AnandTech: Xbox One vs. PS4 - Hardware comparison

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

And you think that memory bandwidth is only to transfer pixels? Any memory access of any data will use some bandwidth. Higher bandwidth will mean being able to feed both the GPU and CPU more efficiently. Sony engineers didn't choose more expensive and power-hungry memory just to be able to brag about it on tech forums, it will mean a more powerful gaming machine overall. Whereas that translates into tangible advantages for gamers remains to be seen (Xbox 360 had like 5 times the bandwidth of PS3 and games didn't always look better on it), but on theoretical grounds the PS4 is the faster hardware.

You're doing a simplistic calculation and assuming AMD/Sony engineers don't know what they're doing.

No dude, that was so wrong

I came across that gem today - http://majornelson.com/2005/05/20/xbox-360-vs-ps3-part-1-of-4/

You won't read a bigger pile of BS.

Xbox 360 has 278.4 GB/s of memory system bandwidth.

According to MN here, the Xbox 360 destroys even the PS4.

[spudtrooper]

The issue is that its not just moving video data across the bus, the memory is unified which means it's going to be used to store and transfer game data not just graphics data.

This makes no sense. Game engines are very small and optimized to run as close to the CPU and CPU cache as possible. "working" data is already flowing back and forth between multiple components/bridges/interfaces that once again, GDDR5 vs 3 doesn't change the performance thereof.

GDDR5 is a throughput monster, no doubt.. but until you guys actually do the math and think about what you're saying you're just making guesses at what the reasons may be..

[Athernar]

oi vey, there is nothing shifted in and out of ram unless its going through the CPU and it takes the same amount of time to go from GDDR5 or GDDR3 ram to the CPU and BACK , the latencies are the same.

This confirms it, you don't even remotely know what you're talking about.

I'm done arguing with you, it's clear you've got no experience in the field and are just quoting specsheets to further your console war agenda. (Which as a member of the PC gaming master race, I don't really care for in the slightest)

[spudtrooper]

No dude, that was so wrong

I came across that gem today - http://majornelson.com/2005/05/20/xbox-360-vs-ps3-part-1-of-4/

You won't read a bigger pile of BS.

According to MN here, the Xbox 360 destroys even the PS4.

Who cares, you're still looking at those numbers as if they're important while ignoring the important ones. You could have GDDR2000000 but it won't change what you can do with GDDR3 on a 1080p/60 display.

This confirms it, you don't even remotely know what you're talking about.

I'm done arguing with you, it's clear you've got no experience in the field and are just quoting specsheets to further your console war agenda.

Actually it just shows how absurd people are, how they won't bother to look something up and how people like you think you have a clue what you're talking about and just use social ignorance to further justify and accept your lack of even trying.

Please do give up. YOu can't be bothered to talk about facts.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Who cares, you're still looking at those numbers as if they're important while ignoring the important ones. You could have GDDR2000000 but it won't change what you can do with GDDR3 on a 1080p/60 display.

Actually it just shows how absurd people are, how they won't bother to look something up and how people like you think you have a clue what you're talking about and just use social ignorance to further justify and accept your lack of even trying.

Please do give up. YOu can't be bothered to talk about facts.

It was simply to say to Asik not to much belief in the 360 bandwidth being straight out 5 times more than the PS3.

[LittleNeutrino Veteran]

Overall without full information on the graphics part of the Xbox One it is difficult to say which one will end up being better but then again it will always come down to who can develop what on the device and what games people are going to want to play. For my Family the PS3 won because it had more games we wanted to play where as the xbox did not.

[Andre S. Veteran]

No dude, that was so wrong

According to MN here, the Xbox 360 destroys even the PS4.

Hm. Apparently that number included the eDRAM bandwidth. I never payed much attention :)

[spudtrooper]

Overall without full information on the graphics part of the Xbox One it is difficult to say which one will end up being better but then again it will always come down to who can develop what on the device and what games people are going to want to play. For my Family the PS3 won because it had more games we wanted to play where as the xbox did not.

And that's a perfectly valid reason to make a choice..

people deciding on PS4 over ONE because of GDDR5 vs GDDR3 just got "Swindled and pimped" ;) heck, more people are going to have larger differences in performance/color/picture quality because of their TV than would ever have such issues because of the GDDR type of memory..

[Luc2k]

Spud, you should read some reviews of GPUs that have both GDDR3 and GDDR5 versions (like the 6670).

