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  • PeachNCream - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    What makes a console a good piece of hardware is that I do not have to even care what is inside the box that runs the games since the games that I buy for said console will just work as intended. Every generation has extensive discussion about hardware and the usual comparing and penis measuring between brands. It all ends up being meaningless when you pick up a controller and play a game on it which is far and above the hassle of PC gaming in terms of equipment apathy. In short, IDGAF what drive is inside the thing. Insert disc (or download digital copy) and game on!
  • shabby - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Games will work just as intended? Are you suggesting console games never suffer from fps dips below 30fps or have lower quality graphics to hit 30fps?
  • close - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    If you played on both console and PC then you know what that means. I do that and yes, on the console it's a lot more hassle-free. Every game is optimized for *that* configuration, perhaps with minor variations between the 2-3 cycle refreshes. No need to worry about "does it work better on the Radeon? Should I use the older driver? Adjust graphics settings to determine which one has the best graphics for *your* PC. Etc. It extracts the most out of that hardware.

    On my PC (with a far better config than any console) Assassin's Creed Odyssey freezes for a second (not a figure of speech) every once in a while even if it runs flawlessly otherwise. On the Xbox it works just fine. On the PC I had to adjust graphics because the highest level was just a tad too much but the next lower level left too much performance on the table, so I had to tweak a full screen (or 2) of settings about shadows, aliasing, and whatnot to get "the best for my setup". Maybe. I don't know, I can't be bothered to spend half a day experimenting. Now subjectively it looks better on the Xbox with a 4K screen than on the PC with a 1440p screen.

    On the other hand it also means 5 years from now you have an old GPU that you can't swap out. But for console gamers that's a small price to pay.
  • Retycint - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    You don't need to adjust the graphics configuration or mess with drivers because the option has been taken away from you. Instead of having the choice to slightly lower texture quality to ensure smooth gameplay, for instance, the game devs decide that a dip below 30fps is acceptable and push it onto you.

    Very strange to describe the lack of choices as "it just works"
  • PeachNCream - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    That's a pretty weak argument that doesn't take anything away from the original point of not having to care about the underlying hardware and being assured that a game purchased for a particular console will work properly on said console.
  • vol.2 - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    "will work properly" is what people are taking issue with. the argument is that there are games that run crappy on consoles. don't try to pretend that there haven't been plenty of prime examples over the past 10 years or so of games that are poorly optimized for consoles.
    On a PC, when that happens, you tweak settings until it's playable. On a console you have a shitty experience. Or maybe you just don't care for whatever reason. That's the point. Is a deal breaker for you, I guess not. It is for some.
  • close - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    I find this suspicious given that I play on both platforms and if anything, games are optimized *for consoles*. From performance, to gameplay, and controls. Devs make *a lot* more money from console sales since piracy is pretty much non existing so it makes sense they'd focus on them.

    As an anecdote I found far, far more games misbehaving on PC than on the Xbox. Between driver issues, "optimized for the that other hardware that you don't have" issues, trying to balance all the setting (most of which most people have no idea about), auto detect settings that "guess" what you should use based on some too simplistic checks, and basic game bugs I faced more problems on the PC. Yes, there are issues on consoles but the argument "well you have issues on both therefore the experience must be the same or worse on consoles" comes almost exclusively from people who "read about it", "heard from someone", etc. but never actually tried both for any meaningful period of time.

    Yes, for all intents and purposes games "will work properly" and with less hassle on consoles in more cases than on the PC. And I say this as someone who can definitely handle whatever a computing system can throw at them better than 99.9999% of the population. But that doesn't mean I *want* to have to handle that, especially on what's supposed to be my fun, hassle free time.

    Not trying to convince you to use either but if if you want to share your opinion the least you can do is be fully informed.
  • hecksagon - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    Couple counter arguments here.

    Just because the console game works as intended doesn't mean it doesn't run like shit. No developer ever wanted its fans to play their game at 30fps, just like no developer wanted their fans to play their game at 720p. Unfortunately with consoles its always been compromise. You either optimize for image quality or optimize for steady gameplay, or meet somewhere in-between.
  • hecksagon - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    Apparently I'm too stupid to find the edit button.

    The other point is that PCs, while more complicated, offer expanded options thanks to that complication. Want high refresh rate gaming? Not gonna get it on a console not only due to performance but due to HDMI limitations. Want to play an RTS? Good luck with a controller. Want an extra wide monitor to handle that increased FOV you are playing at? Your resolution isn't supported on consoles. VR? Don't waste your time with a console. Modding games? Gonna get you banned on a console. Emulation? Not likely on a console, better go get yourself a Playstation Mini.
  • lunarx3dfx - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    I think what we have here is a classic case of one screen and two different movies. One argument is being made on subjective experience, and the other is being made from an objective point of view. I could be wrong, but I don't think OP is stating that consoles are more powerful, but more the subjective opinion that the just download game and play is more convenient for them and for a lot of people.

    As a dad I can understand this sentiment, which is why since my daughter was born I too have spent more time gaming on console. I find the lack of choice when it comes to performance settings as a bonus because I am that person who, if given the choice, will spend ages tweaking settings to get the best image quality at 60 fps. This however resulted in the limited amount of time I have available to play games being eaten up by time spent tweaking.

    In contrast, on my Xbox I just download the game and play. Is it an objectively better experience than running the game at maxed out settings on a PC at 60+ fps? No. Not at all. But the convenience is a factor in my overall enjoyment these days. However, there are some types of games I will NEVER play on a console. Doom for isntance. That is a PC only game in my eyes. You just can't beat a keyboard and mouse for that game. Period.

    I think where this argument always ends up coming from is personal opinion based on what is important to the end user. PCs are so much easier to build, setup, and play games on than in the 80's and 90's when I first got into PC gaming, but for many users it's still intimidating. That's why the console market is so large, and will continue to be. At the end of the day, many consumers still prefer the ease of setup and use that consoles afford, and you can't really put a price on that. A lot of people want to just take the machine out of the box, plug in two cables, download a game, and get playing.
  • Oxford Guy - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    "The other point is that PCs, while more complicated"

    False.

    "Consoles" of today, except for the Switch, ARE PCs.

    They are merely PCs with different walled gardens and, unlike the "PC" platform, they can't be used outside of those walled gardens. On the "PC", though, there is Linux, which offers freedom from the Microsoft and Sony taxes.
  • close - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link

    @hecksagon, this "oh it's just 30FPS" routine is pretty old. Whatever you think is a good resolution and framerate, someone thinks it should be higher. Current gen consoles play run games 4K@30-60FPS. *I* personally find that more than decent and certainly better than the hassle of PC gaming. And I say this as someone who plays on the console just slightly more than on the PC. Graphics are the bonus in a game, I still enjoy an "8 bit" game even without the Ks and the FPSs, I still play oldies.

    So if you say rock solid 60FPS is good, someone can just reply "144FPS or bust, anything else is for micropeenuses" (got you there ;)). 4K is good? You need at least 4 x 5K monitors, anything else..." well you get the point. Maybe.

    It's nice that you went on to list all the (dis)advantages that were already discussed previously by myself and others just before reaching the conclusion that for myself and many, many others the tradeoffs are worth it. But leave it to a 16 year old to think there's only room in this world for what they like "na-d'uh". You'd like to think that you're some sort of genius surrounded by millions of idiots who for some reason impossible to understand chose differently. Some day you might still want to play games but not feel like wasting your free time tinkering away.

    So in conclusion yes, no matter how you measure it, mine is bigger ;).
  • FreckledTrout - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    While I am a PC gamer I do get the appeal of "it just works". I buy iPhone's because I don't want to deal with tweaking tons of with settings and iPhone's are fairly well configured right out of the box.
  • Oxford Guy - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    "While I am a PC gamer I do get the appeal of 'it just works'."

    Marketing magic. In reality, there is nothing a "console" walled garden offers for consumers in added value. It's all smoke and mirrors.

    Every feature can be done with Linux + Vulkan + OpenGL and done better (lower cost, less inefficiency of having THREE walled gardens).
  • close - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link

    @Oxford Guy "Every feature can be done with Linux + Vulkan + OpenGL"

    Ah... all of the things nobody ever wanted to deal with when playing games. In reality you can't buy a console equivalent new PC for less money (plenty of people|bloggers tried and ended up comparing new consoles with second hand PC to even get close).

    Yes, doing it yourself is many times cheaper, including (especially?) that thing that you mostly do by yourself. But people also want convenience. Which is why the lowly console still sells tens of millions of units every year. People even play on phones. And just as a hint that people don't care that much for your opinion... look around ;).
  • close - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    @Retycint, nothing strange. Indeed, a game that is optimized by design to run as well as it can on the given hardware with no tinkering involved is for me far preferable than having to waste an afternoon for every game and maybe get the desired result. And just because you have dozens of settings and powerful hardware it doesn't change the fact that the performance will vary with every driver version. I've had a far more inconsistent gaming experience on my PC than on the console and again, I have a much faster PC than console.

