Next gen console power (PS5 and Xbox Series X)

[Freak]

Sorry Freak but that is just not correct regarding the variable clock speed and how it works. Cerny made it very clear as to how it works. However a lot of people are under the assumption that PS5 can only hit its maximum clock speeds during short "boost modes" before it overheats similarly to how boost modes work on PC. However this is very wrong: there is no boost mode and also no thermal throttling. This is what Mark Cerny actually said during his talk:

• Mark Cerny himself explained that there is no such thing as thermal throttling on PS5. Instead clock speeds are dependent on the power budget of the system. PS5 is using AMDs Smart Shift technology: the available power is shifted to where it is needed most in the system. This means that graphically demanding games won't have to throttle after a short boost mode. Instead the system will recognize that the GPU needs extra power and will shift power to the GPU so that it can sustain high clock speeds. Cooling is still possible because the consoles power draw has not increased, it simply uses the available power more effectively.
  [*]Mark Cerny himself stated that during testing the PS5 was able to sustain max clock speeds on both GPU and CPU for extended periods of time. How long max frequencies can be sustained depends on how power hungry the operations are that have to be performed. Not every operation requires the same amount of power. Once the maximum power budget is reached the PS5 will start prioritizing where it has to shift the available power.
  [*]power consumption doesn't scale linearly with clock frequency. Mark Cerny also adressed this: lowering the power consumption by 10% doesn't mean you have to drop clock speeds down by 10%. So even if a game is so demanding that it exceeds the PS5s power budget you won't see a massive drop in clock speeds.
  [*]often people claim that the actual GPU clock frequency of PS5 is only 2Ghz (resulting in 9.2teraflops). However this is solely based on the leaked chipset from early 2019 and there is no indication that this represents the clock speeds achievable on the actual PS5. Quite the opposite actually.

All of this information is readily available but people continue to get it wrong all the time, thereby confusing others as well. I also think not enough people give Sony credit for what looks to be a very smart design choice in getting the console to be as efficient as possible.

I didn't say it was throttling based on overheating (or if I did, I mistyped), it's hitting it's max power consumption. But I think thermal throttling could be an issue overall too, in addition to the max power, that pcie 4 ssd will generate a LOT heat. And Cerny is the one who called the variable clock speed, "boost mode." It's a variable clock speed no matter how it's labeled. It can't sustain those speeds or it wouldn't be variable. I watched that video several times and some of the things he said don't really add up as to why they made some of the decisions they made, except for trying to make things look better on paper than they really are.

And you're right, it's not like how boost is done on PC. The way he explained boost mode, it won't be able to boost under full load because of power constraints. It's typically the opposite on PC, where you're pushing the chip to it's maximum until it thermal throttles, which makes a lot more sense, imo.

Look, the only reason you shift power from one component to another for short periods, is because the system can't sustain them. All of this, like I said, is due to the power constraints on the ps5. There's only so much of it to go around and they clearly weren't happy with the sustained performance, so they're moving resources around based on usage. It some cases that can be helpful, but not under full load.

 

[Freak]

Yes

Awesome. As they say, it's the best value in gaming right now, imo.

 

[Freak]

[*]often people claim that the actual GPU clock frequency of PS5 is only 2Ghz (resulting in 9.2teraflops). However this is solely based on the leaked chipset from early 2019 and there is no indication that this represents the clock speeds achievable on the actual PS5. Quite the opposite actually.

2.0 ghz was reportedly their goal, I think Cerny even stated as much but I can't recall for sure, and they couldn't achieve that sustained clock speed within the power constraints, hence the variable clock speed. If that's true, the sustainable terraflops number is likely below 9.

In essence Sony is using a teraflops number based on theoretical maximums for each component, however, all components can't reach the maximum at the same time due to the power limitations. That's why I believe that number is inflated.

 

[Brave Volunteer]

Look, the only reason you shift power from one component to another for short periods, is because the system can't sustain them. All of this, like I said, is due to the power constraints on the ps5. There's only so much of it to go around and they clearly weren't happy with the sustained performance, so they're moving resources around based on usage. It some cases that can be helpful, but not under full load.

Agree to disagree man. I dont think they went with this design choice because they "weren't happy" with the sustained performance. You are painting a scenario that suggests AMD handed Sony a chipset, they tested it, and decided "oh the performance of this sucks, we need to switch from a sustained performance to varying." Sony worked very closely with AMD on this design from the beginning. I dont think they would've been that far into the development of the PS5 before suddenly deciding they needed to completely switch from sustained to variable. That would suggest some level of design incompetence on the engineering side and I just refuse to believe that's the case as there's just too many brilliant people who work on this stuff on both the Sony and AMD side. Anyway we'll know soon enough as the proof will be in the pudding so to speak. As Iong as the games look and run great, I dont give a damn how the sausage is made LOL.

