News AMD to design processor for Xbox Next: Team Red extends long-standing Microsoft partnership

[bit_user]

Because it makes literally no financial sense?

Low volume part that isn't part of the SKU stack. Has to be soldered to a board because it isn't socketable. In the case of PS5/Series requires GDDR memory. There are so many negatives I cannot imagine why they'd touch it unless it was already theirs and the silicon was paid for.

I dunno. I mean, it's worthless to Sony/Microsoft, so why wouldn't they sell it cheap?

 

[thestryker]

I dunno. I mean, it's worthless to Sony/Microsoft, so why wouldn't they sell it cheap?

I'm sure they would, but the question is why would AMD buy it? That's the part which simply doesn't make any sense.

If it's already theirs then it makes sense to hold onto them in case you get enough volume that manufacturing boards for them is viable. It does not make sense to buy them and hope that happens. Unless you're suggesting Sony/Microsoft would hold onto them hoping they get high enough volume AMD would want to buy them.

 

[LordVile]

This is just flat out false on every level. The prior consoles used absolutely awful 8 core parts which were outclassed by Intel dual core parts of the time. The current consoles are basically slightly modified underclocked 3700Xs. Console CPUs have never come close to meeting maximum CPU performance of their time. Consoles need something that provides good enough performance without using a ton of die space and Apple isn't that.

The most likely reason Arm isn't being used is software compatibility.

The consoles that were specked out in like 2010 before those dual cores came out you mean?

 

[LordVile]

I don't agree with that. Arm's X925 cores are pretty good and they're the P-cores in the Nvidia/Mediatek N1X.

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https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-com...p-could-rival-intel-and-amds-laptop-offerings​

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Qualcomm's Oryon cores were decent, for a first generation product. They're also last year's news, though, and what we're talking about is next year. So, I wouldn't consider Oryon v3 out of the running.

BTW, it looks like ARM's next gen cores are already starting to surface?

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https://www.gsmarena.com/leakster_a...ve_ipc_to_run_more_efficiently-news-68283.php​

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They’re not a first generation product? They’re also not decent. Qualcomm has done it for years where they claim performance number compared to another product but don’t specify which one outside of the generation (which is generally not the current one) then it turns out, like the latest launch, that they connote their medium and high power chips to a competitors old low and medium respectively. Qualcomm’s chips were poor they just looked better in the marketing.


And “could rival intel and AMD” isn’t good enough especially when you take into account the workloads.

 

[LordVile]

But they don't generally use the fastest cores possible. They used Puma cores, and those sucked - even back then! And they used ~3 GHz Zen 2 cores, back when Zen 3 launched at like 4.9 GHz. What matters for MS and Sony is to have enough compute power, at the right price and power/thermal profile.

You’re talking about consoles launched over 10 years ago and ones that were specced 15 years ago. I don’t think you understand that just because a product launches in year X doesn’t mean it can use parts from year X, they’re specked out and contracted years in advance. Zen 3 launched like 5 days before the XSX and PS5

Probably the only reason related to compute performance why ARM might've been ruled out is, once you factor in the emulation overhead, maybe there were some games that didn't run fast enough and they didn't want to limit compatibility with older software titles just to those developers had ported & recompiled.

So performance and the fact they don’t perform that well vs X86 once you up the power and efficiency goes out of the window.

That's nothing new, for them. Nintendo Switch is ARM, as is phones. So, if they've ever written game for Android, IOS, or Switch, they've developed on ARM. I'm sure all the big game engines support ARM.

Which Nintendo can do because the console isn’t that power, doesn’t beeed to be and relies primarily on 1st and 2nd party games.

How do you even know what's the bottleneck, though? Those iGPUs are pretty tiny and IMO are much more likely to be your bottleneck.

I was literally saying that the chipset is the bottleneck. It’s also an APU.

Tell that to Nintendo.

Nintendo haven’t launched a home console in 13 years and as we have already said do not rely on 3rd party support. Nintendo doesn’t need call of duty or GTA VI to move units like Xbox or PS does.

 

[thestryker]

The consoles that were specked out in like 2010 before those dual cores came out you mean?

In 2010 Bobcat, the architecture that predates Jaguar which is the Xbox One/Playstation 4 CPU architecture, hadn't even launched yet. The original devkits also didn't even use AMD processors. So no I don't mean before those dual cores came out.

 

[thestryker]

They’re not a first generation product?

Except they are. They're the first generation of Oryon cores designed after the Nuvia acquisition.

Qualcomm's last custom core before these were either Kryo or Falkor from the aborted Centriq server CPUs. Either way it would have been about 8-10 years prior to these cores launching.

And “could rival intel and AMD” isn’t good enough especially when you take into account the workloads.

Isn't good enough for what? The discussion has been about consoles and since AMD is the company behind the last two generation of high powered consoles that is the bar for CPU performance.

You’re talking about consoles launched over 10 years ago and ones that were specced 15 years ago.

Console hardware lock-in lead time is not 5 years it's more like 2-3. PS5/XSX|S use custom RDNA 2 based GPUs which were current for the time.

I was literally saying that the chipset is the bottleneck. It’s also an APU.

You were talking CPU performance which is absolutely not the limiting factor for AMD APUs gaming performance. The integrated graphics are limited by CU count and memory bandwidth (and potentially lack of dedicated cache).

 

[bit_user]

You’re talking about consoles launched over 10 years ago and ones that were specced 15 years ago.

I'm adding the previous generation for context, so that it's clear the consoles which launched in 2020 were not an outlier.

Also, there's no way they "spec'd out" those machines 5 years ahead of launch. Details like the specific CPU and GPU microarchitecture would've been decided not more than 3 years, but probably closer to 2, given even AMD is 100% sure what it's doing, more than 3 years in advance.

just because a product launches in year X doesn’t mean it can use parts from year X, they’re specked out and contracted years in advance. Zen 3 launched like 5 days before the XSX and PS5

What I'm pointing out is that you're operating under some kind of false requirement that consoles launch with the fastest possible CPU cores, which is how you got to the point of claiming that Apple would be their only viable option on ARM. However, you fashioned this requirement from whole cloth. It was never a requirement and I certainly don't expect the PS6 and Microsoft's next XBox to launch with the fastest possible x86 cores, either.

In the case of ARM, they usually announce new cores in the spring and new phone SOCs from their partner companies, who license that IP, start to appear in the late fall. So, by this point we usually have some idea about which ARM cores would be available for them to use (I linked to an article about their "Trevor" cores). Maybe you didn't where the Cortex-X925 cores used in the Nvidia/Mediatek N1X are posting higher single-core Geekbench scores than Intel/AMD? And those are a generation behind what any console launching in 2026 would actually use!

So performance and the fact they don’t perform that well vs X86 once you up the power and efficiency goes out of the window.

The N1X is a 20-core mobile CPU, on par with the Ryzen AX Max 395 and the Arrow Lake 285HX. It probably uses similar power.

I was literally saying that the chipset is the bottleneck. It’s also an APU.

It's clear to me that you don't even know what's the bottleneck in that machine - CPU or GPU.

Nintendo haven’t launched a home console in 13 years and as we have already said do not rely on 3rd party support. Nintendo doesn’t need call of duty or GTA VI to move units like Xbox or PS does.

But, there have been plenty of 3rd party games on Switch and they need to be playable. Between that and phones, I think the gaming industry has had adequate experience on ARM.

I will be eager to see what games release native ARM builds, once the N1X comes to market. I don't expect the gaming market to change over night, but it could show us what's to come.