power. SoC shrunk to TSMC 5nm process.
Maybe a redesign too, as I understand the RAM runs significantly hot, not dangerously to hinder performance, well I hope not in the long run anyway. 🔥
 
that's horse shit... vgchartz is historically pretty close to the real hardware sales numbers even on a week to week basis. plus, every so often they review the numbers and correct them as soon as any new information comes to light (milestone announcements, investor calls for the 1st parties, etc)
so you might take it for granted as good info if you're looking at ballpark figures.
I fail to see it as a good sign that VGchatz change their own figures retroactively to fit reality, It just proves that they made everything up and then correct themselves once the truth comes out,
 
The issue is that doesn't really scale forwards onto this new gen. People won't care about 8K TVs in 2023-24 enough to buy a new console, and plenty of games will already have 60 FPS or even 120 FPS modes. Plus, the PS5 already supports 8K TVs via HDMI 2.1 from day 1, where as the launch PS4 could not output at 4K. Launch PS4 lacked HDR, but PS5 already has that day 1.

I've been saying this for a while now, it was clear that the PS4 Pro was designed around the need and high demand for 4K gaming, and consoles were still far behind the discreet GPU's at the time, a lot of which offered higher resolutions and significantly better frame rates. So there was a lot of pressure on both Microsoft and Sony to release a more high performing console.

The jump from 1080P to 4K was huge, however the jump from 4K to 8K is going to be significantly bigger and the truth is we won't even have a solid infrastructure for it. The adoption rate of 4K devices such as TV's was also significantly faster, I actually don't know anyone who has an 8K TV right now and I don't know anyone planning to buy one anytime soon. I don't see it becoming mainstream for at least another 4-5 years.

So I don't really understand the need for a PS5 Pro anytime soon, 8K gaming won't become a thing for a while and the big craze in gaming performance right now is FPS over resolution, the PS5 can already comfortably handle 1440P to 4K resolutions at 60 FPS. One of the many mistakes people have been making when it came to predicting next-gen was trying to look thought the lens of last-gen, which has failed a number of times now. A good example would be the performance delta between PS4 and Xbox One, and the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, the power gap was small (relatively speaking) yet there were noticeable differences between all versions and it was predictable based on the on the spec sheets. However, the same was said about PS5 and Series X, with the Series X commanding a lead on paper and a lot of people predicted Series X would outperform PS5, yet here we are months into launch and PS5 is edging out the Series X across several games and the performance for the most part is identical.

Now a PS5 slim would make a lot of sense, I studied manufacturing engineering when I was at college, corporations especially ones selling electronic products will have very large teams of manufacturing engineers who will work day and night to lowering the production cost of their products in efforts to increase the profit margins, this could be through finding cheaper materials and resources, managing supply chains more efficiently, developing cheaper and more advanced technologies. We already know Sony follow this practice as evident by their consistent history of outputting slim models of their consoles, so it's a very safe bet we'll see a PS5 slim model rather than something like a Pro. But I could be wrong.
 

kyliethicc

Member
Unlike in the case of previous consoles, the RAM and NAND chips are proportionally more significant additions to the BOM this time around. Even getting a cheaper deal on RAM and NAND will shave off considerable cost.

If GDDR6X becomes mainstream (or even a successor technology), that’s able to deliver chips twice as fast the existing 14Gbps chips in PS5 (and that’s a big “if”), Sony could move to a 128bit bus, halving the number of RAM chips per console from 8 to 4, and still maintain the same bandwidth. This is something they’ve done before.

Equally, the N7P process won’t remain static. TSMC will continue to develop the node to see improvements in perf per watt. In addition, there is also Global Foundries and Samsung who may come out with a competing 7nm-equivalent process delivering similar or better power efficiency.

Even without a die shrink there’s still scope to reduce power consumption at the same process node, and thus be able to reduce materials costs off the back of those savings.
All very good points, thanks.

I think its a given the PS5 will not stay the same price the entire lifecycle, but will not fall im price more than $100 over the gen (for the same model.)

Maybe the way 2020 went, and how tight supply is now, will push back their 2023 PS5 Slim plans to 2024. Maybe they really will do a PS5 Pro, but I doubt it.

