I'm not sure if memory bandwidth is all that much of an issue with the Radeon VII ? Maybe it has an overabundance of memory bandwidth ? Honestly, all that memory bandwidth is probably more useful for machine learning frameworks like Tensorflow or PyTorch ... 

The X1 has a pretty customized version of DirectX altogether so definitely a no go on PC but all those serious developers don't want to lose Windows 7 compatibility as well so they delay making changes to their code base and as a result AMD graphics hardware suffers for it ... 

Things need to change faster and quicker ... 

It has different performance states but it's still pretty much fixed hardware just like how "boost clocks" on PC doesn't change the underlying hardware components. Rest assured on a console like the Switch, developers can afford to keep Maxwell specific shader optimizations ... 

Nvidia maybe able to spend more for optimizations but they can't afford to control every engine developer out there so more often than not engine developers will prioritize consoles and to a lesser extent AMD hardware as well like we see on Snowdrop, Frostbite (despite RTX integration), RE Engine, Dunia, and ForzaTech ... (Nvidia literally cannot control every aspects of the engine design because there are at least thousands of employees in the industry that contributes here) 

I think you took that out of context. Nvidia's driver stack is nowhere near as extensive as AMD's ... (no way in hell does AMD spend the amount of time like Nvidia does for the upkeep)

An Nvidia 'driver' could be like discovering a new operating system altogether in comparison to AMD drivers. Nvidia has a nauseating amount of hacks in their drivers to maintain just to keep their performance wins ... 

I don't think you understand just how much of a maintenance burden Nvidia's approach is in comparison to AMD's ... (keeping the entire evolving software stack up to date with new exotic hardware releases EVERY 15 MONTHS is utter insanity)

It's really not since AMD has to meet it's end of the obligations with other partners and I don't believe Nvidia has ever stagnated a whole lot even with releases of less than desirable architectures ... 

It's for consumers to decide what they want to expect, whether that being totally new or "old with a different sticker" (massive amount of hyperbole) so it's not our business to demand what they truly desire ... 

I doubt Nvidia can meet the needs of either Sony or Microsoft and Nvidia are the second worst if not the worst CPU designer out of all the major corporations ... (their ARM cores just like their GPUs in the mobile space guzzles a lot of power but what's more is that they are buggy as well)

Most of Nvidia's YoY revenue growth comes down to raising their prices ... 

They are not growing their customer base as much as they nearly used to. Without x86 or POWER, Nvidia has no future ... (they should've settled with Intel for x86 patents instead some cash because now they're locked out of a race between where only AMD or Intel may compete) 

ARM is only ever truly competitive in the mobile space and we all know how that turned out ... 

It was probably for the best that AMD sold off Adreno because Nvidia figured it out the hard way that just having good graphics technology is not enough to succeed. Having to design ARM cores AND modems was more than what AMD or Nvidia were willing to chew on ... (Qualcomm instills a massive amount fear towards even giants like Intel)

Tegra is done for man. It was initially branded for mobile but plans changed since Nvidia couldn't design LTE modems for crap like Qualcomm did so Nvidia rebranded it for automotive but if a struggling auto manufacturer like Tesla are able to competently source their own chip designs then I have no doubt in my mind that Nvidia can be easily dumped in this sector as well ... 

IoT ? Nvidia solutions are even less compelling ever since they killed off Icera to stop developing wireless technology like 5G ... 

Except for wireless technology like modems (Qualcomm), image sensors/cameras (Sony), flash memory and DRAM (Samsung) ... (a lot of corporations would kill to be in Apple's envious position in which they have strong control over their own ecosystem)

Apple is what we could say to be a semi-vertically integrated business since they don't own all of the supply chain ... 

I'd be okay with Intel graphics for low end gaming if their drivers weren't so bad ...

Haswell was a really good improvement IMO since it was a first for Intel to come with it's own unique advantages in comparison to either AMD or Nvidia and they managed to standardize some of that stuff in DX12 as well! (particularly their work on ROVs and conservative rasterization) 

Skylake went to a whole new level and Gen 11/Xe will only take that further ... 

Not exactly what I'm looking for. Intel needs a catchy graphics optimized platform 'slogan' like 'GE' or 'TIMTBP' and I want Intel specific graphics solutions like Nvidia GameWorks library such as HairWorks etc ... 

GTA V is an awful benchmark since it doesn't match up to the capabilities of modern hardware or modern games ... 

Touche!

Bandwidth is insanely important... Especially for Graphics Core Next and especially at higher resolutions.
Graphics Core Next being a highly compute orientated architecture generally cannot get enough bandwidth.

In saying that... There is a point of diminishing returns... Despite the fact that Vega 7 increased bandwidth by 112% and compute by 9%... Performance only jumped by a modest 30-40% depending on game... So the "sweet spot" in terms of bandwidth is likely between Vega 64 and Vega 7. Maybe 768GB/s?

Vega 7's inherent architectural limitations tends to stem not from Compute or Bandwidth though... So when you overclock the Ram by an additional 20% (1.2TB/s!) you might only get a couple % points of performance... But bolstering core clock will net almost a linear increase, so it's not bandwidth starved by any measure.

