Xbox Boss Phil Spencer Talks About Partnership with AMD for "Future Platforms"

During AMD's CES press conference, Xbox Division head Phil Spencer joined the graphics giant's CEO Lisa Su on stage to talk about the partnership between the two companies.

[darthv72]

could this mean the next xbox would be using the newly announced 3rd gen ryzen and vega VII (or a derivative of those)?

[endi123]

Judging by the dislikes it may use it

[starchild]

Hahaha I see what you did there.

[beulahland]

@mikeslemonade nice to meet you, peasant.

[UltraNova]

AMD has been enjoying a rise in both marketshare and positive mindshare among both consumers and industry/server level for the past 3 years. This was the first time they were given a Keynote slot at CES. This is a very big thing for AMD. They needed to make the best of it and make a lasting impact to both consumers and the industry. They had a three way approach to achieve said impact. First show growth (market share-sales), second present new product lineup and talk about what differentiates them from Intel/Nvidia and third(the most important thing) their partnerships. This is where the educated consumer and industry in general focuses their attention. They showed FOX visual content creatives, scientists in Universities, game developers(Capcom, Ubi) and lastly MS, an admittedly huge name in the business as a close partner. They choose the head of Gaming (Phil - he is the best public spokesman currently employed at MS imo) to further drive the message that AMD has a close collaboration with huge industry name(remember consoles are a huge part of AMD's business). This is how they wanted to inspire confidence and trust on their products and services.

The gist of it is this: dont look for anything specific (next gen specs/deals etc) just because Phil was on AMD's stage(next gen xbox is a know fact already as is the ps5). This was AMD showing they can be trusted over Intel and Nvidia to provide good products and services by saying, look who trusts us already, why shouldn't you?

[Artemidorus]

I would ignore dislikes when discussing Xbox it's just a certain type of fans who refuse any other platform news without negative views.

[bluefox755]

Or maybe people just disagree? Crazy thought, I know.

[Eonjay]

no i think its too soon to say Vega 7. The reason why is that no if you look at the branding it carries Vega branding and at least with Sony, the rumor is Navi. They are both supposed to be 7 nm but Navi is supposed to be the next gen gpu. Ryzen is a given but the GPU is still unknown. This card by the way is supposed to rival the 2080 so if it is what Microsoft goes with then they will have more than enough power plus you have to think they will customize it. It is just simply impossible to say. If your theory is right then it lends credence to the Navi exclusive PS5 rumors and I think it is too early to guess.

By the way, it is similar to the 11-13 TF rumor for the PS5. I think the conclusion is that they will both be about the same power spec wise.

[fr0sty]

This is no surprise, AMD has controlled the console market since the first Xbox made the mistake of using an Nvidia GPU and ended up getting ripped off badly financially for it, contributing to that $4 billion it lost.

I currently have a GeForce GTX 970 as my primary GPU, that said, AMD is spanking Intel right now when it comes to workstation computers. You can get all the power Intel offers for half the price with Ryzen Threadrippers (Remember, I'm talking about workstations here, not gaming PCs, workstations tend to depend on multi-thread heavy loads a lot more, especially for folks like me who do lots of encoding and AE + Cinema 4D animating). AMD is starting to try to compete again in the GPU field as well, though that probably won't happen until they get their real time ray tracing tech deployed. I think the next gen consoles will be among the first to use it.

[dumahim]

@bluefox755

How does someone disagree with a question?

[Razzer]

Sure......if Microsoft doesn't mind charging over a $1000 for their next Xbox.

[CYCLEGAMER]

Yeah people said the same thing about the X

[Razzer]

"Yeah people said the same thing about the X"

No, they didn't because the X wasn't using the latest high-end graphics card and CPU like the ones darthv72 is referencing. Not the same thing at all.

Edit: If anyone said that about X then they had to have been assuming X would have the latest Ryzen and Vega processors which obviously didn't happen. If it had then yes, Xbox One X would have been over $1000 as well.

