Rumored PlayStation 5 specs leak online: Zen CPU, Navi-based GPU

midian182

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Could the PlayStation 5 be here sooner than expected? That’s what several reports are stating, including one from SemiAccurate, which also claims to have some details about Sony’s new console.

The publication’s article is behind a $1000 paywall, but a summary has appeared on ResetEra. The report says the PlayStation 5, which might not be its final name, will upgrade the Jaguar CPUs found in the PS4 and PS4 Pro in favor of a more powerful Zen-based CPU, previously reported as being an 8 core variety. As for the graphics, the machine is said to use a custom GPU based on AMD’s upcoming Navi architecture.

The new console is also said to come with VR features implemented at the silicon level, suggesting that Sony still believes in its PlayStation VR headsets, which recently received a permanent price decrease.

One thing missing from the report is any mention of backward compatibility with the PS4, which is a feature many are expecting.

The reported specs do sound convincing, especially the use of Zen and Navi—some of AMD’s Vega features appeared in the PlayStation 4 Pro long before they made their way onto the PC via the Radeon line.

The article adds that a large number of PlayStation 5 dev kits are already in the hands of developers, backing up a similar claim made by industry insider Marcus Sellars early last month. SemiAccurate believes this means a 2018 release for the console isn’t totally out of the question, though a 2019 launch seems much more likely. By then, technology such as GDDR6, which is rumored to appear in Nvidia’s next line of GPUs, should be widely available.

SemiAccurate is confident that the "real info" in its report is accurate. The site points out that it correctly revealed the specs of the PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch ahead of their release, while it also predicted the console mid-cycle refresh machines: the Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro.

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I wonder if the 7nm node will be mature enough when the PS5 launches or will they stick to the relatively more safe option of 12/14nm.

Although, if memory serves me right, Navi is expected to be made using 7nm, unless the "custom" GPU is heavily modified compared to the Radeon version.
For this reason alone I doubt we'll see the console launch in 2018 (and the fact hat they might want to wait until prices of memory chips drops down a bit so they don't sell at a loss). Xbox one X failed to make Sony sweat kinda like Vega failed to make Nvidia sweat.
 
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The specs are very similar to what I would expect a high end 2019 console could look like.

But I don't see such a machine being built in anything bigger than 7nm. The die size would be enormous and hugely expensive otherwise. Assuming of course that they are still building it as an SoC. Maybe they could get in there early with separate chips and charge a big premium.

I find it a bit unlikely though.
 
I wonder if the 7nm node will be mature enough when the PS5 launches or will they stick to the relatively more safe option of 12/14nm.

Although, if memory serves me right, Navi is expected to be made using 7nm, unless the "custom" GPU is heavily modified compared to the Radeon version.
For this reason alone I doubt we'll see the console launch in 2018 (and the fact hat they might want to wait until prices of memory chips drops down a bit so they don't sell at a loss). Xbox one X failed to make Sony sweat kinda like Vega failed to make Nvidia sweat.

To be fair the PS4 Pro made no one sweat. And was widely viewed as a waste of time and resources. Sony barely marketed it. If the PS5 does release next year (I’m hoping) I don’t feel like Xbox would look to compete so soon as the Xbox one X is doing pretty decent. But may be forced to by developers In 2020. One of the big motivators for Sony to do a PS5 even when the PS4 is still doing extremely well is that Sony as a whole has downsized over the last 5 years and video gaming is now something it’s hugely reliant on for profits. If the next gen is started this early I do expect Microsoft to make some bigger moves, although not in VR as Sony’s install base for PSVR is laughable at best.
 
To be fair the PS4 Pro made no one sweat. And was widely viewed as a waste of time and resources. Sony barely marketed it.

It's true Sony didn't pour a fortune into marketing it because they didn't really need to. Pro was really viewed as a compliment to original PS4 hardware. Sony have a juggernaut in PS4 and didn't need to go mad revising the hardware.

On the other hand Microsoft had a pretty weak original machine with interest, sales and support flagging. They needed something more than a compliment, they needed as close as they could get to a clean slate without alienating owners of the original machine.

So the X was meant to help turn it all around and appeal to more core gamers, but at this point neither the Pro or the X have exactly flown off the shelves. Their impact on the current market is extremely limited. It might sell faster than PS4 Pro but since the Pro has 12 months head start, it'll be years at this rate to even catch the Pro sales. Neither machine will have any significant impact at all.

