Berlin-based hardware photographer Fritzchens Fritz, who’s best known for his macro shots of silicon, has shared a handful of images that reveal what the Sony PlayStation 5’s system-on-a-chip looks like up close. The shots appear to be confirm that the console lacks Infinity Cache, which AMD introduced as part of its RNDA 2 graphics architecture to enable higher levels of power-efficient performance. This can be determined by the fact that the caches are clearly separate.
A first quick and dirty die-shot of the PS5 APU (better SWIR image will follow). It looks like some Zen 2 FPU parts are missing. pic.twitter.com/PefXCxc3G1
— Fritzchens Fritz (@FritzchensFritz) February 14, 2021
“AMD RDNA 2 Architecture is even more efficient than before with the introduction of AMD Infinity Cache, an all-new cache level that enables high bandwidth performance at low power and low latency,” AMD explained on its official RDNA 2 landing page.
“This global cache is seen by the entire graphics core, capturing temporal re-use and enabling data to be accessed instantaneously. Leveraging the best high frequency approaches from ‘Zen’ architecture, AMD Infinity Cache enables scalable performance for the future.”
My interpretation of the floor plan PS5 floor plan:
— Locuza (@Locuza_) February 14, 2021
1. Bomba surprise that Sony likely cut down the 256-Bit FP pipes to just 128-Bit.
2. No Infinity Cache/L3$, also not on the Xbox Series.
3. Might have the old Render Backend design, need higher res to say for sure.
4. … https://t.co/gwrXI903U8 pic.twitter.com/Vvmm1hGSM8
Others have pointed out that the Xbox Series X doesn’t feature AMD’s Infinity Cache feature either, but Microsoft’s next-gen console retains an obvious advantage over its competitor’s spec sheet with a more powerful, 12.15 TFLOPS GPU (52 CUs @ 1.825 GHz vs. PS5’s 10.28 TFLOPS GPU with 36 CUs @ 2.23 GHz). A die shot of the Xbox Series X can be found below.