[Tech5]

tontontam0
"Phil spencer showing up on stage, could this mean amd would be supporting xbox "exclusively" next gen."

doubt it. however, I have my own theory.
if the GT tech demo running at 8k is correct, and was running on the PS now service. then this would explain the absent partnership from AMD and Sony at this E3. considering the sheer hit and expense that would be needed in oder to make 8k possible from AMD.

there is already cheap lag free cloud gaming in existence.
https://www.youtube.com/wat...

[conanlifts]

A custom Ryzen 5 with an AMD Navi GPU seems a more likely combination.

[Tech5]

conanlifts -
"A custom Ryzen 5 with an AMD Navi GPU seems a more likely combination."

Navi is $700, the price was just confirmed a few hrs ago.
https://www.dsogaming.com/n...

the issue with many console gamers is that they dream too much. obviously you can not put a $700 GPU inside of a console and sell it for $399. a ideal console GPU is worth $200 at most...

which makes Xcloud and Ps Now the reality of affordable 4k and 8k 60 fps gaming.
https://www.youtube.com/wat...

how could anyone not see this happening?

[Razzer]

@Tech5

I agree that a $399 console isn't feasible with the latest tech. Just not happening. But I also don't think cloud is the solution yet. Next gen will be hardware based.

[ABizzel1]

@Tech5

Apparantley AMD isn't considering this GPU as "Navi" in the sense of the main line up of card. This is being referred to simply as 7nm Vega, which is odd IMO, unless they plan on simply naming the RX 600 / 3000 series of GPUs Navi, and sticking with the Vega name for their "high-end" cards. This is according to some media outlets, but nothing has been 100% confirmed thus far by AMD.

@Razzer

At this point at worst the next-gen consoles should be using custom Zen2 mobile processors, which should be released sometime early 2020, considering they just released Zen+ mobile processors. Best case scenario they're using custom Zen 2 APU processors which will allow for better performance due to higher clock speeds at consistent performance.

GPU-wise you're looking at an RX 670 / 680 Navi, or maybe RX 770 / 780 Navi 2. Here's hoping for the 700 series which will give the 7nm performance time to grow, because so far the performance leaps from NVIDIA and AMD have been decent, but nothing substantial, meanwhile pricing is on the rise for the high-end at least. Mid-range and low performance should be at an all time high for PC gamers though.

[fr0sty]

Ryzens clock in at half the price of their intel counterparts, and every Xbox since the 360 has used AMD... so....

[slavish0]

i remember when people like you said x1x couldnt offer 6tf for under 800.00

[Razzer]

"i remember when people like you said x1x couldnt offer 6tf for under 800.00"

I don't know what "people like you" you are talking about. I said Xbox One X would fail if it was over $500 and hopefully it would be $500.

https://n4g.com/news/203565...

[tontontam0]

Phil spencer showing up on stage, could this mean amd would be supporting xbox "exclusively" next gen.

[Razzer]

No chance.

[tontontam0]

"No chance."

well that is boring then.

xbox fanboys: "XBOX ONE X IS THE BEAST PS4 SUCKS"
ps4 fanboys: "BASE PS4 IS MORE POWERFUL THAN BASE XBOX ONE"

AMD: HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

[uth11]

no. it's been reported that AMD put 2/3 of their engineering team to work on Sony's next gen architecture and other projects suffered as a result

[stuckNhere4Good]

I think so. There's been a number of odd exchanges by SIE devs about certain architectures (namely Nvidia's and another that I won't say because it seems far-fetched) on their social media accounts. I honestly don't know what to make of what their saying to each other because they are somewhat cryptic in their discussions. If what I inferred from what one of those devs said to an Unity3D dev and a Disney Imagineering dev is correct, then the chips of PS5 aren't going to be anything like what has been rumored/reported.

