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[vpance]

An insider has already said there are 2 SKUs, and he fully expects one to be a regular slim with the other being Neo. OG will naturally be phased out. That implies a full on move to 14nm over the next year.

 

[El_Chino]

An insider has already said there are 2 SKUs, and he fully expects one to be a regular slim with the other being Neo. OG will naturally be phased out. That implies a full on move to 14nm over the next year.

Which insider?

 

[platina]

So the Neo is launching this year?

Hope so. Can't wait to see how games look on it!

 

[tuxfool]

Wouldn't GDDR5 be phased out (by AMD at least) by next year? So the only options are GDDR5x or HBM2?

No. They'll probably be using GDDR5(x) in their low end parts for a few years more.

 

[Dezeer]

It makes total sense if GloFo is retooling their lines for smaller gate sizes as they've been stuck there for years. Fabs usually aren't optimized for multiple technology sizes -- it's either one or the other.

GF is still manufacturing 180nm/130nm, 65nm/55nm and 40nm products, so it isn't like 28nm production capabilities would just disappear overnight.

Wouldn't GDDR5 be phased out (by AMD at least) by next year? So the only options are GDDR5x or HBM2?

AMD most likely won't be using GDDR5 past GCN4 in their own products, and use GDDR5X or HBM instead, but that doesn't mean that PS4 (Neo) would need to use other memory standard. And someone like Samsung won't stop manufacturing GDDR5 as long as there are customers willing to pay for them.

 

[El_Chino]

No. They'll probably be using GDDR5(x) in their low end parts for a few years more.

Not sure Phil Spencer and the Surface team want to go low end again...

 

[Elios83]

No, I dont agree. When I worked at a Motorola fab many years ago now though, the new fabs had lower yields and were more expensive, no way would all production of a company shift to 14 nm just like that...

Maybe another fab will get the 28 nm, the market in 2017 will not be solely 14 nm, I just cannot see that unless things are different nowadays..

Ok but this happens when a manufacturing process is state of the art.
14nm is not something new, it has been used by Intel, Samsung and likes for a long time.
It's the 28nm process that has become old (indeed it wasn't state of the art even in 2013 when these consoles were introduced) and with more and more companies going 14nm with their products (CPUs, GPUs, APUs) it will become more expensive to stick with the older technology.
Of course it's not like 28nm will go away, fabs are still using even older processes for chips with low complexity, but those are a different category of products.

An insider has already said there are 2 SKUs, and he fully expects one to be a regular slim with the other being Neo. OG will naturally be phased out. That implies a full on move to 14nm over the next year.

You're giving for granted the possibility of a regular Slim but that can only happen if they shrink the current APU to 14nm as well.
If they can't or they have determined that it's not convenient as the rumor suggests, they can't slimline the current PS4 and that means a very high chance that Neo will be the only PS4 going forward.
If they're planning on shrinking the current APU to 14nm and using a new APU for Neo then the dual model strategy is likely.
But it's worth questioning why there isn't any rumor about the current PS4 going Slim at all, it's all about Neo.

 

[geordiemp]

GF is still manufacturing 180nm/130nm, 65nm/55nm and 40nm products, so it isn't like 28nm production capabilities would just disappear overnight.

AMD most likely won't be using GDDR5 past GCN4 in their own products, and use GDDR5X or HBM instead, but that doesn't mean that PS4 (Neo) would need to use other memory standard. And someone like Samsung won't stop manufacturing GDDR5 as long as there are customers willing to pay for them.

Ah, some common sense appears, I agree, 28 nm being obsolete already when we are just at the beginning of the 14/16 phase is crazy talk. Nvidia is just coming with 14/16...?

Yeah intel and apple are often ahead...but thats Intel and apple.

 

[tuxfool]

Not sure Phil Spencer and the Surface team want to go low end again...

For the forseeable future only 600$+ gpus are going to justify any sort of HBM or high bandwidth memory. Unless you want to look at 900$ consoles, that isn't happening. One day, but certainly not the next iteration.

