A Sony PS5 engineer by the name of Rosario Leonardi has claimed that the next-gen console won’t be based on RDNA 2, rather it’ll be a hybrid or middle ground between RDNA 1 and 2. This makes sense as, by the time the graphics processor design of the upcoming consoles was taped out, RNDA 2 and Navi 2x may not have been finalized.
Leonardi compared the PS5’s GPU to that of the PS4 Pro, recalling how the latter was based on neither GCN 2 nor 4. Instead, it was an amalgamation of the two. It seems like the PS5’s GPU will be a similar affair.
This begs the question of whether the Xbox Series X will be also be based on a similar hybrid design. It’s highly likely, although you can’t be sure with Phil Spencer. MS has deep pockets and the company may have procured a deal with AMD to exclusively offer some additional features absent from the PS5.
In case you’re curious, the architecture a GPU is based on defines its feature-level. For example, the major differences between GCN 4 and GCN 5 were the addition of Rapid Pack Maths (improved performance with lower-precision modes), Draw Stream Binning Rasterizer (a hybrid form of tiled and intermediate rendering that never quite materialized) and Primitive Shaders (a feature similar to Mesh shaders). Read more here:
As such, there’s a chance that the PS5 may miss out on some features that the Navi 2x GPUs will come with. Ray-tracing, however, should be available across all platforms, although the implementation and usage will vary.