 

[Catbone]

PS5, although slightly weaker overall, has an EXCELLENT state of the art SSD which will be the real game changer of the next gen.

 

[Freak]

Another thing that hasn't been talked about a lot, he Series X will have a huge advantage in ray tracing performance as well.

Maybe it's just me, but Microsoft has been upfront about their specs and they're pretty straight forward on the hardware numbers. The addition of things like additional ray tracing hardware, SFS and Direct Storage are things that may only improve real world performance, maybe substantially. It feels like Sony's numbers are theoretical metrics that can only perform worse in real world scenarios. It just seems like they already know the hardware is underpowered. That's probably an unfair assumption.

In fairness, Sony has been relatively quiet, which seems odd. But maybe they'll reveal some new information soon that will change my tune.

 

[Brave Volunteer]

Another thing that hasn't been talked about a lot, he Series X will have a huge advantage in ray tracing performance as well.

Maybe it's just me, but Microsoft has been upfront about their specs and they're pretty straight forward on the hardware numbers. The addition of things like additional ray tracing hardware, SFS and Direct Storage are things that may only improve real world performance, maybe substantially. It feels like Sony's numbers are theoretical metrics that can only perform worse in real world scenarios. It just seems like they already know the hardware is underpowered.

In fairness, Sony has been relatively quiet, which seems odd. But maybe they'll reveal some new information soon that will change my tune.

Did you see the Unreal 5 demo? That looked incredible and it wasn't even using any hardware raytracing whatsoever. It was using software based global illumination. I'm not the least bit concerned about raytracing (which PS5 supports in hardware btw so I'm not sure what you mean by XSX having a huge advantage in that area).

 

[Freak]

Agree to disagree man. I dont think they went with this design choice because they "weren't happy" with the sustained performance. You are painting a scenario that suggests AMD handed Sony a chipset, they tested it, and decided "oh the performance of this sucks, we need to switch from a sustained performance to varying." Sony worked very closely with AMD on this design from the beginning. I dont think they would've been that far into the development of the PS5 before suddenly deciding they needed to completely switch from sustained to variable. That would suggest some level of design incompetence on the engineering side and I just refuse to believe that's the case as there's just too many brilliant people who work on this stuff on both the Sony and AMD side. Anyway we'll know soon enough as the proof will be in the pudding so to speak. As Iong as the games look and run great, I dont give a damn how the sausage is made LOL.

You may be right, it's all just speculation on my part at this point. But I think some of it is just a balancing act of cost and performance and trying to balance the system, more than them not being happy with AMD's chip. (i'd guess they work together through the process rather than just being handed a chip, but I have no idea.) In this case they had an allocated power budget due to heat or cost or whatever, and they’re trying to maximize performance within that power profile. In real world scenarios, it may perform superbly.

 

[Freak]

Did you see the Unreal 5 demo? That looked incredible and it wasn't even using any hardware raytracing whatsoever. It was using software based global illumination. I'm not the least bit concerned about raytracing (which PS5 supports in hardware btw so I'm not sure what you mean by XSX having a huge advantage in that area).

Yeah, I saw it. Unreal does a nice job.

They both have raytracing hardware, I've just read that the XSX ray tracing hardware's performance is superior.

 

[Freak]

PS5, although slightly weaker overall, has an EXCELLENT state of the art SSD which will be the real game changer of the next gen.

There's nothing else like it out there. Very impressive. But Microsoft's SFS may effectively negate the performance advantage.

 

[Freak]

What's cool for both consoles is for the first time they've reached high end pc performance and aren't using outdated hardware. I think that's pretty exciting no matter which console you prefer.

 

[Brave Volunteer]

Incidentally, I really enjoy and appreciate the discussion without resorting to petty insults or any of that other "fanboy" nonsense Freak! It's so rare to get that from people.

 

[zhangliao04]

@Freak do you play GR Breakpoint?

 

[zhangliao04]

Incidentally, I really enjoy and appreciate the discussion without resorting to petty insults or any of that other "fanboy" nonsense Freak! It's so rare to get that from people.

My favorite is reading articles on new Big Navi/Ampere GPU info or AMD/Intel CPU info, go look at the comments and see people just e-cussing each other out and calling each other names only because they like one product more than the other. Lol it's ridiculous

 

[Brave Volunteer]

Here's another pretty good article regarding the variable frequency thing with the PS5...