    Yes, there is the risk of a developer getting a game's performance to dip here and there. But then when this happens they usually fix it or the game stays on the shelves. I gave you a concrete example. For me and many others the tradeoff is worth it.
  • whatthe123 - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    except you gave a horrible example. Assassins Creed Odyssey dips in framerate on every platform, especially consoles, where neither the ps4 pro nor the xbox one x can maintain even 30fps as shown by digital foundry. Neither can maintain 4K either and instead use dynamic resolution, which is also available on PC. Basically your example of "it just works" is a game that constantly stutters from frame dips and can't maintain its output resolution. Not entirely sure how that's different from running a PC with random settings and just ignoring frame dips.
  • close - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    Except my example wasn't "dips framerate", it was "freezes". I guess you can call it "dipping framerate all the way down to 0fps for at least 1s". And I guess you could argue that something is wrong on my PC, probably the AV doing something weird, when I installed the latest GPU drivers I didn't properly clean up the old ones, I didn't "defragment" the SSD, etc. But that would just reinforce my point.

    I can give you dozens of examples but I'm sure you'll just find weird ways to "prove" that they are all exceptions that don't count somehow, "everyone knows that" . My GPU alone cost more than any latest gen console at launch, the rest of it is leaps ahead also, and yet the experience on PC was always more inconsistent and full of hassle.

    And if you want to "play that game", every gamer worth their salt agrees that a playable experience starts at 144FPS but should really go higher. Which means your PC also spends 100% of its time in a "framerate dip". So if I'm going to stare at an "eyesore" I'd rather do it with a $400 box that mostly does 4K at 30-60FPS than a $2000 one where there's always a tweak to be done to get it right. I just don't have the time or the patience for that kind of crap. If the game review says "adequate performance" on the console, I know I'll get adequate performance. On the PC it's never that simple.

    You clearly have no consistent first hand experience using both, so that kind of shoots your opinion in both feet and once between the eyes for good measure.
  • Zagor Te Nay - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    I'm with you.

    Also PC and PS4 gamer. Not all games work perfectly on consoles, but if you do some research before you buy console game - wait for reliable review or two, for example - if conclusion is that game works fine on any give console, you know exactly what performance you will get out of it on your console. With PC, even with minimum/recommended specs, one never knows if game will behave exactly the same. There might be some legacy hardware, older drivers...

    Back in the days - I think it was AMD64 days - I have built new rig with GeForce 7850 GPU etc. My PC was crashing in 2 out of 3 games. Game would freeze and audio would lock in a loop... hard reset was the only way out. Luckily I was working for IT company so I had access to spare parts I could borrow to troubleshoot.

    After replacing everything meaningful, reinstalling OS and drivers a few times... and starting to get a bit desperate, I have replaced everything that I haven't tried before, just because. Solution to my problem turned out to be replacing Microsoft Internet Explorer keyboard. Keyboard was working perfectly in Windows, and computer never froze on desktop, so I never suspected keyboard. It probably wasn't even faulty - I brought it to office and it worked perfectly fine for years on my work PC, until I decided I don't want beige keyboard any more.

    I know it is extreme one off, but I did have other share of smaller compatibility issues, since I started gaming on PC in early '90. Consoles are more straight forward.
  • SirPerro - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    Well but that's exactly it. "It just works" means that. That's what Apple users expect from their computer or phone. And you may not prefer consoles, but "They just work".

    I also like PC gaming, but I'm aware there's A LOT of knowledge involved which is not necessary with consoles.

    We are a small minority of people who understand really technical concepts. Power users if you want. But people out there don't know what frame rate is. They don't have a choice because it's overwhelming for them. That's EXACTLY what consoles do best. They create a layer of abstraction that works for too many people.
  • PopinFRESH007 - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link

    You could use GeForce Experience which does all of that for you if you don’t want to configure settings yourself. Assuming you have an nVidia GPU
  • Gastec - Sunday, January 3, 2021 - link

    "I can't be bothered!", the statement of a generation.
  • Zingam - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    If they dip down to 30fps - that's intended. Blame your game developer. I used to be one.
  • Kangal - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    True.
    Although we've made a lot of progress in the console hardware:

    Small Capacity Cartridges > Much Larger CD > Much Faster DVD > Larger BluRay > Much Larger HDD > Much Faster SSD

    For example: SNES > PS1 > PS2 > PS3 > PS4 > PS5
  • arslan0123 - Friday, June 26, 2020 - link

    look how good ps4 pro graphics are cuz games are optimized for 1 same hardware that millions owned. on PC there are lots of problems. u have to fix yourself. too much time consuming. on ps4 pro i dont have to care
  • Sivar - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Consoles are definitely easier to start with, but PCs have come a long way and still have "the PC advantages". You can buy any mid-range gaming PC or build one (if you like that kind of thing, as I do) with a mid-range nVidia card, mid-range CPU, etc. and install Steam and games generally "just work". nVidia provides software to automatically adjust game settings for your hardware.
    Load times, graphics quality, and controller quality are all superior on the PC, though new consoles generally take a brief lead before the multi-year period where PCs catch up and surpass them.
    For me, the mouse and keyboard alone will keep me on PC for the foreseeable future. The PC's game quality advantage is diminishing over time, but my types of games (RPGs with plots and characters, Warframe, and a few others) are still PC-centric.
  • Zingam - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    Mouse and keyboard, gamepads, light guns, VR, touch... are meant for completely different game types and experience. Mixing them is stupid. You don't play basketball with a golf ball as well you don't play golf with a football.
  • close - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    @Sivar: Of course PCs have advantages. From being potentially far more powerful than any console on the market, to easily being upgraded, and giving far more flexibility in the balance of performance and quality you can get. That's not really debatable.

    But the "just works and it's consistent and hassle free" will never come to the PC. The exact same arguments from above make sure of that. Consoles are uniform and it's much easier to make a game that plays just well enough on exactly that. You'd be hard pressed to find 2 identical PCs around. So if you really can't be bothered with that you'll give up on the advantages above to have something that for lack of a better description "just works".

    As an (offensive) analogy that the current gen of AT commenters will probably easily relate to, the PC is that hot Tinder date you have tonight. You always get the "latest model" and as long as you're willing to jump through some hoops and deal with some hassle you may get what you were looking for. Or maybe (s)he will just piss you off and leave you hanging. The console is your long term partner, not the best at everything, you can't just replace the parts you'd like changed but always there for you consistently delivering. And you love them for that. :)
  • khanikun - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    "But the "just works and it's consistent and hassle free" will never come to the PC"

    Except that it does, for some people. I just install the game and use whatever default it has and good to go. Maybe cause I'm not one of the ppl who are constantly grabbing the latest GPU drivers. I pretty much install the gpu with whatever the latest drivers were from that time and don't bother with updating it again.

    If you're the type that needs the latest chipset drivers, latest gpu drivers, latest firmware, etc. That way you can grab every ounce of performance out of the system or get the latest optimizations for X game, then Ya. You'll probably run into some kind of issues.

    If you get your machine running and don't bother with it again, you'll more than likely not run into any issues, except when you actually have a physical hardware fault. That or the game is just a piss poor port. Like the last Batman game.

    Me, I just game on both consoles and PC, cause I'm a gamer. Doesn't need to be one or the other.

    Also, I'll disagree with "You'd be hard pressed to find 2 identical PCs around". Are you completely forgetting OEM builds? You won't be hard pressed to find 2 identical PCs around. I bet you could find 1000 identical PCs around.
  • shelbystripes - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Your “penis measuring” mark makes me think you’re missing the point here. It’s true, there is a bunch of pointless fanboy-arguing between brand fans on each new generation about which is best. But this is AnandTech, and people come here to read articles about hardware, and HOW and WHY games on consoles are able to not only “just work as intended” but deliver impressive performance through incredibly thoughtful optimizations. What makes a GOOD console is that the final product “just works” but it’s still worth reading (for a lot of people) about the technology console makers are using to try to make that happen.

    This is especially true for the Xbox, where features being developed may influence PC gaming or Windows generally. The new Xbox storage API is going to make its way to Windows, and will be a much-needed improvement that could help more than just games.

    If you DGAF what’s inside a box, why are you on this site?
  • surt - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Please please please tell me that storage api evolution is going to mean that NTFS gets replaced at long last? Because NTFS is slow as a dog compared to *nix filesystems and is one of the key reasons MS is very rapidly losing developers to mac & linux devices.
  • Billy Tallis - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    My understanding is that the problem on Windows isn't so much NTFS as the fact that the VFS layer has hooks in it for antivirus programs and other stuff to inspect/filter any IO. If you get third-party software out of the fast path there shouldn't be such a big performance deficit.
  • Klimax - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    Correct. Also still not many programs use Async IO despite it existing for as long as NT Kernel. It'll be interesting to investigate DirectStorage.

    Also it should be noted that original WinAPI has strong API/ABI compatibility guarantees.
  • close - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    I would go further and say the "problem" is that the PC is a far more open platform than any console which means devs have more freedom to implement things however they like them. Whether because "it's easier this way" or because PC OSes face different challenges than console one (AV anyone?), there will be a lot more software slowing down the PC in general and file system operations in particular.
  • Deicidium369 - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    So MS will have 98% of the devs instead of 99.5%...

    MS has been losing to Unix/Linux about as much as Intel has been losing to AMD - which is next to nothing.
  • Billy Tallis - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    Microsoft probably has 99+% of the (non-mobile, non-console) game developers. For other kinds of applications, they aren't that dominant. Their market share and mindshare is worst in the server space, which is also where supporting very high IO performance is the most important.
  • Spunjji - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    Of course you had to throw AMD in here somewhere 🤣
  • Lord of the Bored - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link

    He's not paid to make comments that don't raise the Intel battle flag high.
  • PeachNCream - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    Ah yes, I keep forgetting that unless I care what is inside a console, I'm not allowed to read Anandtech articles. Thank you so much, shelbystripes, for reminding us all how exclusive this website is and to categorize who is and isn't allowed to read it based on the content of one article.
  • tuxRoller - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    You commented on an article with the title "Storage Matters: Why Xbox and Playstation SSDs Usher In A New Era of Gaming" then decided to write a comment which is summed up by "In short, IDGAF what drive is inside the thing."
    This implies that you think others care about your opinion or that AT shouldn't write these types of articles.
    Regardless, your comment came across as entitled and seemed intended to provoke.
  • PeachNCream - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    "This implies that you think others care about your opinion or that AT shouldn't write these types of articles."

