Hot Chips 32, XSX Architecture Deep Dive

[zhus (DrZee)]

@Daniel

MS nor we know exactly everything about either box right now (MS obviously knows about their box )

What additional information are you expecting either party to disclose at this point? More hardware details?

[LifeForms]

@Daniel

I’m sorry but I don’t understand what you mean, MS nor we know exactly everything about either box right now (MS obviously knows about their box ) so saying you have the best console now is a bit iffy. Once MS knows without a doubt they have the better box they will shout it form the roof tops like they did with the X1X.

I think they have it in the bad honestly so just expect it closer to launch.

Microsoft are not breaking any laws by saying scarlett will be the most powerful, I mean what is sony going to do? They cant sue because they would need to know the specs of scarlett.

Elon musk says the tesla semi is the best semi at various metrics, yet the the semi is not out yet.

[LifeForms]

@zhus

I knew Klee was wrong from day one, I knew what was being designed. But what I could not understand is where he was getting some of his info, they were so far off. Even back in December 2018, I think it was either Brad or Jez was reporting 12TF.

He probably just wanted some attention and power and made the whole thing up, or his source was trolling him.

[TavishHill]

@c0de

I guess they are trying to find the right words to highlight the advantages of the PS5 while not giving too much credit to the superior console which they basically tried already with “the road to PS5”. It is very possible we won’t see a breakdown from sony, though.

In a way it might end up being a clever way to let Sony fans keep hopes/dreams alive in the vacuum of info. I’d imagine they could just do a blog post/interview with their own ppl to talk up SmartShift, their cooling system, SSD, and touch on stuff they can match XSX on like RT and parrot the ‘RDNA2-based’ marketing line. Maybe even draw comparisons to PS4/Pro too. Not much we dunno already, though.

[TavishHill]

@zhus

I knew Klee was wrong from day one, I knew what was being designed. But what I could not understand is where he was getting some of his info, they were so far off. Even back in December 2018, I think it was either Brad or Jez was reporting 12TF.

He claimed to know XSX was 12 TF the whole time, which really makes one wonder wtf his whole commentary was based on as it made ppl think PS5 was higher than that. It was indeed early Dec that Jez and Brad were nailing down rumored specs of 12 TF.

[The_Xboxer (Adam)]

@zhus

What additional information are you expecting either party to disclose at this point? More hardware details?

From Sony I want to know:

What is the base clock? What is the sustainable performance. How long does the clock reach its peak and how often?

How variable frequency impacts performance?Does it help optimization?

How RT performs? How much does it impact the GPU? Since it is shader based but can be called Hardware

Does it have VRS? DLSS/ML?

What are the RDNA2 features present inside? Is it truly full RDNA2?

How is BC? Is it enhanced? Full BC? Does the clock really mimic ps4 & ps4 pro clock speeds?

How Tempest Engine compares to competition? Can we see the back of the console please? Want to see the ports

What is the max TDP? Is the console more silent than ps4 pro?

How long are the loading times? How the SSD impact the whole PS5 architecture?

What are the new user interface features? How did they improve PSVR2?

And a lot more but well guess I just have to sit back and wait again

[insane_cobra]

@LifeForms

Microsoft are not breaking any laws by saying scarlett will be the most powerful, I mean what is sony going to do? They cant sue because they would need to know the specs of scarlett.

Elon musk says the tesla semi is the best semi at various metrics, yet the the semi is not out yet.

It’s not about legal reasons, MS simply decided to wait until they were certain that Sony would not pull something out of the hat, the way they did with PS4’s 8GB of RAM. Up until that point the word from anonymous third party devs was that PS4 and Xbox One were on roughly equal grounds overall, with each having significant advantages over the other. Getting into a similar situation with PS5 would make MS look like complete fools.

