Tuesday, April 16th 2019
Sony PlayStation 5 Console Confirmed Powered by 8-core Zen 2 CPU, Navi and Ray Tracing Confirmed
Sony's own lead system architect Mark Cerny spilled the beans on the company's upcoming "PlayStation 5" games console - the name isn't confirmed, but it's a PlayStation, and it's the fifth, so, following from the previous nomenclature just makes sense, doesn't it? One particular detail, however, is of most interest to us PC hardware junkies, and that one little fact is the confirmed Navi GPU that will power it. This is, almost certainly, a semi-custom Navi-based GPU, however; but the tidbit that PlayStation 5 will have raytracing support is the one game changer for hardware expectations - on paper, at least.
Of course, Navi is expected to debut much sooner in the consumer space than on next-gen consoles, but the fact that PlayStation 5 development kits are already being seeded - and an increasing rate, according to Sony - bodes well for the feature's inclusion on AMD's consumer-based cards. Either that or the company is taking a software approach to raytracing, which, if NVIDIA's 1000 and 10*0 series is any indication, wouldn't go very well with performance intentions. This does mean that raytracing is about to receive a much-needed market penetration boost for its adoption by developers. NVIDIA will of course be able to wave the flag of having been the first company to introduce the technology to consumers.
Another thing of interest for us is the fact that Cerny said that 3D audio will finally have its own dedicated hardware, which Sony wants to leverage in bringing a qualitative leap in audio quality compared to the PS3 and PS4 (on which audio stayed basically the same).
Other interesting tidbits that have been confirmed is the usage of an AMD 8-core, Zen 2 CPU, alongside 8K resolution support (note that "support" doesn't equal "output") and a faster-than-SSD storage subsystem that is much faster, according to Cerny, than current consumer-grade SSD solutions. Backwards compatibility is, of course, a must by now - Microsoft has made it so with their push that spans the entirety of Xbox's lifetime. Excited already?
Source:
Wired
Of course, Navi is expected to debut much sooner in the consumer space than on next-gen consoles, but the fact that PlayStation 5 development kits are already being seeded - and an increasing rate, according to Sony - bodes well for the feature's inclusion on AMD's consumer-based cards. Either that or the company is taking a software approach to raytracing, which, if NVIDIA's 1000 and 10*0 series is any indication, wouldn't go very well with performance intentions. This does mean that raytracing is about to receive a much-needed market penetration boost for its adoption by developers. NVIDIA will of course be able to wave the flag of having been the first company to introduce the technology to consumers.
Other interesting tidbits that have been confirmed is the usage of an AMD 8-core, Zen 2 CPU, alongside 8K resolution support (note that "support" doesn't equal "output") and a faster-than-SSD storage subsystem that is much faster, according to Cerny, than current consumer-grade SSD solutions. Backwards compatibility is, of course, a must by now - Microsoft has made it so with their push that spans the entirety of Xbox's lifetime. Excited already?
66 Comments on Sony PlayStation 5 Console Confirmed Powered by 8-core Zen 2 CPU, Navi and Ray Tracing Confirmed
The beautiful thing is that the underlying technology to accelerate graphic rays also work for audio rays. Instead of translucency for visual rays, they consider surface type for reflection or absorption of vibrations.
I really want more information about Navi. We know what it can do but we don't know how it does it.
Let's see if hardware accelerated RTRT will prevail, or soon be forgotten and turn into software emulation.
First of all, these consoles are going to be in the market for 6 years or so, that means they're gonna suck really bad against even an RTX 4060 in 4 years.
And secondly wider developer support for RTRT will probably benefit Nvidia more than anyone else.
I consider for now that RTRT it's just a gimmick bringing only marginal graphic improvements with massive performance hit, which in the end it's no way worth it.
Bringing RTRT support to console means the future 5 years of RTRT development will be limited by the console hardware.
And Game developers will optimize their RTRT game to the consoles.
There is no need to sacrifice die space for ASIC specialized for RTRT calculations.
Meaning the RT cores in the RTX series cards will be less and less relevant.Me2
RTRT itself might be the holy grail of computer graphics.
But the horrible execution and implementation of Nvidia RTX series and RTRT games (Only 3 in existence) just ruined the whole thing.
They built the Hype train and failed to deliver.
DXR will live on, like PhysX and Tessellation, as an option in the graphics menu, NOT as a marketing gimmick.
Also- if it comes on Q3 2020- maybe it will be made on 7nm+ ?
1. This is the best this console can get alongside AMD hardware.
2. How can it be faster if SATA3 vs. NVMe videos show that there is exactly ZERO performance gain for the latter in OS and game loads (performance gains in other programs is a horse of another colour).
Its an uphill battle, that is why the console market is so so important for this technology. Its a much lower bar in terms of performance and IQ and has a huge and varied target audience.