Will sales of the Scorpio take a hit?

[drkohler]

binary solo said:

Question: Are there any advantages to running a GPU at minimum or average clock vs maximum/overclock? I assume a GPU needs to work with all other components of teh system, which means it's operating speeds need to be in sync with CPU etc. So is PS4P going with the (probable) minimum clock more about how the GPU needs to operate in sync with the CPU than there being any inherent benefit to operating at minimum? I assume higher clock means more heat, but that shouldn't matter if you have decent cooling/venting.

In the PS4Pro, the cpu and gpu seem to be using different clock generators (like the XBox, unlike the PS4). The problem with AMD designs is they use a "pack as much as possible as tightly as possible" philosophy which tends to limit viable speeds rapidly, unlike NVidia that uses kind of a "keep it simple and leave space to breath" design philosophy.

Generally, the higher the clock rate, the more current you must provide (and remove!). At school, we learned that P = I^2*R is the heat dissipated in resistors, and you see it goes with the square of current I. AMD designs have the tendency to "totally lose it" above a certain current. A stock RX480 card already reaches 150W and for a 6TF card, easily passes 200W. Then you have to add an 8core "better than Jaguar" cpu which adds 60-90W depending on speed.

For a console, a SoC that draws more than 200W is no longer viable economically. The PS4Pro's gpu clock was chosen to be in a safe thermal spot and that seems to be the purported 911MHz. There is a common myth that "you just use a better cooler" but that is a dangerous thought train. Because chips get smaller faster than current decreases, at some point you can no longer dissipate the generated heat away fast enough economically. For consoles, the price budget for cooling probably is in the $8-$12 range.

With consoles, a fixed clock rate is mandatory. Using temporary boost clocks (of whatever kind) would make game performances unpredictable. The one mantra of consoles is that every console must run the same performance at all times.

With consoles, it is always price first, speed second. The price requirement pretty much limits what you can do inside a console.