| EricHiggin said: Frank mentions the reason SmartShift is being marketed now, is because it's design features that are already in the APU's core design, are being implemented into discreet CPU and GPU solutions now. I can't help but wonder, with the PS4's, XB1's, and XBSX being APU's that we know for certain, which should naturally have SmartShift already, could the fact that SNY is marketing SmartShift for PS5, be a hint that it's actually going to be a discreet CPU and GPU? Basically a semi custom Ryzen 3700 and Radeon '6700'? |
It's an APU. It's been confirmed. This debate is done and dusted, anything else is just conspiracies.
SmartShift is an AMD APU technology.
| EricHiggin said: It's also mentioned that in laptops, the Radeon 5600 was expected to be GTX 1660Ti performance that should boost to RTX 2060, but it's closer to RTX 2060 that can boost to RTX 2070. CPU intensive games drop performance to a 1660Ti level though. With the PS5 GPU basically being a Radeon '6700' (next gen RDNA 5700), the performance of that should be really darn impressive. |
Impressive? Not really. But fantastic for a cost-sensitive device that sits on the upper mid-range of the PC market.
| EricHiggin said: Frank also points out how much money in general SmartShift can save on hardware design. Instead of beefing up your hardware, since games tend to favor the CPU or GPU, you can use SmartShift on 'lesser' hardware and still get beefier hardware like performance, while also saving money by not having to use beefier hardware that's not being put to full use. This could mean PS5 may perform closer to XBSX than we might assume, while also helping to keep the PS5 price down. |
Nah.
SmartShift is basically a technology which allows for the allocation of TDP (Aka Power+Thermals) depending on need.
Having that uncapped and not needing SmartShift is the obvious preferred solution that results in superior performance.
The issue is, notebooks and consoles can only have a finite amount of cooling and power consumption due to form factor and where they are positioned (Cabinet underneath a TV for instance.) that limits thermal dissipation.
Sony has opted to put a cap on total system performance and allow the developers to prioritize CPU or GPU performance based on need... Where-as Microsoft's approach is to give us all the performance, all the time.
Microsoft console has the CPU edge and the GPU edge, SmartShift doesn't change that bar in the slightest, is the difference going to be relevant? Probably not. But technically, without a doubt the Xbox Series X has the overall performance edge by about 20% in GPU compute scenarios.
| EricHiggin said: 44:00 - 47:00 is where he is specifically asked about PS5. He makes a point about the current consoles having monolithic APU's and laptops having discreet CPU and GPU, and says because of that PS5 may have a custom implementation of SmartShift for an APU architecture. Though he also says, you can assume that based on how the consoles have been architected up until now. So does "up until now" mean that PS5 no longer follows that same monolithic APU design? He already mentioned SmartShift is in APU's as part of their core design, so why would SNY market that if PS5 had an APU? |
This is just a random Youtube video, they aren't gospel, they just conform to certain confirmation biases.
| EricHiggin said: I wonder if SNY has access to this level of AMD tech and tool sets? (Not Epic but a Ryzen version anyway)
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Epyc is a variant of Zen, which is the same as Ryzen.
AMD is open to building and supporting any semi-custom design requests if you have the wallet for it.
| KBG29 said: I still have not seen anything official release on PS5 using an APU. Since seeing The Road to PS5 Presentation, I have been wondering if they were using a chiplet based SOC. The examples they showed, and and the mention of Smartshift made it seem like they were hinting towards that. A chiplet based SOC with seperate CPU, GPU, and I/O Chiplets would be very interesting. Could be cheaper than a single Monolithic APU due to higher yields, and also offer better performance per chip. Looking forward to the PS5 tear down Mark Cerny mentioned. |
Sony has gone with a conservative chip size this time around and invested in clockspeeds to increase performance. It's going to be an APU.
| KBG29 said: Please explain, because that goes against everything I have read about the reason AMD, Intel, and Nvidia are all moving towards Chiplets for all consumer and enterprise CPUs and GPUs, and away from Monolithic chips. |
If that was the case, AMD's recent APU's would have used a chiplet design, but they don't.
The Xbox Series X would have also used a chiplet design, but it doesn't.
There is certainly a move to chiplets and/or chip stacking, but for APU's, we are a long way from that.
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