Looking at Sony's PS4 strategy for 2016, they wanted to cut the PS4 price down to $300 while reintroducing a new model at $400. Thats why they made the PS4 Pro. They were able to keep selling a PS4 model for $400 all gen, but still have a lower entry price.

But for PS5, they can do that just by adding more storage and cutting the price. I also highly doubt Sony will ever sell a PS5 with a disc drive for less than $500 over the entire gen. They will push towards digital, and so I bet they will want the PS5 DE to get down to $350-$300 by 2023-24.
 

kyliethicc

Member
I've been saying this for a while now, it was clear that the PS4 Pro was designed around the need and high demand for 4K gaming, and consoles were still far behind the discreet GPU's at the time, a lot of which offered higher resolutions and significantly better frame rates. So there was a lot of pressure on both Microsoft and Sony to release a more high performing console.

The jump from 1080P to 4K was huge, however the jump from 4K to 8K is going to be significantly bigger and the truth is we won't even have a solid infrastructure for it. The adoption rate of 4K devices such as TV's was also significantly faster, I actually don't know anyone who has an 8K TV right now and I don't know anyone planning to buy one anytime soon. I don't see it becoming mainstream for at least another 4-5 years.

So I don't really understand the need for a PS5 Pro anytime soon, 8K gaming won't become a thing for a while and the big craze in gaming performance right now is FPS over resolution, the PS5 can already comfortably handle 1440P to 4K resolutions at 60 FPS. One of the many mistakes people have been making when it came to predicting next-gen was trying to look thought the lens of last-gen, which has failed a number of times now. A good example would be the performance delta between PS4 and Xbox One, and the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, the power gap was small (relatively speaking) yet there were noticeable differences between all versions and it was predictable based on the on the spec sheets. However, the same was said about PS5 and Series X, with the Series X commanding a lead on paper and a lot of people predicted Series X would outperform PS5, yet here we are months into launch and PS5 is edging out the Series X across several games and the performance for the most part is identical.

Now a PS5 slim would make a lot of sense, I studied manufacturing engineering when I was at college, corporations especially ones selling electronic products will have very large teams of manufacturing engineers who will work day and night to lowering the production cost of their products in efforts to increase the profit margins, this could be through finding cheaper materials and resources, managing supply chains more efficiently, developing cheaper and more advanced technologies. We already know Sony follow this practice as evident by their consistent history of outputting slim models of their consoles, so it's a very safe bet we'll see a PS5 slim model rather than something like a Pro. But I could be wrong.
Agreed. It just seems obvious that a PS5 Pro that can do 8K 60 Hz gaming, has an even faster clocked 5nm SoC with 72 CU GPU and 2x the SSD size, faster wireless and ports, yet all at the same $500 price in a realistic sized and quiet box, released in 2023-24 ... is a pipe dream. Seems very unrealistic.

I think we'll just get a PS5 slim halfway into the gen and a SKU with more storage. Boring, simple, but profitable and smart business for Sony.

Plus there's massive diminishing returns to more powerful spec gaming consoles, increased challenges for game devs, the fact that most indie devs don't need more powerful systems to make games on, etc...
 

Garani

Member
I am sure that the Slim will not come until 2024-2025.
And the orice will not go down until 2025-2026. Look at the PS4, he mantain His price very long time. Probably Sony will follow the same path.
Sony will behave according to market conditions. If there is the opportunity to keep price high, they'll gladly take the opportunity :D
 

Mahavastu

Member
I always expected them to make a PS4 superslim to have something on the very low end. The PS4 would still have a few good years ahead of it if sold for the right price. It should have been possible to create a "break even" $200 product with some free games and some months of PS+ to get new customers into the Playstation ecosystem.

What is possible is that the PS4 production takes away production facilities which could be used for PS5 production, or with other words they can produce more PS5 units if they just stop the PS4. For example they get only a certain number of wafers from TSMC and if they use some of them for PS4 SoC there is less space for PS5 chips.
Probably makes somewhat sense in the short run (the demand for the PS5 is sky high), but once the demand for the current price is fullfilled something cheaper would be nice, and it might be difficult to reach that lower price points with the PS5 before a shrink.

