Follow up to a thread that I made in Spring 2018 for the PS5.
In retrospect, I was within the general ballpark, the big exception being the inclusion of the SSD (I wasn't interested in storage), and the lack of dedicated DDR4 system ram. The GPU flops were close but I was lucky as I expected the GPU teraflops to be Vega equivalent instead of RDNA2.
For PS5 Pro, I've landed on two configurations in which the PS5 Pro might possibly land. The first configuration is a combination of PS5 slim and the PS5 pro. It's meant to be a replacement for the PS5 on the market. Instead of a slim console that typically accompanies a price drop, this would hold the price but provide a slight technical upgrade. This configuration I call the Jim Apple configuration. Specs:
CPU: 8 core Zen4/5 4-5ghz.
GPU: 36CUs RDNA3/4 at 2.5-3ghz. 23-28 teraflops. 2-3x improved RT performance. NOTE: GPUs based on RDNA 3 have dual-issue stream processors so that up to two shader instructions can be executed per clock cycle under certain parallelism conditions. Divide by 2 to get equivalent RDNA2 teraflops.
AMD XDNA Support
RAM: 16GB of GDDR6 at 18gb/s, 576 GB/s
4GB of DDR5 / LPPDR5 System ram. Frees up main pool for BVH trees.
STORAGE: 1TB SSD. Similar SSD performance to current PS5.
125-150mm2 die
100-125W TDP
$399-499 ($100-$200 profit margin)
The second configuration is simply a retread of the PS4 to PS4 Pro upgrade. I call this configuration the Butterfly configuration. The console will exist alongside a PS5 / PS5 Slim in a higher price & performance category.
CPU: 8 core Zen4/5 4-5ghz.
GPU 72CUs RDNA3/4 at 2.5ghz. ~45 teraflops. 4-5x improved RT performance. NOTE: GPUs based on RDNA 3 have dual-issue stream processors so that up to two shader instructions can be executed per clock cycle under certain parallelism conditions. Divide by 2 to get equivalent RDNA2 teraflops.
AMD XDNA Support
RAM: 16GB of GDDR6/GDDR6x at 24gb/s, 768 GB/s
4GB of DDR5 / LPPDR5 System ram. Frees up main pool for BVH trees.
STORAGE 1TB SSD. Similar SSD performance to current PS5.
250mm2 die
150-175w TDP
$499-$599 Break even / slight loss.
Both configurations on TSMC 3nm. Of the two configurations, I am leaning towards the second configuration, as we have the historical precedent of the kind of 2x jump going from PS4 to PS4 Pro. In addition, Sony won't be comfortable having a large profit margin on new hardware at launch. It's simply not in their DNA to do so.
Edit: Third configuration based on feedback.
CPU: 8 core Zen4/5 4-5ghz.
GPU: 36CUs RDNA3/4 at 2.5-3ghz. 23-28 teraflops. 2-3x improved RT performance. NOTE: GPUs based on RDNA 3 have dual-issue stream processors so that up to two shader instructions can be executed per clock cycle under certain parallelism conditions. Divide by 2 to get equivalent RDNA2 teraflops.
128mb infinity cache
AMD XDNA Support
RAM: 16GB of GDDR6 at 14-16gb/s, 448-512 GB/s
4GB of DDR5 / LPPDR5 System ram. Frees up main pool for BVH trees.
STORAGE: 1.7TB SSD. Similar SSD performance to current PS5 but doubled in capacity.
175-200mm2 die
125-150W TDP
$499 (~$100 profit margin)
Update:
Given the recent leaks, it has been clear to me that the actual PS5 Pro half way between the two setups. 60CUs most definitely refers to 3 shader engines, each with 20 CUs. There will be 2Cus disabled per shader engine for a total of 54 active CUs. In PS4 BC mode, only one shader engine will be active. In PS4 Pro and PS5 BC mode, 2 shader engines will be active.
At reasonable clocks that should translate to ~35 teraflops, which should be around 6950XT in rasterizer power. RT performance is likely to be much higher.
The 18gbps memory points to 576GBs if Sony is sticking with the 256 bit bus. If that's the case I expect at 96MB of infinity cache, along with 4GB of DDR4/DDR5 system ram as before.
If the bus width is 320bits, I think 720GB/s might be enough.
CPU performance is unknown at this time but I expect at least a clock boost to 4.5/5Ghz.
Deducing PS5 GPU and memory via math.