[LifeForms]

@insane_cobra

It’s not about legal reasons, MS simply decided to wait until they were certain that Sony would not pull something out of the hat, the way they did with PS4’s 8GB of RAM. Up until that point the word from anonymous third party devs was that PS4 and Xbox One were on roughly equal grounds overall, with each having significant advantages over the other. Getting into a similar situation with PS5 would make MS look like complete fools.

I agree, I was replying to @Daniel who said they could not say it legally.

[Colbert]

Marketing statements are dependent to its timing. Some of the statements discussed here were made before Sony revealed their theoretical peak performance. Since then Xbox is back to the most powerful console (announced).

All signs also point to a bigger gap in performance than the mathematical difference suggest. But don’t expect this to materialize in the first wave of games. It will take time to make use of the new technologies and capabilities. By end of 2021 it will start to show up big time ( I hope ).

[LifeForms]

@Colbert

Marketing statements are dependent to its timing. Some of the statements discussed here were made before Sony revealed their theoretical peak performance. Since then Xbox is back to the most powerful console (announced).

All signs also point to a bigger gap in performance than the mathematical difference suggest. But don’t expect this to materialize in the first wave of games. It will take time to make use of the new technologies and capabilities. By end of 2021 it will start to show up big time ( I hope ).

I would of thought the first wave of cross gen games would provide the biggest differences because a lot of the times devs will just be doing basic ports with res + fps boosts, so they won’t be getting into the nitty gritty of the systems and be treating them more like a PC. With the xsx being able to do single thread @ 3.8ghz, the xsx will see bigger gains there where the PS5 will be restricted to a max 3.5ghz on single threaded things.

[Colbert]

@LifeForms

I would of thought the first wave of cross gen games would provide the biggest differences because a lot of the times devs will just be doing basic ports with res + fps boosts, so they won’t be getting into the nitty gritty of the systems and be treating them more like a PC. With the xsx being able to do single thread @ 3.8ghz, the xsx will see bigger gains there where the PS5 will be restricted to a max 3.5ghz on single threaded things.

The difference will open up because of DirectStorage, SFS, VRS and ML accelaration. This has to be adapted and isn’t a no brainer or easy to master.

[LifeForms]

@The_Xboxer

… long does the clock reach its peak and how often? How variable frequency impacts performance?Does it help optimization? How RT performs? How much does it impact the GPU? Since it is shader based but can be called Hardware Does it have VRS? DLSS/ML? What are the RDNA2 features present inside? Is it truly full RDNA2? How is BC? Is it enhanced? Full BC? Does the clock really mimic ps4 & ps4 pro clock speeds? How Tempest Engine compares to competition? Can we see the back of the console please? Want to see the ports What is the max TDP? Is the console more silent than ps4 pro? How long are the loading times? How the SSD impact the whole PS5 architecture? What are the new user interface features? How did they improve PSVR2? And a lot more but well guess I just have to sit back and wait again

One aspect which I think will happen with the PS5 I think devs will choose to prioritize GPU clocks e.g keep the gpu at 2200-2330mhz and the CPU at like 3 - 3.2ghz, they will do this because even at 3ghz the CPU is still a massive gain over current gen and GPU has recently been more important in game design.

[WhiteDevilMan]

@The_Xboxer

How is BC? Is it enhanced? Full BC? Does the clock really mimic ps4 & ps4 pro clock speeds?

As a potential backup console, this is what I really want to know. There are a few PS4 games (almost all remakes of PS3 games) I’d like to play, but not enough to overcome, what I see are, the major PS4 flaws.

@The_Xboxer

How Tempest Engine compares to competition? Can we see the back of the console please? Want to see the ports

What is the max TDP? Is the console more silent than ps4 pro?

I’m also interested in the audio and by extension how quiet the PS5 will be in all potential modes and clock speeds.

I may dive in to PSVR if that improves the PS4 games and is well supported. This will be one point that helps me jump in before a 3rd party controller I’m happy with is released that doesn’t cost as much as the console. Or maybe an adapter to just use the Xbox controllers.

