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JRPGfan said:
Pemalite said:
JRPGfan said:
DakonBlackblade said:
I suppose the conclusion here is that Mark Cerny is a genius, the man knows how to engineer a console

"No offense, but 1.825 ghz is pretty crazy for a console. we had a max of 1.172 ghz last gen.MS wasn't conservative at all. They pushed both the CUs and the clocks. They went with a super expensive vapor chamber cooler to achieve that. You seem to be forgetting that MS and Sony arent just cooling the GPU like AMD is doing, there is a CPU in there with a big io block and ram bus that needs to be cooled too.

Where MS screwed up was not thinking outside the box like Sony did. Sony went with a much cheaper and more traditional cooler/heatsink. it made their console look like a planet but they were willing to look ugly and big in order to save a buck. they also did a lot of work with liquid thermal cooling that tbh, MS nor any other GPU maker has bothered to implement. Sony was able to get to 2.23 ghz because they had fewer CUs AND because they went with liquid metal cooling and a traditional and super cheap heatsink that cost them only a few dollars according to bloomberg. Penello was super surprised to hear that the cooling was only costing sony a few dollars and refused to believe it. it likely cost MS almost $30 to do vapor chamber cooling. - SlimySnake (neogaf)


This.

Cerny is confirmed a genius now.
If you can use a smaller Chip (apu) and thus have cheaper costs, and use a cheaper cooler (even if its massive), then thats a smart move.

If it wasn't for the dual sense likely being more expensive than the Xbox Series X controller, I woulda without a doubt said the PS5 was cheaper to produce. I think its close though, and it actually has me wondering how far (down) the prices of these devices can even go.
Like will there be a slim version of a PS5? or XSX?

Wrong.
The size of the chip is only one aspect of the cost equation.

When you push clockspeeds upwards, you get less functional chips per wafer that are capable of hitting that clockspeed, impacting yields. So in order to compensate you increase voltages, but then some chips start to suffer from electromigration or just outright fail, again... Impacting yields.

I wouldn't be surprised if the APU in the Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X are *equivalent* in costs right about now, in a year or two Sony will definitely have the cost advantage... And not by a small amount either. - But then Sony and Microsoft might shift to TSMC's 5nm (branded) process which muddy that landscape.
Does that make Cerny a genius? No. No it does not. Anyone who has any idea about silicon engineering knows the pro's and con's to each approach, neither is intrinsically better than the other.
Cerny is a smart guy, he is well aware of all this.

Vapor Chamber cooling isn't that exotic anymore, it's actually fairly common, especially in the PC space, yes it's going to be more expensive than the Playstation 5 cooler, but probably not by as much as people think.
Although Sony's approach definitely takes the "large+slow" in shifting cfm... The caveat to that is a very large box to house it all in which may require more materials.

The Playstation 5 does have the more expensive SSD, more expensive controller which levels out costs somewhat.

In all honesty, we may see a $100 price reduction once production starts to meet demand, likely in a couple years time, especially with some revisions that consolidate and cost-reduce.

A slim console built at 5nm though is probably only a couple years away, TSMC's 5nm process is being ramped up with some good yields right now, where even Apple is finding it viable for it's big chips.
Chips would be 80% smaller, consume 30% less power... Which bodes well for a much smaller Playstation 5, might be the perfect opportunity to ditch the massive fan, go vapor chamber and make a console half the size or more

Size of chip also impacts yeilds (ontop of bigger size = less dies pr wafer).
Also the new GPUs from AMD all seem to be running 2200-2300mhz.

So in that reguard, I think the process node and the GPU parts, were made to run at those speeds.
I doubt the PS5 gpu running at these speeds, is actually impacting yields in a meaningfull way at all.
Because it seems the architecture was designed around this speed.
So its not like they are pushing it to unreasonable levels, where its resulting in less viable dies.

"Vapor Chamber cooling isn't that exotic anymore, it's actually fairly common, especially in the PC space, yes it's going to be more expensive than the Playstation 5 cooler, but probably not by as much as people think."

They mentioned the price differnce was like a few $ (~3$) for sony's cooling solution,
vs nearly 10 times that (~30$) for the xbox cooling (with the vapor chamber).



"In all honesty, we may see a $100 price reduction once production starts to meet demand, likely in a couple years time, especially with some revisions that consolidate and cost-reduce.

A slim console built at 5nm though is probably only a couple years away, TSMC's 5nm process is being ramped up with some good yields right now, where even Apple is finding it viable for it's big chips."

I hope your right.... I'm not as optimistic about shrinks and slim versions of these consoles.

I do remember Sony saying the CPU (and I think also GPU) could go higher but they capped it probably to increase yield.

Pemalite said:
JRPGfan said:

Size of chip also impacts yeilds (ontop of bigger size = less dies pr wafer).
Also the new GPUs from AMD all seem to be running 2200-2300mhz.


Correct. Size does impact yields. I elaborated on that prior.

You are also correct that AMD GPU's are pushing high clockrates on PC, but that's the PC... Where power, thermal, size and cost constraints are not limited to console standards. - Non comparable essentially.
AMD can sacrifice yields on the 6900XT as it's a $1,000 part, they don't need allot of functional chips to make a profit.

They also generally have a 2ghz or lower base clock, but if a part of the GPU is being under-utilized such as the video engine or geometry units, AMD can push more TDP into clockrates to increase overall performance.

The 6900XT for example has a 300W TDP just for itself.

JRPGfan said:

So in that reguard, I think the process node and the GPU parts, were made to run at those speeds.
I doubt the PS5 gpu running at these speeds, is actually impacting yields in a meaningfull way at all.
Because it seems the architecture was designed around this speed.
So its not like they are pushing it to unreasonable levels, where its resulting in less viable dies.

See above. But hey, keep believing whatever you want.
Not arguing to change your mind, you are set in your ways it seems to the point where you will even lie about stuff like I proved prior.

I am debating for the sake of others.

JRPGfan said:

"Vapor Chamber cooling isn't that exotic anymore, it's actually fairly common, especially in the PC space, yes it's going to be more expensive than the Playstation 5 cooler, but probably not by as much as people think."

They mentioned the price differnce was like a few $ (~3$) for sony's cooling solution,
vs nearly 10 times that (~30$) for the xbox cooling (with the vapor chamber).

$30 isn't really that much. The cooling assembly is only one part of the equation, the actual cases of each console are designed around each individual cooler, which brings with it additional cost factors that you aren't taking note of.

For example Sony had to increase the size of their box and add "air tunnels" to certain parts of their design to allow people to remove dust, this is extra parts/design work that factors into the costings.

Same goes for Xbox.

JRPGfan said:


"In all honesty, we may see a $100 price reduction once production starts to meet demand, likely in a couple years time, especially with some revisions that consolidate and cost-reduce.

A slim console built at 5nm though is probably only a couple years away, TSMC's 5nm process is being ramped up with some good yields right now, where even Apple is finding it viable for it's big chips."

I hope your right.... I'm not as optimistic about shrinks and slim versions of these consoles.

I am only going by what TSMC and AMD is pushing.
AMD intends to transition it's entire product portfolio from 7nm to 5nm by the end of 2021, so a 2022 time frame for the consoles to get a 5nm shrink is very likely on the table.

Yes I would say it is certain that once the 5nm process is mature the board will be redesigned for it, how long after that they launch a slim I don't know. But since board reduction already mean saving costs on several different ways that will occur independent of anything. The other aspect is if this will make way for PS5Pro usign the same size of original PS5 to double performance or if they are only going for the slim.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."