Digital Foundry's attempt was in the right direction, but here in Resetera we have members who are intimately aware with the fab process, memory options, etc that the PS5 will use. We can make better predictions. The nodes available for PS5 in 2019, 2020 are TSMC 7nm. The 7nm EUV version with a...
www.resetera.com
In retrospect, I was within the general ballpark, the big exception being the inclusion of the SSD (I wasn't interested in storage), and the lack of dedicated DDR4 system ram. The GPU flops were close but I was lucky as I expected the GPU teraflops to be Vega equivalent instead of RDNA2.
For PS5 Pro, I've landed on two configurations in which the PS5 Pro might possibly land. The first configuration is a combination of PS5 slim and the PS5 pro. It's meant to be a replacement for the PS5 on the market. Instead of a slim console that typically accompanies a price drop, this would hold the price but provide a slight technical upgrade. This configuration I call the Jim Apple configuration. Specs:
CPU: 8 core Zen4/5 4-5ghz.
GPU: 36CUs RDNA3/4 at 2.5-3ghz. 23-28 teraflops. 2-3x improved RT performance. NOTE: GPUs based on RDNA 3 have dual-issue stream processors so that up to two shader instructions can be executed per clock cycle under certain parallelism conditions. Divide by 2 to get equivalent RDNA2 teraflops.
AMD XDNA Support
RAM: 16GB of GDDR6 at 18gb/s, 576 GB/s
4GB of DDR5 / LPPDR5 System ram. Frees up main pool for BVH trees.
STORAGE: 1TB SSD. Similar SSD performance to current PS5.
125-150mm2 die
100-125W TDP
$399-499 ($100-$200 profit margin)
The second configuration is simply a retread of the PS4 to PS4 Pro upgrade. I call this configuration the Butterfly configuration. The console will exist alongside a PS5 / PS5 Slim in a higher price & performance category.
CPU: 8 core Zen4/5 4-5ghz.
GPU 72CUs RDNA3/4 at 2.5ghz. ~45 teraflops. 4-5x improved RT performance. NOTE: GPUs based on RDNA 3 have dual-issue stream processors so that up to two shader instructions can be executed per clock cycle under certain parallelism conditions. Divide by 2 to get equivalent RDNA2 teraflops.
AMD XDNA Support
RAM: 16GB of GDDR6/GDDR6x at 24gb/s, 768 GB/s
4GB of DDR5 / LPPDR5 System ram. Frees up main pool for BVH trees.
STORAGE 1TB SSD. Similar SSD performance to current PS5.
250mm2 die
150-175w TDP
$499-$599 Break even / slight loss.
Both configurations on TSMC 3nm. Of the two configurations, I am leaning towards the second configuration, as we have the historical precedent of the kind of 2x jump going from PS4 to PS4 Pro. In addition, Sony won't be comfortable having a large profit margin on new hardware at launch. It's simply not in their DNA to do so.
Edit: Third configuration based on feedback.
CPU: 8 core Zen4/5 4-5ghz.
GPU: 36CUs RDNA3/4 at 2.5-3ghz. 23-28 teraflops. 2-3x improved RT performance. NOTE: GPUs based on RDNA 3 have dual-issue stream processors so that up to two shader instructions can be executed per clock cycle under certain parallelism conditions. Divide by 2 to get equivalent RDNA2 teraflops.
128mb infinity cache
AMD XDNA Support
RAM: 16GB of GDDR6 at 14-16gb/s, 448-512 GB/s
4GB of DDR5 / LPPDR5 System ram. Frees up main pool for BVH trees.
STORAGE: 1.7TB SSD. Similar SSD performance to current PS5 but doubled in capacity.
175-200mm2 die
125-150W TDP
$499 (~$100 profit margin)
Update:
Given the recent leaks, it has been clear to me that the actual PS5 Pro half way between the two setups. 60CUs most definitely refers to 3 shader engines, each with 20 CUs. There will be 2Cus disabled per shader engine for a total of 54 active CUs. In PS4 BC mode, only one shader engine will be active. In PS4 Pro and PS5 BC mode, 2 shader engines will be active.
At reasonable clocks that should translate to ~35 teraflops, which should be around 6950XT in rasterizer power. RT performance is likely to be much higher.
The 18gbps memory points to 576GBs if Sony is sticking with the 256 bit bus. If that's the case I expect at 96MB of infinity cache, along with 4GB of DDR4/DDR5 system ram as before.
If the bus width is 320bits, I think 720GB/s might be enough.
CPU performance is unknown at this time but I expect at least a clock boost to 4.5/5Ghz.
Last edited: