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> The only problem is that PC technology is significantly behind PS5. It'll take some time for the newer, PCIe 4.0-based drives with the bandwidth required to m

> The only problem is that PC technology is significantly behind PS5. It'll take some time for the newer, PCIe 4.0-based drives with the bandwidth required to match Sony's spec to hit the market. This is what stands out for me (I know this quote is a bit dramatic but bare with me): for a long time consoles have lagged behind PC technology - in the sense that PC was always the early adopter and spread out before consoles. I'll dare to say that the last console that achieved this was probably the PS3. The PS4 was a bit of a turn off for a lot of people spec wise. So it's good to see they're using these platforms to push the early adoption of new standards. Also, good for Sony to let standard NVMEs be used, and not some proprietary form factor that adds no value, and has no benefit to the consumer. That's one of the reasons some of their consoles lost traction - proprietary storage media.

LeoTinnitus 7y ago
What? Ps3 and ps4s used 2.5 in form factor drives. They didn't need to be proprietary.
- falcolas 7y ago
  These new drives are using a different technology (though NVME is not proprietary), in a form factor that we've seen on the PC for awhile. They offer much more throughput than normal 2.5" form factor. They're attached to the PCI bus, not a separate disk controller on the motherboard.
- stordoff 7y ago
  Definitely applies to the the Vita though. Proprietary cards, with 16GB being $60/£45 and 32GB being $100. They never really came down either - I paid £76 for a 64GB card in 2014.
- p1necone 7y ago
  I remember swapping my PS3 drive for a faster 1TB laptop drive, such a good upgrade. Likewise for sticking an SSD in a PS4, although I never got around to doing that.
  - LeoTinnitus 7y ago
    When did you do that? If you said you did that in the late 00's I would call you nuts haha!
    - p1necone 7y ago
      It was pretty late in the lifecycle, probably around ps4 launch time. I'm one of those weird people that spends more time playing games on consoles from past generations than I do newer stuff.
- libertine 7y ago
  I meant the PSP and PS Vita lines.
dijit 7y ago
One of the major pain points is disk i/o on the PS4, however the PS5 seems to have some special magic in the disk controller that allows kraken decoding (to a max theoretical decompression rate of 22GB/s!!). They put the storage controller on the motherboard, but if that wasn’t possible then I can say sincerely that this has value for the consumer.
lsaferite 7y ago
I'm confused. Doesn't AMD already have support for PCIe 4.0? The ASUS ROG Strix X570 series has it as a feature for sure. And the NVMe M.2 SSDs using PCIe 4.0 are out as well.
- wmf 7y ago
  PS5 requires ~6 GB/s but current consumer PCIe 4.0 SSDs only hit ~5 GB/s.
the8472 7y ago
You can buy PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe drives today. Ryzen CPUs have been providing PCIe4 lanes for a while now. So this is nothing new. And if you want to have the fastest and shiniest then x16 drives are also an option, if you have the money. The only thing where the specs are momentarily ahead are the GPU architectures, but by the time they actually hit the market the equivalent PC GPUs will be available too.
- snvzz 7y ago
  >the equivalent PC GPUs will be available too. And RDNA2 should have scary performance, on the GPU power budgets that are standard these days.
- jayd16 7y ago
  you _can_ but no one will write a game for that PC spec for another few years at best.
favorited 7y ago
The PS4 had GDDR5 RAM for main memory, which no one else (including PCs) was doing at the time. According to Cerny (at the time), a single pool of fast memory was the #1 thing Sony's 3rd party devs were begging for.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
p1necone 7y ago
The hardware in the PS5 is better than the average mid-high end gaming PC now, but it won't be more than a year or two before gaming PC hardware is better again. And other than this special super fast SSD you can absolutely build a better gaming PC already, albeit expensively. This isn't really any different than launch time of the PS3 or PS4 (although the 512mb of ram in the PS3 was already laughable and a predictable issue at launch time). (Not saying that being able to buy a machine that will play all the AAA titles for the next ~7 years for ~$500 isn't a really great deal though, just that I don't think there's anything fundamentally different about this generation of consoles than the last two)
- libertine 7y ago
  Yes, but when the PS4 was released it was matched to a low-mid end PC. About the PS3, I think the CELL CPU that got a lot of attention for it's high end performance (though hard to use).

LeoTinnitus 7y ago

What? Ps3 and ps4s used 2.5 in form factor drives. They didn't need to be proprietary.

falcolas 7y ago
These new drives are using a different technology (though NVME is not proprietary), in a form factor that we've seen on the PC for awhile. They offer much more throughput than normal 2.5" form factor. They're attached to the PCI bus, not a separate disk controller on the motherboard.
stordoff 7y ago
Definitely applies to the the Vita though. Proprietary cards, with 16GB being $60/£45 and 32GB being $100. They never really came down either - I paid £76 for a 64GB card in 2014.
p1necone 7y ago
I remember swapping my PS3 drive for a faster 1TB laptop drive, such a good upgrade. Likewise for sticking an SSD in a PS4, although I never got around to doing that.
- LeoTinnitus 7y ago
  When did you do that? If you said you did that in the late 00's I would call you nuts haha!
  - p1necone 7y ago
    It was pretty late in the lifecycle, probably around ps4 launch time. I'm one of those weird people that spends more time playing games on consoles from past generations than I do newer stuff.
libertine 7y ago
I meant the PSP and PS Vita lines.

dijit 7y ago

One of the major pain points is disk i/o on the PS4, however the PS5 seems to have some special magic in the disk controller that allows kraken decoding (to a max theoretical decompression rate of 22GB/s!!). They put the storage controller on the motherboard, but if that wasn’t possible then I can say sincerely that this has value for the consumer.

lsaferite 7y ago

I'm confused. Doesn't AMD already have support for PCIe 4.0? The ASUS ROG Strix X570 series has it as a feature for sure. And the NVMe M.2 SSDs using PCIe 4.0 are out as well.

wmf 7y ago
PS5 requires ~6 GB/s but current consumer PCIe 4.0 SSDs only hit ~5 GB/s.

the8472 7y ago

You can buy PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe drives today. Ryzen CPUs have been providing PCIe4 lanes for a while now. So this is nothing new. And if you want to have the fastest and shiniest then x16 drives are also an option, if you have the money. The only thing where the specs are momentarily ahead are the GPU architectures, but by the time they actually hit the market the equivalent PC GPUs will be available too.

snvzz 7y ago
>the equivalent PC GPUs will be available too. And RDNA2 should have scary performance, on the GPU power budgets that are standard these days.
jayd16 7y ago
you _can_ but no one will write a game for that PC spec for another few years at best.

favorited 7y ago

The PS4 had GDDR5 RAM for main memory, which no one else (including PCs) was doing at the time. According to Cerny (at the time), a single pool of fast memory was the #1 thing Sony's 3rd party devs were begging for.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

p1necone 7y ago

The hardware in the PS5 is better than the average mid-high end gaming PC now, but it won't be more than a year or two before gaming PC hardware is better again. And other than this special super fast SSD you can absolutely build a better gaming PC already, albeit expensively. This isn't really any different than launch time of the PS3 or PS4 (although the 512mb of ram in the PS3 was already laughable and a predictable issue at launch time). (Not saying that being able to buy a machine that will play all the AAA titles for the next ~7 years for ~$500 isn't a really great deal though, just that I don't think there's anything fundamentally different about this generation of consoles than the last two)

libertine 7y ago
Yes, but when the PS4 was released it was matched to a low-mid end PC. About the PS3, I think the CELL CPU that got a lot of attention for it's high end performance (though hard to use).