    The number of responses, yours included, implies the foundation supporting your argument is incorrect.
  • tuxRoller - Monday, June 22, 2020 - link

    __Regardless, your comment came across as entitled and seemed intended to provoke.__
  • Oxford Guy - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    Actually, it reads like a marketing pitch for the console scam.
  • PeachNCream - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link

    What exactly is the "console scam" you're talking about?
  • close - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link

    He's in the "you can do it cheaper with Linux, Vulkan, a sock and some hand cream" camp.

    I get it can be a good learning experience especially at their young age but most people just want to take that time to relax and play a game. Let me configure this Linux box and then endlessly tweak when things inevitably go wrong is not what anyone wants to sign up for.
  • PeachNCream - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link

    In some ways I understand the feel good about open source software. Most of my day-to-day computing happens under Linux both at work and at home. Games - well they are hit and miss on Linux. I've had a few that work well and require very little to no tweaking (though getting dependencies is sometimes a pain) like Dwarf Fortress and Unreal World and others go as far a requiring a compile from source code to get a non-working game that still requires fiddling around to maybe end up with a running application. And then, most of those games are not exactly mainstream titles.

    It just doesn't make sense to me that because there are free open source alternatives for amusement on a PC platform that the idea of a turnkey solution like a console is somehow scammy. Its just an alternate and much easier route to arrive at filling up your free time.
  • Spunjji - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    You can read it, but maybe don't leave worthless comments?
  • Spunjji - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    Came here to say this, saw it said better. +1 and that.
  • imaheadcase - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Eh, you must never have gamed on a PC in the last 10 years. You don't really have that problem anymore. Plus playing on a controller is SO limiting on the types of games you can play.
  • PeachNCream - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    I currently use a PC for gaming (Linux and Windows). I also use a console, a phone, and have been playing video games on various platforms as far back as a VIC-20 and Atari 2600. Consoles are by far easier to deal with even now. I do agree that controllers do not work as well as a mouse and keyboard for certain game formats - FPS in particular - without careful user interface design decisions by the game developer. In other cases, controllers excel as an interface device to the point where I've plugged a controller into a PC in order to play a game more easily. It is, I think, a mistake to paint with a brush as broad as the one you're using.
  • close - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link

    @imaheadcase, magically gaming is the only segment that was somehow all issues on the PC were ironed out? So every time I update my GPU driver those random issues (performance or otherwise) are imagined? When Spectre patches came in my Nier Automata started bsoding like crazy. AC:Odyssey now constantly freezes 1s every few minutes. Minor nuisances but enough to prefer the occasional dip in FPS on the console.
  • mocseg - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    This. Turn on, select, play.
    And that's all.
  • Kurosaki - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Played nier automata on pc lately?
    Did not think so...
  • close - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    @Kurosaki, I did play it on PC and in January 2018 as soon as I applied the Windows Spectre patch, Nier started BSODing consistently (I still have the memory dumps that I analyzed back then). By the time it was fixed (don't really know when) I mostly lost interest in the game. It's there on my PC, I just already moved on to playing other stuff.

    I'm not generalizing, it was the only game I have that did this. But it puts the issue in context: there's always one more thing to look out for.
  • Klimax - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    Same on computer...
  • Tams80 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    That argument is moot. All three console makers are well aware of "it just works" being important. They don't always get it right, but on the whole they do.

    It does matter what hardware is inside though, as that determines what games will run and at what settings.
  • choaniki - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    Also no ring0 anti-cheat or anti-copy malware to ruin your gaming experience.
  • Chaser - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    I never looked at it that way. Yes if you want the most simplistic guarantee the hardware will match the software you get it with a console. But PC gamers can upgrade memory, GPU even CPU now with AMD Ryzen. As a matter of fact, harder core PC gamers delight on upgrading and then seeing/experiencing those benefits.
  • PeachNCream - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    The problem is that upgrading is a necessity. While a lot of us tell ourselves that we enjoy it, we spend thousands on new components and invest significant time over the same period for which a single console generation is relevant all in the name of keeping up with current software. Sure its something to do with yourself to fill in time or populate that recreational void in our sad, technology-focused lives. On the other hand, when I buy a console, I don't have to force myself to enjoy buying and swapping out components, downloading new drivers, suffering through an OS update, fretting about whether or not my keyboard has the right switches inside of it and so forth. I buy a game and play it. Three years later, the same box gives me the same results with a new game I buy for it and I don't worry about looking at the system requirements because my hardware implicitly meets said requirements.
  • Spunjji - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    Most people I know upgrade their PC maybe twice during a console generation, but often not even that.

    The option is not the same as a requirement. If you don't enjoy it, that's cool, some of us do and that's cool too. This site kinda caters to that latter group, though...
  • JStacts - Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - link

    "The problem is that upgrading is a necessity." Upgrading a computer is no more necessary that buying a new console (I would argue less). The difference is that the PC game can upgrade when he wants and is not forced into a cycle by a multi-national corporation. I built my computer a few years ago with an RX480. Could I upgrade? Sure. I could have upgraded last year, or the year before. I could upgrade next year.

    It is entirely my choice when or even if I upgrade. It is my choice how much to spend on the upgrade. It is my choice because of the incredible wealth of options offered by the PC market.

    If I had a PS4, I had to wait until Sony CHOSE to release the Pro version (which they had no obligation to do) or the PS5.

    Next year, I will very probably buy a couple monitors and upgrade my GPU, but I certainly don't feel compelled to do so. I enjoy my gaming experience.

    It is this difference of choice that makes my say that "I get to upgrade" instead of "I have to upgrade".

    You mentioned that we (PC gamers) spend thousands to keep up with the state of software. While there certainly are those people (and you will meet a disproportionate number of them in the AT comment section), I would hardly call that a fair generalization of the PC gaming community. Most of us keep our components for many years before upgrading. Most of us are perfectly happy buying low or midrage parts and the gaming experiences those offer. A significant portion of us use very low end hardware.

    If you're not already acquainted with the channel, I recommend "The LowSpec Gamer" on Youtube. His entire channel is dedicated to making AAA games run on extremely low-end hardware.
  • Oxford Guy - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    "What makes a console a good piece of hardware is that I do not have to even care what is inside the box that runs the games since the games that I buy for said console will just work as intended. Every generation has extensive discussion about hardware and the usual comparing and penis measuring between brands. It all ends up being meaningless when you pick up a controller and play a game on it which is far and above the hassle of PC gaming in terms of equipment apathy. In short, IDGAF what drive is inside the thing. Insert disc (or download digital copy) and game on!"

    Thank you MS or Sony employee for this attempt to justify the "console" scam.
  • zmatt - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link

    Adding internal storage and internet connectivity destroyed what I saw as the two big advantages with consoles. It used to be that you didn't have to install anything and you didn't have to patch anything. Developers were forced to released games as complete and working products and playing them was truly as simple as sticking a disc in and playing.

    Sure load times and graphics suffered because of it but consoles shouldn't try to compete with PCs on performance anyways. Its a fool's errand. Back then you could truly say consoles just worked. Having to wait for games to install, having to manage updates and dealing with buggy releases were largely problems that PC users had to put up with.

    Now consoles have all of those problems too. You can't seem to power on a console today without first waiting for it to update before letting you do anything. And unlike on a PC where you have control of such things the console will force you to update both it and the games before letting you play them. The only way around it is to disconnect networking entirely which renders half of its functionality broken.

    If I can't just slap in a disc and play then why bother? If I have to expend effort then I might as well get the full benefit of a PC. Not this halfway point consoles have reached.
  • PeachNCream - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link

    I think its actually a good thing that consoles have access to internet-based patching and multiplayer capabilities as well. There is a lot more code in a modern game than was the case with cartridge-based systems and early even the first couple of generations of disc-based consoles. Deploying an update is a reality of modern software we just have to cope with and work around these days regardless of the platform.

    In addition, if you keep an eye on the ROM hacking and modding community, you will see there are still hobbyists out there finding and fixing bugs that are present in 8- and 16-bit era cartridge based games that have a total memory footprint of a few hundred kilobytes to a single digit number of megabytes due to technology and cost limits of the time period. (Lots of Final Fantasy 3/6 fixes for the SNES for example).
  • Gastec - Sunday, January 3, 2021 - link

    Then why are you here, reading this article and bothering to comment? Go...play video games on consoles with that amazing input device you call "controller". It just works!
  • Iregisteredtocallyoudumb - Monday, August 1, 2022 - link

    Imagine reading through this very well written, well researched article that takes a very technical subject and explains it an layman’s terms in a very neutral manner, not favoring either brand, just laying out how tech works and how each company has approached it and why. Reading all the way through it, getting to the end, and all you can think to say is, “ Durr I don’t care what’s in my console I just want to insert disc and play game”.