BTW: did they really call the color "jet black"? No surprise that some PS4 (not mine tbh) were so loud... :messenger_winking:
 
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FrankWza

Member
Agreed. It just seems obvious that a PS5 Pro that can do 8K 60 Hz gaming, has an even faster clocked 5nm SoC with 72 CU GPU and 2x the SSD size, faster wireless and ports, yet all at the same $500 price in a realistic sized and quiet box, released in 2023-24 ... is a pipe dream. Seems very unrealistic.

I think we'll just get a PS5 slim halfway into the gen and a SKU with more storage. Boring, simple, but profitable and smart business for Sony.

Plus there's massive diminishing returns to more powerful spec gaming consoles, increased challenges for game devs, the fact that most indie devs don't need more powerful systems to make games on, etc...
Don’t sleep on a controller being a part of a Pro model as well and a big feature. The back button “experiment “ worked out so well that I’m shocked we don’t have one yet for dualsense. It’s obvious they put a lot of thought into the controller and a pro controller seems like a formality at this point. Hopefully the back button attachment releases soon and then by 2023 the pro model will be molded into the controller with added features like replaceable sticks and torque and resistance adjustments for the sticks and triggers and can be bundled with the pro console.
 
This is nothing to do with the capture, it is how the game is (I have the game). It is a bug or a something needs switching on, no pun intended.
Anyone who thinks its save performance is kidding themselves as there far far more taxing situations in this game.

On my side, I have also the game, and I don't have any issue with this tunnel, I have the same results than what is seen on PS5 in NX video, that's why for me it was a problem with HDR capture, so I'm surprise with your answer :messenger_grinning_sweat: I will take a screenshot when possible to share it if you want.
 
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They were talking about games surely?
Not that surprising they will discontinue the hardware - they did the same with the PS2 once the PS3 was launched, and with the PS1 when the PS2 was launched. Infact the PS3 lasting as long as it did was an oddity (they didn't stop making those until 2017) probably down to how well it did late into its lifecycle.
 
Anyone curious about Sony and Mark Cerny's silence on the PS5 hardware? I remember when both the PS4 and Pro came out, we had several interviews with Mark Cerny were he went full deep dive into the architecture of those consoles and we got a lot of interesting information. With the PS5, the only thing we've gone on is the Road to PS5 talk, which had a ton of information but was also a little watered down to appeal to a more broader audience.

I remember RGT a while back mentioned that there was an internal mandate at Sony from Jim Ryan, which basically told the Playstation engineering team to sit back and be silent and that the "games will do the talking", and this was mostly due to the negative reception of the PS5 talk. RGT's leak is to be taken with a grain of salt of course but it lines up really well with Sony's behaviour since last year March.

I do expect eventually we'll get more interviews and deep dives with Mark Cerny, hopefully soon. It would be nice to get confirmation on a lot of things, especially the rumoured features as well as shedding more light on known features such the Geometry Engine and the other components.
 
Anyone curious about Sony and Mark Cerny's silence on the PS5 hardware? I remember when both the PS4 and Pro came out, we had several interviews with Mark Cerny were he went full deep dive into the architecture of those consoles and we got a lot of interesting information. With the PS5, the only thing we've gone on is the Road to PS5 talk, which had a ton of information but was also a little watered down to appeal to a more broader audience.

I remember RGT a while back mentioned that there was an internal mandate at Sony from Jim Ryan, which basically told the Playstation engineering team to sit back and be silent and that the "games will do the talking", and this was mostly due to the negative reception of the PS5 talk. RGT's leak is to be taken with a grain of salt of course but it lines up really well with Sony's behaviour since last year March.

I do expect eventually we'll get more interviews and deep dives with Mark Cerny, hopefully soon. It would be nice to get confirmation on a lot of things, especially the rumoured features as well as shedding more light on known features such the Geometry Engine and the other components.
As much as i’d love to know about the ins and outs of the hardware too, none of this has any real, meaningful relevance to the average everyday consumer. So we shouldn’t hold our breath.

