Spec analysis for Xbox One and hardware comparison to PS4

[HeyCori]

Very good detailed read. It doesn't answer every question about the internals but does a good job of evaluating what's inside.

Spec Analysis: Xbox One | Eurogamer.net

 

[HeyCori]

Leave it to Anandtech to take it to the next level.

AnandTech | The Xbox One: Hardware Analysis & Comparison to PlayStation 4

 

[Robert Carpenter]

And yet, nothing is mentioned about cloud computing performance...

Surely 300,000 servers across the world won't give any significant advantage.... /s

The only thing that will be a true credible comparison is when a game developer who has worked with both systems explains which system is better and why it's better. If a game developer says that one system allows them to do more, then that system is the better system. No excuses.

 

[martinmc78]

Singling out games performance here. I think we could see a slight disparity between the two systems - The live worlds concept and MMMORPG's can easily be handled by all the cloud computing the Xbox One offers but I have a feeling for fast action racing games and maybe FPS the difference in the ram may be just enough to give the PS4 a slight edge. I don't think it will ever be a discernible difference but if you compared the games on a polygon and tflops count you will get more out of the PS4. Now that PC, Xbox One and PS4 are all running on the same architecture the question is will developers bother to optimise the multi platform games so that the PS4 gets the most out of them.

 

[Reflexx]

The cloud computing will help with open and persistent worlds. It will also help if there is a lot of background information that has to be processed for a game.

So a game like Fable (on steroids) would more easily calculate all the different results of your actions around your game world. Right now those results are minor because the XBOX can't take too much precious processing power to do that. But if it's offloaded to servers, you could have major changes for each and every action you take. You can have complex personality changes for NPC characters. It could be huge for game AI.

Also, matchmaking could be going on all the time. The cloud could be continually analyzing who your best game matches are depending on playing style or skill. So when you're ready to play it will have your matches ready extremely quickly.

The PS4 does have faster RAM. That's a fact. But the XBOX ONE does have that RAM cache that can make up for a lot of the speed difference. Not all of it. But most of it for games.

In my opinion, the PS4's RAM speed difference won't really be seen unless we're dealing with 4k TVs. At 1080p, the XBOX ONE can still handle the speed of all the pixels on scene as fast as we need to see them.

 

[Coreldan]

There's also the price difference of the RAMs used.. I believ what X1 uses is pretty much cheap as dirt, while the GDDR5 is apparently pretty expensive? At least this might offset some of the bundled Kinect price on the X1 compared to the PS4.

 

[Robert Carpenter]

The cloud computing will help with open and persistent worlds. It will also help if there is a lot of background information that has to be processed for a game.

So a game like Fable (on steroids) would more easily calculate all the different results of your actions around your game world. Right now those results are minor because the XBOX can't take too much precious processing power to do that. But if it's offloaded to servers, you could have major changes for each and every action you take. You can have complex personality changes for NPC characters. It could be huge for game AI.

Also, matchmaking could be going on all the time. The cloud could be continually analyzing who your best game matches are depending on playing style or skill. So when you're ready to play it will have your matches ready extremely quickly.

The PS4 does have faster RAM. That's a fact. But the XBOX ONE does have that RAM cache that can make up for a lot of the speed difference. Not all of it. But most of it for games.

In my opinion, the PS4's RAM speed difference won't really be seen unless we're dealing with 4k TVs. At 1080p, the XBOX ONE can still handle the speed of all the pixels on scene as fast as we need to see them.

I just read somewhere that the PS4 does not support games in 4k. Only movies and other content. Could this be true?

 

[imZadok]

There is absolutely no chance that either console will support 4k gaming. It would require MUCH more power than either of these consoles possess.

The PS4 looks to have a significant graphical power advantage on paper with 50% more GPU cores and, unlike last generation, should be easy for developers to utilize due to the familiarity of the architecture. Only time will tell just how much visual differences the horsepower disparity will lead to.

I think the biggest battle isn't going to be which console is more powerful (which seems to be clear-cut), but rather which console supplies the best ecosystem and unique experiences for games, movies, and TV entertainment. I think Microsoft currently has the advantage here, but it will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

 

[tinasious]

There's also the price difference of the RAMs used.. I believ what X1 uses is pretty much cheap as dirt, while the GDDR5 is apparently pretty expensive? At least this might offset some of the bundled Kinect price on the X1 compared to the PS4.

Lol. Its not cheap as dirt. I mean its cheaper than GDDR5 but the DDR3 on X1 is not the cheapest DDR3 available on martket. Also to make up for the bandwidth difference between GDDR5 and DDR3 MS has fast ESRAM on the die. The memory bandwidth on both devices should more or less be the same. The only difference right now is the Ps4 GPU clocks in at 1.8 TFlops and the X1 clocks in at 1.2. Ofcourse both of them have not officially released this info. This is just going by industry sources and rumors.

 

[Coreldan]

Lol. Its not cheap as dirt. I mean its cheaper than GDDR5 but the DDR3 on X1 is not the cheapest DDR3 available on martket. Also to make up for the bandwidth difference between GDDR5 and DDR3 MS has fast ESRAM on the die. The memory bandwidth on both devices should more or less be the same. The only difference right now is the Ps4 GPU clocks in at 1.8 TFlops and the X1 clocks in at 1.2. Ofcourse both of them have not officially released this info. This is just going by industry sources and rumors.

Well, I guess there's "better and worse DDR3 as well", but DDR3 for PC at like 1333mhz is cheap.

 

[Villain]

Also want to point out... the chipset in the Xbox One is constantly being compared in spec sheets and has been confirmed that it is 100% a new custom chip.

 

[MerlotC]

Also want to point out... the chipset in the Xbox One is constantly being compared in spec sheets and has been confirmed that it is 100% a new custom chip.

