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thismeintiel on 14 February 2017
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shikamaru317 said:
thismeintiel said:

But what is the TDP of the chips in the Pro?  I couldn't find the info myself, but it has to be quite a bit higher than the launch PS4.  I do know it is rated for ~300 watts, I believe.  If they are going to keep up with PCs, to some extent, they are going to have to aim for a higher TDP.  Granted, I do expect them to use semi-custom chips, again, so they are going to be slightly weaker variants.

I'm guessing you meant 20 in your first sentence.  And, I know it's probably unlikely, since it's not guaranteed to launch in 2018.  If they can make it, the chances are greater, but I'm still leaning more towards a Vega 10.  Also, I think Sony is going to want to be around double the Scorpio to make the gap seem even larger, so ~11-12 Tflops.  If they use an underclocked Vega 10, which will also help with heat, they should achieve that. 

I seriously doubt we are going to see anything as low as 8 Tflops.  Even though not every flop is the same, it would just be mocked as barely a jump worthy of a new gen, especially with reasonably priced 15+ Tflops cards launching by then.  It would also only be ~4x more powerful than the OG PS4 and less than twice that of the Pro.  At least with ~12 Tflops, you're looking at ~6-6.5x the OG PS4 and ~3x that of the Pro.  I think the vast majority of console gamers would be fine with that.  If they only went with 8/9 Tflops, it would probably also give MS an easy way to win by just taking a slight loss on a ~12 Tflops XB2.  And I don't think Sony wants to risk that.

The TDP of PS4 Pro is 300 watts, but testing shows that it actually uses less power than the launch PS4 did in some scenarios, and only slightly more power when playing a Pro enhanced game (155 watts for Pro vs 148 watts for the launch PS4): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wNoCnPxTp4

No, I meant Vega 10. Maybe I'm not up to date with the latest rumors, but the last rumor I saw was that Vega 10 will be rated at about 225 watts while using around 200 watts in typical real world scenarios, which makes sense to me, considering it produces twice the flops of the 150 watt rated RX 480. According to that same rumor, Vega 20 will be a 7nm die shrink of Vega 10 releasing in 2018 that is clocked considerably higher and uses less power (rated at 150 watts).

I can't see PS5 being double Scorpio in 2018 and probably not even in 2019, not unless Sony is willing to either sell at a loss early on or launch at $500+. Bear in mind that the Desktop GPU that PS4's GPU is closest too in specs cost about $180 when PS4 released, last I heard Vega 10 is expected to launch around the $350-400 mark later this year, I can't see it dropping to <$250 before Holiday 2018 or even Holiday 2019. The price/performance sweet spot Sony will most likely be going for will probably be Vega 11 (~7-8 tflops) in 2018 and either a cut-down Vega 10 or mid-high range Navi chip in 2019 (~10 gflops). I wouldn't be expecting as big of a boost over previous hardware as we saw this gen, that was a 7 year boost in power (2006-2013), we're most likely looking at a 5-6 year boost this gen (2013-2018/19). PS4 was roughly a 6x boost over PS3, I'd be expecting about a 4.5-5x boost for PS5 (8.1-9 tflop), taking into account the shorter cycle. 

Sorry, meant Vega 20 in the first sentence of your 2nd paragraph.  You said Vega 10 wasn't supposed to launch until 2018/19, when it launches this year. And while the PS4 Pro only uses ~160W+ in probably the more extreme cases, it's obvious it was built to handle more.

Just to be clear, I don't see the PS4 launching until late 2019.  That's two years to see price drops in the components that are out this year, and a year if the 20 in fact launches in 2018.  Again, I'm leaning more towards an underclocked 10.  I just do not see them in any case aiming so low as to go with a Vega 11.  Even if MS was toying with the idea of abandoning the console market, this would 100% change their mind, and give them an easy win if they target the 10.  A ~8Tflops vs ~12Tflops gap can not be ignored. 

As far as prices go, they do drop quit quickly in the GPU world.  The R9 Fury, for example, came out in July of 2015 for $549 (more for an actual graphics card using the chip), but you can get a Fury graphics card for less than $280, now.  Sometime this year, that will probably drop even more.  Sony will also pay a much cheaper price for the chip itself, since it buys in bulk.  Also, keep in mind that Sony has ALWAYS launched at a loss.  It is usually only a slight lose, but it still allows them to put in better chips and make up for the lose with SW sales.  And now with how much money they are raking in with PS Plus, I wouldn't doubt they stretch it a little more if they have to.