Very good opinion peace on extremetech regarding the hardware that will go into the PS5

[dirtyferret]

a good read

• AMD did not announce or unveil the Ryzen 3600G at CES 2019.
• AMD wouldn’t call it the “Ryzen 3600G” in the first place.
• AMD isn’t charging $199 for the nonexistent Ryzen 3600G.
• $199 is almost certainly too much for just the console APU.

Sony is highly unlikely to pay $199 for the APU inside a $400 console. Both of those numbers are important.
The bill of materials on the PS4 at launch revealed that the console and 8GB of DRAM together were $188 of the $400 price. The APU was $100, the DRAM was $88. It’s possible that these two components will account for a larger fraction of the PS5’s total price, but there’s no way that Sony is going to dedicate $200 of its supposed $400 to just the APU. It doesn’t leave enough cash for everything else.


https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/290209-no-the-playstation-5-doesnt-use-amds-ryzen-3600g

 

[AsRock]

SONY don't typically make much of the consoles, were they do make it with the accessories and games.

All so SONY will get a discount and don't be surprised if it's more than $400 anyways.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Ryzen and semi-custom PS5 APU have nothing in common except Zen and Navi architecture. For all we know, PS5 could be using an HBM2 package on a $250 chip because it's moving integration cost from the motherboard to the APU. Anything is possible at this point, why speculate?

Consoles always operate on economics of scale. The first model of the console may be made at a slight loss knowing that it will become profitable with a die shrink/second model in the future.

 

[danbert2000]

The Wired UK piece is idiotic because they are suggesting that Sony would put a socketed processor in a console. PS5 will use Ryzen, it will use Navi. But it's not going to be a chip that AMD sells to anyone. It's going to be a custom chip with exactly as much power as Sony wants to put in the console. Lisa Su implemented a custom chip first ethos at RTG, and so they developed chips for Xbox, Playstation, and their bump-up versions. I think it would be more correct to say that an eventual Ryzen 5 3600G will use technologies that were primarily developed to get AMD the console business for the next generation.

Eurogamer has a much more technically proficient article on the new PS5 processor:
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2019-is-amd-gonzalo-the-ps5-processor-in-theory

They should fire Will Bedingfield, he is clearly outside of his knowledge on that piece. When you're Sony, and you are about to sell 10 million new consoles, you don't just buy a processor off the fucking shelf. AMD builds you your own processor, tuned for price and performance and yield, and you solder that shit down.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Eurogamer has a much more technically proficient article on the new PS5 processor:
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2019-is-amd-gonzalo-the-ps5-processor-in-theory

Seems legit. 1.6 GHz (matching PS4 for backwards compatibility), 3.2 GHz boost (for PS5 games), GPU at 1 GHz which boosts to 1.8 GHz (not unlike Radeon VII on 7nm), and 8 cores (not sure if SMT supported).

Just judging by clockspeeds, I get the impression Navi is GCN6.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Sony is highly unlikely to pay $199 for the APU inside a $400 console. Both of those numbers are important.

Important, yes. But not realistic in this scenario.

Sony sells millions and millions of PlayStations every year. At those volumes they can go to AMD and demand and get HUGE volume discounts on what ever processor they want. If AMD won't give it to them, fine! Sony can go to Intel or Motorola or Via or a host of other processor makers and get fully capable processors at the prices they are looking for. Not what AMD would want.

That $199 is full "retail" price for just 1 processor. If Sony promises to buy millions and millions over the next 12-month period, they can easily demand and expect to pay considerably less than 50% of that. And AMD will still be happy.

 

[hat]

Agreed. It's fair to suggest that Sony isn't going to pay the same for millions of pieces of customized silicon that you and I would when we buy a comparable socketed desktop chip from our shop of choice. It's also worth mentioning that Sony has sold the console itself at a loss in the past. The console itself doesn't make them money. It's all the games sold, Playstation Plus subs, accessories (extra controllers and whatnot) etc that makes them money. Sony isn't AMD/Intel/nVidia etc. They sell more than just hardware.

 

[dirtyferret]

Important, yes. But not realistic in this scenario.

Sony sells millions and millions of PlayStations every year. At those volumes they can go to AMD and demand and get HUGE volume discounts on what ever processor they want. If AMD won't give it to them, fine! Sony can go to Intel or Motorola or Via or a host of other processor makers and get fully capable processors at the prices they are looking for. Not what AMD would want.

That $199 is full "retail" price for just 1 processor. If Sony promises to buy millions and millions over the next 12-month period, they can easily demand and expect to pay considerably less than 50% of that. And AMD will still be happy.

That quote is from the article, I suggest you read the whole article for the context.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Fair enough - but the logic still applies. Note I was not disagreeing with the article. I agree with it - Sony is not going to pay $199 for that processor.

 

[Bones]

To simplify things it's called a volume discount, like when you purchase in bulk because that's exactly what they are doing with these AMD chips.