Pemalite said: Zen's CPU cores are tiny. So there is no reason not to use them next generation from a cost perspective. So that is a plus. |
Well for cost I was thinking more along the lines of old tech vs new tech as well as demand. Jaguar should cost less than Ryzen up until AMD is sick of dealing with far outdated architecture, or until the demand for Ryzen dries up a little. If Ryzen sales are through the roof, AMD could have trouble finding a way to supply a Ryzen based chip for PS and XB, unless they use a different foundry again.
It does look like XB1X is going to be 4k/60 for first party titles mostly, and checkerboarding otherwise. How much of that is due to the hardware, API, and devs, will remain to be seen. It is hard to imagine XB1X being able to handle games that play 4k/60 on a Ryzen based PS5 down the road though. That's if PS shoots for 60fps. Who knows, PS might aim for a 4k/30 based Ryzen, which wouldn't make the XB1X seem quite as outdated as it would be otherwise.
RAM is a tough one. While an APU is still most likely, with rumors of separate chips, split pools might make more sense then. 4GB DDR4 (DDR5?) and 16GB GDDR6 maybe? AMD seems to be pushing HBM hard, but seeing if they incorporate HBM into Navi, Ryzen APU, and future designs, should be a good indicator if HBM is headed to console. What Nvidia does as well would even further give an idea of HBM's reach. Having HBM on the interposer with an APU would be fantastic for saving space inside the console allowing for an even smaller shell to add to the wow factor, as well as multiple cost savings. With Vega supposedly only having 8GB HBM, its really hard to say how much would be needed for a console in 2-3 years time. 16GB for the entire APU possibly?