The PlayStation 6 or next-generation Xbox APU may have been revealed, alongside the first details on CPU core configuration and memory bus.
In a new video shared on YouTube, Moore’s Law is Dead revealed the existance of an AMD Zen 6 APU called Magnus, featuring a massive 264mm squared graphics die with a 384-bit memory bus, which a wider bus than any current generation system, wider than the 320-bit bus of the Xbox Series X, connected with a Bridge Die to a 144mm squared SoC die. This big, square design isn’t the only interesting thing about the Magnus APU, as the 11 CPU cores configuration featuring three Zen 6, eight Zen 6 C cores is equally unusual.
Initially, as the configuration made sense for it, Moore’s Law is Dead thought the new AMD APU looked like a focused mid-range gaming laptop APU. In the documents, however, the Magnus APU was not listed for clients like the other yet-to-be-released Medusa Point APUs, nor for servers. It was listed for the semicustom business unit, which is the unit where APUs for consoles. Looking at other similar codenames in the same unit, the leaker found Mero, which powers the Steam Deck, and Jupiter, which is rumored the APU for the PlayStation handheld. As such, the naming convention, the square design, which looks remarkably similar to other Mark Cerny’s designs, and the known specs with the unusual CPU core configurations with no low-power cores that would work well for running games at 120 Hz, suggests this could be the PlayStation 6 APU.
Although many details seem to indicate the AMD Magnus APU could be the PlayStation 6 APU, there’s a chance it could be the next-generation Xbox APU. Over on X, known AMD leaker Kepler_L2 suggested that the Magnus codename doesn’t fit the PlayStation naming convention, and that the design, in general, looks to be too expensive to be a PlayStation design, as Mark Cerny tends to be a bit more conservative with the die area. Given how the Xbox Series X has a wider memory bus than the PlayStation 5, the 384-bit bus could be another strong indication that the Magnus APU is the APU for the next-generation Xbox system. The leaker also added that the Magnus APU will sport 80 Compute Units
Whether the AMD Magnus APU will power the PlayStation 6 or the next-generation Xbox system, things look pretty exciting for the next generation of consoles. Hopefully, it won’t take long to learn more about what these new systems will be capable of, and how they will surpass their predecessors.