Not to mention rolling out a version of Direct X 12 for Windows 7.

EA has proven to be pretty flexible though. They worked with AMD to introduce Mantle... Which was a white elephant... AMD eventually gave up on it... And then Khronos used it for Vulkan for better or worse.

In short though, without a doubt nVidia does get more support in engines on the PC side of the equation over AMD... Despite the fact AMD has had it's hardware in the majority of console over the last few generations. (Wii, WiiU, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Playstation 4.)

Part of that is nVidias collaboration with developers... Which has been a thing for decades.

ATI did start meeting nVidia head on back in the R300 days though... Hence the battle-lines between Doom 3 and Half Life 2, but nothing of that level of competitiveness has been seen since.

nVidia can also afford to spend more time and effort on upkeep.

Both AMD and nVidia's drivers are more complex than some older Windows/Linux Kernels.

Actually I do! But it's not as extensive as you portray it to be.
I.E. Pascal and Maxwell share a significant amount of similarities from top to bottom... Kepler and Fermi could be grouped together also. Turing is a significant deviation from prior architectures, but shares a few similarities from Volta.

Even then AMD isn't as clean cut either... They have GCN 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0 and soon 6.0.

Back before this re-badging... Performance used to increase at a frantically rapid rate even on the same node.

nVidia is an ARM licensee. They can use ARM's design instead of Denver... From there they really aren't going to be that different from any other ARM manufacturer that uses vanilla ARM cores.

For mobile your point about power is relevant, but for a fixed console... Not so much. You have orders of magnitude more TDP to play with.
An 8-core ARM SoC with a Geforce 1060 would give an Xbox One X with it's 8-core Jaguars a run for it's money.

Your claim doesn't hold water. nVidia increased margins by only 4.9%, but revenues still shot up far more.

nVidia is diversifying as... Which you alluded to... Their Console and PC gaming customer base isn't really growing, hence where they are seeing the bulk of their gains.
nVidia certainly does have a future, they aren't going anywhere soon... They have Billions in their war chest.

nVidia did figure it out the hard way. But it wasn't lessons lost.
Allot of the efforts that went into making Tegra more efficient... Paid off for Maxwell and Pascal... And we know how superior those parts are compared to their AMD equivalents at every single turn.

Plus they are seeing massive gains in the automotive industry.

Indeed.

I don't think even good drivers could actually solve the issues some of their IGP's have had... Especially parts like the x3000/x3100 from old.

Xe has me excited. Legit. But I am remaining optimistically cautious... Because just like with all their other claims to fame in regards to Graphics and Gaming... Has always resulted in a product that was stupidly underwhelming or ended up cancelled.

But like I said... If any company has the potential, it's certainly Intel.

Still early days yet.

Well... It was a game built for 7th gen hardware first and foremost.
However... Considering it's one of the largest selling games in history... Is played by millions of gamers around the world... And actually still pretty demanding even at 4k, it's a relevant game to add to any benchmark in my opinion.

It's one data point though, you do need others in a benchmark "suite" so you can get a comprehensive idea how a part performs in newer and older titles, better or worse.

Which if the Gonzalo is the PS5s chip, that means 12.9 Tflops, according to DF.  I highly doubt MS is going to top that, as I thought a rumor for the Anaconda was 12 Tflops. Even if they do, I doubt it will be by even 1 whole Tflop.  Xbox is going to have a tough time if it can't tout being vastly more powerful.

@thismentiel
What does more power really mean at tf higher than 12.9? Not more pixels since i doubt games will push more than 4k. I dont think framerate as more than 60fps is useles on consoles. They might focus on raytracing but even now most get show a comparison and they cant tell it apart.

There was a confirmation from sony that they are pushing to eliminate loading screens and the key is ssd's.

I think power wont mean anything next gen.

Well, I'm sure whoever gets the crown will still try to push the most powerful console ever made point. Of course, if the difference is only ~10% and they are the same price, it won't make much of a difference. PS5 will still have the advantage there.

It will be interesting to see what MS uses to push the XB2. If they don't copy Sony SSD solution for next gen, they are going to be at a huge disadvantage. And if they do, will they even be able to stick it in the cheaper SKU?

@Thismentiel
I dont remember sony pushing the most powerfull when they had the advantage. I could be wrong. But i believe only MS did and it was after most people came to accept that MS had problems with exclusive quantity and quality. I dont think that would fly in th 9th gen anymore so it might be ok to say it a few time but like now where is basicly every add would be stupid.

PS4: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ps4-the-world-s-most-powerful-console-according-to/1100-6427532/

PS4 Pro: https://wccftech.com/playstation-4-pro-most-powerful-console/

I don't think PS really used it for base PS4, but at that time PS themselves weren't really pushing the power narrative. Yet PS used it for Pro, after XB already started using it for Project Scorpio and will use it again if Anaconda has weaker performance on paper. After the marketing push MS had behind XB1X using this slogan, PS will surely want to throw it in the face of MS since that's one of the things their customers have been using to justify remaining on the XB platform.

