The rumor is that the next PS5 console will use both a ryzen 8 core processor and navi gpu, and could be on the market in time for Christmas. In general, consoles only have to be half as powerful as a desktop to achieve the same results, because the games are optimized for the specific hardware and, supposedly, the PS5 is aimed at VR gaming in particular, but that kind of processing power could also be used for real time ray tracing. Which might also explain why they are intent on using AMD's newest Navi graphics architecture. All of which, smells like AMD cutting a deal with Sony to deliver their PS5 hardware, if Sony supplies the necessary high bandwidth memory. Part of the current gpu crisis is that the memory suppliers have not been able to keep up with the demand, and Sony has a new cheaper version of HBM and also produces the next generation HBM3 which is twice as fast as HBM2 and are coming on the market soon. Exactly where all this is going is anyone guess, but by the end of next summer we should be able to separate fact from fiction. At any rate, I'd rather hear hopeful rumors at this point, and the gpu market appears to be moving again. Navi is AMD answer to Nvidia's Tesla architecture and, as such, it would ideally use their infinity fabric to inexpensively join multiple cheap gpu chips on a single wafer and incorporate their own version of Nvidia's "Tensor Cores" used for ray tracing, among other things. Since Nvidia has announced their intention to release a new graphics card in july or august based on Tesla, AMD may have felt compelled to accelerate their plans.
My guess is that VR will fare about as well as say the connect did for xbox. It's possible to include VR features like the connect sort of was, but I think less likely the entire console is based around it. I didn't watch the vid though, so I really don't know, and am only guessing at this point. I personally don't go in for games as of late; though I used to. Also, I'm feeling like it's too soon to drop another console.
The console is based on the higher resolutions and frame rates it can produce, with VR and ray tracing both being more novelties than anything else. The current consoles can put out a respectable 30fps at 4k, but if you could produce high frame rates at those resolutions with a console it would mean anyone with a TV can afford super high resolution gaming for half the cost of a PC. With graphics card and ram prices, even die-hard PC gamers are recommending using a console.
Here's an in-depth analysis of the speculation on the PS5, but the reviewer seems to know almost nothing about hardware, which is understandable for a console gamer. The simple truth is that Microsoft originally funded the development of AMD's wildly successful Ryzen processor specifically because they wanted a cheap alternative to Intel and Nvidia. Consoles are all about cheap hardware, with their entire history revolving around just how much ram they install in a system, simply because processors and graphics card transistors are more expensive to make. That AMD will supply both a ryzen processor and navi graphics for the PS5 means they will come on a single transposer, or large APU chip, possibly using Sony's own inexpensive version of High Bandwidth Memory, coming on the market this summer. While an APU chip sounds like it would be wimpy, AMD's Raven Ridge chip already has almost the power of a PS4, and the navi architecture is supposedly scalable using their infinity fabric to combine smaller and cheaper chips. The one estimate I've come across for how powerful the PS5 might be puts it at around 20 teraflops of performance, which is what you would want for serious VR applications and ray tracing. However, that might be more like the figure they intend to hit eventually over the lifetime of the console, as they make upgrades. But, my point is, that both Sony and AMD both have excellent reasons to want to bring the PS5 to market as soon as possible, to beat Microsoft to the punch and develop more games for their products. AMD has been doing a lot of work with Bethesda and Liquid Sky cloud gaming in particular, and I expect to be wowed with the end results, because AMD and all the manufacturers are currently changing the entire PC architecture as we know it. Still, I would expect it to come out next year at the earliest, but you never know. There's a huge difference between wanting to do something, and having the capacity to do it, with industry analysts insisting they will require another year.
My guess is I'll probably wait for the next xbox. Never liked playstation since after PS2 in comparison with an xbox. Every time the PS has felt cheap and nowhere near as good. I can't say for PS4 because I had this attitude after buying a PS3 specifically for blu Ray at the time. One the MLB games was fun but it was not released on Xbox so it's okay but all else felt bad, especially the controllers.
Yeah, Sony goes for the hardware advantage because Microsoft sucks at making affordable hardware, other than keyboards and consoles. Sony's VR headset is an example, because it costs 1/3 that of Microsoft's Hololens. Microsoft could lower their prices to be more competitive, but attempting to compete for the lowest price with a hardware manufacturing giant like Sony, that even produces its own video games out the wazoo, would be stupid. Microsoft's own version of the AMD APU I would expect to be a highly modified version that is extremely competitive, but may require longer to produce. We may see the beginning of a war between the consoles as they begin to differ radically in the price and quality of their peripherals and services. These are no longer toy boxes for just playing games, they are home computers and entertainment centers that can do almost anything. Dell and everyone else is going to sit up and take notice. In the end, hardware without content is meaningless, and Sony has an amazing amount of content including owning major movie studios. With this generation of console they can fairly easily transform any older game to include ray traced lighting and shadows. The cost of developing AAA games is always going down, but nothing can compete with success and old winners are often tomorrow's sequels. A little tessellation, increase the resolution, add a few rays, and she's good to go! Plastic surgery for older video games, could get ugly before they get it right, like the first attempts to add color to a black and white film.
I don't think its for sale before 2019. And not really interested before that time. Don't think i will buy it in the first year of release either. So by the time i consider buying a new console I know if the ps5 is worthy.
Actually, my only interest in this is it could mean that the price of PC parts could come down soon, and gives some idea of what a serious PC should be capable of in another five years or so.
This is the only console reviewer I could find on youtube who had any grasp of how new hardware determines the life cycle of a console. The PS4 and Xbox one required longer than the other console generations simply because the cost of the hardware did not come down fast enough to make a significant upgrade possible. However, today the cost of hardware has been dropping dramatically in the last few years, if inconsistently. The whole crypto mining craze is, in part, a reaction to the simple fact that graphics cards have become enormously more powerful in the last five years or so. But, the price of graphics cards has fallen significantly since the announcement of an asic card for mining that is 10x more efficient, and we should see the market start to stabilize after Nvidia releases their next generation Ampere this summer. Sony originally envisioned the PS5 having as many as 12 cores but, no doubt, Sony dreams of being able to use their own chips to produce the entire console, and their chips are just not fast enough to produce the kind of smooth frame rates the newer Ryzen+ chips are capable of, and the PS5 has to compete with the next generation Xbox which will use the same chips. The reviewer brings up the interesting point that the Xbox Scorpio might be Microsoft's attempt to get an early foot in the door on the next generation, with a box that might only require something like a ram upgrade to play next generation console games. Whatever the case might really be, its all good rumors that appear to confirm that the memory market and graphics card markets are finally coming back down to reality, the competition between the giants is heating up again, and we may see a huge number of AAA titles coming on the market that are VR and ray tracing ready. The insane prices of graphics cards and ram has created a huge pent up demand for VR and ray tracing content, and rushing the next generation consoles to market is one way to capitalize on that demand and acquire what might otherwise be dedicated PC gamers, which are growing in number along with gamers of any kind.
This guy gives the specs for the PS5 and estimates at least 12-16gb of GDDR6, which is twice as fast. The raw power of the thing is enough to fry a PC enthusiast's brain, because it will have the power of a computer that could easily cost over $2,000.oo today. Pushing 20 teraflops onto an APU is enough to make a gamer's head spin and means even gaming PCs will never be the same again, and are already starting to come built right into the monitor and VR ready. Within ten years, the technology should be dirt cheap and ubiquitous.
