NVIDIA’s Ampere cards could be bad news for the PlayStation 5
NVIDIA‘s (NASDAQ: NVDA) The latest generational leap in computer graphics seems to be a game-changer, as its latest RTX 30 series GPUs (graphics processing units) based on the 8 nanometer (nm) Ampere architecture are going to deliver a huge performance boost over the previous. Generation Turing cards.
The new cards seem to generate a lot of buzz, especially because of their aggressive pricing. NVIDIA claims the new Ampere GeForce RTX cards “offer up to 2x the performance and 1.9 times the energy efficiency of previous generation GPUs,” but are priced the same as their generation counterparts. former. This could be bad news for the highly anticipated Sony (NYSE: SONY) The PlayStation 5 console, which could end up severely underpowered compared to entry-level NVIDIA cards.
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NVIDIA’s Generation Change Brings Massive Performance Gains
NVIDIA has really pushed the bar between price and performance with the new RTX 30 series cards. The company claims that the $ 499 RTX 3070 is a faster card than the previous generation RTX 2080 Ti Turing GPU. , which costs $ 1,200. The RTX 3070 offers 20.4 teraflops of single precision performance, compared to 13.4 teraflops for the RTX 2080 Ti.
A teraflop is a mathematical measure of the computational performance of a processor. A teraflop means that a processor can perform 1,000 billion floating point operations per second. So, a graphics card with a higher teraflop reading is generally considered better for gaming, as it can deliver better graphics performance under ideal conditions.
For comparison, NVIDIA’s previous $ 499 card, the RTX 2070, had 7.5 teraflops, meaning the company nearly tripled the compute capacity of its successor without any price increase. The flagship RTX 3080 starting at $ 699 also saw a similar jump, delivering 29.8 teraflops of single precision performance, compared to the 10.1 teraflops of the RTX 2080.
The bottom line is that the new RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 cards will deliver triple the performance of their predecessors at the same price. NVIDIA was able to achieve this by moving to an 8 nanometer (nm) manufacturing node from the 12nm node of the previous generation. And that’s where things could start to go downhill for the upcoming PlayStation 5, as lower-tier NVIDIA cards could deliver better gaming performance – at least in theory.
Why the PlayStation 5 should be concerned
The PS5 will be powered by a AMD GPU packing 10.28 teraflops, less than Microsoft The 12 teraflops of the Xbox Series X. Now there is no word on pricing just yet, but rumors have it that the new console could be price somewhere between $ 499 and $ 549 due to high component costs and new technology. Sure, a $ 499 RTX 3070 might not be a direct threat to the PS5, as it can cost as much as the console alone, but NVIDIA’s cheaper RTX 30 series cards can be a challenge.
An RTX 3060 is reportedly in the works to target the mid-range GPU market. It could succeed the RTX 2060 which launched at $ 349 in January 2019. The RTX 2060 runs at 6.5 teraflops, so its successor can deliver almost 20 teraflops, depending on the gains the RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 have seen, and leave the PS5 in dust.
Now some may argue that a PC built using a $ 349 GPU will ultimately prove to be more expensive than a PS5 when other components such as the processor (central processing unit), RAM ( random access memory) and storage are taken into account. However, it wouldn’t be surprising to see NVIDIA bring even cheaper options to gaming enthusiasts with entry-level Ampere cards that might have more computing power than the PS5.
For example, the NVIDIA GTX 1660 that went on sale in March 2019 for $ 219 was valued at 5 teraflops. This card was based on the 12nm Turing process, indicating that a successor to this card based on the Ampere architecture could be more powerful than the chip powering the PS5 if NVIDIA can replicate the gains that the RTX series cards are expected to deliver. .
In the past, PC builders would make PCs for $ 500 (excluding the monitor and peripherals, such as keyboard and mouse) using $ 200 graphics cards to drive console-level performance. . There have been reports that the PS5 could cost as much as $ 450 to manufacture. If this is indeed the case, and Sony’s next-gen console turns out to be much more expensive than the previous one, gaming enthusiasts can switch their allegiance to PCs powered by Ampere graphics cards, helping NVIDIA remain a best stock of video games.
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