    Yes dear, that’s nice. Most of us enjoy the simplicity of consoles, but we also enjoy learning about the tech behind them. That’s why we read the article. Not everything is some fanboy fight or something, some people just enjoy learning: )
  • ToTTenTranz - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Small correction at the end of page 1:

    Cerny said the 3rd party SSDs will need to be faster than the PS5's rated 5.5GB/s, because consumer SSDs only have 2 priority lanes, whereas the PS5's has 6 lanes.
    So the extra speed is needed to compensate for a less effective system of I/O interrupts. A 3rd party 5.5GB/s SSD is supposedly not capable enough to put in the PS5 as extra storage.
  • close - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    I wonder if there will be a market for after market SSDs that do match (or get sufficiently close to) the performance of the built in one. Also if MS plans on introducing a higher performance builtin SSD in future model refreshes.
  • ToTTenTranz - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Even if Microsoft does introduce a higher performance SSD in later models, the baseline is set in stone with this 2.4GB/s + BCPack & Zlib architecture.
  • brucethemoose - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    They could easily do another mid gen update with a faster SSD.
  • surt - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    They could, but the point is that developers can't rely on it.
  • Tams80 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    The whole point of a new 'generation' is that the baseline is reset. Consumers (partly for their own good) are expected to buy a new console, so developers will know that that one will be what millions of people will have.

    Mid-life upgrades work to an extent, but limiting games to just the newer models while the old models are still 'current' greatly reduces the potential market. They do work for making existing features better, but new or different features just aren't going to be worth investing in for most developers.
  • close - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    The current generation of consoles made some pretty massive changes mid-cycle, compared to any older gen. The most obvious one being that only some of them support 4K. And yet all games just work. There's no "limiting games to just the newer models".

    Having a faster SSD just means some games will have an even shorter load time (you'll spend even less time in that weird elevator that just happened to be in the middle of the level). At worst devs will have a check on the type of console they run and skip a certain transition completely if they run on the faster SSD.
  • khanikun - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    Mid-cycle upgrades just puts consoles closer to that of PCs. Where you can change quality settings lower or higher to meet the hardware. Unlike PCs with tons of different options to change to match up with all the different hardware on the market, on consoles, you'll just end up having a few canned settings.

    The game will detect what console your on, what resolution your tv is, and whether it has hdr or not, then give you one of it's canned settings. With most games being multiplatform, the ability is already built in, they simply don't give you the option to actually change it on your own.

    You'll also have the console manufacturers require devs to do it. Like when Sony released the PS4 Pro, it required game devs to make the game playable on the PS4 and PS4 Pro.
  • close - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link

    > You'll also have the console manufacturers require devs to do it

    No consumer cares.
  • close - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    @ToTTenTranz, why exactly would the software compression used influence what the raw performance of the underlying hardware can be? They can keep using that AND double the performance of the SSD and/or interface.

    Right now it's hard to tell even if the SSD itself is the limit or something else like not enough PCIe lanes. If it's the SSD they could simply launch say a 2TB model that's twice as fast in a year, when SSD prices go down a bit more. If it's more than just the SSD then a mid cycle refresh could address this.
  • DigitalFreak - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    The only SSD we know of so far that will meet that criteria is the EVO 980 Pro - 6500 MB/s. Based on the 970 Pro pricing, a 2TB 980 Pro will likely be between $600 - $700.
  • Billy Tallis - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    All the current consumer PCIe 4 drives that use the Phison E16 are going to get successors using the Phison E18 to hit ~7 GB/s. Brands using Silicon Motion controllers will be introducing drives using SM2264 to hit ~7 GB/s. ADATA in their usual fashion will have multiple drives in the ~7 GB/s range (SM2264 and IG5236 to start). By the end of the year or slightly later, the market segment of "faster than PS5" SSDs will be downright crowded.
  • DigitalFreak - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Good to know. It would be nice to see the NVMe price premium disappear.
  • ikjadoon - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    That makes sense. It's confusing how Anandtech arrived at this conclusion, then:

    >In the PC and server space, the NVMe WRR command arbitration feature has been largely ignored by drive manufacturers and OS vendors—a partial survey of our consumer NVMe SSD collection only turned up two brands that have enabled this feature on their drives. So when it comes to supporting third-party SSD upgrades, Sony cannot depend on using the WRR command arbitration feature.

    The PS5 will sell 100x to 1000x more units than a laptops/desktops that have a spare PCIe 4.0 slot. Why *wouldn't* SSD manufacturers fill this void with glee?

    1. You get a captive market of hundreds of millions, who absolutely gobbles up hundreds of GBs.
    2. You get to charge a pretty price.
    3. Way, way, way more people will buy NVMe SSDs for PS5 versus any laptop / desktop that even has a spare PCIe 4.0 slot!

    Though perhaps Sony doesn't like the "weighted" part of WRR.
  • ikjadoon - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    *even have....
  • jeremyshaw - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Are there even laptops with a PCIe 4.0 M.2 slot at all? Intel doesn't. AMD doesn't. None of the arm vendors have PCIe 4.0 on their laptop SoCs.
  • lmcd - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    AMD explicitly didn't include PCIe 4.0 on their latest laptop line, I forgot about that until you mentioned it.
  • lightningz71 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    About the closest that you can get are a handful of the mega laptops that use desktop processors with a pair of NVME slots, or some of the newest gaming laptops that feature the Ryzen 4000 processors that have a pair of M.2 PCIe slots that are direct attached to the CPU.

    The closest that you're going to get right now is a 4800H, a pair of high end M.2 NVME drives, 32 GB of RAM, and an rtx 2060. That's hardly going to meet console specs.
  • Kangal - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    Well, the Ryzen-4000 platform shares alot in common with the APUs inside both the PS5 and the Xbox SeX.

    The difference is that laptops have a much larger power and thermal constraints, and much less GPU requirements. Also where consoles are meant to be a baseline for 5-10 Years, there's really no such thing for laptops as they can be obsoleted very quickly (remember the late 90s - early 00s?).

    I also think both Microsoft and Sony engineers helped AMD in collaboration, which would've also benefited their development of Ryzen-4000 platform. With the only stipulation that AMD doesn't make and sell similar APUs on the market. Hence why Ryzen-4000 uses the obsolete Vega iGPU and that the Radeon Division has yet to release any RDNA2 dGPU to the market. They're waiting for the consoles to release first, well, it is AMDs cash cow anyway. Gaming PCs will soon dwarf the consoles again, but not until 2022. Just like how the 2005 Xbox 360 was competitive with PCs back then, or in 2002 with the Xbox, or in 2000 with the PS2... or back even further to 1996 with the N64. Consoles can be competitive, but they never make a lead and hold on to it.
  • Tams80 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    And they can slap "for PS5" on them charge a tidy premium that people will lap up (and likely complain about, but they'll do it).
  • Sertain - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Just FYI, it's priority levels/que levels, not lanes that NVMe and the new Sony NVMe drive have.
    And I believe it is quite possible that the main difference between the Sony Drive 5.5GB/s and the Microsoft 2.4GB/s has more to do with PCIe lane provisioning...

    Sony has been clear that they have 'a' m.2 bay, while Microsoft has also been clear that they have two slots (internal and external)

    Per the specs, Sony definitely is using a PCIe Gen4 with x4 lanes for their M.2 and drawings from Microsoft would indicate that they broke that up into two separate x2 lanes chunks, one to internal and one to external. The AMD parts likely only has a certain number of PCIe lanes and i would be very surprised if Microsoft had a total of 8 extra PCIe Gen4 lanes vs Sony's x4. The logical conclusion is that the reason Microsoft's numbers are lower is due to half the lanes. I guess we will find out.
  • leexgx - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    i think sony is maybe taking it just to complex to be really beneficial, i understand if this was a cheap Sata SSD but a NVME ssd have so high IO output seems unnecessary fuss (should've just gone with a Gen4 NVME ssd with a cooled pad maybe to prevent thermal throttling)
  • Jorgp2 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Xbox SSD is most likely QLC with lots of spare area.
  • Billy Tallis - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    There's no reason for these SSDs to have a lot of spare area.
  • Jorgp2 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    It would meet microsofts performance claims.
  • Billy Tallis - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Spare area has nothing to do with whether QLC offers enough read bandwidth in a 4-channel configuration.
  • shelbystripes - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Why lots of spare area? Consoles will have even less concern with potentially shorter life of QLC than a consumer PC. You can’t go create or move around random small files on a console. Nearly everything you’d save to a console SSD is going to be large files that are downloaded and written just once (game packages, apps), read frequently but only occasionally updated. Most game assets sit there for months at a time unchanged. Even movies and music are typically streamed instead of saved locally these days, so they don’t hit the SSD at all. There aren’t frequent enough small writes to wear out a QLC in less than 20 years.
  • Jorgp2 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    ?

    You can't use your own external storage on the new Xbox.

    You're expected to delete old games and install new ones.
  • jospoortvliet - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    Sure but unless you remove and install a few games every day it is nothing compared to a work setup for video, image or audio editing...
  • Hixbot - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    1tb is a very small drive for next gen consoles, heck it's too small for current gen consoles.
    Games are going to be 200GB+. That's alot of deleting and reinstalling games.

    Then we have the instant resume feature, where all of RAM is written to SSD every time you exit a game using the instant resume feature.

    While these drives won't be as busy as in a video editor's workstation, let's remember that they are the system drive and the internal drive is not user replaceable.