Moreover mobile parts, which the surface definitely is, won't be have those requirements for a very long time.

 

[vpance]

Which insider?

Boogz was his name I think.

 

[THE:MILKMAN]

Boogz was his name I think.

Don't know why but think he was banned?

 

[kyser73]

Don't know why but think he was banned?

Yeah, but not for Neo posts.

OT - if the part about the new APU being used for the Neo because shrinking the existing one to 14nm is true it probably will mean Neo-only going forward, which would also explain why Sony are adamant about keeping Base the target model for development - because there won't be any more being made at some point and this would then essentially become a forced upgrade.

 

[Andalus0880]

Also take into account that AMD is in the midst of implementing their turnaround strategy and this rumor suddenly becomes far more plausible.

The transition to 14 nm finfet from the older 28 nm planar process not only leverages obvious performance gains, but arguably and more importantly in AMD's case -- higher margins.

 

[Graphics Horse]

Ok but this happens when a manufacturing process is state of the art.
14nm is not something new, it has been used by Intel, Samsung and likes for a long time.
It's the 28nm process that has become old (indeed it wasn't state of the art even in 2013 when these consoles were introduced) and with more and more companies going 14nm with their products (CPUs, GPUs, APUs) it will become more expensive to stick with the older technology.
Of course it's not like 28nm will go away, fabs are still using even older processes for chips with low complexity, but those are a different category of products.




You're giving for granted the possibility of a regular Slim but that can only happen if they shrink the current APU to 14nm as well.
If they can't or they have determined that it's not convenient as the rumor suggests, they can't slimline the current PS4 and that means a very high chance that Neo will be the only PS4 going forward.
If they're planning on shrinking the current APU to 14nm and using a new APU for Neo then the dual model strategy is likely.
But it's worth questioning why there isn't any rumor about the current PS4 going Slim at all, it's all about Neo.

I've asked before but why not a binning process that sorts the neo apus from the ps4slim apus? Use the same silicon for each if that's more efficient than just throwing away the defective units.

 

[RaijinFY]

From Semiaccurate Seronx:





Same author with admitted speculation:

This makes sense, PS4 still using GDDR5 and XB1 forced to use HBM2.

seronx = full of crap. That's an understatement.

 

[hesido]

When you have to confirm whether there's is a confirmation with a question mark in your sentence with confirm, they haven't confirmed it.

 

[tuxfool]

I've asked before but why not a binning process that sorts the neo apus from the ps4slim apus? Use the same silicon for each if that's more efficient than just throwing away the defective units.

I'd bet manufacturing an APU at 28nm is probably cheaper at this stage, but it won't be forever. It is a question of whether 14nm gets you enough gains from less expensive power and cooling designs.

 

[onQ123]

seronx = full of crap. That's an understatement.

Same Seronx? lol

 

[antonz]

The original article was garbage. Follow up stuff continues to be the same.

Even if/when Polaris etc. end up in PS4K it won't change how jump to conclusions and how they are so desperate to attach PS4K to any bit of AMD news.

 

[Putty]

Same Seronx? lol

He sure did nail that...

 

[dragonelite]

Woah, MS will be rocking Vega hardware in the upgraded XB1?

I suppose they've got the cash to pull it off, but damnnn~~~

That'll be quite the jump over their current console.

I guess these mid gen replacement consoles are premium consoles. So Sony and Microsoft can probably ask more for the consoles and put more hardware into them.

 

[jeff_rigby]

seronx = full of crap. That's an understatement.

60-75% accurate, better than Patcher: "C" average compared to Patcher's "D"

Does no one read what are CITES and form their own opinions? onQ123, Seronix and I all CITE, our speculation can be off but the cites always have value.

In this from linkedin:

From Yu Zheng;
Project ‘G’/Project ‘K’, Semi-Customer project with Game Console clients.

As customer driven projects, those has extremely tight schedule and tough signoff criteria. As deployment lead, leading a team of 4 and finished successful delivery of A0/A1 sample. Client projects specially requires binary back-compatibility with previous generation of game console which brings in 3 different operation mode for verification work load, we managed to leverage regression automation and using scripting to do pre-process and post-process of regression logs and debug by priority, we managed to meet every milestone on time and with quality.