These are details that get disclosed under NDA to developers working on the hardware, i.e. the people the info is most relevant to. The inner workings of the GE for example is irrelevant to 99.9% of the regular gaming consumer base, so there’s really no benefit to Sony in trying to share those details. There’s also the question of the medium by which such info could be shared. Even supposed tech press like DF aren’t rendering engineers and wouldn’t fully grasp the nuance and full implications of such hardware features and innovations. So it’s unsurprising Jim Ryan made Sony take the approach they did after the Road to PS5 talk.

If it’s not a simple concept like, “A TFLOPs number is bigger than B TFLOPs number; therefore moar powah!!!!!!!” then the vast majority will be out of their depth and at worst you risk twitter loons and biased media outlets taking your technical details and disingenuously twisting them to fit some BS FUD narrative.... case in point: PS5’s variable GPU frequency and how both MS PR and their militant-fanboys tried to spin it into a negative.
 

jroc74

Phone reception is more important to me than human rights
Anyone curious about Sony and Mark Cerny's silence on the PS5 hardware? I remember when both the PS4 and Pro came out, we had several interviews with Mark Cerny were he went full deep dive into the architecture of those consoles and we got a lot of interesting information. With the PS5, the only thing we've gone on is the Road to PS5 talk, which had a ton of information but was also a little watered down to appeal to a more broader audience.

I remember RGT a while back mentioned that there was an internal mandate at Sony from Jim Ryan, which basically told the Playstation engineering team to sit back and be silent and that the "games will do the talking", and this was mostly due to the negative reception of the PS5 talk. RGT's leak is to be taken with a grain of salt of course but it lines up really well with Sony's behaviour since last year March.

I do expect eventually we'll get more interviews and deep dives with Mark Cerny, hopefully soon. It would be nice to get confirmation on a lot of things, especially the rumoured features as well as shedding more light on known features such the Geometry Engine and the other components.
This time last gen, the Bill of Materials was already posted for both consoles, in Nov 2013 IIRC. We might be lucky to get any info about anything hardware related within 2 years for PS5. I wanna know too. I think alot of us that hung out in the speculation threads over the ....years? (damn!!) wanna know more. I see some familiar faces.
As much as i’d love to know about the ins and outs of the hardware too, none of this has any real, meaningful relevance to the average everyday consumer. So we shouldn’t hold our breath.

These are details that get disclosed under NDA to developers working on the hardware, i.e. the people the info is most relevant to. The inner workings of the GE for example is irrelevant to 99.9% of the regular gaming consumer base, so there’s really no benefit to Sony in trying to share those details. There’s also the question of the medium by which such info could be shared. Even supposed tech press like DF aren’t rendering engineers and wouldn’t fully grasp the nuance and full implications of such hardware features and innovations. So it’s unsurprising Jim Ryan made Sony take the approach they did after the Road to PS5 talk.

If it’s not a simple concept like, “A TFLOPs number is bigger than B TFLOPs number; therefore moar powah!!!!!!!” then the vast majority will be out of their depth and at worst you risk twitter loons and biased media outlets taking your technical details and disingenuously twisting them to fit some BS FUD narrative.... case in point: PS5’s variable GPU frequency and how both MS PR and their militant-fanboys tried to spin it into a negative.
Exactly.

Honestly, the games have been doing the talking. First and 3rd party. For 3rd party, I expected things to be close, but not this close. So close the PS5 actually comes out on top at times.

What a time to be alive.
 
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Sinthor

Gold Member
Anyone curious about Sony and Mark Cerny's silence on the PS5 hardware? I remember when both the PS4 and Pro came out, we had several interviews with Mark Cerny were he went full deep dive into the architecture of those consoles and we got a lot of interesting information. With the PS5, the only thing we've gone on is the Road to PS5 talk, which had a ton of information but was also a little watered down to appeal to a more broader audience.

I remember RGT a while back mentioned that there was an internal mandate at Sony from Jim Ryan, which basically told the Playstation engineering team to sit back and be silent and that the "games will do the talking", and this was mostly due to the negative reception of the PS5 talk. RGT's leak is to be taken with a grain of salt of course but it lines up really well with Sony's behaviour since last year March.