The difference is because Sony have a successful current console, aren't pushing their newer machine hard, it isn't as expensive and it's a year older, they can probably launch a proper next generation machine first without much consternation. Xbox One X might be a big leap over the original Xbox One hardware but essentially all it really does it take the resolution to ~4K with better textures and a smattering of minor enhancements.

You need even more performance to genuinely push the bar to reach a 'proper' next generation of visuals and behaviour over PS4. Mark Cerny acknowledged as much even when they launched PS4 Pro.
 
I would expect that it would be too soon, because the expectations for 4k would be high and hardware is barely able to push it now.
 
I would expect that it would be too soon, because the expectations for 4k would be high and hardware is barely able to push it now.

I think the bare minimum for something you could call truly next gen would be at least twice the GPU performance of the Xbox One X coupled with much improved CPU performance. Then you would get the native 4K plus extra headroom for some nice visual enhancements over current gen games. The gap would be properly generational to PS4 then.

In terms of AMD desktop GPU performance right now that's a Vega 64. Twice what is basically RX580 performance inside Xbox One X. A Vega 64 in a console box. It's just not realistic on the current process, huge expensive die and massive TDP.

With the 7nm refresh or a Navi 7nm part it might be about possible. But it hinges entirely on that 7nm process. I don't see new consoles being built without it.
 
I think the bare minimum for something you could call truly next gen would be at least twice the GPU performance of the Xbox One X coupled with much improved CPU performance. Then you would get the native 4K plus extra headroom for some nice visual enhancements over current gen games. The gap would be properly generational to PS4 then.

In terms of AMD desktop GPU performance right now that's a Vega 64. Twice what is basically RX580 performance inside Xbox One X. A Vega 64 in a console box. It's just not realistic on the current process, huge expensive die and massive TDP.

With the 7nm refresh or a Navi 7nm part it might be about possible. But it hinges entirely on that 7nm process. I don't see new consoles being built without it.
Exactly. There's a lot of wishful thinking. It's possible they threw something together as a proof of concept and to see what is currently possible.
 
Honestly, the spec jump isn't enough for me to be convinced this is an entirely new console; sounds like a mid-generation refresh to me.
 
Hope it's true and it's out soon.. consoles have been holding back game development for far, far too long now due to how extremely underpowered they are. So many promising games held back so much.. if not outright ruined due to console limitations.

Maybe one day consoles will cease to be relevant.. guess we can only hope.
 
"One thing missing from the report is any mention of backward compatibility with the PS4, which is a feature many are expecting."

Hmmm... x86 AMD APU vs a faster x86 AMD APU...

There is zero technical reasons why there shouldn't be backwards compatibility (near identical core architecture), it'd be a very trivial task. All thats needed is a bit of time to tweak a few software issues. Emulating a PS3 would be an orders of magnitude harder job than emulating a PS4 on this potential PS5...

That's not to say they'll do it, just that it'll be extremely easy for them to do so if they wished.
 
Too soon man its only been 5 years unless its 7 ot 8 im fine with it but only 5 years and its ps4 is already doing a job, I say they wait till sales go down then they get their new console up
 
I saw some where that Sony was looking for a backward compatabilty engineer. So improovements in PS5 are supoosed to be significant. It looks like XB1X will be "The World's Most Powerful Console" for not so long. Also as somebody noticed that maybe Days Gone was delayed because of the optimization for PS5 and as a main bundle title. It would be a perfect combination.
 
I would expect that it would be too soon, because the expectations for 4k would be high and hardware is barely able to push it now.

I think the bare minimum for something you could call truly next gen would be at least twice the GPU performance of the Xbox One X coupled with much improved CPU performance. Then you would get the native 4K plus extra headroom for some nice visual enhancements over current gen games. The gap would be properly generational to PS4 then.

In terms of AMD desktop GPU performance right now that's a Vega 64. Twice what is basically RX580 performance inside Xbox One X. A Vega 64 in a console box. It's just not realistic on the current process, huge expensive die and massive TDP.

With the 7nm refresh or a Navi 7nm part it might be about possible. But it hinges entirely on that 7nm process. I don't see new consoles being built without it.
You don't need twice the power of the Xbox One X to do proper 4K. Consoles don't need to run everything at ultra settings.
Performance wise, the CPU is the killer upgrade for the PS5 that is required to get solid 60FPS. On the GPU side they'll be fine if it's at around 10 TFLOPs (~50% or more than the XB1X) with a good bump in memory bandwidth and maybe 16GB total system memory. They can just do dynamic resolution scaling that sits between 90 to 100% of 4K for more demanding titles.
 