Ya we really don't know that much about the actual performance of the chipset and I don't think the clock speed has even been officially announced has it (other than the old leaked spec sheet)?

 

[_Emi_]

comparing both consoles by specs alone, will obviously look better in paper on PS4 side.
But in my opinion, Microsoft is spending 3 billion dollars in partnership with AMD for xbox one... is it logical that magically next PS4 chipset is going to be exactly the same as xbox one? I mean 3 billion dollars for AMD is like double their revenue! no? and they will just give the same chipset to every company asking for it with a game console? I don't think it will be like huge difference but it might be so optimized for the 3 OS inside xbox one that it might give an advantage over ps4.
why would Microsoft spend so much money just to get the same as ps4? that really sounds not logical to me.
so until they don't release an official spec sheet. and developers talk about what is better to work with and what is more optimized for them. or when (consoles are released) the same game is compared how it performs. that will be the day we will know if a console is better or not in power.

 

[travisel]

Game consoles this time around are very weak compared to PC, even Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5200 (GT3e) are = too PS4 & Xbox One!

Sony & Microsoft are all about making money this time around so they give you basic 2013 graphics witch is better then 8 year consoles, so the average person wouldn't know the difference.

 

[MerlotC]

Game consoles this time around are very weak compared to PC, even Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5200 (GT3e) are = too PS4 & Xbox One!

Sony & Microsoft are all about making money this time around so they give you basic 2013 graphics witch is better then 8 year consoles, so the average person wouldn't know the difference.

Not weak at all compared to what you get for the same amount of money. You can spend more money on a graphics card alone than either console is likely to cost. Consoles have never had the raw processing power of a top end pc but being closed systems always out perform a pc of comparable specs.

 

[Villain]

You can't compare consoles to PC's.... What games on PC look as good as gears of war while using the equivalent chipset and only 512mb of RAM? Consoles are much much more optimized.

 

[travisel]

You can't compare consoles to PC's.... What games on PC look as good as gears of war while using the equivalent chipset and only 512mb of RAM? Consoles are much much more optimized.

"Gears Of War"? Your kidding right! Gears of war could run on WP8 platform almost = to Xbox 360 if they wanted too....Sorry very bad game to example.

PS...When did Gears Of War ever look good? Playing console game's @720p @30fps you would say looks good? where my PC on 27" monitor @1440p @60fps no comparison.

The only thing I see that consoles have over the PC is controllers'....this is where the PC lacks for now.

 

[Robert Carpenter]

"Gears Of War"? Your kidding right! Gears of war could run on WP8 platform almost = to Xbox 360 if they wanted too....Sorry very bad game to example.

PS...When did Gears Of War ever look good? Playing console game's @720p @30fps you would say looks good? where my PC on 27" monitor @1440p @60fps no comparison.

The only thing I see that consoles have over the PC is controllers'....this is where the PC lacks for now.

His statement was much more correct then yours. You don't seem to understand how much more a console can do with the same exact hardware.

A PC has all sorts of different layers between the drivers and the other parts of the operating system. A console does not have a complex driver layer and on PC, this driver layer slows down the system a lot. It's not really noticeable to the user, but without this driver layer, the hardware can become much more powerful.

The graphics in the Xbox One and PS4 are capable of much more power than most current PC builds. You do not understand enough about the console architecture and that is why you do not understand how powerful these consoles are.

 

[Villain]

"Gears Of War"? Your kidding right! Gears of war could run on WP8 platform almost = to Xbox 360 if they wanted too....Sorry very bad game to example.

PS...When did Gears Of War ever look good? Playing console game's @720p @30fps you would say looks good? where my PC on 27" monitor @1440p @60fps no comparison.

The only thing I see that consoles have over the PC is controllers'....this is where the PC lacks for now.

Did you even read before replying? at all?

 

[James8561]

for this gen: PC>PlayStation4>XboxOne>WiiU
seems like that has always been the case. except that last gen the ps3 was too hard to program so often it's on par with the xbox360

"
The only thing I see that consoles have over the PC is controllers'....this is where the PC lacks for now.

There are controllers for PC. There's an Xbox controller for Windows I believe.

A PC has all sorts of different layers between the drivers and the other parts of the operating system. A console does not have a complex driver layer and on PC, this driver layer slows down the system a lot. It's not really noticeable to the user, but without this driver layer, the hardware can become much more powerful.

The graphics in the Xbox One and PS4 are capable of much more power than most current PC builds. You do not understand enough about the console architecture and that is why you do not understand how powerful these consoles are.

Yes a PC has performance limiting APIs and drivers. But it often simply brute-forces its way through those.
For example, a Core i7 3930K 6-core set up will own any and all console CPU and a Geforce GTX Titan will also own any and all console GPU. these chips are simply orders of magnitude more powerful than console hardware. and the best part is that every 2 years, the max power of the PC increase while that only happens every decade for consoles, Nintendo notwithstanding since they always use last-gen-level hardware. Also, as far as memory is concerned, the CPU I mentioned as 15MB of very fast on-chip L3 cache much faster than whatever SDRAM inside the xbox one. PC also can have up to 32 GB of the fastest DDR3 system RAM (almost 3 GHz) and 6 GB of GDDR5 graphics ram having 1.5x the bandwidth of the ps4 if you desire.

So yes, current gen unreleased consoles are quite powerful. They are basically specialized PC well-designed for their task but the Personal Computer with its constantly upgrading hardwares and pure brute-force power will always stay on top sooner or later.

PS: I forgot to mention. the xbox one has 2 operating systems. one specialized xbox os and a modified version of windows 8 running concurrently using a software layer. so there goes some of your software argument