Which begs the question as to what three modes mean? Are both the PS4.5 and XB1 II to have backward compatibility with a continuation of XBOX 360 BC for the XB1 and new for the PS4.5, PS3 BC?

The three modes could be PS3, PS4 and PS4 NEO. For sure the NEW XB1 should continue to support XBOX 360 so it has three modes that need to be tested.

In the thread I quoted Seronix, he corrected himself and states that both the XB1 II and PS4 Neo would be using a eExcavator processor which I'd guess means an embedded version, cut down version for APUs. Supporting this is that AMD would be using this in other APUs coming in the near future and have already created FinFET designs using this CPU. CAT cores would not be carried through to 14nm FinFET (speculation).

Eurogamer has stated that the PS4 NEO is getting a CAT core but we know that at least the version in the current PS4 can't support BC. If we are to guess that the Linked in cite does mean PS3 BC is coming then whatever CPU core is being used has a higher IPC (more powerful) than Jaguar.



Letters to EU energy board (April 2015) have the following:

UHD (Blu-ray my speculation) Game Consoles shipped in 2013 but won't be firmware updated to support it till 2016. There is a BDA Licence for UHD Blu-ray game consoles and Sony has a License for a UHD Movie player/Game Console/test player and a License for a UHD Blu-ray PC application. There is a second paper naming both the XB1 and PS4 as UHD game consoles. The PS3 and Xbox 360 are labeled as HD.

The definition in these papers for UHD is that they can display 4K media. The PS3 can display 4K media so what is the difference; the PS4 can display 4K media that requires DRM while the Xbox 360 and PS3 can't.

1) UHD Capable released in 2013 (XB1 and PS4) will be firmware updated in 2016
2) Third tier starts in 2017 with 20 watt less Navigation mode (PS4 NEO and Xbox 1 II)
3) Tier 4 starts in 2019 mentioned but no information volunteered.

Polaris 10 can use GDDR5 late 2016 130 Watt TDP less than $299 retail (Eurogamer speculation). The PS4 can use this but the XB1 with ARM in the APU can't. XB1 could use a Vega design with HBM2 (looks like 50% more performance at 130 Watt TDP so 6 TF instead of the PS4 Neo 4.x). Tier 4 would likely be both using Navi in 2019 and the differences between the consoles disappear.

The above is part of the AMD 25X APU improvement in energy efficiency by 2020 = decreasing TDP/TF which translates into the ability to have larger more powerful GPUs and CPUs at the same TDP. Part of this energy efficiency increase is due to code changes so a PS4 Launch game unmodified will still draw as much power minus hardware efficiencies.

PS4 = 1.8, 4, 10 TF @ 130 watts TDP
XB1 = 1.3, 6, 10 TF @ 130 watts TDP

Navi is designed as smaller GPU blocks that are known good die assembled on an interposer with HBM which is what Scaleability means. AMD can choose one to 4 GPUs, everything is cookie cutter reuseable for all customers.

It's been mentioned that using HBM for the XB1 II would be too expensive. Remember the expensive 32 MB SRAM would no longer be needed and they can't use GDDR5 with ARM in the XB1 APU. The either remove the ARM IP from the APU to Southbridge like Sony did or they have to use HBM. Is there another way to support the ARM IP for Network standby and Media power modes? Also HBM is being phased out in 2018 for "Next Generation" memory so there is only one chance for it to be used in a game console with the XB1 II and I think the volume for a game console is needed to get the price down for AMD in their VEGA dGPUs and APUs. There will not be any large AMD APUs until HBM is used.

It's also possible that Eurogamer speculation is totally off and both the PS4 NEO and XB1 II are using Vega-ish designs with HBM.

 

[mckmas8808]

An insider has already said there are 2 SKUs, and he fully expects one to be a regular slim with the other being Neo. OG will naturally be phased out. That implies a full on move to 14nm over the next year.

