Under the Hood
Up until the last second, Sony and Microsoft have been on a close race to come with the most horsepower from their hardware, and the best proof is Microsoft’s last minute change regarding their processor. Even though both consoles feature an octa-core custom AMD processor that was designed to run at 1.6 GHz, Microsoft pushed the clock further, so at the time the Xbox hit production its processor was clocked at 1.75 GHz, giving it a 10% advantage over the PlayStation 4.Be that as it may, the PlayStation 4 has the upper hand on pretty much everything else.
One of the most important areas in gaming is graphics performance, and that’s a segment where the PlayStation 4 leaves the Xbox in the dust. Despite the fact that the processors in the consoles are fairly similar, and both come with integrated graphics, the actual graphics chips are very different. The chip present in the Xbox One comes with 12 compute units, whereas the one in the PlayStation features 18 compute units. In terms of performance, this translates into a maximum peak performance of 1.31 TFLOPS for the Xbox, and 1.84 TFLOPS for the PlayStation.
System memory is another segment where the PlayStation takes the lead. While both consoles come with 8 GB of RAM, the PlayStation 4 uses GDDR5 memory, as opposed to Xbox’s DDR3 memory, which results in a significantly better bandwidth, and thus a boost to the overall performance of the PS4. It’s not all about the type of memory either – it’s also about how the memory is managed, and how much is made available to the developers to fiddle with.
The Xbox uses 3 GB of memory for the operating system, leaving developers with 5 GB of memory to play around with; Sony’s operating system uses 3.5 GB of memory, leaving the developers with 4.5 GB of memory to work with. There’s a catch, though: the PlayStation 4 can dynamically a lot another 1GB of memory if a game requires it, totaling the amount to 5.5 GB.
In-Game Performance
In terms of specs it’s quite clear that the Xbox lags behind the PlayStation 4, but gamers don’t necessarily care about numbers as long as the gaming experience is satisfactory. Unfortunately, that’s another chapter where the Xbox falls behind. Don’t get us wrong – the games still run and look decent on the Xbox as well, but while some games can only run at 30 frames per second at a 720p resolution on the Xbox, they have no problem running at 30 or even 60 frames per second at a 1080p resolution on the PlayStation 4.
A lot of popular titles such as Assassin’s Creed, Thief or Call of Duty: Ghosts fall into the above mentioned situation, while titles like Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition enlarges the gap between the platforms by running at 30 fps and 720p resolution on the Xbox and 60 fps and 1080p on the PlayStation. In some cases the differences might seem minor, but a hardcore gamer’s trained eye will definitely notice them.
Drawing the line
At this point it’s pretty clear that the PlayStation 4 is indeed the most powerful games console of the moment. It didn’t win by miles, and the fact that it beat the Xbox doesn’t make the Xbox a bad console – it just makes the PlayStation 4 better. Be that as it may, it’s worth keeping in mind that the differences in specs are not tremendous, and with some very well optimized games, the Xbox might just have a chance. At the moment, though, it’s PlayStation 4’s time to rule the kingdom of game consoles.
This is the guest post by Jason Phillips and www.armygames365.com
