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[Bojji]

So it's RDNA2 (for BC) + RDNA3 (vertex & geometry engine) + RDNA4 RT + fully custom ML hardware and GPU customizations with a power similar to a 4080 (300 TOPs, 8-bit), no 2x sparse matrix shenanigans as it's very custom and powerful. Sony designed and own the ML hardware (and software obviously). Warriors are going to spin this for years, decades even. So many Xbox fans hoping it would not be custom and arguing about the word custom used in the leaks.

It's a 16.7-18 Tflops machine the same way PS5 is a 10-10.3 Tflops machine

The Cerny patent about RT and new acceleration hardware (traversal logic + stack management) was 100% true.

Sony files new patent for ‘Accelerated Ray Tracing’ - speculation that it could be more performant

Source: https://www.psu.com/news/sony-files-new-patent-that-mentions-accelerated-ray-tracing-on-ps5/ Patnet: https://data.epo.org/publication-server/document?iDocId=6759906&iFormat=0 5.3 Publication of the European patent application 5.3.001 The European patent application is published as...

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As the ML hardware specifically uses the increased L0 and L1 caches, there was no need to increase the L2 cache.

Similarly the new RT hardware units included in the shaders will alleviate main GDDR6 accesses vs PS5 games using hardware RT. It's probably where the claims about memory efficiency come from.

4080 power when it can't match 4070?

Edit: ML power alone is nothing, even Cerny said they can't really use all that ai power with that memory bandwidth. And outside or super resolution stuff so far there is no other use for ai in games.

 

[Crayon]

The PS5 most likely just breaks even, given that Sony said they didn't have room to cut prices and Microsoft have admitted they were making a loss per unit. The extra BOM for the bigger APU and bigger SSD shouldn't be more than $150 and could be as low as $100, depending on what margins AMD charge. So we would expect Sony to be making at least $100 in profit per unit.

They're definitely making money on the ps5 pro. Source: My heart.

 

[Topher]

They're definitely making money on the ps5 pro. Source: My heart.

There isn't a source, but that is widely speculated to be the case. I mean.....why bother otherwise?

 

[T-Cake]

There isn't a source, but that is widely speculated to be the case. I mean.....why bother otherwise?

Good practice for PS6 design.

 

[Crayon]

There isn't a source, but that is widely speculated to be the case. I mean.....why bother otherwise?

I agree it's got margin on it. I was saying I don't need a source. Seems too obvious.

 

[Topher]

I agree it's got margin on it. I was saying I don't need a source. Seems too obvious.

Gotcha. My bad.

 

[AngelMuffin]

 

[Deleted member 848825]

There isn't a source, but that is widely speculated to be the case. I mean.....why bother otherwise?

I'd be surprised if they weren't at the very least braking even. I expect they are making a profit. However I don't believe they made the Pro primarily to make a hardware profit. I'd imagine in no small part, its to keep existing PS enthusiasts onboard and retain them as customers. Otherwise mid gen, perhaps folks like me, start to ponder PC. I'm sure that was the idea behind the PS4 Pro too.

 

[Physiognomonics]

4080 power when it can't match 4070?

Edit: ML power alone is nothing, even Cerny said they can't really use all that ai power with that memory bandwidth. And outside or super resolution stuff so far there is no other use for ai in games.

And you think Nvidia can when they are not using directly GPU caches as efficiently as PS5 Pro? Also we are talking ML power, not overall GPU performance. And PSSR already shows they are doing some things better than DLSS, notably resolving things in motion.

 

[Bojji]

And you think Nvidia can when they are not using directly GPU caches as efficiently as PS5 Pro? Also we are talking ML power, not overall GPU performance. And PSSR already shows they are doing some things better than DLSS, notably resolving things in motion.

It's also worse in most other things. It will improve in time for sure...