    So I think write endurance is a concern on these systems. It should be mitigated by an adequate amount of spare area.
  • Zizy - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    100 cycles means you can go through about 400 200GB games. 1 game per week for 8 years. Unless you often reinstall a huge game you played previously, there aren't even enough new AAA releases to burn through the drive in any reasonable time frame.
  • mckirkus - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    I think we'll start to see CPUs or maybe GPUs coming with ASICs for decompression of game assets. We have NVENC and QuickSync, which effectively decompress video, so why can't we have the same for game assets like the consoles do?
  • brucethemoose - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Theoretically, games could store assets as AVIF (the image equivalent to AV1 video) and use the video decode blocks to decompress them straight into vram in the near future.

    GPUs without a AV1 decoder could fall back to the CPU.

    In practice... thats going to require some highly improbable software/driver wizardry, and even more improbable support from 3rd parties.
  • jeremyshaw - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    GPUs have already had it since the early 2000s... S3 texture compression (used in DX and OpenGL) has been a thing for so long, the patents have expired.
  • defaultluser - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    We already had that. Sandforce had too many bugs, and if your data was already compressed, it did nothing for load times.

    This is the big and powerful PC, where content had been delivered for the last twenty years over the Internets (and thus, is highly-compressed RAR or 7zip formats). And our media tends to be heavily-compressed (mp3s, h.265).

    And on top of that, overhead like Denuvo is also stopping SATA6 i/O from being the limiting factor in PC game load times.

    Console disc ISOs contain much lower-compression game assets, so this is an easy fix for Sony.
  • Kurosaki - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Denuvo? I only play cracked games to play it without denuvo. It's the only righteous path!
  • Nozuka - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Most games are likely still developed with backwards compatibility in mind (PS4/XB1), since they will still be in more houses for the next few years. That will likely slow down the SSD optimization process... :(
  • Midwayman - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    That's true every console generation. You might get a first party title or two early that leverages the new hardward, but it takes awhile for people to figure out the systems. Too low of an install base early on for 3rd party devs to risk making something they can't easily port.
  • lmcd - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Microsoft has been talking about keeping Xbox One S-level support for longer than just that. At the end of the day, these two console generations have enough in common that Microsoft will likely enable a title to work on older Xbox entirely based on the game's visual complexity even 5 years from now.
  • shelbystripes - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    That’s true, but with these specs, a game developed to run on PS4/XB1 will still benefit from the optimized hardware, and you’ll see much better performance (including ridiculously shorter load times).

    You won’t really need software SSD optimizations until you’re developing games that require the full potential of the PS5/XBX hardware anyway.
  • beginner99 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Given the size of games these SSD are rather small. You can probably have maybe 5 games installed at one time on the PS5 max (without ssd extension). Meaning if you play a lot of games you will have to do a lot of uninstall-install operations on an already very full drive (=higher write amplification). At TLC or QLC on top and it makes we wonder how long these drives will last?
  • tipoo - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Worth noting you shed 10-12GB of duplicated assets because you don't need them when all systems will be SSDs, that was a method for speeding up HDDs.

    I expect 9th gen games to continue to expand of course, but at first that will blunt the impact.
  • brucethemoose - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Game hoarders are definitely going to burn through their SSDs can create some bad PR a few years from now. I wouldnt be suprised if there are firmware updates for more over provisioned area.
  • brucethemoose - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    *That being said, I don't think SSD wear will be an issue for 99% of customers. They're going to be more reliable than, say, the infamous spinners on the 360.
  • Dribble - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    I don't think reliability due to wear is going to be an issue, there's not a lot of writing really even compared to a pc which is always using it's disk for virtual memory.
    Also if they fail it doesn't matter as much - the whole system is probably backed up in the cloud so you just buy a new disk, plug it in and wait while it syncs everything and you are good to go.
  • tipoo - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    I'm kind of glad the consoles have gone back to having some interesting hardware differences again. The 8th gen was very cut and dry, one had a significantly faster GPU, but overall both had the same CPU, GPU architecture, and HDD, so the results were hard to debate from the outset, though some would try.

    This time one does have a more powerful GPU as well, though now 18% rather than the previous gens 40%, but Sony is also trying something different with trying to get rid of every bottleneck to storage along the way - dedicated DMAC, decompression, check-in processor, everything that would CPU limit how much a game gains from an SSD. We'll just have to see if that was a worthwhile tradeoff, I don't think any of the games shown so far are really using it, beyond Sweeney talking it up for that UE5 demo.
  • PeterCollier - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    I'm still waiting for streaming video games to become a thing. Wasn't that the promise of Steam, and why did Steam switch models to locally-installed and locally-run video games instead of streaming video games?
  • tipoo - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    The speed of light is still a hard limit, even if you were fiber end to end. The solution would be building datacenters near every significant customer base, but that takes time and money, and you still end up with higher latency than local play, always.
  • Midwayman - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    I'm also super wary of the quality of content in the long term. Its easy to squeeze bandwidth and system performance to give a sub-optimal experience. Cable tv is a great example. The picture a lot of the time suffers so much compression since some people put up with it. OTA signals are much better. Easy for a streaming provider to behave the same way. I'll put extra heavy compression on the stream to save bandwidth and it'll look horrible. They'll squeeze CPU cycles to the lowest tolerable frame rate. If you don't control the hardware I think its hard to control your experience in the long term.
  • lmcd - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    In-home streaming via Steam is excellent and personal local streaming doesn't seem to be too bad, but it's preferable to attempt larger scale streaming with a preexisting server backbone like Microsoft has.
  • yeeeeman - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Now developers need to move their asses and make better use of the hardware.
  • Commodus - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    This article touches on something a lot of the hardcore PC fans don't seem to understand -- that this gives the PS5 and Xbox Series X a functional advantage over the typical gaming PC for a while.

    Your average PC gamer probably has a 7,200RPM drive, or maybe an SATA SSD if you're lucky. It'll be years before most PCs have NVMe drives, and developers will have to factor that in when developing for computers. I don't expect PS5/XSX games to make the absolute most of their drives for a while, but there really could be a period where there are gameplay experiences that are only practical on consoles.
  • IntelUser2000 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Someone gets it!

    I don't think even this article fully understands the impact of this and PCs will not have this for 5-10 years.
  • Billy Tallis - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    High-end PCs will have faster SSDs by the end of the year. Faster GPUs with equal or greater VRAM a year. They already can have enough CPU cores to compensate for not having the other dedicated hardware. The only disadvantage that's going to stick around is slower communication between CPU and GPU, because PCIe 4 x16 is no competition for cache coherent on-die communication.

    It might possibly take PCs 5 years to catch up to console affordability for comparable performance.
  • tipoo - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    The speed of the SSD in sequential read speed isn't the only or even main point of the SSD here

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ehDRCE1Z38
  • Billy Tallis - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    When it comes to the SSD itself, sequential read speed pretty much is the main point here. That's not true when you're shopping for a SSD for your PC, but these consoles will be using the SSD differently from how a typical PC (even a gaming PC) uses a SSD.

    All the really interesting and innovative storage tech in the consoles is stuff that's not part of the SSD at all.
  • IntelUser2000 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    That's what tipoo means. You said yourself that consoles use it differently so the sequential specs don't apply for games in PC.

    PCIe 4.0 SSDs in PC gaming is sequential rates it can't really use.
  • Quantumz0d - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    All the Sony PS5 demo games are running at 30FPS as per Digital Foundry, I really wonder where's the magical SSD is going into. I don't know man how fast these things are going to work, but from the UE5 demo they were saying a PC with 2070Super can run it at better frames.

    I have to see what magic does the SSDs like these bring to the market, so far none, not even their own demo showcase. Maybe main events will have more ? Killzone Shadowfall looks excellent even today because of the superb art team and the developer magic, the game sucked hard. And that was running on a PS4 which has a CPU slower than Q6600.

    PC 5 years to catch up for console affordability isn't that too much ? PCIe Gen 5 is coming in 2022 along with DDR5, that alone is going to smash the existing High End PCs with higher boost clocks and Ampere on Gen 4 (yet to be released). And also the Zen CPUs in these boxes are not high boosting like PCs with 3300X at mere $100 / 7700K perf at 4.4GHz with SMT, the SoC density is too much to handle esp with the TSMC 7nm iirc if we add the RT on the RDNA2. Not even talking about 7NP which is what Ryzen 4000 is going to be fabbed on.
  • eddman - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    "I have to see what magic does the SSDs like these bring to the market, so far none, not even their own demo showcase."

    If you watched the DF video, how did you miss their commentary on Ratchet and Clank?! There's your SSD magic.

    A fast SSD would not really increase the frame rate, since it's the GPU's job to render the scene, not the storage. What these SSDs are enabling, is the ability to load a large environment and stream objects in less than 2 seconds.
  • Deicidium369 - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    You won't be getting PCIe5 on a desktop system any time soon.
  • lightningz71 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    They won't NEED that sort of cache coherent communication. PCs of fairly modest gaming rigs will have at least 16 GB of RAM AND 6-8GB of dedicated VRAM. Using DMA, the VRAM can be continually updated with new textures while the PC has most of that 16 GB to handle near caching of textures and also keeping a lot more game data assets actively in RAM instead of having to desperately page and swap it back and forth to the SSD.

    That will take a lot of calls out of the SSD queue and allow the SSD to more easily meet the needs of the game with lower specs. It'll take a trade of a slightly longer load time (seconds), but it'll hardly be noticeable.

