Analyst suggests Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 may be powered by 7 nm versions of the older Ryzen 5 1600 processor

Microsoft revealed last week that the upcoming Xbox Series X console will integrate an APU that can deliver 12 TFLOPS of graphics processing power, which would translate to twice the performance of the current Xbox One X console. The spec reveal also mentioned  that the CPU part of the 7 nm Zen 2 APU would be four times faster than the that of the original Xbox One. This may not sound like much of an improvement for a console launching 7 years after the Xbox One, but we have to keep in mind that both Microsoft and Sony have a maximum TDP to stick to. To better understand what these numbers mean and how we can approximate them to existing hardware, we can take a quick look at an interesting analysis presented by John Prendergast on his blog.

Since Prendergast is working with approximations and extrapolations, his results are clearly not to be interpreted as accurate and definitive proof of what we can find in the next gen consoles. Still, the logic and math seems to be checking out. This in-depth analysis essentially concludes that the CPU part of the 7 nm APU integrated in the next gen Sony and Microsoft consoles is on par with an older Ryzen 5 1600 model. Definitely not impressive, but, once again, the APU has to pack both CPU and GPU parts and the package needs to have a TDP lower than 200 W.

Keeping in mind that the Xbox Series X can deliver 12 TFLOPS in the GPU department, we are probably looking at a custom-made RDNA 2 GPU that matches the performance of Nvidia's RTX 2080 Super. The compute unit count on this one is still a mystery. Prendergast suggests 48 CU, whereas GitHub sources point to 56 CU. The PS5, on the other hand, is getting a 9.78 TFLOPS GPU, so this is most likely a custom-made Radeon RX 5700 XT. Now, thanks to the 7 nm packaging, the TDPs of the GPUs can be lowered, so Prendergast calculated that the CPUs on both console would have a TDP close to 40 W, while the Xbox Series X GPU would get a ~130 W TDP and the Sony GPU would come with a 116.5 W TDP. These results are quite in line with the total APU TDPs of current gen consoles: 160 W for the PS4 Pro and 180 W for the Xbox One X.

Latest rumor has it that there will also be a PS5 Pro version with more GPU power in order to match what Microsoft is offering.