[StormSnooper]

Not unless MS pays a ridiculous price to AMD. I don’t think they would want to incur a cost like that at the get go.

[Purrfection]

No, both Sony and Microsoft will have their own exclusive chips that are basically mockups of existing cards.

[Sevir]

Not a snowballs chance in hell, AMD already confirmed that they were neck deep in work with Sony on new Technology, so much so, that the partnership caused production and research to their Mainline products on their roadmaps to fall behind. Apparently, olalmost 2/3rd of their work force to allocated to work with SIE engineering and technology department. And last that was reported was that the there is a NAVI CHIPSET thats exclusive to Sony.
What Phil is doing is simply talking up the fact that they're getting ready to launch their next generation of Xbox which he spoke of this past E3.

[sinspirit]

@tontontam0

"well that is boring then. "

Okay? So, you want AMD to make a bad business decision to be exclusive with XBox just to "spice" things up? It's business. Not high school drama.

It's simple. Sony brings much more profit to AMD than MS, and Sony is much more involved and experienced with hardware design to correlate ideas together. Keeping AMD's hardware manufacturing rolling is VERY important, because they've had to reuse the same architecture for many years and they need to push as many numbers to keep the costs as low as possible. MS couldn't simply buy exclusivity at this point because AMD's entire GPU business is decided upon obtaining as much market share and sales as possible, not simply accepting a big check. There will not be any manufacturer exclusivity.

[bluefox755]

@Sir Lol, again with the cloud?

[sinspirit]

@SirJoJo

**Chapter 1. The Reach:
-"Not sure where you're getting that false information from?"

You're reaching very hard
* * *
**Chapter 2. Head In The Clouds:
-"MS's cloud infrastructure absolutely dwarfs anything that can be offered by Sony. X Cloud will be using millions of AMDs apu's"

"Millions of AMDs apu's"? Their console is less than half the sales. So, the X Cloud server wouldn't get close to making up for those ~50million APU's anyways. Azure goes mostly unused. The size doesn't matter if it's not being used, by the time the need arises it will be even more outdated than it currently is

A yet to be released service, compared to Sony's existing and leading streaming service. No real world demonstration. They lied about Azure capabilities and uses. This isn't close to the first product they lied about or exaggerated. Just the one directly related to servers
* * *
**Chapter 3. Compensation By Imagination:
-"MS by far are spending more money with AMD than Sony so I think you'll find that it MS that is, as you put it "bringing in much more profit to AMD"

Again, Sony has sold well over twice the AMD hardware than Microsoft has. Why are you so disconnected with what's actually happening, and so desperate to throw imaginary money around like you're the MS company?
* * *
**Chapter 4. Illusions of Grandeur:
-"Also MS have been making hardware for decades now"

Sony is nearly twice as old as Microsoft and have always been a hardware company. It took a long time for Sony to stop being at the top of several markets. Hardware market competition is much more fierce and none had as much reach as Sony did. Microsoft doesn't have any hardware runs that are decades old

Microsoft has always been bailed out by Windows. You can't blame Sony for not having an OS in a time with no competition, aside from Apple. Like when Sony made the first portable TV, the Walkman, or the first CD player. No competition. But, none of these technologies had the benefit that the original OS's had back then having a stranglehold on market adoption, necessity for users to stay due to compatibility, and being such a monopoly that no one can try to enter the market

MS's hardware sector is riddled with failures, and only recently have they gotten it together with a few products, None are industry leading or defining the way Sony hardware was. Bringing up Sony no longer being as large as they once were isn't argument
* * *
**Chapter 5. Conveniency, o'Selective History:
-"and are much more involved in computing hardware than Sony has ever been, Sony left the that market a long time ago, the PS4 is literally the only major computing product they have in the market"

