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Sony's PlayStation 5 Will Launch In 2020 Powered By An AMD Navi GPU, Says Report (theinquirer.net)
According to a new report from WCCFtech, citing "sources familiar with the entire situation," Sony's PlayStation 5 (PS5 for short) will launch in 2020 and be powered by AMD's Navi GPU chip. "While it was previously reported that the much-anticipated console will be using AMD's Ryzen CPU tech, it looks like the chip maker will have some involvement in the PS5's graphics chip, too," reports The Inquirer. From the report: The report also suggests this is the reason behind AMD not announcing a new GPU at Computex this year, because it has found custom-applications for consoles a much more financially attractive space. "Here is a fun fact: Vega was designed primarily for Apple and Navi is being designed for Sony - the PS5 to be precise," the report states, right before going on to explain AMD's roadmap for Navi and how it's dependent on Sony.
"This meant that the graphics department had to be tied directly to the roadmap that these semi-custom applications followed. Since Sony needed the Navi GPU to be ready by the time the PS5 would launch (expectedly around 2020) that is the deadline they needed to work on." It's anyone's guess as to when the successor to the PlayStation 4 will be launched. While the source for this report is seen as reputable in the games industry, last month the head of PlayStation business said the next console is three years off.
"This meant that the graphics department had to be tied directly to the roadmap that these semi-custom applications followed. Since Sony needed the Navi GPU to be ready by the time the PS5 would launch (expectedly around 2020) that is the deadline they needed to work on." It's anyone's guess as to when the successor to the PlayStation 4 will be launched. While the source for this report is seen as reputable in the games industry, last month the head of PlayStation business said the next console is three years off.
As the person who first dug out the specs on the next gen Playstation over two months ago here:
https://www.semiaccurate.com/2...
I found this 'report' to be laughable. No it was borderline ignorant and seems to be based on my work, rampant speculation, and a random technical phrase generator. Also do note that the phrase I used in the story was Playstation 5/Next, I did that for a reason.
So what do we know? Navi is slated for ~Q2/2019, likely early, next year. Lisa Su held one up at Computex during her keynote, this is not a 2020 product, nor is it tied to the Sony roadmap. I won't go into the sheer technical ignorance of these statements, but lets just say that GPUs don't have a >18 month validation cycle.
As for the bit about Vega being designed for Apple and Navi for Sony, do I really need to comment on that? It sure sounds good if you are at Youtube levels of technical understanding but, well, just thinking about it makes my brain hurt. Go look back at Polaris, the pre-Vega architecture that formed the basis of the PS4 Pro and the XBox OneX, look at the release cycles for those consoles versus the release cycles for the GPUs. See a pattern?
And delaying the APUs because of a console? Really? You might want to consider the current launch cadence for AMD chips, roughly yearly on the consumer side. The Ryzen 1xxx launched about a year ago, March 2017. Ryzen 2 launched in March of 2018. That puts Ryzen 3, presumably with Navi, when? I guess that is up to Sony, NOT.
All in all this 'article' makes my head hurt. It is a rehash of technical stupidity and rumors slapped together by someone with no sources, no clue about how things work, and desperate for clicks. (Note: I am often accused of that but my site doesn't have ads, clicks buy me nothing) For once I wish people on the net would just try and logically parse 'articles' a bit before they repeated them as 'truth', the internet is a big, relatively worthless echo chamber for a reason.
-Charlie