I do expect eventually we'll get more interviews and deep dives with Mark Cerny, hopefully soon. It would be nice to get confirmation on a lot of things, especially the rumoured features as well as shedding more light on known features such the Geometry Engine and the other components.
Yes, I think Sony just doesn't NEED to talk more about the hardware, especially until they get things sorted so that there's a list of recommended drives to expand the internal storage. They probably want to AVOID talking about that right now and also to avoid talking about being able to store PS5 data on external drives, etc.

Bottom line as you say, the games are speaking for them right now and speaking very well. Regarding Microsoft...Sony's got plenty of exclusives as well coming and MS doesn't have anything besides Halo that will be seen before late 2022 at the earliest, so they really don't need to do a lot of talking right now. The PS5 NATIVE games are going to do even more for them, so, I don't think we'll be seeing a lot of technical hardware talk from them anytime soon.
 

LiquidRex

Member
Probably true, but did you read it carefully?
Because it mentions they are only stopping production of 5 types of PS4, not all, they only mention 1 Pro model, the glacier white one, they don't mention the black one....
I notice there's no mention of the Slim or the PS4 black 500GB versions unless they had already been discontinued 🤔

Could also be a translation issue.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Consoles can't keep getting bigger and using more and more power, its not like gaming PCs. Sure a few of us would be cool with that, but not most buyers. Plus game devs won't be able to keep up with the tech. Making games is already hard enough, and adding more sku's to dev for only makes their job even harder. What's the point of adding a new spec sku to dev for every 3 years if games take 3-4 years to make?
Surely the PS5 with its 200+ watts power consumption proves that this is no longer true. Hell, i remember when everyone here was saying that $399 is the sweet spot and sony would never launch a $500 console. yet here we are and both the power consumption and price barriers have been broken.

I dont necessarily disagree with the rest of your points, but I will say that these consoles will not be able to do 60 fps on next gen titles that have ray tracing and top out at 1440p. Watch dogs is a great example. 1440p 30 fps with RT. Spiderman can do 1440p 60 fps with rt but has to make several other concessions to get there. fewer crowd NPCs, traffic density, lighting and other VFX and thats a current gen game. When games running on UE5 come out at 1440p and 30 fps, people are gonna want more. Especially now that they have gotten a taste of 60 fps in AAA open world titles like Ghosts, AC Valhalla, Spiderman, Days Gone and Borderlands. They will flock to the mid gen upgrade that gets them 60 fps at true 4k. or 60 fps with better RT.

Sony was able to sell the Pro for 4 years without ever dropping its MSRP. I only recall it going on sale a few times during black friday but it was $399 pretty much till the end. This is their profit maker and I think the PS5 Pro will be the same.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Yes, I think Sony just doesn't NEED to talk more about the hardware, especially until they get things sorted so that there's a list of recommended drives to expand the internal storage. They probably want to AVOID talking about that right now and also to avoid talking about being able to store PS5 data on external drives, etc.

Bottom line as you say, the games are speaking for them right now and speaking very well. Regarding Microsoft...Sony's got plenty of exclusives as well coming and MS doesn't have anything besides Halo that will be seen before late 2022 at the earliest, so they really don't need to do a lot of talking right now. The PS5 NATIVE games are going to do even more for them, so, I don't think we'll be seeing a lot of technical hardware talk from them anytime soon.
I think this is why I wanted Microsoft to succeed more than anything. Competition is good for consumers, and if MS hadn't dropped the ball, Sony wouldve had to go above and beyond and really sell us the PS5. I agree, at the moment, there is no need to have any other conference. They will do state of plays for games that are coming out in a months time and that would be that.

I am hoping MS is planning a great E3 with Starfield, Elder Scrolls, Halo reboot, and hoepfully a couple of gameplay demos that look next gen as fuck, but aside from the bethesda stuff, im not sure if they can deliver all that just one year after making CG trailers.

Anyone curious about Sony and Mark Cerny's silence on the PS5 hardware? I remember when both the PS4 and Pro came out, we had several interviews with Mark Cerny were he went full deep dive into the architecture of those consoles and we got a lot of interesting information. With the PS5, the only thing we've gone on is the Road to PS5 talk, which had a ton of information but was also a little watered down to appeal to a more broader audience.

