After much resistance, I am on board with the Neo

[Lafiel]

SvennoJ said:

Lafiel said:

were they wrong? Is U4 not a giant leap up from launch games? and the stuff they are able to do with "dreams" is just breathtaking

I very much doubt Sony is releasing a stronger PS4 because the performance of the console isn't good enough to warrant 10 years of software support, the reason is much much more likely to be economics. My theory (I voiced several times in this and other threads) is that there is very limited potential for price cuts with the current model possibly due to shrinking the APU not being viable (horrible yields, enormous investments to get current architecture rdy for different process), while the stronger APU actually can end up being cheaper (smaller die size) > more potential for price cuts in the future, which extends sales/profits to be had with the console.

Erm, in no universe is doubling the amount of compute units cheaper than sticking to the same amount. Makes no sense.
You say smaller die size is possible for a new APU but not for the current one?

As I said, my theory is that it's simply not viable to shrink the current architecture, so they have to use one made for 14/16nm finfet to use this process.

But using a same-spec (18CU etc) chip as the old one opens a whole new can of worms, because code written "to the metal" for the old chip won't run as efficiently out of the box (and they certainly don't want every game to need a patch) on the new architecture, so to circumvent this problem they imo always had to throw in additional CUs to make sure the finfet chip can brute force PS4 parity in unpatched games. Doubling the CU count even makes it possible to sell the PS4 Neo at a higher price as long as both version coexist > higher margins.

Due to the enormous differences in structure size between chips made in 28nm and 14/16nm the PS4 Neo APU will certainly have a smaller die size than the current PS4 APU and in the end (when yields have caught up and process costs have sunken due to enough production capacities being available) that's the most important factor for chip price per unit (the more working chips you get from a silicon wafer, the cheaper they are per unit).