Technical Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox

[BRiT]

This is the thread for the technical comparison between the Sony PS4 and the Microsoft Xbox console.

This is NOT for non-technical comparisons, nor is it for what you would have preferred or what you would have liked or for the business comparisons between the companies approaches. Blind fanboy postings will not be tolerated.

Business Approach Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox is here: http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=63567

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I didn't catch the reveal, but as I understand it, XBOne is as per the leaked specs. 1.2TF, 8 Gbs RAM that we can take as DDR3. Has anyone broke any news about hardware and services that differs?

Otherwise it does seem pretty straight cut. Both consoles are at core the same architecture, only PS4 has 50% more GPU resources. Unless the eSRAM is shown to have amazing efficiency gains, I think it boils down to XBO hardware being less than PS4 because a lot of the budget was blown on Kinect and the amazing TOF camera.

 

[Cjail]

I quote DF: "Embedded SRAM confirmed, meaning the system RAM is almost certainly DDR3."
That's the best "reliable" thing I could find, sorry.

 

[Hecatoncheires]

Has anyone broke any news about hardware and services that differs?

Wired claims that XBox One uses a 40nm APU but I don't think they're right.

A single 40-nanometer chip contains both the CPU and GPU rather than the two dedicated 90-nm chips needed in the 360.

 

[Cjail]

Do we have a list of the improvements of the XBO controller?
I say this for the "sake" of comparison with the the DS4 .
They spoke about 40 improvements but I can name only few of them.

 

[Betanumerical]

Wired claims that XBox One uses a 40nm APU but I don't think they're right.

A single 40-nanometer chip contains both the CPU and GPU rather than the two dedicated 90-nm chips needed in the 360.

I think that the eSRAM/whatever it is 40nm, and the rest is 28(?)nm.

 

[Arwin]

They confirmed 5GB for games, if I understand it correctly, with 3GB reserved for OS, which includes Win RT support and which is available at all times (hot switch from game to OS / Apps / Browser).

Was the 7GB for games already confirmed for PS4, or just speculation? I can't remember.

 

[Grall]

They spoke about 40 improvements but I can name only few of them.

Most of those "improvements" are just very minute changes that may or may not be an actual improvement.

For example, the triggers are now much wider than they used to be, kind of like dual shock wide. The bumpers now stick out more from the top of the controller; not sure if that means they have an analog-like range of motion now also or if it's just the contour of the new controller. Are either of those actual improvements? Depends on your personal taste, methinks!

Other obvious changes include battery case no longer sticking out from the back of the controller, and the D-pad being slightly recessed instead of sticking up from the top of the controller (and engadget I think it was described it as "clicky" in feel; maybe like nintendo 3DS it's now using microswitches instead of rubber dome switches?) The grips on either side are supposedly slimmer, and there's a ridge around the edge of the analog sticks.

Most of these, apart from the new D-pad, which was always really bad on 360, aren't really improvements per se but rather just differences in flavor.

 

[aznable]

They confirmed 5GB for games, if I understand it correctly, with 3GB reserved for OS, which includes Win RT support and which is available at all times (hot switch from game to OS / Apps / Browser).

Was the 7GB for games already confirmed for PS4, or just speculation? I can't remember.

they stated in the post-conference that for a console 4 o 5 GB would be sufficient but they preferred to go with 8GB to include more features; that doesnt means that you will have 3GB always reserved for services and so on; they are virtual partitions and the ram can be allocated and deallocated in RT.

Win RT is for arm cpu, and as far i know there isnt any arm processor in the system

 

[Xenio]

they stated in the post-conference that for a console 4 o 5 GB would be sufficient but they preferred to go with 8GB to include more features; that doesnt means that you will have 3GB always reserved for services and so on; they are virtual partitions and the ram can be allocated and deallocated in RT.

Win RT is for arm cpu, and as far i know there isnt any arm processor in the system

well they uses an host system and two virtual machines, one for the games and one for the system. So depends on how the virtual machines works, they could have been coded with some fixed ram quantity in mind, or just adapting to the resources that host gives

in the first case the system/gaming ratio can't change without changing the three OS, in the second, they can shrink system and change the ratio

from what we know PS4 should have 7/1 - 5/3 ratio or within this range

 

[Lalaland]

WinRT is for arm cpu, and as far i know there isnt any arm processor in the system

No this is just MS being confusing again. WinRT is the name of the API used to create ModernUI apps on any architecture. MS just chose to be a pain by naming their implementation of the runtime and an O/S to support it in ARM WinRT too. Win8 is basically a new UEFI native version of Win7 with the WinRT environment replacing the start menu (hence 'ver' reporting 6.2 at the command prompt)

 

[-tkf-]

Anand did it all for us:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6972/xbox-one-hardware-compared-to-playstation-4

 

[blakjedi]

No this is just MS being confusing again. WinRT is the name of the API used to create ModernUI apps on any architecture. MS just chose to be a pain by naming their implementation of the runtime and an O/S to support it in ARM WinRT too. Win8 is basically a new UEFI native version of Win7 with the WinRT environment replacing the start menu (hence 'ver' reporting 6.2 at the command prompt)

WinRT is the API.
Windows RT is os implementation of windows on ARM.

The Anand article is very good especially the final paragraph discussing Xbox as a platform independent of hardware as the future of windows, surface and Xbox. More about the cloud would have been helpful.

 

[ZiGgY]

With game developers shifting more and more traditional CPU tasks to the GPU, Sony has a clear and present advantage with those 6 extra CU's..especially when both have the same CPU, so the 'One' won't have any backup plan to let the CPU take the strain.

1st party games on either machine will look good i suppose, but 3rd party stuff on the PS4 will have the potential to power past Microsofts box...if the devs can be bothered to take advantage of the extra juice available to them.

 

[Cjail]

Was the 7GB for games already confirmed for PS4, or just speculation? I can't remember.

Nothing is official on that side.

 

[DJ12]

If both consoles are easy to work with then its going to be easy for devs to go for gold on both.

Xbox one will be able to run exactly the same game as ps4. Some of us will care about 1080p v 720p but on tv it will be hard to see the difference and in the real world little Johnny will not give a hoot when hes given an xbox for christmas.

Xbox one will run into difficulty when a dev targets 720p on ps4 as it wont have anywhere to go.

In response to l.c.d. is it likley with both being similar? And even so how long do we think ubi/ea/Activision keep their games to the lcd when exclusives make them look like games from different generations?

 

[loekf]

I think that the eSRAM/whatever it is 40nm, and the rest is 28(?)nm.

Is it actually ESRAM = Embedded Static RAM on the same APU die, eDRAM = Embedded DRAM on
the same die or just a naked DRAM die slapped on a laminate/PCM with the main die (= APU) inside a
single package.

So a MCM like Nintendo is doing, or e.g. Intel with Haswell.

If you have a 300 mm2 SoC I would say that any big embedded memory is killing for yield.

Guess we'll only know once the thing is available or proper teardowns have been done.

 

[dagamer]

Good overview article over on AnandTech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6972/xbox-one-hardware-compared-to-playstation-4

 

[Gubbi]

I can't wait for the lazy devs excuses when XB1 is within 25% of PS4 in games

Cheers

 

[SKYSONY]

I find a bit weird that MS has not bettered the PS4 specs, specially when MS has a lot of money to invest in hardware. After all, the vgleaks specs were true for both consoles, and the difference is there not only on GPU performance (50% advantage for PS4), but also on RAM bandwidth and OS requirments, which will even widen the difference more.

I think during the E3 we will see the difference between the exclusives titles.