Major computing products? I was literally talking about *hardware design*. Bias so pent up you reached and segued hard towards the cloud topic. Sony used to lead the market all over. TV's, cameras, audio equipment, audio and visual formats, etcetera. There is not one hardware thing MS has done comparably important as the Walkman, first CD player, or even Bluray conception
* * *
**Chapter 6. Ode To Irony:
-"Please check your facts before making sweeping statements"

"Check your facts"?
Indeed, no mishaps
They're no facts of mine
Not made from this mind

Oh, perhaps your facts
Are but a thought, abstract
Always inquire
Fore you're a liar

Well, enough fun for today. Do research before accusing someone of not

[Razzer]

@SirJoJo

"X Cloud will be using millions of AMDs apu's, not to mention the cansoles. MS by far are spending more money with AMD than Sony so I think you'll find that it MS that is, as you put it "bringing in much more profit to AMD" "

How exactly is Project XCloud going to be APUs? Just because Xbox uses them? So does PS4.

Only real hardware business I know of that MS is really pushing, outside of consoles, is their Surface tablets and laptops. And sorry to bust your bubble, but Microsoft isn't using AMD for their hardware. It is all Intel and nVidia.

As far as Sony, they are much more of a hardware company than Microsoft will ever be. They have been among the leaders in semiconductor sales for many years.

[Weeblordbad]

No, you aren't getting full PC hardware in a console sized boxed. The power consumption of a One X running Gears 4 is around 170-180w. The TDP on a Vega 64 (yes I know the 7nm shrink will help, but not enough) is 295w, and that's JUST the video card. Under load the Vega 64 can hit 400w easy, and that's just to much for a console. That and the $799 price tag on the VII, kinda makes that unlikely.

You're getting a console that will be priced similarly to the previous generation. Which means considerably faster hardware than the PS4 or XB1, but not the high end parts of the time.

[Livingthedream]

They just need faster cpus and they'll be set.

[NarutoFox]

@Livingthedream

And I think 16GB of memory ram (Random-access memory) should be the minimum now in next gen consoles. Not 8 to 12

[Weeblordbad]

@Livingthedream

100% the clock speeds on the current gen consoles, even the refreshes is terrible.

@NarutoFox

Given that they're likely to use a shared memory pool again, 16gb doesn't sound far fetched. The question there is, HBM2 or GDDR6.

[sinspirit]

HBM2 memory is even more concerning. We won't see any Vega since HBM2 is so expensive and we absolutely need over 12GB's of system/video memory.

It was roughly $80 for 4GB's of HBM2 in May, 2017. Really makes you think of Nvidia's profit margins. Which are actually helping Vega justify the high price that is to include the necessary HBM2 memory. Sony focused on high bandwidth with the PS4 memory. I wonder if they'll find any alternatives to swing that route.

[jukins]

Doubtful. Next gen consoles will probably be just like the mid gen refreshes. Last gen parts with current/next gen features.

[Christopher]

Could this mean AMD will develop a super secret, multi-CPU stacking, RAM sneaking-in item just for Xbox One? /MrXMediaHat

Let's just wait and see. And, if it's newly announced it would cost a lot of money to implement in a new console. The CPUs we have in consoles as it is were 3 year-old tech items streamlined for the consoles. So, possibly if the console comes out in 2021 or later, not sure before that.

[AmUnRa]

I spilled my coffee over the mrXmedia part, so true, that guy has made a fool of himself for years, brilliant😂

[sinspirit]

Vega cards use HBM2 to satisfy the high bandwidth demands that the cards need. HBM2 is a VERY good type of memory, but VERY expensive at the moment. AMD and the manufacturer literally have an almost break even price for the memory supply just to keep this memory from driving up their card prices so that the sales are reasonable enough to continue manufacturing in hopes that the prices and processes will become cheaper and better. This means that Vega probably won't be used on the consoles due to the high prices of the memory. But, AMD does have other alternatives like others are saying. Those cards will have improvements as well, but it won't be as impressive as we would like if they're trying to push 4K resolution over overall graphical fidelity.