    I think that the biggest issue will be in dealing with computers that only have six cores (even with smt). Data and memory management are going to eat up a lot of threads and cycles, and those low spec systems will likely suffer.
  • lmcd - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Even if a PC has an NVMe drive it's not necessarily where the games are stored. Most NVMe drives are 128-256GB. With Windows taking up 20GB, there's already no space for Borderlands 3 or the latest CoD.
  • TheUnhandledException - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Most NVMe drives might have been 128GB in 2016. 1TB and 2TB are the high end drives now. 512GB is entry level.
  • Retycint - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    I think you're a few years behind the curve. High quality TLC 1TB nvme drives are around $100-140, and plenty of people buy them for game storage.

    Whereas HDDs are mostly limited to data hoarding, backup and NAS etc
  • Rookierookie - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    This isn't 2010. Most new PCs most certainly have an SSD, especially if gaming is part of the job description.
  • mikato - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    Actually I would disagree on that for budget gaming desktop PCs. For a gaming PC, you need to have a large amount of storage for games since a lot of these modern games are humongous. So you need a hard drive... unless you really splurge on an expensive large SSD. Everyone is different, but I'd be worried that 1TB isn't enough. It is much easier to get by with only an SSD and no HDD if you do not have a bunch of games (and don't store a ton of other data).

    Last year I built a couple budget gaming PCs for a friend. He decided to go with a 2TB hard drive and no SSD after weighing the options for storage space, performance, cost. He knew the performance benefit of SSDs but didn't want them to run out of space after just a few years. And a 2TB hard drive was about 1/2 the cost of the cheapest 1TB SSD.

    Now if you only said "Most new PCs most certainly have an SSD"... then I might agree because most are laptops.
  • Zizy - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    If you are worried that 1TB isn't enough, well, X1X has 1TB while PS5 has 825GB.
    Also, WTF @ your friend. I have no idea what was his budget and exact use case, but you need to be quite deep in weird territory to consider just HDD these days on any computer at all. Heck, I put SSD as the OS drive in a NAS some years ago.
  • Tams80 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    The new consoles are great, don't get me wrong. They, especially the PS5, are going to push storage in the consumer space forward.

    However, with PC, developers could just add SSD to the minimum requirements. And sure people complain about them, but on the whole, they put with them. Enough people accept that there is a minimum reasonable cut-off point for any game.

    Any lost PC sales will likely be made up by access to the consoles. PC only developers won't have access to that, but many PCs will have access to resonably fast SSDs and if the low-end market is really important to them, then they can either just develop with HDDs as the minimum or make a separate version.
  • Klimax - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    Incorrect. Unless a computer has bare minimum of RAM, file cache takes care of differences between standard drive and RAM. And data deduplication will actually make this work even better. (Small file-> faster load and smaller amount of file cache in use)
  • brucethemoose - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Great read! Thanks.
  • andrewaggb - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    I appreciate the potential and I hope they surprise me. I'm concerned that even on PS5/Xbox Series X exclusives, the 16GB of ram and 1TB ssd are just too small to take advantage of alot of the potential. Cross platform titles can't rely on fast storage and so they likely won't try to take advantage beyond faster loading times.

    I hope they surprise me though. I think the possibility of splitting levels into regions/checkpoints with 0 load time is probably going to be used alot more now. If you can fill the ram in under a second on the PS5 and 1-2 seconds on the XBox then it's pretty easy to justify breaking levels into pieces and seemlessly transitioning (eg via room/door/hallway/tunnel, cutscene, etc).
  • Tams80 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    It's the cost of components though. 1TBish NVMe SSDs aren't exactly cheap and 16GB of ram is in a sweet spot price-wise. Going higher on the SSDs just isn't going to happen now, and with expandability doesn't really need to, and while ram is a concern, more is just too expensive.
  • Desierz - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Isn't it possible that this is in fact a 1TB drive, and that 170ish GB is set aside space for the OS?
  • Billy Tallis - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    For the PS5? No. Cerny said 825GB was the most natural size for a 12 channel controller. 1 TB with a big chunk reserved for the OS would require an uneven distribution of NAND across the 12 channels, which doesn't sound natural at all. It's far more plausible that he was just misleadingly reporting a number that people usually don't use as the main measurement of SSD capacity, with the wrong units for that context.
  • shelbystripes - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    It could only be a 1TB (1024GB) drive if the number of channels was 2 to the n (2, 4, 8, 16, etc.)

    The PS5 uses a 12-channel drive controller and 12 channels of DRAM. You have to use NAND cells of the same capacity on all channels, so to hit 768GB (824.6 fictional/misleading GB), you need 12 channels of DRAM capable of storing 64GB each. That math is simple. Everyone making TLC/QLC NAND makes 64GB NAND packages.

    A 1TB drive with 12 channels would require NAND cells with capacity (1024/12) = 85.333GB each. Nobody makes NAND cells in that capacity, that I’m aware of.

    It’s possible that Sony is using 96GB NAND packages, for a total of (96x12) = 1152GB (truly 1.1TB) of raw storage space, and they’re reserving over 300GB of it for over-provisioning and the OS. But since when has Sony ever taken the conservative advertising route?
  • phoenix_rizzen - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    If someone made a 72 GB nand die (576 gbit die), that would give them 864 GB of storage. With some over-provisioning slack space in the background, making 825 GB available would be easy. Granted, there doesn't appear to be a 72 GB package available anywhere ...
  • Billy Tallis - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Sony definitely isn't a big enough customer to get anyone to make a custom NAND die. And they would much rather use standard off-the-shelf parts that they could potentially source from more than one manufacturer.
  • Xex360 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Wouldn't be better to have more ram couple with entry level SSDs rather than spend budget on relatively high end SSDs?
  • Billy Tallis - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    The consoles don't have a particularly cheap next step up from 16GB of GDDR6. And as far as I can tell, the SSDs are entry-level in a lot of ways. Especially the Xbox SSD.
  • Zizy - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    XSX has a cheap enough way to 20GB RAM but already uses the cheapest SSD (at that capacity).
    Sony cannot have more ram unless spending a lot more than they paid for SSD.
  • imaheadcase - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    They tout the SSD speed, meanwhile the Samsung SSD Pro comes out in August. As always, consoles can't really hype much in hardware department...so they better make it up for games. Because i've yet to see a console game worth spending the money for it.
  • Tams80 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Yes, but how many PCs can use that SSD to its full potential at the same price point?
    The Pro SSDs at 1TB currently sell for about half the likely price of the new consoles.
  • DigitalFreak - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    "The reduction or elimination of loading screens be a welcome improvement for many games"

    Now if we could just get rid of the unskippable intros / logos... I don't need to see the logos for the publisher, developer, engine, etc. every time I start the damn game.
  • The_Assimilator - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    "Ultimately, it will be interesting to see whether the novel parts of the new console storage subsystems end up being a real advantage that influences the direction of PC hardware development, or if they end up just being interesting quirks that get left in the dust as PC hardware eventually overtakes the consoles with superior raw performance."

    The answer is the latter. It's always the latter. It always will be.
  • Valantar - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    This. This is why I read Anandtech. Nobody delivers this kind of analysis - a shame, really, but it sure makes you stand out. A great and informative read.
  • DigitalFreak - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Agreed.
  • Cliff34 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    One of the challenges is how small the ssd sizes are.

    A game like warzone takes around 200GB. I assume w the newer games running 4k, it may not take so much but that ssd will run out pretty fast.

    A ssd at least w 2tb will be a good size to hold a few games and give you room to spare.
  • almighty15 - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    Spiderman on PS4 had the same mail box repeated 400 times...yes....400 times on the disk to help reduce seek speeds.

    Duplicating files on games is common place and will be completely stopped next generation and will save gigabytes of data per game install.
  • nucc1 - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    I don't think the disk sizes matter so much. You typically play only two or three fames frequently and can always reinstall any infrequently used items in your library whenever you need them. Data suggests that average and median broadband speeds are rising faster than game sizes.
  • eastcoast_pete - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    One aspect of the upcoming Xbox I really don't like (and thanks Billy for confirming!) is that any add-on storage will have to be via Microsoft. That essentially guarantees higher prices for the additional storage many of us will eventually want or need. I was getting used to the idea of getting the new Xbox, chiefly to play Microsoft's new Flight Simulator, which won't come to Sony's PS 5 anytime soon. But, if reports are to be believed, FS plus the various scenarios alone might fill more than half the built-in drive, so one needs add-on storage as a given. Damn!
  • Zizy - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    On the other hand, for MS you need to buy a 1TB drive to have 2TB total, while for Sony you need to buy a 2TB drive (there is some possibility of an internal SSD expansion slot but I doubt it). Even if MS gouges a lot, I don't think they will be THAT greedy especially when other companies will be making those expansion cards.
  • dotes12 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    It's probably going to be a DRAM-less QLC SSD, but since benchmarks are done with only one game installed, it'll use the free space as SLC cache and post awesome numbers like Intel's 660p. QLC's slow write performance won't be noticeable when most people can't download games faster than 10MB/sec, and endurance isn't a problem because 99.9% of people aren't installing and deleting games every day for 5 years. Sounds good to me!
  • ads295 - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    > "Sony's patent proposes going way beyond 32kB chunks to using 128MB chunks for the FTL, shrinking the mapping table to mere kilobytes. That requires the host system to be very careful about when and where it writes data, but the read performance that gaming relies upon is not compromised."