[spudtrooper]

Spud, you should read some reviews of GPUs that have both GDDR3 and GDDR5 versions (like the 6670).

I have, but GPU's in PC's are different. They have to go through bridges/buses/PCI ports and the interfaces can vary from 128bits to 256bits wide and none of them have eDRAM or eSRAM in between helping alleviate cache miss rates and so on and so forth. The xbox one / ps4 is operating in shared memory much like an IGP that doesn't suck lol

Also, even if you do compare GPUS with those memory rates, the GDDR3 devices still don't have any problem filling a 1920x1080p display at 60fps, especially if they're on a 192bit bus.. 128bit or 64bit may have problems, but the Xbox One is not that small.

if your discrete card does have eSRAM/eDRAM in a special application (and with gddr5) it is doing so in a capability that even the PS4 will not, so ??? then again, I don't know of a pc architecture that ships yet with that esram interface in play..

[majortom1981]

The gddr5 can hurt Sony . IT can make the system a lot more expensive then the xbox one and can cause manufacturing delays. I would think it will be awfully hard to get that much gddr5 ram. remember not a single video card contains that much.

If the xbox is say $100 cheaper then the ps4 that can cause a big jump in sales for the xbox. Its not always the most powerfull that wins. I would have thought hardcore gamers would know that by now.

[srbeen]

going to preorder both, setup & see how they work/feel, then capitalize on the shut up and take my money people, wait a year and buy a used one with some good cheap titles...

[threetonesun]

More interesting than which one is faster now is where these will be in 4, 6, or 8 years. I feel like with these specs, it's not inconceivable that phones / tablets will be able to push just as good graphics to a TV while these are still active.

[spudtrooper]

going to preorder both, setup & see how they work/feel, then capitalize on the shut up and take my money people, wait a year and buy a used one with some good cheap titles...

hell yeah, sounds like a plan.

[Andre S. Veteran]

I'm just saying it won't be the impact you guys claim because what Microsoft chose still can compete at any and all resolutions these systems will be played at.

Oh, definitely. Both of these machines are monsters and if anything they are much more similar between them than the current generation is. Chances are we'll see slightly more antialising on PS4 or slightly more particles or something like that. It's not what'll make or break any of these consoles, but there's no denying the PS4 has the edge on raw processing power - don't forget it also has 50% more shaders.

[Blackhearted]

I have, but GPU's in PC's are different. They have to go through bridges/buses/PCI ports and the interfaces can vary from 128bits to 256bits wide and none of them have eDRAM or eSRAM in between helping alleviate cache miss rates and so on and so forth. The xbox one / ps4 is operating in shared memory much like an IGP that doesn't suck lol

Also, even if you do compare GPUS with those memory rates, the GDDR3 devices still don't have any problem filling a 1920x1080p display at 60fps, especially if they're on a 192bit bus.. 128bit or 64bit may have problems, but the Xbox One is not that small.

It doesn't matter if there's a difference in setup between the pc and the consoles. Those benchmarks that they're telling you to look up are to try to get it through your amazingly thick ****ing skull that there IS a performance difference between gddr3 and gddr5, even at the same resolution.

[threetonesun]

The gddr5 can hurt Sony . IT can make the system a lot more expensive then the xbox one and can cause manufacturing delays. I would think it will be awfully hard to get that much gddr5 ram. remember not a single video card contains that much.

If the xbox is say $100 cheaper then the ps4 that can cause a big jump in sales for the xbox. Its not always the most powerfull that wins. I would have thought hardcore gamers would know that by now.

I think this is worth repeating. It's not often two consoles release at the same time... exclusives are always hit or miss in a new gen, so I think any price difference will really chose which one wins.

Personally I think MS will go with some cheap console + Live for 3 years deal to get more buy in.

[spudtrooper]

More interesting than which one is faster now is where these will be in 4, 6, or 8 years. I feel like with these specs, it's not inconceivable that phones / tablets will be able to push just as good graphics to a TV while these are still active.

If its anything like corporate computing, in 8 years most of it will be on cloud anyway.. easier to scale & grow & adapt & change without being limited to on premise hardware..

thus, i'm REALLY interested in seeing what MS has done and what Sony will offer in comparison. The idea of changing worlds and dynamic environments because there is a massive computational cluster capable of creating such worlds in the backend is just .. awesome..