Ryzen is absolutely going to be used. Highly interchangeable, low TDP, efficient, simple, new 7nm process means cheaper manufacturing, tons of room on the chip to make changes and continue the custom APU route. If any form of Vega is used I will be thoroughly surprised. Waiting for AMD's new GPU architecture is probably the best thing, if it's not going to take too long. I'm not that excited for new hardware if it's at the RX 580 level, but I know Vega is highly unlikely without a last gen launch price tag. I'd prefer to hold out till 2020/2021 for AMD to release a truly new GPU architecture to repeat their past market leading fabrications.

Maybe, Sony is hoping for MS to expect an early console launch from them by taking silence so that MS doesn't push for the next big architecture improvement. A new GPU architecture will have a massive performance gain(if the fabrication pays off) for the same value, or significantly less if HBM2 is not necessary for it. Again, I doubt we will see any variation that uses HBM2 due to it's very high cost, therefore no Vega. Don't expect to go to Nvidia as alternative either. Keeping AMD manufacturing both helps costs and development a ton.

[gravedigger]

Yeah, console that would cost +1000$, surely then next Xbox will have Radeon VII and new Ryzen CPU then. Really some Xbone has silly dreams

[IanTH]

And not a single eyebrow was raised lol. Consoles like single System on a Chip designs. APUs, as it were. AMD can provide that while no one else really can. Intel had that interesting partnership with AMD for better performing integrated graphics on laptops and NUCs, but that seems to have already disappeared. Nvidia has Tegra, but they don't really have any high end, high TDP variants with strong CPU IPCs. So it was pretty much a given we'd see AMD powering both consoles next gen.

We at least got some leaks to indicate Sony has been working closely with AMD for a higher end APU with AMDs newer technologies baked in. Not sure if that means those specific tweaks will be exclusive to Sony, but it'll be interesting to see how different these machines are next gen, and how powerful an APU can actually be created.

I'd love for one of the console makers to come out with a console that's as powerful as like an enthusiast PC from 2 years before they launch (i.e. a rig from 2018, if they launch in 2020). It'd be amazing to see what they could create with more power from the get go, and to allow that base model to last even longer through the generation.

[DaDrunkenJester]

But then you may as well just buy an enthusiast PC at that point.

[Razzer]

I would love to know how AMD segregates its technologies from Sony and Microsoft. You have one company that knows all the ins and outs of both of these companies. They must have individual teams that work with both and are not allowed to communicate with each other or something. Sony and Microsoft are certainly putting a lot of trust in AMD's discretion.

[darthv72]

IBM managed to do it last gen. They developed the CPU's in both and somehow managed to keep the specs quiet from cross contamination.

[Razzer]

That's true. I had forgotten IBM developed both the Cell and Xenon. There must a ton of legal documents keeping all this legit.

[franwex]

They also helped with the Wii.
Last gen was big for IBM

[uth11]

NDAs to control what you are allowed to disclose and to whom, I'm guessing

[rainslacker]

Professional ethics, and legally binding NDA's tend to prevent cross information. More so though, you do have multiple teams handling the overall design of the system hardware, usually with higher ups in the team who can communicate with both, but wouldn't share information between them. The technologies they create are their own, and it's up to Sony and MS to decide which ones they want to use based on their own system designs....something that Cerny was responsible for with the PS4....and not sure about who was responsible in the X1. In other words, Sony and MS are just doing an a la carte piecing together of technologies, not creating their own stuff which isn't available to the other. I don't think either would pay to have a technology made exclusively for them....that takes a lot of time, and money.

[ABizzel1]

Honestly from the looks of it, there's very little secret development going on. AMD makes a product, Sony and MS starts a contract with them on customizing it and, from there AMD produces the product for the consoles.