I remember RGT a while back mentioned that there was an internal mandate at Sony from Jim Ryan, which basically told the Playstation engineering team to sit back and be silent and that the "games will do the talking", and this was mostly due to the negative reception of the PS5 talk. RGT's leak is to be taken with a grain of salt of course but it lines up really well with Sony's behaviour since last year March.

I do expect eventually we'll get more interviews and deep dives with Mark Cerny, hopefully soon. It would be nice to get confirmation on a lot of things, especially the rumoured features as well as shedding more light on known features such the Geometry Engine and the other components.
The RGT leak makes sense but i dont trust the guy's sources. It's something I can come up with.

I think Cerny just got sick of Richard's constant skepticism and said fuck it these people are hopeless. It's clear now that he wasnt doing damage control about variable clocks or going fast and narrow over wide and slow. If I was Mark Cerny, I would be giving everyone a cold shoulder after that as well. Especially Digital Foundry who still to this day are SHOCKED and BAFFLED (their words) by the PS5 outperforming the Xbox Series X. Umm maybe they should've trusted the Engineer who told them this stuff 8 months ago instead of some PR from Liar of the Year Phil Spencer?
 

kyliethicc

Member
Surely the PS5 with its 200+ watts power consumption proves that this is no longer true. Hell, i remember when everyone here was saying that $399 is the sweet spot and sony would never launch a $500 console. yet here we are and both the power consumption and price barriers have been broken.

I dont necessarily disagree with the rest of your points, but I will say that these consoles will not be able to do 60 fps on next gen titles that have ray tracing and top out at 1440p. Watch dogs is a great example. 1440p 30 fps with RT. Spiderman can do 1440p 60 fps with rt but has to make several other concessions to get there. fewer crowd NPCs, traffic density, lighting and other VFX and thats a current gen game. When games running on UE5 come out at 1440p and 30 fps, people are gonna want more. Especially now that they have gotten a taste of 60 fps in AAA open world titles like Ghosts, AC Valhalla, Spiderman, Days Gone and Borderlands. They will flock to the mid gen upgrade that gets them 60 fps at true 4k. or 60 fps with better RT.

Sony was able to sell the Pro for 4 years without ever dropping its MSRP. I only recall it going on sale a few times during black friday but it was $399 pretty much till the end. This is their profit maker and I think the PS5 Pro will be the same.
The issue is PS4 Pro did not double the frame rate of most PS4 games. Uncharted, Horizon, GT, Ghost of Tsushima, The Last of Us, Spider-Man, Days Gone, etc... all are 30 FPS on PS4 Pro. Most games on Pro just got minor res bump. So would a PS5 Pro really even deliver 60 FPS for 30 FPS games on PS5? Its already a 4K console and lots of games are 60 (Ratchet, Spidey, Returnal, Sackboy, AC, CoD is even 120 Hz.)

Also, given RDNA architecture and how Sony stick the the same layout of 5 Dual Compute Units per Shader Array, 2 arrays per engine... a PS5 PRO GPU would likely have to be just 2x the PS5. So 80 compute units, maybe 72 active. So a RX 6800 XT. That uses a 750 W PSU and can draw like 300 W just as a graphics card.

PS4 was 250 W PSU, and drew around 150 W max. PS4 Pro was 300 W PSU and drew around the same power. PS5 is 350 W PSU and draws like 200 W. Of course some console will inevitably be the largest sized box most users will tolerate, perhaps the PS5 is that.

Here's the real question: Could a PS5 Pro with 72 CUs and faster clock speeds, faster RAM & bw, all actually work with just a 400 W PSU and drawing around 200 W? I doubt it could and not be even ridiculously larger and louder, and more expensive. Anything is possible if they want to make a $600+ console, but for 2023-24, for $500? Seems unlikely.

And there's diminishing returns to res and FPS... most users will only have 4K 60 Hz TVs, and the huge issues it would give game devs to start making games for the "8K console" lol.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Also, given RDNA architecture and how Sony stick the the same layout of 5 Dual Compute Units per Shader Array, 2 arrays per engine... a PS5 PRO GPU would likely have to be just 2x the PS5. So 80 compute units, maybe 72 active. So a RX 6800 XT. That uses a 750 W PSU and can draw like 300 W just as a graphics card.