Lots of people have been talking about how the teraflop number is a sham because the PS5 won't be able to run at this 'boost clock' most of the time. That is simply false and here's why:


The PS5 has a specific power limit i.e it's power consumption is not variable and is a consistent figure at all times. Thus the temperature that the chip outputs is the same at all times. This allows the designers to design a cooling system around the exact temperature that it outputs. What this means is that the PS5's fan is not gonna spin much faster or much slower depending on the how big or small power consumption is. Its going to spin based on ambient temps, as the thermal output of the processor is already know and they only need to account for the variance in ambient temps (which makes the temperature range that the cooling system has to be designed for much more predictable and exact i.e a one degree rise in ambient temperature can be more accurately accounted for than the rise in power consumption). So all the people who suffer through the obnoxiously loud and hot PS4s and PS4 Pros, rejoice for you have to suffer no longer (that is, if you're getting a PS5)!


How is Sony achieving this though? Well here is where the variable frequency part comes in. The PS5's processor will be able to see what the games are actually doing i.e what activity is going on in-game, and when those game scenarios occur where power consumption spikes up, it'll downclock. Game developers will be able to tell exactly when it is that this power consumption goes up and as such, be able to account for the reduced frequency then (so in a way, you have the predictability and reliability that comes with setting a specific frequency target. The crucial thing here is that it doesn't have to downclock by a lot. Remember when I said this a couple of paragraphs above:

Increase in power doesn't correspond to an equal increase in frequency i.e it does not scale linearly. To hit higher frequencies you need to input more and more amounts of power to the point where it becomes a case of diminishing results​

Well the opposite is happening here. Decrease in Frequency leads to an exponential decrease in Power consumption. So a 2-3% decrease in frequency (that's about 40-70 MHz in the PS5's case) can deliver at least a 10% decrease in power consumption. So what this basically means is that the PS5 is going to be hitting the targeted clockspeed of 2.23 GHz most of the time (unlike a PC processor with boost clocks), when it downclocks it's not going to be by a significant amount (again, unlike a PC processor) and while doing all this it is going to remain cool and quiet. Quite an innovative and novel concept huh? This is why the PS5's variable frequency is unlike that of the boost clocks found on PC and shouldn't be compared.


So the summary for this section:

So a 2-3% decrease in frequency (that's about 40-70 MHz in the PS5's case) can deliver at least a 10% decrease in power consumption. So what this basically means is that the PS5 is going to be hitting the targeted clockspeed of 2.23 GHz most of the time (unlike a PC processor with boost clocks), when it downclocks it's not going to be by a significant amount (again, unlike a PC processor) and while doing all this it is going to remain cool and quiet. Quite an innovative and novel concept huh? This is why the PS5's variable frequency is unlike that of the boost clocks found on PC and shouldn't be compared.

So the summary for this section:

- Xbox Series X: Variable power/temps but constant frequency

- PC: Variable power/temps and variable frequency (unless you overclock it, in which case it'll perform like the Series X processor)

- PS5: Constant power/temps but variable frequency.

 

[K-town Vol Fan]

Incidentally, I really enjoy and appreciate the discussion without resorting to petty insults or any of that other "fanboy" nonsense Freak! It's so rare to get that from people.

Same. It just comes down to personal preference. As one poster put it it's like iPhone vs Android. They are basically the same thing just a tad bit different.

 

[***RoadVol***]

Well let's see, Dreams came out this year and scored extremely high on metacritic (may not be your cup of tea but neither is Minecraft mine). Nioh 2 came out this year and scored extremely high on metacritic. Final Fantasy 7 Remake came out this year and is a GOTY contender. The Last of Us part 2 comes out in June and you know it's going to be great. Ghost of Tsushima is out this year and looks fantastic. Predator came out this year, not to high scores but Im enjoying it online with friends. So...yeah. What has Xbox produced lately? Gears 5 was the last thing that came out that would even be considered AAA. What about before that?

Look if you prefer the Xbox ecosystem and playing 3rd party games there, I get it. But you can't possibly criticize PS4's output of exclusives compared to the absolute ghost town of what X1 produced this generation. Even last year which was considered a weak year for PS4 exclusives, we still got Days Gone (which I loved) and Death Stranding, which I get it, it wasn't for everyone but still garnered a LOT of high scores and a lot of people loved it.