The PS4 and XBO were based on AMD's old Jaguar CPU cores which we all should know by now, and their GPUs were based on underclocked and cut-back versions of the R7 270x (PS4) and R7 260x (XBO). Even the PS4 Pro was a lower powered RX 480, with the XBO-X being a weird hybrid of the RX480 / R9 390x evolution.

It's almost as if AMD shows them what they have available, and the console manufactures pick the best performance:price GPU for them, and modify it for their console.

[Melankolis]

@darthv72
https://www.eurogamer.net/a...
Based on this article, IBM failed to do that.

[Razzer]

@Melankolis

Oh wow. That is exactly the kind of thing that I am talking about. One company with the same personnel working on competitor's projects. I imagine Sony learned a few lessons from all that.

[neomahi]

Nvidia is too expensive but I hope Sony return back to Nvidia just so the PS5 won't be a Sony version of the Nextbox. The PS4 and Xbox One are too similar. The PS3, however, was unique in comparison to the Xbox 360, there was a reason to get a PS3 and it was more powerful and full of innovation. PS4? It's a slightly more powerful Xbox One, that's all. The SNES wasn't like the Genesis, it was unique. You have to differentiate yourself, otherwise Sony and Microsoft might as well team up to make a single console rather than make us buy the same console twice.

[Direwolf484]

The PS3 might have been full of power and innovation, but the majority of developers would disagree with that being a good thing.

[rainslacker]

On a programming end. the GPU coding isn't going to be much different between AMD and NVidia. They both use pretty much all the same standard low level hardware calls. The next gen will pretty much just be a nextbox. More powerful than what we have now, with a few new bells and whistles thrown in. That's how the industry is going, and there is no other hugely significant advance in GPU or CPU technologies that are reasonable for the consumer market to even be considered. Gaming systems aren't about being unique on the hardware. They're about delivering games, and unless there is something that can significantly change what is capable on the system, there is no reason to be different just for the sake of being different. That's what the software is for.

[Flewid638]

MY man!

[Sevir]

They wouldn't. Nvidia refused to fabricate cheaper smaller CHIPSET for MS on the original XB, which caused ME to hemorrhage money even when the production cycle would have been cheaper due to time on the market. That inturn lead to a strained relationship causing MS to discontinue making XB, and jump starting a new Generation with the X360.

It's also the Very Same Reason why Sony's relationship with Nvidia strained... Nvidia refused to lower production cost on 9nm fabs for the RSX, because they felt they wouldnt make enough money even though 7nm production of the cell proved to be cost effective since Nvidy worked with IBM to create it with Sony... The Fallout caused Sony to leave them and partner with AMD for PS4, and they had to sacrifice Backwards compatibility due to the complexity of the Cell + RSX architecture, and split memory pools. Nvidia has been salty ever since and it's why they released shield to try and cash in on the market.

I'm glad both Sony and MS are partnering with AMD they've built some pretty damn amazing consoles this generation because of it.

[Mylove1516]

Id rather Sony value ease of development then being unique. They tried being unique with the PS3 and it made things hard for 3rd party devs.

[FGHFGHFGH]

Nvidia does not have their own semiconductor fab. They use TSMC. If Microsoft wanted smaller chipsets, why would nvidia pay when the xbox gpu was not part of any of their products. The RSX in the ps3 was 90nm, then shrunk to 65nm, and 40nm. Sony had no problem getting their chip shrunk. Ms discontinued the xbox so they launch the 360 early because they knew it was pointless going against to ps2

[ocelot07]

I sort of hope we see one of those Intel/AMD chips that we seen go into the Intel NUC's early last year. Intel CPU AMD GPU. Might raise the cost of the PS5/Nextbox but might be worth it.

But I would be happy with see next gen consoles have a APU based on Zen and Vega.

[Imalwaysright]

Another AMD box seems about right. Just make sure that you don't put a mobile cpu in it.

[darthv72]

I was actually quite impressed with how well these mobile cpu's did this gen. Frame rates may have not been where they needed to be but they certainly held their own.