[Fish]

The specs are close enough for both machines so as to be largely irrelevant.

Platform-exclusive titles will look great on both consoles, but cannot be compared due to their very nature. Cross-platform titles will be, to all intents and purposes, identical due to the architecture being so similar. If one console is more capable, it won't be exploited because the game will be designed from the outset to use the lowest common denominator.

You can argue the toss over the figures if you want, but really your choice shouldn't be about the games - they will both do that very well - but what else each product offers in addition.

[spudtrooper]

Oh, definitely. Both of these machines are monsters and if anything they are much more similar between them than the current generation is. Chances are we'll see slightly more antialising on PS4 or slightly more particles or something like that. It's not what'll make or break any of these consoles, but there's no denying the PS4 has the edge on raw processing power - don't forget it also has 50% more shaders.

True! it does have more shaders, but then again, at 1080p resolutions, will they be necessary? Nvidia has been able to optimize throughput without increasing shaders.. maybe AMD / MS has done some of that voodoo magic..

for example my 6850 had what, 2000 shaders but my NVidia has 480 and smokes it..

I'm thrilled to see these competition heat up, don't get me wrong people.

It doesn't matter if there's a difference in setup between the pc and the consoles. Those benchmarks that they're telling you to look up are to try to get it through your amazingly thick ****ing skull that there IS a performance difference between gddr3 and gddr5, even at the same resolution.

It absolutely does matter. The benchmarks don't translate 1:1 and even if you did compare benchmarks you would derive the same information I have..

The problem is, you're choosing not to. And no one but yourself is making that choice. Are you really implying Microsoft didn't do the same math?

[Blackhearted]

The specs are close enough for both machines so as to be largely irrelevant.

No they're not. With the xbox one seemingly having the 1.2tflop gpu originally rumored that puts it on a whole different tier of gpu compared to the ps4. To put it in pc gpu perspective, it's basically a radeon 7850 vs a radeon 7770. The difference between those two cards is quite significant.

[vcfan]

I genuinely don't want to offend you or upset you, but you really do need to do a bit more research into console/PC architecture and how the memory speed is important to a unified system. To put it simply, the happy reaction games developers had to Sony using very fast memory speaks volumes, it is far from 'wasted'.

im pretty sure you don't have a counter argument,other than saying memory speed is important,which is a given. what you're failing to understand is, theres enough bandwidth in ddr3 to max out 1080p gaming,and 4k video doesn't even require a fraction of the bandwidth needed for gaming. since there is no 4k gaming, the benefits of gddr5 are useless,and it is just a nice spec point on a list,but pointless in reality. there is no advantage.

[BajiRav]

Anandtech is not conclusive given how little we (and they) know about the hardware. I guess we just need to wait a bit longer when his boxes are available for them to pull part and study.

There are merits to both approaches. Sony has the most present-day-GPU-centric approach to its memory subsystem: give the GPU a wide and fast GDDR5 interface and call it a day. It?s well understood and simple to manage. The downsides? High speed GDDR5 isn?t the most power efficient, and Sony is now married to a more costly memory technology for the life of the PlayStation 4.

Even if Microsoft can?t deliver the same effective memory bandwidth as Sony, it also has fewer GPU execution resources - it?s entirely possible that the Xbox One?s memory bandwidth demands will be inherently lower to begin with.

[Athernar]

I would highly recommend anyone viewing the fanboyish nonsense in this thread to first take some time to research the basic function of a 3D graphics engine.

The bizzare focus on the framebuffer and quoting of buzzwords does not address the fact there is far more data that needs to be moved between VRAM (or in this case, shared system/video RAM) and internal GPU caches (Think L1/L2).

You'll thank yourselves in the future, and find you have a new appreciation of the games you play when you understand how they function. Plus you just saw past all of the console war nonsense.

[spudtrooper]

No they're not. With the xbox one seemingly having the 1.2tflop gpu originally rumored that puts it on a whole different tier of gpu compared to the ps4. To put it in pc gpu perspective, it's basically a radeon 7850 vs a radeon 7770. The difference between those two cards is quite significant.

and yet, you're still ignoring the fact we're still talking about fixed displays at fixed fill rates and fixed FPS where once you achieve the rates you need, anything more, is just wasted cycles. There is simply no denying this.

On PC's, yeah, you have people pushing 6 displays where you need the fillrate to run at asinine resolutions, but neither the ONE nor PS4 are filling those roles.