I saw some where that Sony was looking for a backward compatabilty engineer. So improovements in PS5 are supoosed to be significant. It looks like XB1X will be "The World's Most Powerful Console" for not so long. Also as somebody noticed that maybe Days Gone was delayed because of the optimization for PS5 and as a main bundle title. It would be a perfect combination.
I think that if Sony plays their cards right they might have a stellar launch window with games like Death Stranding and The Last of Us 2 spearheading everything.
 
I would expect that it would be too soon, because the expectations for 4k would be high and hardware is barely able to push it now.

I think the bare minimum for something you could call truly next gen would be at least twice the GPU performance of the Xbox One X coupled with much improved CPU performance. Then you would get the native 4K plus extra headroom for some nice visual enhancements over current gen games. The gap would be properly generational to PS4 then.

In terms of AMD desktop GPU performance right now that's a Vega 64. Twice what is basically RX580 performance inside Xbox One X. A Vega 64 in a console box. It's just not realistic on the current process, huge expensive die and massive TDP.

With the 7nm refresh or a Navi 7nm part it might be about possible. But it hinges entirely on that 7nm process. I don't see new consoles being built without it.
You don't need twice the power of the Xbox One X to do proper 4K. Consoles don't need to run everything at ultra settings.
Performance wise, the CPU is the killer upgrade for the PS5 that is required to get solid 60FPS. On the GPU side they'll be fine if it's at around 10 TFLOPs (~50% or more than the XB1X) with a good bump in memory bandwidth and maybe 16GB total system memory. They can just do dynamic resolution scaling that sits between 90 to 100% of 4K for more demanding titles.

So you're proposing exactly what I said with slightly less GPU performance. I wasn't saying you needed twice the performance of Xbox One X to get 4K, hence use of the word 'plus' emphasized. Xbox One X already does 4K well enough with current gen games.

My point was to get the 4K of Xbox One X and a good amount of performance left over to push games towards a full generation leap over PS4. At >12 teraflops you have a GPU 7x the performance of a base PS4 which traditionally is getting toward a fully fledged new gen and far beyond a mid life refresh. I consider base PS4 as the benchmark for the existing generation, since it is by far the best selling machine and thus the primary hardware target for developers when building most games.

In one breath you said console games don't need ultra settings and the next say that with better CPU performance you would get solid 60FPS, presumably meaning most titles.

Will never happen. The majority of games on any console platform will still run at 30FPS. Because no matter how much performance you deliver to developers, most will look towards pushing the visuals of their game to the limits of the hardware.

It has always been this way with fixed console hardware. No matter if you gave them twice the performance or ten times more, the majority of games will still end up 30FPS.
 
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So you're proposing exactly what I said with slightly less GPU performance. I wasn't saying you needed twice the performance of Xbox One X to get 4K, hence use of the word 'plus' emphasized. Xbox One X already does 4K well enough with current gen games.

My point was to get the 4K of Xbox One X and a good amount of performance left over to push games towards a full generation leap over PS4. At >12 teraflops you have a GPU 7x the performance of a base PS4 which traditionally is getting toward a fully fledged new gen and far beyond a mid life refresh. I consider base PS4 as the benchmark for the existing generation, since it is by far the best selling machine and thus the primary hardware target for developers when building most games.
When you say 7x don't look just at the GPU but at the entire system as a whole. A faster and larger memory pool alone will make the games look and perform much better.

In one breath you said console games don't need ultra settings and the next say that with better CPU performance you would get solid 60FPS, presumably meaning most titles.
Will never happen. The majority of games on any console platform will still run at 30FPS. Because no matter how much performance you deliver to developers, most will look towards pushing the visuals of their game to the limits of the hardware.

It has always been this way with fixed console hardware. No matter if you gave them twice the performance or ten times more, the majority of games will still end up 30FPS.

I truly believe that starting with the PS5 (and god knows what the next xbox will be called) we'll get the majority of games running at 60 fps or at least the option to do so (similar to how PS4 Pro patched games get multiple options). Be it by sacrificing resolution or graphics fidelity we'll get there. The CPU and memory upgrades should be more than enough to give you that extra "plus".