But all this ML power is irrelevant when games are not using ai at this point for anything other than super resolution (and frame gen in Nvidia version of it). Tensor cores are fucking bored when they have to calculate Dlss, most of the hardware is not used. I doubt ML hardware in pro is really fully utilized for just pssr alone.

There are rumors that Nvidia plans something with this stuff, we will see in January.

 

[Topher]

I'd be surprised if they weren't at the very least braking even. I expect they are making a profit. However I don't believe they made the Pro primarily to make a hardware profit. I'd imagine in no small part, its to keep existing PS enthusiasts onboard and retain them as customers. Otherwise mid gen, perhaps folks like me, start to ponder PC. I'm sure that was the idea behind the PS4 Pro too.

That's probably a secondary motive, certainly. I'm guessing the fact that PC is typically a much higher initial investment also aided in coming to a profit-friendly price.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

That's probably a secondary motive, certainly. I'm guessing the fact that PC is typically a much higher initial investment also aided in coming to a profit-friendly price.

The profit margin is still reasonable. Probably only about 10-15%. Which is a bargain compared to marked up dedicated GPU hardware with margins in the 60+% range

 

[sachos]

Oh wow there is much more here than i expected. Great talk as always.
Im really excited about that colaboration announcement and i love that this video pretty much confirms everything we've been discussing here about PS5 Pro being their test bed for future PS6 hardware. Can't wait to see what they achieve over the next 4 years.
Also, name dropping Digital Foundry, damn, that must felt good for them.

 

[Topher]

The profit margin is still reasonable. Probably only about 10-15%. Which is a bargain compared to marked up dedicated GPU hardware with margins in the 60+% range

It is all gravy when your base console is making next to nothing. I'm glad we have the option either way. Don't get this narrative that we shouldn't.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

It is all gravy when your base console is making next to nothing. I'm glad we have the option either way. Don't get this narrative that we shouldn't.

Yeah it's really just to make PS5 stuff look and perform better as Mark Cerny said. Not intended to be a generational leap.

The base PS5 already looked damn good but in the quality modes to me. So getting that at 60 fps mostly is the reason I bought it and so far it's looking like that's what the machine is for devs that make good ports.

Ghost of Yotei, GTA6, Death Stranding 2, Intergalactic.....will all be amazing on it

 

[Topher]

Yeah it's really just to make PS5 stuff look and perform better as Mark Cerny said. Not intended to be a generational leap.

The base PS5 already looked damn good but in the quality modes to me. So getting that at 60 fps mostly is the reason I bought it and so far it's looking like that's what the machine is for devs that make good ports.

Ghost of Yotei, GTA6, Death Stranding 2, Intergalactic.....will all be amazing on it

No doubt. New games are going to be what truly sell the system.

 

[RCU005]

Mark Cerny is a genius and he's done three amazing PlayStation consoles (PS Vita, PS4 and PS5). However, I still think the PS5 Pro is unnecessary. This gen has not been able to use the best potential due to cross gen games, the Xbox Series S, and other factors such as budgets and focus on Live Service.

Even if GTA 6 or Intergalactic looks really likeable truly generational leap, it would only be a handful of games. Whereas in PS3 and PS4, the generational leap began by the second year.

 

[Ashamam]

That's probably a secondary motive, certainly.

Cerny literally stated the secondary motive. The primary is to improve machine graphics (which has implicit retaining hardcore fans), but the secondary is about technology development and iteration towards the next generation. Which is both internal/partner and dev driven. Ie: not primarily about the consumer in the case of the Pro.

I mean you could almost swap them around, because forward looking it sounds like they didn't have confidence executing their PS6 vision without the PS5 pro. The mid gen improvements being a nice bonus. Perhaps it started one way and has ended up the other. Regardless I don't think you can understate the importance of having physical hardware at this point in the cycle already integrating conceptual elements of the next generation.

 

[Topher]

Cerny literally stated the secondary motive. The primary is to improve machine graphics (which has implicit retaining hardcore fans), but the secondary is about technology development and iteration towards the next generation. Which is both internal/partner and dev driven. Ie: not primarily about the consumer in the case of the Pro.