That'll be a GREAT way to show that you respect the PS4 Base as a consumer product!!! By making it better and at a cheaper price no one will be able to say that you are cheating the Base PS4.

 

[mckmas8808]

60-75% accurate, better than Patcher: "C" average compared to Patcher's "D"

Does no one read what are CITES and form their own opinions? onQ123, Seronix and I all CITE, our speculation can be off but the cites always have value.

In this from linkedin:

Which begs the question as to what three modes mean? Are both the PS4.5 and XB1 II to have backward compatibility with a continuation of XBOX 360 BC for the XB1 and new for the PS4.5, PS3 BC?

The three modes could be PS3, PS4 and PS4 NEO. For sure the NEW XB1 should continue to support XBOX 360 so it has three modes that need to be tested.

In the thread I quoted Seronix, he corrected himself and states that both the XB1 II and PS4 Neo would be using a eExcavator processor which I'd guess means an embedded version, cut down version for APUs. Supporting this is that AMD would be using this in other APUs coming in the near future and have already created FinFET designs using this CPU. CAT cores would not be carried through to 14nm FinFET (speculation).

Eurogamer has stated that the PS4 NEO is getting a CAT core but we know that at least the version in the current PS4 can't support BC. If we are to guess that the Linked in cite does mean PS3 BC is coming then whatever CPU core is being used has a higher IPC (more powerful) than Jaguar.



Letters to EU energy board (April 2015) have the following:




1) UHD Capable released in 2013 (XB1 and PS4) will be firmware updated in 2016
2) Third tier starts in 2017 with 20 watt less Navigation mode (PS4 NEO and Xbox 1 II)
3) Tier 4 starts in 2019 mentioned but no information volunteered.

Polaris 10 can use GDDR5 late 2016 130 Watt TDP less than $299 retail (Eurogamer speculation). The PS4 can use this but the XB1 with ARM in the APU can't. XB1 could use a Vega design with HBM2 (looks like 50% more performance at 130 Watt TDP so 6 TF instead of the PS4 Neo 4.x). Tier 4 would likely be both using Navi in 2019 and the differences between the consoles disappear.

The above is part of the AMD 25X APU improvement in energy efficiency by 2020 = decreasing TDP/TF which translates into the ability to have larger more powerful GPUs and CPUs at the same TDP. Part of this energy efficiency increase is due to code changes so a PS4 Launch game unmodified will still draw as much power minus hardware efficiencies.

PS4 = 1.8, 4, 10 TF @ 130 watts TDP
XB1 = 1.3, 6, 10 TF @ 130 watts TDP

Navi is designed as smaller GPU blocks that are known good die assembled on an interposer with HBM which is what Scaleability means. AMD can choose one to 4 GPUs, everything is cookie cutter reuseable for all customers.

It's been mentioned that using HBM for the XB1 II would be too expensive. Remember the expensive 32 MB SRAM would no longer be needed and they can't use GDDR5 with ARM in the XB1 APU. The either remove the ARM IP from the APU to Southbridge like Sony did or they have to use HBM. Is there another way to support the ARM IP for Network standby and Media power modes? Also HBM is being phased out in 2018 for "Next Generation" memory so there is only one chance for it to be used in a game console with the XB1 II and I think the volume for a game console is needed to get the price down for AMD in their VEGA dGPUs and APUs. There will not be any large AMD APUs until HBM is used.

It's also possible that Eurogamer speculation is totally off and both the PS4 NEO and XB1 II are using Vega-ish designs with HBM.

This is confusing, yet very interesting.

 

[jeff_rigby]

No. They'll probably be using GDDR5(x) in their low end parts for a few years more.

New memory technology is happening in 2018 so HBM and GDDR5 will be phased out then. This is literally the last chance to use HBM for the game consoles. This is the last chance to get the volume to make HBM cheap for other AMD products.

 

[Caio]

New memory technology is happening in 2018 so HBM and GDDR5 will be phased out then. This is literally the last chance to use HBM for the game consoles. This is the last chance to get the volume to make HBM cheap for other AMD products.

