Zen 2 is on consoles is going to be a Game Changer, even for PC gamers

Personally I think part of this push for CPU speeds is related to the push for higher frame rates on consoles and to have fewer games CPU limited to 30fps, we've heard rumours of possible 120fps targets and now we're finally seeing TVs on the market with support and that seems to be a growing theme, while VR of course benefits from higher framerates too if they follow up PSVR or try to expand its library.

Of course they could easily achieve that and more with this big of a jump in performance and straight from launch some developers seemed to feel limited by the CPU when it came to game mechanics or AI complexity so I'm sure the CPU will be pushed in many more ways as well. If there's SMT enabled then that could lead to better 12-16 core desktop utilisation too.
 
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This is how it's always been. The massive influx of power that Zen will bring will vastly open up the games able to be created on all platforms. The reach of consoles with the power of a PC will enable developers to be able to get more creative and take more risks to mold crazy ideas into games.


I personally hope they allow mouse and keyboard on Ps5 or whatever they call it. The power available will finally allow strategy games to come to console and if I can play Total War or even Civ on console, I'd sell my PC.
 
Yeah that's how it has been up until last gen when the consoles launched as essentially mid range PCs at best, past generation consoles were generally fairly beefy and unique compared to PCs of their time but last gen focussed mainly on stepping up the GPU power to modern expectations with relatively modest CPU bumps(Especially for the PS3 vs 4 which some devs felt was a bit of a step back in total possible throughput) which is why many games ended up scaled down from their earlier demos built on high spec PCs.
Of course given there weren't many options on the table for cost effective efficient high speed CPUs of any architecture last gen it's pretty obvious why the focus shifted.
 
I'm really stoked for AMD and how they put up with all our mockery to turn their company around. We now look at Zen as the way forward.

Looking forward to this. Might be nice to return back to console with the next gen PS. Although I do wonder if this is the last gen we will ever see before everything is a streamed service.
 
I'm really stoked for AMD and how they put up with all our mockery to turn their company around. We now look at Zen as the way forward.

Looking forward to this. Might be nice to return back to console with the next gen PS. Although I do wonder if this is the last gen we will ever see before everything is a streamed service.

Well we look at it that way because Zen turned the company around lol

I don't doubt we'll have more streaming services next gen. Maybe not at launch but we'll have the download and play option soon enough as I could easily see them releasing a box that connects to the cloud and only is able to stream games. Especially because they will want to use there brand to keep Google from taking over the Cloud market with Google Stadia.

I'm also curious as to how the next gen will play out. Will we get another Pro or One X variant? Because only thing that could really improve is just more GPU power.
 
Well we look at it that way because Zen turned the company around lol

I don't doubt we'll have more streaming services next gen. Maybe not at launch but we'll have the download and play option soon enough as I could easily see them releasing a box that connects to the cloud and only is able to stream games. Especially because they will want to use there brand to keep Google from taking over the Cloud market with Google Stadia.

I'm also curious as to how the next gen will play out. Will we get another Pro or One X variant? Because only thing that could really improve is just more GPU power.

Would love to see consoles with a customised miniature discreet GPU solution that could be upgraded later down the line.

Imagine a GPU only provided by AMD that pushes a console to the next limit. The architecture of the playstation could remain, but we could continuously see more grunt as time goes by leaving us with the option to upgrade.

Gaming wise the developers could simply provide minimum gfx for the stock playstation, but allow us to push the detail up as we add in a better gpu.

I think of it in simple terms, if we had a Rx generation. Stock PS was given a Rx570 gpu, but it allowed us to replace that and put in a Rx 580, or Rx590. Since the PS is a unified environment, it could recognise the card and set settings for more detail. No need to worry about component combinations that plague us in the PC world today.

Then again, I guess Sony would miss out on the additional profits.
 
..Are those 8 Zen 2 cores with or without SMT?


..They may decide to drop SMT to keep power/thermal demands in check.


Would it be better to have 8 cores running at 3.2Ghz or 8 cores 16 threads at a lower clocks?
 
..Are those 8 Zen 2 cores with or without SMT?


..They may decide to drop SMT to keep power/thermal demands in check.


Would it be better to have 8 cores running at 3.2Ghz or 8 cores 16 threads at a lower clocks?

They said 8 Zen 2 cores. Which means 16 threads.
 
But this being a bespoke, custom version of it, that may not be the case.
There's nothing to imply this is will use a bespoke or custom CPU die or design so far. It would mean unnecessary additional costs over just using the same R3000 die with a custom IO chip. You can disable SMT in software on the fly so they don't need to make that decision.

Would love to see consoles with a customised miniature discreet GPU solution that could be upgraded later down the line.

Imagine a GPU only provided by AMD that pushes a console to the next limit. The architecture of the playstation could remain, but we could continuously see more grunt as time goes by leaving us with the option to upgrade.

Gaming wise the developers could simply provide minimum gfx for the stock playstation, but allow us to push the detail up as we add in a better gpu.

Then again, I guess Sony would miss out on the additional profits.

This wouldn't really work in practice with modern consoles, they're built on the concept of a hUMA architecture, so the GPU and CPU need to use the same memory pool. Discrete GPUs would need a discrete memory pool which would break the fundamental architecture most games are built around, it'd break backwards compatibility, the last 6 years of optimisations and impose significant performance penalties for mixed compute due to the significant latency penalty imposed via PCIe access. Any console upgrade needs a new APU basically, with directly soldered memory to the motherboard, so it makes more sense from a technological perspective to just make a new console, it's not really a money thing.


EDIT: I have to say I'd like an eGPU style thing for the Switch though, maybe that's already in the pipeline going from some older patents, maybe once 4K is more popular to coincide with a handheld 1080p "Pro" model, but as a bit of an eGPU fanatic I do like the idea generally when it can apply.
 
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Sony has the option to disable SMT if they wish, but I don't see them using custom silicon with that big of an edit. Perhaps they will disable it for yield and performance consistency reasons, but that's a big edit in-silicon that I doubt Sony would want to pay for.
 
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