What you are asking is for Sony to make another a 7-800$ machine which would be a huge flop.
 
I truly believe that starting with the PS5 (and god knows what the next xbox will be called) we'll get the majority of games running at 60 fps or at least the option to do so (similar to how PS4 Pro patched games get multiple options). Be it by sacrificing resolution or graphics fidelity we'll get there. The CPU and memory upgrades should be more than enough to give you that extra "plus".

What you are asking is for Sony to make another a 7-800$ machine which would be a huge flop.

The only difference between what I said as a minimum and what you wanted is about 2 teraflops of GPU performance give or take. So I don't know why you think I'm talking about a $700 machine (I'm not) and you aren't!

As for the 60FPS modes of formerly 30FPS targeted games from this generation you already know where they exist- on a mid gen refresh with more performance over the base model. The easiest and laziest way for developers to support these mid gen refreshes with their recently released titles is bung in a higher res mode or a (much rarer) higher frame rate mode with virtually no other changes to the base title. That is exactly what we have seen.

It's one thing just unlocking a framerate on an existing title since that is easy and cheap to exploit more performance you didn't have before on the base machine. Totally another thing building and optimising effectively two different versions of a game to lock to two different frame rates on the one console.

You give developers a fresh break again and a new platform like a PS5 it would be back to 30FPS target for the vast majority of games to show off the best of the new hardware. Actually only a small number of games support a higher frame rate mode even with the refreshed machines. You count them. It's not something most developers appear very interested in doing.

3D console performance has increased by 10,000x in the 23 years between PS1 and Xbox One X. But you're still sat there playing at the same 30FPS for most games. Consoles are primarily 30FPS boxes. It isn't likely changing soon.
 
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I wonder if the 7nm node will be mature enough when the PS5 launches or will they stick to the relatively more safe option of 12/14nm.

Although, if memory serves me right, Navi is expected to be made using 7nm, unless the "custom" GPU is heavily modified compared to the Radeon version.
For this reason alone I doubt we'll see the console launch in 2018 (and the fact hat they might want to wait until prices of memory chips drops down a bit so they don't sell at a loss). Xbox one X failed to make Sony sweat kinda like Vega failed to make Nvidia sweat.

To be fair the PS4 Pro made no one sweat. And was widely viewed as a waste of time and resources. Sony barely marketed it. If the PS5 does release next year (I’m hoping) I don’t feel like Xbox would look to compete so soon as the Xbox one X is doing pretty decent. But may be forced to by developers In 2020. One of the big motivators for Sony to do a PS5 even when the PS4 is still doing extremely well is that Sony as a whole has downsized over the last 5 years and video gaming is now something it’s hugely reliant on for profits. If the next gen is started this early I do expect Microsoft to make some bigger moves, although not in VR as Sony’s install base for PSVR is laughable at best.

I don't know where you live but here in the UK the PS4 Pro is advertised a lot, bus stops, TV ads etc. Xbox one X doing good... now that's laughable, it's priced nearly £70 more than the PS4 Pro (and probably won't be making that much profit). Xbox one X is nothing more than away of Marketing the xbox brand, the majority of consumers will go for the standard consoles due to the target price range and seeing as the PS4 is selling nearly double the units of the Xb1 then it's safe to assume Sony isn't worried about the Xbox one X and creating a new console before Microsoft is more about securing that market share. Oh and your comment about PSVR being laughable? It's the biggest VR market, so how is that laughable?

*Not a PS fanboy, PC gamer first, PS for amazing exclusives*
 
The only difference between what I said as a minimum and what you wanted is about 2 teraflops of GPU performance give or take. So I don't know why you think I'm talking about a $700 machine (I'm not) and you aren't!

As for the 60FPS modes of formerly 30FPS targeted games from this generation you already know where they exist- on a mid gen refresh with more performance over the base model. The easiest and laziest way for developers to support these mid gen refreshes with their recently released titles is bung in a higher res mode or a (much rarer) higher frame rate mode with virtually no other changes to the base title. That is exactly what we have seen.

It's one thing just unlocking a framerate on an existing title since that is easy and cheap to exploit more performance you didn't have before on the base machine. Totally another thing building and optimising effectively two different versions of a game to lock to two different frame rates on the one console.

