It seems that Sony has been working closely with AMD for its next-generation PlayStation 5 (PS5) console. On that note, it’s also very likely that the future console will be powered by a tweaked version of the AMD Ryzen processor.
Evidence to that fact was discovered when the Linux-focused site Phoronix noticed that Simon Pilgrim, a Principal Programmer at SIE in Europe, had been consistently providing several improvements to the LLVM compiler stacks of AMD’s first generation Zen architecture. For context, the LLVM is a CPU compiler used in the PS4 development kit, and is used by developer to tweak, update, or even change the way certain features in the PS4’s functionality.
To date, Pilgrim has submitted a cleanup for a “Znver1” code – a reference to AMD’s first generation Ryzen processor – as well as several Znver1 LLVM improvements over the last two weeks.
This news comes just as Sony’s PlayStation Chief, John Kodera, tweeted that the PS4 is “entering final stages of its life cycle.” Sony released the PS4 back in 2013, and by today’s hardware standards, its internal components are close to being of “advanced” age. With that in mind, it’s really no surprise that Sony would begin its research and development for its future PS5, as R&D cycles usually last for years before a working unit can be shown to the public.
Having a PlayStation console running on a Ryzen processor would be a major step up from the Jaguar APU that is currently used in the PS4. It’s also possible that we could be looking at a console powered by AMD’s Vega GPU architecture, especially since Ryzen is a primarily CPU architecture.