[Imalwaysright]

I get what you're saying but to me it felt that the current gen was an extension of the previous gen and the only game that I would say was revolutionary was Shadow of Mordor with its nemesis system. As I see it good cpus are needed to see if we finally leave the 7th generation behind. BTW the disagree that you have wasn't from me.

[darthv72]

@united I always wondered what it would be like to see the works of naughty dog, insomniac or quantic dreams on xbox hardware and with the PS4... I can see what it would be like. Seeing as both ps4 and xbo were much more alike than they were different. I've never seen two platforms more closely related in all my 40+ years of gaming.

I dont know if we will see the same closeness next gen but at least i could say I know what those teams could do on the xbox. now I wish MS had such dedicated teams to bring the goods like Sony does.

[Imalwaysright]

gamingunited

Yeah no. I play MS 1st party games on my PC and let me tell you that the games I play on it aren't limited to 1080p or even worse 30 fps. I also have a Switch and a PS4 and to me graphics don't constitute generational leaps. Were the PS4 pro and X1X generational leaps? Certainly not to me. I'm talking about mechanics that couldn't be done in the 7th gen. I'm talking about revolutionary mechanics like the Nemesis system. I would also appreciate a noticeable better AI than what we have now. That's why would like next gen consoles to have good CPUs.

[rainslacker]

It's a custom designed APU. They removed the things not necessary for gaming. There are a lot of things in PC CPU's which are never used for gaming. The core CPU is going to be the same between PC and mobile. That's what makes it x86. The biggest difference is the power consumption that it will use at any particular clock rate, and amount of ancillary functions that may exist, such as amount of cache, or amount of bus systems that may make things faster, which may be overcome by proprietary design of the APU itself.

The only thing mobile about the consoles CPU's, is that the core design was made for mobile based systems. But the APU itself is sufficient for any portable system, and can run an OS, or any other x86 system.

" it felt that the current gen was an extension of the previous gen "

That's a problem with the development of games, not the hardware. There is nothing that can be done on other types of systems, that can't be done on x86.

[Imalwaysright]

I mentioned Shadow of Mordor and the Nemesis system so I'll stick with it. This is what a Monolith dev said about it: "To break it down, some of the stuff we're pretty confident will still be very similar on current gen: the core mechanics, like combat, stealth, ranged and movements; the basic control and gameplay, that should all be really solid," de Plater said. "What it won't have is the same level of depth and variety and simulation within the Nemesis system.

"The story will be the same and the core gameplay will be the same, but [the Nemesis system is] just so huge in terms of content, calculations and AI we'll just have to try and get as much of it in as we can,"

I'm no dev but my guess is that calculations and AI are handled by CPUs.

I played the game on my PC and I don't know how different the 7th generation consoles version are compared to the one that I played.

[rainslacker]

But it really isn't something that is so noticeable, or couldn't be done in other ways. It's a matter of design choices, and new hardware can indeed make different things available, it doesn't mean that the end result is going to be so significant that people would notice it as something superbly advanced. Different hardware would change that within a single generation. What's there, is there, and there is nothing out there which is more powerful, or more adept at performing such things between different platforms. At least not for next gen.

Sony wanted that kind of thing to build towards more power on a scale when they designed the CELL. Developers rejected it. Consumers mocked it. Eventually, it ended up having all those features moved to GPU compute, which is just as capable, but now less flexible because it requires staying true to GPU compute programming principals, which are hindered by the bus.

Anyhow, calculations for AI can be processed by the CPU or the GPU. Just depends on how they're set up to process. AI is a mix of integer, booleans(true/false), and a bunch of if statements. But a lot of how it gets the variables to process a lot of that information is processed through floating point calculations, which would be better through processors made for that kind of thing....like GPU's. No general purpose CPU is good for that kind of thing with the quantity being pushed by games nowadays.They never were really, which is why co-processors are usually included.