You give developers a fresh break again and a new platform like a PS5 it would be back to 30FPS target for the vast majority of games to show off the best of the new hardware. Actually only a small number of games support a higher frame rate mode even with the refreshed machines. You count them. It's not something most developers appear very interested in doing.

3D console performance has increased by 10,000x in the 23 years between PS1 and Xbox One X. But you're still sat there playing at the same 30FPS for most games. Consoles are primarily 30FPS boxes. It isn't likely changing soon.
Those 2 extra TF os more than enough to increase the cost of the console by more than 100$ as we're talking about not just a bigger chip but it will also require improved power distribution and improved cooling.
And you can call the multiple options as "being lazy" but you are forgetting that the same devs will now target both the PS4 (and/or the PS4P) and the PS5 (similarly to how devs do for the XB1 and XB1X where the power difference between GPUs is really big) -- on the condition that Sony doesn't break compatibility between systems too much.
 
"One thing missing from the report is any mention of backward compatibility with the PS4, which is a feature many are expecting."

Hmmm... x86 AMD APU vs a faster x86 AMD APU...

There is zero technical reasons why there shouldn't be backwards compatibility (near identical core architecture), it'd be a very trivial task. All thats needed is a bit of time to tweak a few software issues. Emulating a PS3 would be an orders of magnitude harder job than emulating a PS4 on this potential PS5...

That's not to say they'll do it, just that it'll be extremely easy for them to do so if they wished.
Yeah, now that I think about it, that does explain the lack of backwards compatibility between PS4 and PS3. Sony couldn't do it even if they wanted to. Completely different architectures.
 
Two developments just around the corner that would help for a strong PS5. HDMI with Freesync and getting the GPU to 7nm. Ryzen+ is already set to roll out. Incremental or a worthy jump remains to be seen. Funny thing is, I skipped PS4 and with a backwards compatibility I would begin with PS4 games I had missed. Much better value being that I play PC games as well. Damn exclusivity. If Sony allows the backwards compatibility and doesn't fiddle with it, it will probably be my last console purchase.
 
To be fair the PS4 Pro made no one sweat. And was widely viewed as a waste of time and resources. Sony barely marketed it.

It's true Sony didn't pour a fortune into marketing it because they didn't really need to. Pro was really viewed as a compliment to original PS4 hardware. Sony have a juggernaut in PS4 and didn't need to go mad revising the hardware.

On the other hand Microsoft had a pretty weak original machine with interest, sales and support flagging. They needed something more than a compliment, they needed as close as they could get to a clean slate without alienating owners of the original machine.

So the X was meant to help turn it all around and appeal to more core gamers, but at this point neither the Pro or the X have exactly flown off the shelves. Their impact on the current market is extremely limited. It might sell faster than PS4 Pro but since the Pro has 12 months head start, it'll be years at this rate to even catch the Pro sales. Neither machine will have any significant impact at all.

The difference is because Sony have a successful current console, aren't pushing their newer machine hard, it isn't as expensive and it's a year older, they can probably launch a proper next generation machine first without much consternation. Xbox One X might be a big leap over the original Xbox One hardware but essentially all it really does it take the resolution to ~4K with better textures and a smattering of minor enhancements.

You need even more performance to genuinely push the bar to reach a 'proper' next generation of visuals and behaviour over PS4. Mark Cerny acknowledged as much even when they launched PS4 Pro.

Your not going to see a "proper" next gen if your expecting a PS2 to PS3 level "leap" in performance. Its simply not going to happen again like that unless some incredible breakthrough happens, and you'll know about the breakthrough because you'll see it on PC first.

The PS5, (Xbox X2 or whatever its called) will likely be backward compatible with this generation simply because the machines will once again be mid grade gaming PCs. It simply costs far far too much money to R&D your own custom GPU/CPUs like they did in previous generations and so if they want to use the fastest GPUs and CPUs on the market they are going to be choosing from the same pool of parts PC gamers choose from.

The difference in fidelity between a game at 1080p on a 1050ti and the same game at 1080p on a 1080ti is slim. It gets wider at 4k simply due to framerates but visually its still not earth shattering. The only areas consoles really lag behind right now are CPU capacity (which is an issue on games with lots of physics or interactive environments or BR style games) and in framerates.

I suspect the next big push from a PS5/new xbox will be higher framerates at both 1080 and 4k, hopefully a minimum of 60fps. Hopefully a push for freesync and HDMI based variable-sync, and a continued push for VR and AR capabilities.
 
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