I'm saying it is secondary to making money. That's not something Cerny is ever going to talk about.

 

[Ashamam]

I'm saying it is secondary to making money. That's not something Cerny is ever going to talk about.

Well true, but I think it's probably more a case of not losing money. As in we have to do this (Cerny) but if we are it's not going to be at a loss and how much do you think we can make (suits). All of which I doubt Cerny cared too much about in getting the project greenlit. But who knows maybe Cerny is profit driven, but I don't see it, seems more the build it and they will come type.

 

[lh032]

Mark Cerny is a genius and he's done three amazing PlayStation consoles (PS Vita, PS4 and PS5). However, I still think the PS5 Pro is unnecessary. This gen has not been able to use the best potential due to cross gen games, the Xbox Series S, and other factors such as budgets and focus on Live Service.

Even if GTA 6 or Intergalactic looks really likeable truly generational leap, it would only be a handful of games. Whereas in PS3 and PS4, the generational leap began by the second year.

MH wilds struggles on ps5 and ps5 pro greatly imptove the frame rate.

 

[Fafalada]

ML power alone is nothing, even Cerny said they can't really use all that ai power with that memory bandwidth.

Yes, but that applies to everything in AI today - including NVidia GPUs.
Eg- for a 4090, bandwidth situation is even worse - as it does a bit more more than double the TOPs (660) and has less than double the bandwidth (about 1TB/s) of a PS5Pro.
Ultimately, the memory bandwidth is over 3 orders of magnitude removed from compute throughput. So for every memory access, you need to perform at least 1000 operations, otherwise you're wasting compute waiting on memory.

This is also why slower caches (like infinity) are not even making a dent in this problem - with 2TB/s - we're still in the 3 orders of magnitude too slow range.

 

[sachos]

Lmao that interview with Oliver, they are kinda dodging his questions no? I wish he asked about PSSR pixel crawl issue and how they are planning to improve it.

 

[RCU005]

MH wilds struggles on ps5 and ps5 pro greatly imptove the frame rate.

I think that's because they are focusing on the wrong features.

I remember reading that people believed the next thing from 1080p was going to be 1440p, but suddenly it was 4K.
This gen has ray-tracing, which IMO, it should've been left for PS6 or even PS7.

I know this reads contradictory from my last post, but there could still be amazing games without ray-tracing and 4K (although of course, no one wants to go back)

The gaming industry should focus on PHYSICS! it's mostly gone now!

 

[BlitzerRadic]

I'm on the team that this shouldn't have been released. Looking at the sales performance of the PS5, a console refresh was completely unnecessary. The PS4 Pro only existed because of the boom in 4K TVs. Still, it sold very little compared to the base console.

If you think its not needed why you complaining?

 

[Panajev2001a]

Ray tracing is RDNA4, some raster parts are from RDNA3 and others have been left as they are on PS5 so RDNA2

Even the RDNA2 parts have been upgraded as we have VRS and Mesh Shaders support so this means the ROPS changed too (VRS wise). Magically PSVR2 got async space warp too (GT7 already put it to good use easily enough).

 

[Topher]

Well true, but I think it's probably more a case of not losing money. As in we have to do this (Cerny) but if we are it's not going to be at a loss and how much do you think we can make (suits). All of which I doubt Cerny cared too much about in getting the project greenlit. But who knows maybe Cerny is profit driven, but I don't see it, seems more the build it and they will come type.

Well.....in the end it is speculative as to how much money they make on each unit. Maybe that info will come out at some point. I think behind the scenes Cerny is probably involved in those discussions as far as hitting target margins and what will it take to do stuff like that. My gut tells me they bumped up the SSD to 2TB because that was an easy profit making component that they believed allowed them to get the base price to $700 along. Coupled with the optional drive and I think they are making some good money here. But no way to know for certain, obviously.

