@GarGx1 said:
@ronvalencia: There's no doubt that the PS4's APU was far cheaper to design and build than the Cell in PS3 (or 1 and 2) and the Pro is likely cheaper again. Design, however is far more than what CPU/GPU to use, there's everything else that makes a PS4, from the athletics of the box to how everything will fit into that box, the shape of the Mobo, size and shape of the PSU and Drives, Where the ports go and how they attach to the board, etc. etc. That design stage likely costs as much, if not more than they paid AMD to create a specific chip to go into it.
Although the PS4 and likely the PS4 Pro have profitability from the first day, those profits aren't huge. They already have the Gai Kai network to support PSNow so in long run streaming will be far more profitable than hardware has ever been for them.
PS4's PCB has AMD's handily work on it i.e. their trace lines between GPU and memory chips is a typical Radeon HD card. AMD would have advised Sony on thermal guidance and possible solutions. Sony could have contracted AMD/Foxconn/PC Partner to design PS4's PCB.
Compared to PowerPC camp, both AMD and Intel has very good reference design library for OEMs and ODMs i.e. RX-480 reference cards hits their estimated target price range.
Sapphire (part of HK based PC Partner) handles AMD's reference boards designs.
PC Partner often acts as a contract manufacturer for AMD; it produces AMD FirePro and reference AMD Radeon R9 boards, which are then sold under various brands. As a result, unlike its rivals, Sapphire is less economically motivated to develop its own designs of printed circuit boards (PCBs) and transfer manufacturing to its own facilities as soon as possible to cut its costs down. This is another reason why Sapphire decided not to alter PCB design of the Radeon R9 Fury in mid-2015.
Reference
http://forum.hwbot.org/showthread.php?t=150230
PC Partner has ZOTAC(for NVIDIA) and Sapphire (for AMD).
Both Scorpio and "PS4 Pro" was pushed by AMD and was accepted by MS and Sony respectively.
For PS4 Pro.... it's similar price as old PS4 and 2.3X the GPU over than the old one.
For IBM CELL upgrades... guess who puts the bill on R&D upgrades.... it's Sony.
With AMD, IP block upgrades comes out at a yearly cycle. It's up to MS or Sony to accept the updated IP blocks at a given year.
Xbox One S's 14 CU GPU (TSMC 16 nm FinFET) seems to be a relative of Polaris 11's 14 CU GPU(Global Foundry 14 nm FinFET).
FinFET Jaguar CPU is common for PS4 Slim, PS4 Pro and Xbox One S.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-hands-on-with-the-playstation-4-slim-cuh-2000
PS4 Slim's APU being produced by TSMC on 16 nm FinFET process tech.
The measurements here suggest that just like Xbox One S, the PlayStation 4 Slim model sees around a 40 per cent reduction in overall volume.
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