Is it possible to use HBM as UMA ?

 

[Caio]

And, how much would cost the use of 8-12GB HBM as UMA, if technically possible ?
Can this be an option ?

 

[mugurumakensei]

And, how much would cost the use of 8-12GB HBM as UMA, if technically possible ?
Can this be an option ?

It'd need multiple memory controllers as the max addressable memory for HBM per controller is 4 GB.

It's technically possible, but it'd needlessly complicate the console designs. As well, it'd probably raise the price quite a bit since it'd be a one-off. HBM will never be consoles. HBM2 probably will be in next-gen consoles.

 

[Caio]

It'd need multiple memory controllers as the max addressable memory for HBM per controller is 4 GB.

It's technically possible, but it'd needlessly complicate the console designs. As well, it'd probably raise the price quite a bit since it'd be a one-off. HBM will never be consoles. HBM2 probably will be in next-gen consoles.

Ok.

For next Playstation maybe Navi can be the best option, and next gen memory.

 

[qa_engineer]

Wouldn't GDDR5 be phased out (by AMD at least) by next year? So the only options are GDDR5x or HBM2?

Possible. But I see some low end GPUs still making use of it

 

[El_Chino]

Possible. But I see some low end GPUs still making use of it

Would 4TF+ be considered low end next year?

 

[qa_engineer]

Lol at the hbm2 Vega rumor. If any upgraded console is using hbm2 that would mean it has a GPU that needs the type of bandwidth that HBM was designed to deliver, and a GPU requiring that type of bandwidth will likely be much, much faster than the 1080 which retails for 699.99 USD. Even the Fury X with HBM1 is retailing for north of 600 USD




See above. HBM2 isn't even utilized on the fastest GPUs just recently announced by AMD and Nvidia. The Radon Pro Duo still uses HBM1 and the 1080 uses a variant of gddr5 (gddr5x or g5x). HBM2 was designed for future GPUs with high bandwidth requirements as a means of keeping the beefy GPU fed with work.

Do you really think slapping an exotic memory type onto a mainstream consumer electronic device is going to lower it's price? And the fact that using the memory without a powerful GPU to match such bandwidth requirements is simply a terrible design decision, and a waste of appropriated dollars on the BOM. If they go HBM2 it's because they have a Vega, if it's Vegas we're talking AMDs high end part which is to compete with Nvidia high end offerings.

Quoting myself because these rumors of a 2017 Xbox revision does make HBM2 and Vega a more plausible situation. But I'm still thinking it will be GDDR5 or GDDR5X.

Would 4TF+ be considered low end next year?

Yeah I think anything lower than 5 tf can be a considered a low end part. And it looks like some sites have confirmed that even AMDs mid tier offerings are still using GDDR5.

 

[AmyS]

Sony should just be really clever and not say a word about Neo at E3. Internally, they shelve Neo / PS4K (still assuming it's real) and move PS5 forward to Fall 2018 using a powerful Zen APU with the large Vega GPU (Greenland) and HBM2, therefore leapfrogging Xbox Scorpio.

PCs will be getting Navi GPUs, 'Nextgen Memory' and Zen 2.0 by late 2018, so it's not as if a PS5 with slightly older hardware would be too expensive, especially if they can get access to a "10nm" FinFET node, if not, a very mature "14nm" FinFET node.

 

[Shpeshal Nick]

Sony should just be really clever and not say a word about Neo at E3. Internally, they shelve Neo / PS4K (still assuming it's real) and move PS5 forward to Fall 2018 using a powerful Zen APU with the large Vega GPU (Greenland) and HBM2, therefore leapfrogging Xbox Scorpio.

PCs will be getting Navi GPUs, 'Nextgen Memory' and Zen 2.0 by late 2018, so it's not as if a PS5 with slightly older hardware would be too expensive, especially if they can get access to a "10nm" FinFET node, if not, a very mature "14nm" FinFET node.

Shelve it? Wouldn't they borderline almost at the point of manufacturing them soon?