 

[omegasc]

So... AMD+Sony against Nvidia

And outside or super resolution stuff so far there is no other use for ai in games.

Didn't Insomniac use ML for muscle movement or something like that in Miles Morales?

 

[sachos]

Really excited about project Amethyst and if they can finally reach their holy grail of a neural net that can do everything in one pass. I would even argue PS6 is going to be a much bigger leap than PS5 was compared to PS4.

 

[crazyriddler]

That hasn't exactly been measured yet.
On one end - games need to actually adopt RDNA4 enhancements and we don't know which/how many have done so, and on the other - any comparisons so far are almost entirely eyeballed without actual RT metrics. So where exactly performance lands is just as nebulous as what 'light years' means in this context (I don't imagine you'd put a number on it either).
The only thing we've seen so far is that - again - eyeballing it, but whatever - 2-3x claims made by Cerny seem to hold up.

I suppose we'll have a better idea after PC GPUs launch.


Sony's approach to developer tools have always been more hands-off than not - ie. give as much freedom as possible. This in turn also means more ambiguity on 'what's right'(and can lead to negative results) - but it's one thing they've been consistent on for ... 25 years or so.
MS tends to be more instructive and that has its own set of tradeoffs - but I'll agree it looks better when you're using it as PR, people don't like the indecisiveness. Also why their recent years of 'strategy' updates likely haven't landed so well as they adopted the open-ended talking points instead.

I really doubt that there is a 'secret source' that makes the performance increase exponentially in RT performance, probably what we have already seen is what it is, after all if RDNA4 has significant improvements should be reflected in all the games already released, neither Intel nor Nvidia have had to adapt anything in the games already released to perform better than AMD in RT so why should it be any different?

 

[DinoD]

PS5 Pro main expectation was to get borderline unplayable games (image quality/frame rate) over the line. Fidelity/frame rate improvements to already technically excellent games (eg. Sony 1st party) are more on the enthusiast side. With the mixed results so far on the former.

 

[BlitzerRadic]

Yo I knew that DF guy was a chubber but never actually saw his entire body. That poor chair must be screaming lmao

 

[Three]

And outside or super resolution stuff so far there is no other use for ai in games.

This is just blatantly false. Especially using your own definitions of "super resolution".

 

[Fafalada]

neither Intel nor Nvidia have had to adapt anything

Of course they did - major hw revisions on PC come with major driver updates. The kind of changes we're talking about here (like adopting a new acceleration structure, or shader compiler generate different code for a new GPU) are precisely what driver stack addresses behind the scenes.

I really doubt that there is a 'secret source' that makes the performance increase exponentially in RT performance

We literally just had someone detail the major changes and how they impact performance. What part about this is still 'secret'?
Also - I see we went from 'light years' to 'exponential' - is that bigger or smaller, I honestly can't tell.

 

[saintjules]

PS6 will be the ultimate machine.

And the last.

I hope they call it 'Playstation Next'. Playstation 6 doesn't exactly roll off the tongue all that much.

 

[mrqs]

Yo I knew that DF guy was a chubber but never actually saw his entire body. That poor chair must be screaming lmao

Amazing comment. Congratulations. It was worth the typing, and completely worth the posting. Thank you for that.

 

[saintjules]

 

[odhiex]

And the last.

I hope they call it 'Playstation Next'. Playstation 6 doesn't exactly roll off the tongue all that much.

No, I want my son (at least) to see the PS9 for real.

 

[saintjules]

No, I want my son (at least) to see the PS9 for real.

PSSEX

 

[yogaflame]

Really excited about project Amethyst and if they can finally reach their holy grail of a neural net that can do everything in one pass. I would even argue PS6 is going to be a much bigger leap than PS5 was compared to PS4.

Ps5 was 9x more processing power than Ps4. Does that mean Ps6 will also be 9 x more processing power than Ps5?