[Shpeshal_Nick]

@clashfan

Why would those engineers go to Sony? This not a console war statement but going from MS to Sony is a backward career move. I can see those people jumping ship to Apple, Amazon or Google because there is a bigger promotion path. MS lives in fear of their best engineers going to the big 3.

I just saying generally. Sony should be targeting these folks. Their backwards compatibility isn’t in great shape and I don’t see it getting much better with PS6. They just haven’t invested enough into it.

[LifeForms]

@Colbert

The difference will open up because of DirectStorage, SFS, VRS and ML accelaration. This has to be adapted and isn’t a no brainer or easy to master.

I think the ssd and i/o solutions from sony/ms will balance out.

It will be interesting to see how VRS, A.I image reconstruction, checkerboarding, dynamic resolution, temporary injection and all the other performance saving techniques will play out, if the series S is a thing it will be interesting to see how they scale everything. Sony could have an edge if they decide to do PS5 games with an internal resolution of 1080 - 1440p. If sony dedicated 2tflops to some A.I reconstruction, so the game would have an internal res of 1080p but a reconstructed res of 4k and they used the remaining 8tflops for the game, that would give some interesting results.

Next gen ai think there will be multiple ways devs can reach there goals, so crazy simulation’s of physics, weather,water ,gas will be possible.

[zhus (DrZee)]

@The_Xboxer

What is the max TDP? Is the console more silent than ps4 pro? How long are the loading times? How the SSD impact the whole PS5 architecture? What are the new user interface features? How did they improve PSVR2? And a lot more but well guess I just have to sit back and wait again

I am not expecting more hardware details, for example it serves little additional value to talk about the Tempest Engine, unless they are using it in a different novel way.

I would be very interested in learning the TDP, but I expect we'll learn more of this from third parties and 3rd party tear down, and how they solve the optimization problem. If its me too feature, then again I expect to see a spec sheet updated, no presentation or interview.

Only 3 more months and we will see some third party games, but early games don't really stress the system.

[zhus (DrZee)]

@LifeForms

2200-2330

I would be curious to see for how long they can sustain these or yields, given Sony mentions a max clock of 2.23GHz. I expect to go from 2Ghz to 2.23GHz, they need additional 15-20W for the GPU. This means the CPU may need to be powered at Vmin.

[TavishHill]

@zhus

What additional information are you expecting either party to disclose at this point? More hardware details?

Personally, I’d like to see clarification on VRS, ML, and mesh shaders. If these things are not present, which I’m guessing they are not, then I’d agree there is little upside for Sony to do a teardown. Either way, I’d like that info though.

[LifeForms]

@zhus

I would be curious to see for how long they can sustain these or yields, given Sony mentions a max clock of 2.23GHz. I expect to go from 2Ghz to 2.23GHz, they need additional 15-20W for the GPU. This means the CPU may need to be powered at Vmin.

From my understanding the smartshift system has the CPU clocked high or the GPU, so for 2230mhz the cpu will need to be clocked lower and vice versa.

What i dont get cerny said they struggled with 3ghz on the cpu and 2ghz on the gpu using fixed clocks, so if they struggled with those clocks when fixed how come they dont struggle when they are sustained using smartshift?

[zhus (DrZee)]

@LifeForms

From my understanding the smartshift system has the CPU clocked high or the GPU, so for 2230mhz the cpu will need to be clocked lower and vice versa.

What i dont get cerny said they struggled with 3ghz on the cpu and 2ghz on the gpu using fixed clocks, so if they struggled with those clocks when fixed how come they dont struggle when they are sustained using smartshift?

Given SOC TDP < P(GPU@2GHz) + P(CPU@3GHz) + P(Display + MM), so K ~ P(CPU) + P(GPU). Fabric, memory power is distributed amongst these. K is being set as a limit, so individual power can vary such that the relationship is maintained.