PS5 Will Release Early 2019 (Opinion)

[Alby_da_Wolf]

JEMC said:

gcwy said:

You're comparing directly by theoretical numbers, and even then don't factor in important ones like the clock speed, you should see that I used FLOPS to compare different GPUs (of course there are architectural differences, TMUs and ROPs that affect the overall performance too) and it's better than simply using shader cores and the like. I mentioned a 12TFLOPS GPU for PS5 in 2020 in my original post, which is exactly twice the power of Xbox One X, even without accounting for its architectural enhancements.

Xbox One X, from what I'm seeing, is running half of its games using a CBR method (or some reconstruction technique, or even dynamic resolution) to achieve 4K and half at native 4K, most first party MS games are native 4K, however. It might change when the console gets released and more games support it, though. Barring the resolution upgrades, the One X also has other visual improvements to the image quality, like higher resolution textures and in specific cases it utilises a higher quality of visual settings e.g. better AO solution, higher quality of depth of field, better LODs and better draw distances, just to name a few. If we consider the latter, half of PS5 games should have no trouble running at 4K while leaving a signifcant headroom for improving visual fidelity. As for demanding games, I absolutely expect some games to not make native 4K. I don't remember there being a single gen (after Genesis/SNES) where every single game was running native resolution. Developers will surely be sacrificing image quality if need be, it's been done before.

I think comparing PS4 Pro enchancements and using that as a basis for next-gen console visual upgrades is a bit deceptive because games will be developed from the ground up for next gen consoles and it's obvious that these mid-gen refreshes aren't being fully utilised, probably never will be because of this. We should see significant changes in lighting models or probably entirely different rendering techniques, though I may be reaching here. One thing I did not consider while contemplating this, is that consoles already use a portion of their resources to for GPGPU tasks to make up for the weak CPUs. As the CPU upgrade will be a noticeable jump from this gen, we should definitely see less of that and more free resources for developers to use for graphics.

Well, we both agree that there's no way Sony can launch PS5 early 2019 because it wouldn't offer a big enough jump in performance.

Beyond that, you believe that a 12 TFlops GPU, so something like AMD's current Vega 64, would be enough of a jump while I think that it wouldn't be enough. Who will be right? Only time will tell.

There's still a problem, tho. Will AMD be able to produce a GPU that powerful but with a low enough TDP to make it viable for a console? I mean, it's impossible to do that on 12nm, so they'll have to wait for 7nm. Will it arrive in time?

Indeed. For console makers, as for other consumer electronics producers, unlike for gaming PC market, where they are optional and/or niche, there are two factors that are as important as raw performances, performances per watt and performances per dollar, those are the factors that give the green light after the first parameter, desired performances, has been reached by mass-produced components.
And as I partially wrote in another answer to gcwy, there are two factors, demand and customised APUs, less affected by market turmoils, that could favour an acceleration by AMD and reaching the right price, but other factors are against it (mainly all the legal obstacles made by Intel that AMD had to overcome in tribunals and deals to be able to increase CPU production and that are still affecting it for the accumulated past delays and lost potential market share increase during those six years when AMD desktop CPUs always outperformed Intel ones in each market segment including high-end) and crazy and volatile GPU prices and demand due to cryptomining, while in theory in favour of tech acceleration, are OTOH against reaching the right price in the short term both for GPUs and RAM.