Well we are still far from next gen, maybe 4 to 5 years form now, that is why I'm not to hype that much with next gen. I'm still happy with base ps5 slim and might get ps5 pro next year. Ps5 slim still a good machine and still allot of juice in it, while ps5 pro pssr ML is still in its infancy and it will learn more and evolve.

 

[Xaeroxcore666]

 

[Bojji]

Even the RDNA2 parts have been upgraded as we have VRS and Mesh Shaders support so this means the ROPS changed too (VRS wise). Magically PSVR2 got async space warp too (GT7 already put it to good use easily enough).

Both of these were in original rDNA2 (even Xbox has them), for some reason omitted for PS5 GPU.

So... AMD+Sony against Nvidia

Didn't Insomniac use ML for muscle movement or something like that in Miles Morales?

Yes, Santa Monica uses some of that for textures or something? All of this was running on normal PS5 GPU, without any ML acceleration.

So it was simple stuff.

This is just blatantly false. Especially using your own definitions of "super resolution".

The same definition that Cerny used, only to increase resolution of the image. He talked about frame generation and denoising as different things than SR. And they are.

You mean use if ML in games for what exactly? There was some minor stuff done so far (already mentioned insomniac and SSM cases).

 

[Three]

The same definition that Cerny used, only to increase resolution of the image. He talked about frame generation and denoising as different things than SR. And they are.

So if you agree these things are different why do you think TOPS performance wouldn't help here for things like denoising or frame generation? Why did you say this? :
"And outside or[sic] super resolution stuff so far there is no other use for ai in games."

You mean use if ML in games for what exactly? There was some minor stuff done so far (already mentioned insomniac and SSM cases).

Yes those, and game AI opponents too akin to Sophy.

 

[Bojji]

So if you agree these things are different why do you think TOPS performance wouldn't help here for things like denoising or frame generation? Why did you say this? :
"And outside or(sic) super resolution stuff so far there is no other use for ai in games."


Yes those, and game AI opponents too akin to Sophy.

This is minor stuff. Will they use something more advanced it in some games on pro? Maybe, but they still have to keep normal version on PS5 playable without it. Same is true for Nvidia stuff (that they apparently want to announce).

Real usage of ai in game rendering is years away. Just like we had first RT GPU in 2018 but games started to really use this stuff like one or two years ago?

 

[Three]

This is minor stuff. Will they use something more advanced it in some games on pro? Maybe, but they still have to keep normal version on PS5 playable without it. Same is true for Nvidia stuff (that they apparently want to announce).

Real usage of ai in game rendering is years away. Just like we had first RT GPU in 2018 but games started to really use this stuff like one or two years ago?

No matter how 'minor' you think these things are they are current uses for AI in games beyond super resolution.

 

[CloudShiner]

Yo I knew that DF guy was a chubber but never actually saw his entire body. That poor chair must be screaming lmao

He probably has his own gravitational field.

 

[poppabk]

Stop talking and Just show me the fucking games that take advantage of it.

They did already.

 

[saintjules]

Yo I knew that DF guy was a chubber but never actually saw his entire body. That poor chair must be screaming lmao

C'mon man leave Oliver alone. Big Men Unite!

 

[Bojji]

No matter how 'minor' you think these things are they are current uses for AI in games beyond super resolution.

It's minor and not much important when they run in on normal GPU without any ML acceleration (PS5 GPU is even lacking stuff that would allow XeSS run on it).

 

[Three]

It's minor and not much important when they run in on normal GPU without any ML acceleration (PS5 GPU is even lacking stuff that would allow XeSS run on it).

So what you're saying is that nvidia TOPS performance doesn't really matter at all "because you can just run those things on a normal GPU without any ML"?
How is it not important? Even a simple thing like framegen would benefit greatly from better performance, especially at higher base fps.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here anyway. I just said your claim that there is "no other use for ai in games other than Super resolution" is blatantly false. Your subjective opinion about the "importance" of these other uses isn't something I particularly care about.