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News Sony PlayStation 4.5 specifications leaked

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Gareth Halfacree, 19 Apr 2016.

  1. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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  2. Harlequin

    Harlequin Modder

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    the smart money is saying this is POLARIS 10 GPU core
     
  3. b1candy

    b1candy What's a Dremel?

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    The smart money is saying that the GPU Arch would have had to be ready months ago. AMD only manufacturers their Jaguar cores on 28nm, and given that it's a combo APU die then the GPU is going to be 28nm as well. Smart money is not on Polaris.
     
  4. DbD

    DbD Minimodder

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    But that's a new GN revision. Existing games are tweaked exactly to run with original hardware, hence by far the best and really only reliable way to achieve this would be to have older games run with 18 CU's identical to existing PS4 running at the same speed and the CPU's clocked down to the same speed too. Then you've got to remember polaris 10 is a gpu, this is an APU (CPU+GPU combo) using shared memory and other things specifically to Sony's demands.

    So no that money is not smart, it can't be Polaris 10, it's highly unlikely to to even use newer versions of GCN.
     
  5. play_boy_2000

    play_boy_2000 ^It was funny when I was 12

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    Surely this must be a 16 or 14nm die (shrink?). If even 1/10th as many 4.5s sell as the vanilla version, that still accounts for 4 million units, which surely justifies the modifications necessary for a die shrink.

    As for Polaris - unless they can guarantee compatibility with existing games or ship the console integrated with patches for every game that doesn't work properly...
     
  6. RedFlames

    RedFlames ...is not a Belgian football team

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    If it's still a jaguar/puma-based SoC [die shrunk or not] then it'll almost certainly be a GCN 1.0 based GPU like the regular PS4.
     
  7. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    Can not see it been Polaris, and if it is we will not see a lot off consumer polaris gpus in PC market. Sony will demand a high volume. Polaris volumes will not be huge to begin with. If it's Polaris AMD would be paper launching it to the PC sector as the product would be next to impossible to source.
     
  8. sandys

    sandys Multimodder

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    this Neo will be Niche, it will come in at a high price, probably not high volume at all.

    If the Specs are to push 4k and support all the new stuff in the latest Sony TVs then it will have a pricey BD player in there too with support for the latest formats otherwise what is the point, VR is going to be an even smaller market than 4k so won't be doing it for that.

    Wouldn't be too surprising if it came out as a high end UHD Blu ray player with PS4 ability as people pay shed loads for AV equipment.
     
  9. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    1) Far more likely that both Sony and Microsoft will have paid AMD to shrink the Jags to 16nm for upcoming 'slim' / cost-down consoles anyway, than AMD makes Polaris on 28nm.

    2) Plus, doubling the shader count on 28nm = doubling the size of every component: heatsink, VRMs, power brick etc.

    3) TSMC 16nm has plenty of capacity to accommodate MS and PS4, since Polaris is being made on 14nm by GloFo and TSMC ship out tens of millions of smartphone chips on 16nm versus -at most- a few mil a quarter of consoles.

    People will still buy it for the same reasons they bought the PS4 over XB1 originaly: spec sells.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: 20 Apr 2016
  10. Harlequin

    Harlequin Modder

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    AMD don't make Jaguar either - it was replaced with puma in 2014....
     
  11. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    AMD still make jaguar due to the console chip requirements. If you get into a contract your making that part of it till End of Life.

    Nvidia said as much on the gpu part of the PlayStation 3. It's unlikely AMD would be simply able to replace jaguar with puma with no performance gains or compatibility issues.
     
  12. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    Somewhat different.

    AMD's semi-custom division actually fully designs then licenses the technology to others for them to use as they wish, which is why you have Microsoft and Sony stamped on the chip itself. Nvidia NEVER did this with the original Xbox and PS3, they just resold effectively off-the-shelf parts. Nvidia screwed over both MS and Sony successively, refusing to reduce the cost of the parts and refab the chips, and they were unwilling to hand over any IP to let the companies do it themselves either, hence, those bridges were burnt. Nvidia's argument was that ASPs on console chips were too low - it wasn't/isn't worth their time, which is true when we look at AMD's ASP numbers - the semi-custom division is much lower than others in the 20s% vs 40s+% elsewhere.

    @Harlequin - Possibly even Puma+ (Cazzaro-L) as that scaled beyond 2GHz easily in 12-25W (including small GPU). I'd imagine they want as much (still ****) CPU horsepower as possible while retaining the same basic core arch. Still probably doesn't have unified L2 across all 8 cores though, so you'll still get bus or cache thrashing between core groups. :rolleyes:
     
  13. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    So for Sony to use Puma would surely mean another decent chunk of cash coming AMDs way which would be reflected in there income surely? Since it's a different line of APU chips.
     
  14. Harlequin

    Harlequin Modder

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    hmmm had a brain wave


    AMD Carrizo

    35w - 4 excavator cores - and the gpu part is an improved R9 285?

    of if they want custom and power shrink - the Carrizo-L A8-7410 with beefed up R9 480 gpu part?
     
  15. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    Yep, but depends how the contract works. AMD will probably get cash upfront to do the redesigned chip work since it needs to be completely redesigned anyway for 16nm FF, then they'll take a small% of each PS4.5 sold as payment for using its IP. Whether they get paid different % depending on the classification of the technology inside or the total performance/size of the chip (like ARM does to some extent), who knows.
    Also even if Sony/MS/both are doing 'slim' consoles based on their current designs shrunk to 16nm FF, AMD will again get upfront design payment + sales license fee.

    Carrizo is Excavator while Carrizo-L is Puma+; both console manuf. did NOT want Bulldozer-generation because of the 50% FPU issue: 8 Jag/Pumas+ = 8 FPU. Like you say though it's maybe two A8-7410(@2.1GHz though) slapped together + R9 ~480(X) on some unnamed cache coherent fabric + higher clocked GDDR5.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: 21 Apr 2016
  16. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    Rumours are this will be the last console released from Sony or Microsoft. Sony president said it was a Big If on one of the live stages for a PlayStation 5 to ever see light of day.

    Microsoft have said similar things about current Xbox.

    The only reason either would do this would be profits from consoles are not high enough.
     
  17. sandys

    sandys Multimodder

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    Profits are high enough but probably not as enticing as selling gaming as a service, once out of this cycle most of the groundwork in game streaming and infrastructure will be in place, just need an app or some small HDMI client to do the rest, job done.
     
  18. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    This. They don't need an expensive console, they just need to sell a service.
     
  19. Assassin8or

    Assassin8or Minimodder

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    This is odd, because the consoles tie buyers into a set infrastructure and eliminate competition on that platform. One you start to get rid of the hardware vendor lock in you open yourself up to competition.

    Also, what hardware? A PC? A tablet? Tablets are a pile o' crap for gaming, PCs have all the issues that come with them which people buy consoles to avoid. Someone is talking out of their posterior of they think that consoles aren't going to continue to be in demand for anything other than idle gaming.
     
  20. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    Sony and Microsofts chief exes then? As that's where the comment was said on a live stage broadcast on one of the biggest events so far.

    Sony is not denying there's a demand they are just looking at the cost of such things. Both Microsoft and Sony said it would be a If not When they launch a ps5 or next gen Xbox. As they were both asked to clarify that they wanted that said on a live stage event.

    4K gaming is many years away and if it will ever reach a point of been affordable is questionable at best. Effectively a £150 gpu would have to do 4K for either console to have it as a option.

    Sony and Microsoft have both learned consoles over £400 are a hard sale to the consumers.
     

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