CELL was great at that kind of thing, but it's too expensive to put into a console, and any other CPU suitable for such things is more workhorse stuff like server processors, which are also quite expensive. ARM, x86, and PowerPC are about the only things available for general purpose CPU's anymore. All of them are almost equilvalent, but x86 is the easiest to program for, and the easiest to make work on the PC.

[AuraAbjure]

Next gen cpus should have a base clock speed of no less than 2.6 Ghz.

[OpenGL]

I wouldn't be shocked if they're around 3GHz as they're gonna be Ryzen parts built on 7nm. The 8 core Ryzen 7 2700 already had a 65W TDP when running at 3.2GHz on a 12nm manufacturing process. That should drop substantially in the move to 7nm.

[AuraAbjure]

@ OpenGL That would be great! 7 nm chips seem like the smallest they are going to get for a while. Chip manufacturers say it's not profitable for them to make 5 or 3nm chips any time soon.

[TheColbertinator]

We don't need no graphics cards. We have the Azure cloud.

[denawayne]

"We don't need no" what? Education?

[Imalwaysright]

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

[NextGenCeo]

AMD just announcement Vega 2.0 GPU with 7nm technology right? So i think rumors getting real on internet because couple months ago serious sources said `AMD Navi GPU`s will be time Exclusive for next Playstation console` so on that point i believe we will see first Ray Tracing Amd GPU on PS5 :D
(ESL guy here)

[UnholyLight]

This is very interesting news I think. I'd like to see AMD re-enter the console market as a chipset supplier and see where they can take things as they have become competitive again in the PC realm again.

[mkis007]

The more I reread his quote the more it looks like they are trying to respond to the earlier rumor/report the sony and amd were working on navi together. Like they are trying to correct the bad pr for one partner overshadowing the others.

Speculation is so much fun looking back on.

[AK91]

For some reason I'm legitimately interested to know how many teraflops the Scarlett will have just so I can compare it to the X.

[bannhammer07]

Phil Spencer is a cool guy, I remember just thinking that after the launch of Uncharted 4 and he congratulated the competition. When he and the other CEO's stood together at TGA 2018 it really was something. I think he's really bringing the industry together.

[OpenGL]

Both the Playstation 5 and Xbox Two will be using AMD APUs again. The AMD APU design first used in the PS4 has been very successful and the more recent versions in the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X demonstrate that both MS and Sony have continued their relationship with AMD.

[Flewid638]

More leaps in graphics with barely any fun games to showcase them? Again?

Sure, why not.

[Dissidia]

The next generation hasn’t even started, slow down.

[Flewid638]

And here I thought it was gonna start with games. lmao.

[sprinterboy]

Didn't we know this already tbh

[FyBy]

Both Sony and MS have some kind of partnership with AMD. It's known that AMD has some exclusive chip for Sony. I'm not surprised, that it also have some exclusivity to MS. Ps3 has exclusive whole CELL where xbox360 had only main CELL core tripled. Both from IBM.

Of course both companies work very hard with AMD on chip design and trying to make the best. AMD would be foolish to downplay either side. I think both companies (ms, Sony) will come with very interesting and powerful AMD solution.

And about Vega....Sony has some exclusivity with Navi or its part. But I think MS will also try to target on some Navi derivate.

About CPU...probably both companies will go with ryzen , which will provide really really really great boost from current gen.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Phil I'm hearing you out

[_LarZen_]

It's going to be so interesting to see how different or how close the architecture and power on the next-gen Xbox and PlayStation will be.

[MASTAN1NjAH]

Looks like Microsoft has made the decision at the top level to take gaming seriously and invest heavily for its future success.

[slavish0]

Next xbox will use the unnamed next gen AMD gpu after navi. Mark my words. M$ worked on Ray Trace in dx12. AMD said they will focus on Ray trace after Navi. Next xbox will be late 2020 at the expected time for their next gpu.