    I have observed on my PSP that when the system is saving games, the LED for the Flash memory access shows constant activity in the latter half of the "Please wait" screen, suggesting that Sony know how to do this very well and are taking it to the next level.
  • serendip - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link

    Some ideas could be taken from virtual machines. Instant stop and resume could be done by saving RAM and CPU state to a file. It's already being done for OS-level hibernation and for VMs, the next step is to use it at the application level.
  • jospoortvliet - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    Linux these days offer proces freezing and checkpoints so this should be very doable yes.
  • Zingam - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    Sony crushes MS again and I am not even a fan.
  • poohbear - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    "If a game needs to use more than 16 GB to render a scene, framerates will drop down to Myst levels because the SSD is not fast enough."

    lol you really dated yourself with that Myst example!!

    Great article though, while the PC-gaming master race will always be the master race, it's good that consoles at least set a standard and upgrade it every 7 years...lead to less hardware fragmentation.
  • saiga6360 - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    They said the stream was running at 30fps, not the games necessarily. Still, launch games at 4K resolution, physics and RT even at 30ftps or some variable framerate is already a vast improvement.
  • R3MF - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    Re: PS5 12 channel SSD - is it almost a certainty that we'll be offered a 1650GB version shortly, if only because NAND manufacturers will cease producing smaller capacity NAND chips necessary for multi-channel controllers? Like 512bit ram on 290x > 390x.
  • R3MF - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    Re: the two SSD manufacturers that do use the WRR priority command

    Are you able to say who they are, and do you think this will become a valuable feature in the PS5/Xbox era of gaming?
    i.e. lacking that feature will be a performance disadvantage...
  • Billy Tallis - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    TLC NAND is still made in small die sizes like 256Gbit for the mobile market and low-capacity consumer SSDs. The PS5's launch capacity can probably use one 512Gbit TLC die per channel and get adequate performance, and those will definitely be available for the life of the console. 512Gbit QLC might become scarce within a few years.

    The two brands of consumer SSDs that I found to support the WRR command arbitration were Samsung and Plextor (with Marvell controllers). Both companies also make enterprise drives using the same controllers as their consumer drives, and they probably share a lot of the firmware code between those consumer and enterprise.
  • Samus - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    While it's good Sony has non-proprietary expansion, it's unfortunate it will be necessary almost immediately having 1/5 the storage capacity of Microsoft's console. With most AAA games now over 100GB each, and most CURRENT consoles having 1TB, it's ridiculous Sony is launching a next-gen console with less capacity.
  • Billy Tallis - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    The usable storage on the PS5 will be about 3/4 the usable storage on the Xbox Series X, not 1/5.
  • Adramtech - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    "By the time it ships, the PS5 SSD's read performance will be unremarkable – matched by other high-end SSDs "

    Performance will not be "unremarkable." 99% of the PS5 users will not have the bleeding edge SSDs when this is released. It will be extremely remarkable to nearly all console gamers.
  • almighty15 - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    It should read "By the time it ships, the PS5 SSD's read performance will be unremarkable – matched by other high-end SSDs ON PAPER"

    In terms of real world performance a 5Gb/s NVMe drive can't beat a 550Mb/s SATA III SSD and yet Anandtech somehow think they'll compete with console?
  • Eliadbu - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    This change might in few years make games to require SSD at certain speed as a base requirement. I'm for it since I feel my NVME SSDs are not helpful in gaming more than my SATA ssd. In many cases you need the consoles to make a move for PCs to enjoy it, I see this as definitely a case of such.
  • vol.2 - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    So, is the PS5 officially the ugliest console ever created?
  • wrkingclass_hero - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    It's up there.
  • wolfesteinabhi - Saturday, June 13, 2020 - link

    with main cpu/gpu being very identical in both camps they are running out of ways to differentiate.

    storage is important though .. but i wish they woukd stick to some common standard ....and over time we get games that can be played on either of the consoles or they can be htpcs in itself that can do a lot more from their h/w than just games .... given current hardware they have ... i feel its a bit wasted when they are only limited to games(that too a very limited amlunt..especially Sony/PS)
  • almighty15 - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    I don't normally comment on article like this but feel I have due to the tone you have regarding PC 'catching up' to consoles.

    That is a long way away, I'm talking years! As I explained on Twitter a 5Gb/s NVMe drives loads games no faster then a 550Mb/s SATA III SSD, and while some of that is down to having to cater to machines that still run mechanical drives most of it is due to Windows just having a file and I/O systems that decades old.

    If we want to send a texture to a GPU on PC this is the 'hardware' path it has to take:

    SSD > system bus > Chipset (South bridge) > system bus > CPU > system bus > main RAM >
    system bus > CPU (North bridge) > PCIEX bus > VRAM

    To get a texture to GPU memory on PlayStation 5 it goes:

    SSD > system bus > I/O controller > system bus > VRAM

    On PC these system buses and chips all run and communicate with each other at different speeds which causes bottlenecks as data is moved through all that hardware.

    On PS5 the path is so much straight forward and the I/O block runs at the same speed as the CPU clock so it's all super faster and efficient.

    And then on PC there's the software side of it, which again is a HUGE problem that Microsoft can't fix with a little Windows update. The hardware on PC can not directly talk to other hardware, meaning your GPU can not directly talk to the storage driver and ask it for a texture, it has to ask Windows, who then ask the chipset driver, who then asks the storage driver for a file.......

    It requires a complete RE-WRITE of Windows storage drivers and kernal which is a process that takes years as they have to send any new idea's over to developers and software owners so they can do their own testing and plan patching their existing software.

    When Apple updated their file system for SSD it them 3 years! And they way less legacy hardware and hardware configurations to worry about then Micorosft.

    There is currently nothing in the develop changes about a new version of Windows or a new file system in the works meaning that it's at least 3-4 years away.

    This article doesn't even scratch the surface as to why storage and I/O is so slow and bottlenecked on PC and make it out to be like it's a simple fix to get PC SSD's performing like consoles.

    PC's will catch up, they always do, but do not let articles like this one trick you in to thinking it's a quick fix as it most certainly isn't.
  • eddman - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    As mentioned in this very article, they have this new DirectStorage API on XSX and plan to bring it to windows. They haven't released any specific details but it might even be some sort of a direct GPU/VRAM-to-storage solution.

    Whatever it is, it's surely bound to improve the file transfer performance, and since it'd be part of the Directx suite, developers should have an easy time taking advantage of it.
  • Billy Tallis - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    Your description of how the data paths differ between a standard PC and the PS5 is wildly inaccurate.
  • eddman - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    Yea, the path is wrong. For one, RAM is not connected to the CPU through the system bus. It's something like this for desktops, IINM:

    1. Intel/Ryzen (SSD connected to the chipset):
    SSD > PCIe > Chipset > system bus (DMI/PCIe x4) > CPU > memory channel > RAM > memory channel > CPU(*) > PCIe x16 > VRAM

    2. Ryzen (SSD connected directly to the CPU):
    SSD > PCIe > CPU > memory channel > RAM > memory channel > CPU(*) > PCIe x16 > VRAM

    (*) at this step, perhaps the CPU has already done the I/O calculations, so the data goes directly from the system RAM (through the memory controller and then PCIe x16) to the VRAM (without wasting CPU cycles)?

    (I don't know that much about hardware at such low levels, so please correct me if I'm wrong.)

    With a GPU-to-storage direct access, it should look like these:
    1. SSD > PCIe > Chipset > system bus (DMI/PCIe x4) > CPU(!) > PCIe x16 > VRAM
    2. SSD > PCIe > CPU(!) > PCIe x16 > VRAM

    The second option doesn't look much different from the PS5.

    (!) just passing through CPU's System Agent/Infinity Fabric with minimal CPU overhead.
  • Billy Tallis - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link

    It is important to make a distinction between when data hits the CPU die but doesn't actually require attention from a CPU core. DMA is important! Data coming in from the SSD can be forwarded to RAM or to the GPU (P2P DMA) by the PCIe root complex without involvement from a CPU core. The CPU just needs to initiate the transaction and handle the completion interrupt (which often involves setting up the next DMA transfer).

    On the PS5, there will also be a DMA round-trip from RAM to the decompression unit back to RAM, with either a CPU core or the IO coprocessor setting up the DMA transfers.
  • eddman - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    Yes, I added the CPU in the paths simply because the data goes through the CPU complex, but not necessarily through the cores.

    "Data coming in from the SSD can be forwarded .... to the GPU (P2P DMA)"

    You mean the data does not go through system RAM? The CPU still has to process the I/O related operations, right?

    It seems nvidia has tackled this issue with a proprietary solution for their workstation products:
    https://developer.nvidia.com/gpudirect
    https://devblogs.nvidia.com/gpudirect-storage/

    They talk about the data path between GPU and storage.

    "The standard path between GPU memory and NVMe drives uses a bounce buffer in system memory that hangs off of the CPU.

    GPU DMA engines cannot target storage. Storage DMA engines cannot target GPU memory through the file system without GPUDirect Storage.

    DMA engines, however, need to be programmed by a driver on the CPU."

    Maybe MS' DirectStorage is similar to nvidia's solution.
  • Oxford Guy - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    "Consoles" are nothing more than artificial walled software gardens that exist because of consumer stupidity.

    They offer absolutely nothing the PC platform can't offer, via Linux + Vulkan + OpenGL.

    Period.
  • Oxford Guy - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    "but also going a step beyond the PC market to get the most benefit out of solid state storage."

    In order to justify their existence. Too bad it doesn't justify it.

    It's more console smoke and mirrors. People fall for it, though.
  • Oxford Guy - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    Consoles made sense when personal computer hardware was too expensive for just playing games, for most consumers.

