The PlayStation 4 - Page 38

Earlier this year, rumors began to fly that Sony would release an upgraded version of the PlayStation 4, a console often called the PS4.5 or the PS4K by fans and press. Today, multiple sources have confirmed for us details of the project, which is internally referred to as the NEO. No price was provided, but previous reports indicate that the NEO would sell at $399. At time of publishing, Sony has not returned our request for comment, but we will update this story if the company responds.

The NEO will feature a higher clock speed than the original PS4, an improved GPU, and higher bandwidth on the memory. The documents we've received note that the HDD in the NEO is the same as that in the original PlayStation 4, but it's not clear if that means in terms of capacity or connection speed. Starting in October, every PS4 game is required to ship with both a “Base Mode” which will run on the currently available PS4 and a “NEO Mode” for use on the new console.

Games running in NEO mode will be able to use the hardware upgrades (and an additional 512 MiB in the memory budget) to offer increased and more stable frame rate and higher visual fidelity, at least when those games run at 1080p on HDTVs. The NEO will also support 4K image output, but games themselves are not required to be 4K native.

In the documents we’ve received, Sony offers suggestions for reaching 4K/UltraHD resolutions for NEO mode game builds, but they're also giving developers a degree of freedom with how to approach this. 4K TV owners should expect the NEO to upscale games to fit the format, but one place Sony is unwilling to bend is on frame rate. Throughout the documents, Sony repeatedly reminds developers that the frame rate of games in NEO Mode must meet or exceed the frame rate of the game on the original PS4 system.

On April 25 2016 15:16 domane wrote:
Two different SKUs for one system ... Sony is making things difficult for developers. The same developers should adapt by first working on "Neo Mode" and then scaling down as needed for "Base Mode". Closer to deadlines and with less money left in the budget, development of the latter could become streamlined with adverse effects.

At the same time, we managed to learn that SONY ran into a roadblock with their original PlayStation 4 plans. Just like all the previous consoles (PSX to PSOne, PS2, PS3), the plan was to re-do the silicon with a ‘simple’ die shrink, moving its APU and GPU combination from 28nm to 14nm. While this move was ‘easy’ in the past – you pay for the tapeout and NRE (Non-Recurring Engineering), neither Microsoft nor Sony were ready to pay for the cost of moving from a planar transistor (28nm) to a FinFET transistor design (14nm).

This ‘die-shrink’ requires to re-develop the same chip again, with a cost measured in excess of a hundred million dollars (est. $120-220 million). With Sony PlayStation VR retail packaging being a mess of cables and what appears to be a second video processing console, in the spring of 2014 SONY pulled the trigger and informed AMD that they would like to adopt AMD’s upcoming 14nm FinFET product line, based on successor of low-power Puma (16h) CPU and the Polaris GPU processor architecture.

The only mandate the company received was to keep the hardware changes invisible to the game developers, but that was also changed when Polaris 10 delivered a substantial performance improvement over the original hardware. The new 14nm FinFET APU consists out of eight x86 ‘Zen Lite’ LP cores at 2.1 GHz (they’re not Jaguar cores, as previously rumored) and a Polaris GPU, operating on 15-20% faster clock than the original PS4.

According to sources in the know, the Polaris for PlayStation Neo is clocked at 911 MHz, up from 800 MHz on the PS4. The number of units should increase from the current 1152. Apparently, we might see a number higher than 1500, and lower than 2560 cores which are physically packed inside the Polaris 10 GPU i.e. Radeon R9 400 Series. Still, the number of units is larger than Polaris 11 (Radeon R7 400 Series), and the memory controller is 256-bit wide, with GDDR5 memory running higher than the current 1.38 GHz QDR. Given the recent developments with 20nm GDDR5 modules, we should see a 1.75 GHz QDR, 7 Gbps clock – resulting in 224 GB/s, almost a 20% boost.

PlayStation Neo rumors suggest that Sony never intended to release a new PS4. Instead, changes at AMD reportedly forced the company to adopt new hardware for lower production costs.

The speculation comes to Design & Trend via an analysis of a recent VR World story from Reddit user, Flight714. While not proven, the post's argument certainly has some interesting implications.

The discussion gets a little bit technical, but it hinges on the fact that AMD is preparing to streamline its production process to support new 14-nanometer FinFET transistors as opposed to the PS4's 28-nanometer planar transistor. Normally Sony would just use a die shrink technique to fit the old chip to the new size, but, this time, AMD is reportedly pairing that shift with the introduction of new Zen core CPUs.

The rumor alleges that this development essentially put Sony in a tough spot. To continue producing the PS4, the company would have to create a totally custom production line or join AMD's new standard. Since the former would likely prove to be costly and a hassle, the latter updated hardware was chosen instead. After all, no Sony investor would want to see needless costs incurred on the brand that they support. Plus, if new chips offer better performance, why not try them?

Sony then had to decide how the PlayStation Neo would take advantage of the hardware. As a middle ground to making the system more powerful while not totally alienating existing console owners, the currently rumored plan was adopted. All PS4 games will run on both systems, but the Neo may offer a slight edge in terms of overall performance.

Another detail that might make this AMD speculation hold slightly more water is that any production shift of this kind would also impact Microsoft's bottom line in the same way. Both console makers leverage AMD parts, and, coincidentally or not, both are rumored to be releasing updated hardware skus this year. This might be for the sake of competition, but production pricing also seems like it could be a culprit given what this analysis has taught us.

On May 22 2016 03:13 Jibba wrote:

It's a difficult situation supply chain wise, but it's also frustrating as an OG PS4 owner. Part of the appeal of a console over a PC is not having to worry about specs or "missing out", because the decision is taken out of your hands when you go down that path.

It's a little irrational, but it's also human nature (arguably natural as monkeys do this too). $4 doesn't seem so great when the person next to you got $5.

It honestly makes me want to return to PC gaming, where I can make the upgrades on my own terms.

Sony is developing an upgraded version of its PlayStation 4 gaming console that will offer ultra-high definition 4K resolution and richer graphics, according to the unit’s chief executive, as the company strives to maintain its lead over rivals Microsoft and Nintendo.

However, in a move that may disappoint some fans, Mr House said that Sony would not be unveiling its new console next week and refused to say when or at what price the unit would go on sale. “We want to ensure we have a full range of the best experiences on the new system that we can showcase in their entirety,” he said.

Nonetheless, he downplayed concerns that the move would cause interoperability problems between the old and new PS4 hardware.

“All games will support the standard PS4 and we anticipate all or a very large majority of games will also support the high-end PS4,” he said.

Both PS4 variants will also support its forthcoming virtual reality headset, which will go on sale later this year.