PS4 was 250 W PSU, and drew around 150 W max. PS4 Pro was 300 W PSU and drew around the same power. PS5 is 350 W PSU and draws like 200 W. Of course some console will inevitably be the largest sized box most users will tolerate, perhaps the PS5 is that.

Here's the real question: Could a PS5 Pro with 72 CUs and faster clock speeds, faster RAM & bw, all actually work with just a 400 W PSU and drawing around 200 W? I doubt it could and not be even ridiculously larger and louder, and more expensive. Anything is possible if they want to make a $600+ console, but for 2023-24, for $500? Seems unlikely.
I think so. It might be a bit over 200W. Maybe 225w but at 5nm, the power consumption of a 72 CU GPU should be far lower than what it is right now at 7nm. Then there are architectural improvements going from RDNA 2 to RDNA 3.0 or above which should save them some power as well. Remember, the PS4 Pro used the Polaris architecture which not had 25% IPC gains but also some power efficiency gains over GCN 1.0 or Tahiti.

Just look at the 5700xt being a 250w GPU at only 1.9 ghz on RDNA 1.0. The PS5 is 205w max for the entire system at 2.23 ghz with only 4 fewer CUs. 5nm is already in pre-production, and should be far cheaper in 2023. The real question is what can AMD do in 3 years. Is RDNA 3.0 going to be a huge leap like RDNA 2.0 or Polaris was last gen? Are they going to be able to add more RT cores and Tensor cores without blowing their silicon budget? Zen 3 is already pushing clocks up to 4.9 ghz at only 105w with a 32 MB cache. on a smaller node, maybe they wont even need to go with more CPU cores and just push the clocks up to 5.0 ghz while keeping the cache at 8MB.

It's definitely gonna be a $500 console with faster clock RAM and bigger SSD, but I dont think the power requirements will derail their plans. Remember the PS5 is only that big because they went with a cheap cooling solution. Xbox has shown that with vapor chamber cooling you can have a much smaller and more compact system. Sony was just trying to cut costs to hit $399 for their cheapest box.
 

AeneaGames

Member
I notice there's no mention of the Slim or the PS4 black 500GB versions unless they had already been discontinued 🤔

Could also be a translation issue.

Doubtful, it would be a first for Sony to stop production of all previous gen models so soon after releasing a new gen.

Shops were told that those 5 models could not be restocked, meaning that the other ones still can be. That they try to limit the amount of different last gen models makes total sense...
 

kyliethicc

Member
I think so. It might be a bit over 200W. Maybe 225w but at 5nm, the power consumption of a 72 CU GPU should be far lower than what it is right now at 7nm. Then there are architectural improvements going from RDNA 2 to RDNA 3.0 or above which should save them some power as well. Remember, the PS4 Pro used the Polaris architecture which not had 25% IPC gains but also some power efficiency gains over GCN 1.0 or Tahiti.

Just look at the 5700xt being a 250w GPU at only 1.9 ghz on RDNA 1.0. The PS5 is 205w max for the entire system at 2.23 ghz with only 4 fewer CUs. 5nm is already in pre-production, and should be far cheaper in 2023. The real question is what can AMD do in 3 years. Is RDNA 3.0 going to be a huge leap like RDNA 2.0 or Polaris was last gen? Are they going to be able to add more RT cores and Tensor cores without blowing their silicon budget? Zen 3 is already pushing clocks up to 4.9 ghz at only 105w with a 32 MB cache. on a smaller node, maybe they wont even need to go with more CPU cores and just push the clocks up to 5.0 ghz while keeping the cache at 8MB.

It's definitely gonna be a $500 console with faster clock RAM and bigger SSD, but I dont think the power requirements will derail their plans. Remember the PS5 is only that big because they went with a cheap cooling solution. Xbox has shown that with vapor chamber cooling you can have a much smaller and more compact system. Sony was just trying to cut costs to hit $399 for their cheapest box.
Fair enough, good points.
 
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