None of those you listed that are out are my cup of tea. The ones you mentioned that are "coming out" don't apply to my statement other than it is taking longer for them to put out their exclusives.

 

[Freak]

Here's another pretty good article regarding the variable frequency thing with the PS5...

Yeah, that's taking numbers from Cerny's presentation. But it just doesn't add up to me.

I found Cerny's quote in the video and he said, "Running a gpu at 2ghz was looking like an unreachable target" until they went with variable boost. So with fixed clocks 2 ghz was unattainable, but with variable clocks they reached 2.23 ghz. Ok. Fine.

Here's where it's confusing.

So a 2-3% decrease in frequency (that's about 40-70 MHz in the PS5's case) can deliver at least a 10% decrease in power consumption.

Look at that in reverse. In reverse, that means they used 10% more power for a 2-3% increase in clock speed. So they're dealing with power limit constraints on the system which prevented them from reaching a stable 2 ghz, but sacrificed 10% power to gain 2-3% in clock speed? Why? It doesn't make sense. It's not linear so these numbers won't be accurate, but that would theoretically mean to achieve the roughly 12% increase in clock speed (from 2.0 to 2.23 ghz) it would come at a cost of as much as a 60% increase in power consumption. This is on a system that's unable to sustain 2ghz based on power consumption limits. I just don't get it. it doesn't add up to me.

The system is "going to remain cool and quiet" as Cerny says, because the power cap allows them to basically know what max temps should be and account for it with their cooling system. It's an interesting strategy, but not without cost because games with high power consumption will reduce the clock speeds to compensate.

 

[Freak]

@Freak do you play GR Breakpoint?

I played it during a free week a while back. I enjoyed it and meant to pick it up during one of the sales, but never did.

 

[Brave Volunteer]

None of those you listed that are out are my cup of tea. The ones you mentioned that are "coming out" don't apply to my statement other than it is taking longer for them to put out their exclusives.

Gaming tastes are subjective. You didn't ask me to name exclusives that appealed to just RoadVol specifically. You asked me to name the last "good" exclusive on PS4 and I listed several that not only I liked but were critically well received. But more than just the last 12 months, IMO what really seperates PlayStation from Xbox is the fact that Sony doesn't solely rely on just 3 "tentpole" exclusive franchises to carry the platform (Halo, Gears, & Forza). Look at this list of games that released this generation on PS4, all brand new IP's...

Resogun - new IP
The Order 1886 - new IP
Driveclub - new IP
Nioh 1&2 - new IP
Matter fall- new IP
Dead Nation - new IP
Detroit Become Human - new IP
Spiderman - new IP
Tearaway Unfolded - new IP
Knack 1 & 2 - new IP
Death Stranding - new IP
Days Gone - new IP
Concrete Genie - new IP
Horizon Zero Dawn - new IP
Until Dawn - new IP
Bloodborne - new IP
Predator Hunting Grounds - new IP
Dreams - New IP

...and thats just NEW IP's that are either PlayStation exclusive or console exclusives, not including sequels and not including VR titles.

MS hasnt even announced a new X1 exclusive IP since 2015 when they unveiled Sea of Thieves. Yet since then they have released the Pro controller, the Pro controller 2, the adaptable controller, Xbox 1S, the Xbox 1X, and the Xbox 1S-All Digital. LOL they've released more new hardware in the last 5 years than they have software.

 

[Brave Volunteer]

Yeah, that's taking numbers from Cerny's presentation. But it just doesn't add up to me.

I found Cerny's quote in the video and he said, "Running a gpu at 2ghz was looking like an unreachable target" until they went with variable boost. So with fixed clocks 2 ghz was unattainable, but with variable clocks they reached 2.23 ghz. Ok. Fine.

Here's where it's confusing.



Look at that in reverse. In reverse, that means they used 10% more power for a 2-3% increase in clock speed. So they're dealing with power limit constraints on the system which prevented them from reaching a stable 2 ghz, but sacrificed 10% power to gain 2-3% in clock speed? Why? It doesn't make sense. It's not linear so these numbers won't be accurate, but that would theoretically mean to achieve the roughly 12% increase in clock speed (from 2.0 to 2.23 ghz) it would come at a cost of as much as a 60% increase in power consumption. This is on a system that's unable to sustain 2ghz based on power consumption limits. I just don't get it. it doesn't add up to me.

The system is "going to remain cool and quiet" as Cerny says, because the power cap allows them to basically know what max temps should be and account for it with their cooling system. It's an interesting strategy, but not without cost because games with high power consumption will reduce the clock speeds to compensate.