    Back in the day, when real consoles existed, even computer expansion modules didn't take off. Why? Cost. Those "consoles" were really personal computers. All they needed was a keyboard, writable storage, etc. But, people didn't upgrade ANY console to a computer in large numbers. Even the NES had an expansion port on the bottom that sat unused. Lots of companies had wishful thinking about turning a console into a PC and some of them used that in marketing and were sued vaporware/inadequateanddelayedware (Intellivision).

    Just the cost of adding a real keyboard was more than consumers were willing to pay. Even inexpensive personal computers (PCs!) had chicklet keyboards, like the Atari 400. That thing cost a lot to build because of the stricter EMI emissions standards of its time but Atari used a chicklet keyboard anyway to save money. Sinclair also used them. Many inexpensive "home" computers that had full-travel keyboards were so mushy they were terrible to use. Early home PCs like the VideoBrain highlight just how much companies tried to cut corners just on the keyboard.

    Then, there is the writable storage. Cassettes were too slow and were extremely unreliable. Floppy drives were way too expensive for most PC consumers until the Apple II (where Wozniak developed a software controller to reduce cost a great deal vs. a mechanical one). They remained too expensive for gaming boxes, with the small exception of the shoddy Famicom FDS in Japan.

    All of these problems were solved a long time ago. Writable storage is dirt cheap. Keyboards are dirt cheap. Full-quality graphics display hardware is dirt cheap (as opposed to the true console days when a computer with more pixels/characters would cost a bundle and "consoles" would have much less resolution).

    The only thing remaining is the question: "Is the PC software ecosystem good enough". The answer was a firm no when it was Windows + DirectX. Now that we have Vulkan, though, there is no need for DirectX. Developers can use either the low-latency lower-level Vulkan or the high-level OpenGL, depending upon their needs for specific titles. Consumers and companies don't have to pay the Microsoft tax because Linux is viable.

    There literally is no credible justification for the existence of non-handheld "consoles" anymore. There hasn't been for some time now. The hardware is the same. In the old days a console would have much less RAM memory, due to cost. It would have much lower resolution, typically, due to cost. It wouldn't have high storage capacity, due to cost.

    All of that is moot. There is NOT ONE IOTA of difference between today's "console" and a PC. The walled software garden can evaporate. All it takes is Dorothy to use her bucket of water instead of continuing to drink the Kool-Aid.
  • Oxford Guy - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    Back in the day:

    A console had:

    much lower-resolution graphics, designed for TV sets at low cost
    much less RAM
    no floppy drive
    no keyboard
    no hard disk

    A quality personal computer had:

    more RAM, plus expansion (except for Jobs perversities like the original Mac)
    80 column character-based or, later, high-resolution bitmapped monitor graphics
    (there were some home PCs that used televisions but had things like disk drives)
    floppy drive support
    hard disk support (except, again, for the first Mac, which was a bad joke)
    a full-travel full-size non-mushy keyboard
    expansion slots (typically — not the first Mac!)
    an operating system and first-party software (both of which cost)
    thick paperbook manuals
    typically, a more powerful CPU (although not always)

    Today:

    A console has:

    Nothing a PC doesn’t have except for a stupid walled software garden.

    A PC has:

    Everything a console has except for the ludicrous walled software garden, a thing that offers no added value for consumers — quite the opposite.
  • Oxford Guy - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    The common claim that "consoles" of today offer more simplicity is a lie, too.

    In the true console days, you'd stick a cartridge in, turn on the power, and press start.

    Today, just as with the "PC" (really the same thing) — you have a complex operating system that needs to be patched relentlessly. You have games that have to be patched relentlessly. You have microtransactions. You have log-ins/accounts and software stores. Literally, you have games on disc that you can't even play until you patch the software to be compatible with the latest OS DRM. Developers also helpfully use that as an opportunity to drastically change gameplay (as with PS3 Topspin) and you have no choice in the matter. Remember, it's always an "upgrade".

    The hardware is identical. Even the controllers, once one of the few advantages of consoles (except for some, like the Atari 5200, which were boneheaded), are the same. They use the same USB ports and such. There is no difference. Even if there were, the rise of Chinese manufacturing and the Internet means you could get a cheap and effective adapter with minimal fuss.

    You want fast storage so badly? You can get it on the PC. You want software that is honed to be fast and efficient? Easily done. It's all x86 stuff.

    Give me justified elaborate custom chips (not frivolous garbage like Apple's T2), truly novel form factors that are needed for special gameplay, and things like that and then, maybe, you might be able to sell to people on the higher end of the Bell curve.

    If I were writing an article on consoles I'd use a headline something like this: "Consoles of 2020: The SSD Speed Gimmick — Betting on the Bell Curve"

    It would be bad enough if there were only one extra stupid walled garden (beyond Windows + DirectX). But to have three is even more irksome.
  • edzieba - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    "partially resident textures"

    Megatexturing is back!

    "The most interesting bit about DirectStorage is that Microsoft plans to bring it to Windows, so the new API cannot be relying on any custom hardware and it has to be something that would work on top of a regular NTFS filesystem. "

    The latter does not imply the former. API support just means that the API calls will not fail. It doesn't mean they will be as fast as a system using dedicated hardware to handle those calls. Just like with DXR: you can easily support DXR calls on a GPU without dedicated BVH traversal hardware, they'll just be as slow as unaccelerated raytracing has always been.
    Soft API support for DirectStorage makes sense to aid in Microsoft's quest for 'cross play' between PC and XboX. If the same API calls can be used for both developers are more likely to work into implementing DirectStorage. As long as DirectStorage doesn't have too large a penalty when used on PC without dedicated hardware, the reduction in dev overhead is attractive.
  • eddman - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    "The latter does not imply the former. API support just means that the API calls will not fail. It doesn't mean they will be as fast as a system using dedicated hardware to handle those calls."

    True, but apparently nvidia's GPUDirect Storage, which enables direct transfer between GPU and storage, is a software only solution and doesn't require specialized hardware.

    If that's the case, then there's a good chance MS' DirectStorage is a software solution too.

    AFA I can tell, the custom I/O chips in XSX and PS5 are used for compressing the assets to increase the bandwidth, not enable direct GPU-to-storage access.

    We'll know soon enough.
  • ichaya - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    You have to ask: What is causing low FPS for current gen games? I think loading textures are by far the largest culprit, and even in cases where it's only a few levels or a few sections of a few levels, it does affect the overall immersion and playability of games where all of this storage tech should help.
  • Oxford Guy - Monday, June 15, 2020 - link

    I love how people forget how there is fast storage available on the "PC" (in quotes because, except for the Switch, these Sony/MS "consoles" are PCs with smoke and mirrors trickery to disguise that fact — the fact that all they are are stupidity taxes).

    Yes, stupidity taxes. That's exactly what "consoles" are, except for the Switch, which has a form factor that differs from PC.
  • ichaya - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link

    I don't know if I would go that far, for equivalent graphics/compute/storage you'd be shelling out at-least 1.5-2x on a PC. Consoles make sense if you want a dedicated gaming machine, but if you already have a beefy PC, sure you can spend that money on games instead.
  • Oxford Guy - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link

    "I don't know if I would go that far, for equivalent graphics/compute/storage you'd be shelling out at-least 1.5-2x on a PC."

    Oh really?

    Volume always lowers cost. Not having these "consoles" increase the volume of "PC" sales and "PC" software sales/development.
  • Spunjji - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link

    This is extremely flawed logic.
  • PopinFRESH007 - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link

    @Billy Tallis

    “Without performance specs for writes or random reads, we cannot rule out the possibility of either console SSD using a DRAMless controller.”

    In the tech talk that Cerny gave they said the PS5’s custom SSD does use a DRAM cache
  • Billy Tallis - Tuesday, June 16, 2020 - link

    I can't find any reference to DRAM on the SSD in that presentation. He does mention SRAM for the IO coprocessor, but that's a different kind of RAM and on a different chip.
  • Hresna - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link

    I’ve been looking forward to the Anand analysis since watching Cerny’s lengthy lecture on why SSD is better for games, for a while. Thank you!
  • Athanax - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link

    Ahh the PC vs Console debate has begun, it really doesn't feel like 5 minutes since the last time this all kicked off and I am fairly sure it will play out the same way it always has, with all the same conclusions. Whatever you play on is personal preference but for most a console is simply to limiting. I won't go on about what many have already said however I like many work throughout the day on my PC and then in the evenings start gaming. I have a mouse for MMO's and a mouse for FPS, I use discord, I launch the web in background to load a guide on a second screen and lots of other things, something you cannot do with a good user experience on a console.

    What has been grinding on me the most is how many websites and YouTube videos are throwing the TFLOPS number around like that is the ONLY metric to measure performance. An RTX 2070 has less TFLOPS than a GTX 1080 yet the RTX 2070 is faster in gaming. All I know is the 3000 series Nvidia cards can't arrive fast enough so I can push even higher frames into my 240Hz on Ultra settings on the games I play.
  • chrcoluk - Thursday, June 10, 2021 - link

    Consoles are more write heavy than many PCs.

    They both auto record game footage continuously, which cannot be disabled.

    Now there is differences between xbox and PS4/5.

    Xbox only can auto record for a short duration, and also supports recording directly to external storage, it is possible the auto recording on xbox is to ram, and it only goes to storage on manual recordings.

    However this is not the case on playstation, auto recording can go up to much longer periods, and it doesnt support recording to anywhere apart from internal storage. The only time recording stops is if the storage is full, or its prevented via copyright flags.

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