It’s no secret that Microsoft plans to turn Xbox into a whole series of devices, and AMD’s next APU could be the perfect fit to make that happen. While Sony’s and Microsoft’s gaming consoles, both of which are known to use custom AMD APUs, continue to resemble a budget gaming PC with each generation, but at a price most could never build a budget gaming PC capable of 1440p/4K (albiet using resolution and other tricks along with supersampling magic sauce) for, the next iteration of Xbox devices could see a notable change in their hardware. Details regarding AMD’s “Magnus” APU have begun leaking, and according to Digital Foundry, its design could present some interesting prospects for both the gaming and PC industries.
AMD’s prowess in making mobile processor packages featuring a CPU and GPU on a single tile is well established. From multiple generations of Xbox and PlayStation, to a myriad of gaming handhelds since the launch of the Steam Deck, the chip manufacturer has gained a significant market share with its solutions. Competitors Intel and NVIDIA both have their offerings as well, but despite Team Green’s partnership with Nintendo for its Switch hybrid consoles and Intel’s foray into the gaming handheld market, neither has managed to see as much cross-market implementation as AMD has. Now it sounds like “Magnus” is going to take that to a whole other level by offering manufacturers a tile platform that allows further customization as needed.
The idea behind Magnus is that instead of having to create entirely new motherboard designs for each device, the tile itself could have parts swapped out as needed, per either higher-performance upgrades for consoles or lower-power components for, say, mobile applications. Magnus is said to use a 384-bit fabric for which components to communicate by, plus feature Zen 6 and UDNA technology. Manufacturers will, of course, still need to create motherboards per application, but there could potentially be far less specialization needed, and so fewer different models would have to be produced.
Thus, through investing in a single platform, Microsoft could customize Magnus according to the device it will be used in. Theoretically, the mass production of such a platform might also reduce costs for all. As Microsoft continues to expand its presence in the gaming handheld market with Xbox-based systems and compete with Sony’s PlayStation 6, it might also be positioning itself to compete in the pre-built PC sector if Magnus can prove itself a viable and powerful enough platform. Things could get interesting for AMD as well, given the popularity of its CPUs among PC gamers, if Microsoft manages to shorten the gap further between PCs and consoles with a cost-competitive product.
Discussion (9 replies)
Join Discussion →I mean sure that makes sense. Im more asking what sort of range of devices really.
Yep, I was thinking the same but also if/how they plan to require devs to support multiple teirs. It wasn't exactly a smooth ride for the Series S and this could open up another can of worms similar to that.
What I'm also wondering is if AMD will use this technology to finally gain a foothold in the laptop arena. I mean they might be able to convince OEMs like HP or Dell to commit to a similar APU as this. It seems, to me anyway, most laptop launches with AMD CPUs are more of a paper launch since months later if I try to find them they don't exist so a platform like this might make a difference there.
Yea trying to find local resellers (microcenter) stock of AMD APU based laptops is neigh impossible.
They arent, no one is. Amd never will. Seems proper powerful apu will never happen for pc. Not on mini pcs not on laptop, not on desktop. It just not happening, it is hard for me to understand, it has been for years that we shoukd have a proper powerful well developed product line.
Yes yes it " canibalizes dgpus" yeah yeah people say that, i dont know if AMD says it. But to that I say, canibalizes what? The leftover bones of the market amd gets? The pity purchases they get from contrarians and masochists? (Thats sarcasm btw, i know their products are decent, but just that when it comes to dgpus).
What is likely to happen is that Microsoft will/has ditched the pro model.
Instead the console will be upgraded every 4 years with the latest gpu equivalent to the 9070xt & cost around $800 maybe 🤔
For Microsoft everything is now an Xbox — including your PlayStation 😉
PlayStation should follow the conventional subsidized model
Pretty interesting, and I'll be honest - I'm finding more and more of my gaming needs could be serviced by an APU. Heck, probably my most used gaming device is a ROG Ally.
I'm just hoping, whatever the next Xbox looks like, it's more a games console than a PC. I'm finding myself more and more drawn to the simplicity of a games console for gaming on. I blame that on the Steam Deck, it was supposed to bring more console gamers to PC gaming, but I found it made me more crave features found on consoles (suspend/resume and gamepad UI being the big features).
While I'm enjoying my ROG Ally and desktop PC, I'm finding myself more and more drawn to the PS5 for its simplicity. And I'm really excited about the PS6 rumours (having a console and handheld SKU). What I'm hoping for is that both PS6 consoles will be tightly integrated with one another. IE: I could suspend on the TV console and then resume from my handheld. I believe Valve was trying or can do something similar, but I think a Playstation console could take that feature to the next level.
Keyboard and mouse, true support, as in mandated to have the options in the game menu for all games published, and its likely many pc gamers would jump ship. Hardware wise, the line is non existent, you just get so much more hardware way less money.
Of course there is the closed ecosystem but sony or ms, both are huge gaming ecosystems.
Its the keyboard and mouse. Game pads suuuuuck for so many games. Maybe side scrollers gamepad is best, but so many games the thought is, this would be better with.... Keyboard and mouse (or partial/ hand keyboard which are cool too)
I tolerate gamepads.
Yar, agreed there. While some games do offer full KB+M support, there shouldn't be any reason the whole catalogue of games shouldn't offer it (especially if there's a PC port of the game that already has KB+M support). I'm hoping with the 'fairness' aspect of gamepad vs kbm being downplayed in recent years and the next Xbox being a PC (so *should* have KBM support for everything) - hopefully Sony will follow suit. Heck, even Nintendo has built-in mouse support with their new joycons (and apparently has decent USB mouse support too).