| Captain_Tom said: -The thing is 4K isn't as big of a deal as one would initially think. If a gpu's architecture is optimized correctly for a given resolution it can make a big difference. For instance the 290X is only ~30% stronger than the 7970 in 1080p, but in 4K it becomes 50%+ at times and even matches the 980. The 390X is going to use HBM memory on a 4096-bit bus and it is only the first gen of HBM. Plus AA really won't be needed anymore so that will help quite a bit. -I did say 16-32GB of RAM so I think it could be somewhere in-between. I believe 16GB would be enough to skimp by a little better than the PS3 did, and 32GB is far more than enough just like the PS4. -Remember SSD's are expensive now, but their prices are changing rapidly. 2 years ago a 1TB SSD was $4000, a year ago it was $1000, and now it is under $500. They really might be at current HDD prices by 2019. -They went with an 8-core at 1.6GHz because they had no other choice. AMD is the only vendor who can provide both a decent GPU and CPU in one package. The bulldozer family was a complete failure to the point that clock-for-clock the Jaguar cores in the PS4 are just as fast as the big desktop processors AMD is currently trying to get rid of. Then consider that 2xjaguar clusters only use 40-50w and the 1.6GHz models are dirt cheap and have a respectable amount of horsepower behind them. If used correctly a 1.6GHz 8-core is just as fast as a 3.2GHz quad-core, and better at lower framerates with lots of data onscreen. What gaming devices tend to push as much crap as possible at the expense of a lower framerate? -> Consoles.
Now you could make my same argument for why they would go with 16 cores instead of 8 faster ones, but things change a little. Utilizing 6-cores in a game as been done for a long time since the 360 and PS3 used 6-cores for gaming anyways (2-cores in the PS4 are used for background tasks). However 16 has never been utilized that well in gaming so far. Also by the time the PS5 comes out AMD's low-power cpu's should be ~3-4GHz (The newer ones are already at 2.4). I am just assuming Sony will continue to use the same types of products, and in 5 years I don't think many things will even be buyable below 3GHz lol. |
Thanks, that sounds very reasonable. I still think 16GB is a bit low in 5 years. Laptops already ship with 16GB now. 24GB maybe, 8 for the OS and as a memory cache, 16GB available for games. AA will still be needed in 4K. This gen has made a 16x jump in memory as opposed to the 8x jump the gen before. Last-gen was memory starved though, and an OS with video features is pretty memory hungry. If you go by 8x increase from original xbox, 32GB would be the next step. Yet skimping by on 16GB of very fast memory shared memory would probably deliver better optimized games.
As for HDD, I expect marketing to be the determining factor there. Sure SSD is getting cheaper yet the cheapest 1TB SSD is $419 currently, vs $50 for a 1TB HDD, $78 for 2TB. That difference won't be eradicated in 5 years. A cheap 2TB model, and a more decked out 4TB model seems more likely than a 1TB SSD model next gen. It's simply the easiest way to save on costs.
It's hard to tell, some already predicted SSD's to catch up to HDD late last year or this year, others still expect a factor 6 difference in 2020 for large capacities. Since next gen will be even more about digital only consoles, I expect capacity to win over speed.