Yeah, I definitely see your point. I guess it just comes down to how much of an impact it will have on real game performance and how significant it will be perceivable to us, the gamers. Cerny doesn't seem to think it will be a very big impact, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I trust his knowledge of these things far more than my own, so until I see an on screen reason to doubt his words, I'm just going to continue to believe what he says. More than anything else, I just want the damn thing to run quiet! I'm sick of my PS4 Pro sounding like a hair dryer!

 

[zhangliao04]

I played it during a free week a while back. I enjoyed it and meant to pick it up during one of the sales, but never did.

I just downloaded the free trial version and started playing it with my buddy. If you have a friend that owns the game you can play with him without diminishing your trial time (trial allows only 6 hours of play time) until June 16th. I'm enjoying it so far and you can find it for $15-20 at some stores. Anyway, I figured this game was right up your alley after seeing your list of games you like to play.

 

[***RoadVol***]

Gaming tastes are subjective. You didn't ask me to name exclusives that appealed to just RoadVol specifically. You asked me to name the last "good" exclusive on PS4 and I listed several that not only I liked but were critically well received. But more than just the last 12 months, IMO what really seperates PlayStation from Xbox is the fact that Sony doesn't solely rely on just 3 "tentpole" exclusive franchises to carry the platform (Halo, Gears, & Forza). Look at this list of games that released this generation on PS4, all brand new IP's...

Resogun - new IP
The Order 1886 - new IP
Driveclub - new IP
Nioh 1&2 - new IP
Matter fall- new IP
Dead Nation - new IP
Detroit Become Human - new IP
Spiderman - new IP
Tearaway Unfolded - new IP
Knack 1 & 2 - new IP
Death Stranding - new IP
Days Gone - new IP
Concrete Genie - new IP
Horizon Zero Dawn - new IP
Until Dawn - new IP
Bloodborne - new IP
Predator Hunting Grounds - new IP
Dreams - New IP

...and thats just NEW IP's that are either PlayStation exclusive or console exclusives, not including sequels and not including VR titles.

MS hasnt even announced a new X1 exclusive IP since 2015 when they unveiled Sea of Thieves. Yet since then they have released the Pro controller, the Pro controller 2, the adaptable controller, Xbox 1S, the Xbox 1X, and the Xbox 1S-All Digital. LOL they've released more new hardware in the last 5 years than they have software.

The only ones on your list that appealed to me were Horizon and Spiderman. Spiderman was good. Horizon was great. None of the others on your list that I have played were enough to make me think Sony is that much better than MS with the games they release. Sure they have more exclusives but are they quality exclusives? That is were opinions differ.

 

[K-town Vol Fan]

Gaming tastes are subjective. You didn't ask me to name exclusives that appealed to just RoadVol specifically. You asked me to name the last "good" exclusive on PS4 and I listed several that not only I liked but were critically well received. But more than just the last 12 months, IMO what really seperates PlayStation from Xbox is the fact that Sony doesn't solely rely on just 3 "tentpole" exclusive franchises to carry the platform (Halo, Gears, & Forza). Look at this list of games that released this generation on PS4, all brand new IP's...

Resogun - new IP
The Order 1886 - new IP
Driveclub - new IP
Nioh 1&2 - new IP
Matter fall- new IP
Dead Nation - new IP
Detroit Become Human - new IP
Spiderman - new IP
Tearaway Unfolded - new IP
Knack 1 & 2 - new IP
Death Stranding - new IP
Days Gone - new IP
Concrete Genie - new IP
Horizon Zero Dawn - new IP
Until Dawn - new IP
Bloodborne - new IP
Predator Hunting Grounds - new IP
Dreams - New IP

...and thats just NEW IP's that are either PlayStation exclusive or console exclusives, not including sequels and not including VR titles.

MS hasnt even announced a new X1 exclusive IP since 2015 when they unveiled Sea of Thieves. Yet since then they have released the Pro controller, the Pro controller 2, the adaptable controller, Xbox 1S, the Xbox 1X, and the Xbox 1S-All Digital. LOL they've released more new hardware in the last 5 years than they have software.

Yeah I wouldn't have played any of those games. And maybe I'm missing out and dont know it but normally wouldn't purchase those types of games.

 

[Aesius]

Yeah I wouldn't have played any of those games. And maybe I'm missing out and dont know it but normally wouldn't purchase those types of games.

You're definitely missing out on Bloodborne. It's possibly the best PS4 game period. I think it and the original Resident Evil Remake have the greatest atmospheres in any games.