It's hard to believe MS will go above $499, but if the two SKU approach is true, they could very well get away with it, especially if PS5 is in fact $499 at launch. If you have a $499 PS5, then MS can launch Lockhart anywhere from $299-$399, and they can launch Anaconda at $599. If Lockhart were 6TF give or take, at $399, it would fall right into place where XB1X would have dropped to next, which is the "sweet spot". That should lead to much better sales for Lockhart in comparison to XB1, which means it doesn't really matter who buys Anaconda, just as long as enough are sold to make the upper tier worth it going forward. Even if Anaconda didn't sell much, it would still allow MS the bragging rights and marketing to be able to say we have the strongest hardware on the market, even if it's only say 10% of total next gen sales.

If this is the case, it will be interesting to see what PS does, and whether or not they drop $50 or so to try and better compete in terms of price with Lockhart, because there won't be anything they can do to compete with a $599 Anaconda aside from large multi game bundles.

On the other hand, if Lockhart was $299-$349, and Anaconda is $500-$600, then it very well may be in the best interest of PS to keep the price of PS5 higher at $499 if possible. This would be done to make customers question Lockhart. If you're buying a next gen console, and one is $299, and the other two are $499 or higher, your going to ask yourself which one is out of place and does it belong? If PS only has one console at $499, and MS also has one around that price, but they also have a $299 SKU, is it really going to cut it? Is it going to lead to buying $100 or more in accessories down the line to make up for the initial low price? If PS5 is expensive enough to manufacture that they can't bring the single SKU price down to compete with Lockhart, then keeping the price up around Anaconda will give them the best chance of consumers passing up on Lockhart for the next step up in price, which would be PS5.

If they aim to copy the features that Sony announced, such as load times being near nonexistent and ray tracing HW, in both SKUs, my guess is the Lockhart is going to be $399.  This means that the PS5 is going to be just $100 more for a system that is 3x the power, if leaks are accurate.  And with PS5 being B/C with the PS4, I see most people who gamed on the PS4, sticking with the PS5, since they can sell their PS4s and get a system that plays both last gen and next gen games.  In this case, I really don't see the Lockhart selling any better than the XBO.  There were times when the XBO was on sale for $50+ less than the PS4, yet that still didn't change its fortunes, or even cause it to outsell the PS4 in the XBO's strongest market, the US.  And that was against a system that was ~40% more powerful.  This would be one that is 200% more powerful if the 4Tflops leak is accurate.  God help them if Sony takes a bigger hit and sell for $449.  Or if by some magic they still hit that $399 price.

The only way I think MS can sell the Lockhart at $299 is if they either take a huge loss, which MS has shown this gen they really don't have much interest in, or it lacks quite a few features that Sony is making standard next gen for consoles, i.e. ray tracing HW and a SSD to practically eliminate load times, as well as 4K (at least 4K CB for the more graphic intensive games.)  At that point, you are correct, and people are going to start wondering what's lacking in the Lockhart to make it that low.  Of course, that will be the general consumer audience.  The core gamers that make up the majority of early adopters will already know the deal with the Lockhart and will avoid it like the plague.  They will want a real jump over this gen, not a half-step that seems almost pointless.

Well a $399 and $499 MS strategy could make sense, like the $299 and $399 PS4 strategy this gen. That would allow consumers who wanted a better SKU but not something too expensive, to move up to PS5 or Anaconda at $499. It does leave the door open for PS to subsidize PS5 and potentially drop it $50-$100, but you would likely assume that MS would have anticipated this and would just make sure to keep a $100 gap between Lockhart and PS5 at all times.

The big problem XB1 had by the time it had worthy price cuts and better looking hardware, is that it's name was tarnished by then. PS4 already had the momentum and there was little MS could do at that point. The bundles in addition to the price cut's that didn't help much further prove that. Once a new gen starts though, assuming XB1X and maybe even XB1S get scrapped, a quality low priced SKU with the games to back it up, will have another chance to shake things up next gen.

I've always thought the 4TF $299 model just didn't make sense. If XB1X is 6TF I find it hard to believe that Lockhart would be any less than that. Now if it has all the bells and whistles, then maybe 4TF was necessary to keep the price down below $399, which shouldn't matter all that much if it's clearly marketed as a 1080p/60 unit. If Lockhart ends up below $399, I don't see any logic in making Anaconda more than $499. Too much gap will also make PS5 more appealing.

Now if PS5 can hit $499 at it's leaked specs, then you could also guess that Lockhart at $399 could very well be more than 6TF. The better the performance Lockhart was at that price, the tougher it would be for PS5 at $499. However, the closer Lockhart would be to PS5, the less room either company probably may have to drop the price, so if PS bites the bullet and takes another $50 hit, MS may not have the wiggle room to move Lockhart down $50 as well to keep the $100 gap.

Adding just the third console to the mix really complicates things, because this can play out in so many different ways with that combo. The advantage PS has is that unless 'XB2's' launch much later than PS5, PS should be able to sit back and watch MS to announce first, and can plan around it like they did with Pro. They can't completely change the console, but they can make adjustments so PS5 can fit in wherever they think works best for them.