Technical Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox

[almighty]

Would you say the set-up inside of the Xbox one is "more" or "less" efficient then necessary? given the size of the console.

If both Sony and Microsoft are using the same architecture (but with Sony's the only ones with higher clock speeds.) then why is Microsoft using a massive set-up?

1. You can't even begin to compare the 2 heat sinks because in order to compare the efficiency of them you would have to test them on the same processor while measuring the load temperatures with each of them, that is never going to happen.

2. You can have a small heat sink out perform a large one if it's designed right.

3. We don't know just how much heat they both put out,

4. It could just be a point that Microsoft wanted to avoid another RROD so over compensated on the thermals

5. They both run at the same clock speeds, 1.6Ghz CPU and 800Mhz GPU.

Sony have always been good when it comes to heat sinks and thermals...

 

[Rangers]

my guess is microsoft is singing and dancing with weak hardware for the time being (as they might not have a choice) and at the same time letting developers like Remedy and Crytek run wild on stage with target in game graphics.

Predictable enough. I saw and predicted this sort of damage control coming for ,months. Heck you could see it in the gaffer psuedo-insiders and their nonsense tales of "7970 early Durango dev kits, that's why the E3 software might look great, but it will be downgraded!!!111" well before e3 ever happened.

I dont know, I could just see this coming, It just doesn't fit the narrative, does it

Also for all these size comparisons, they're all bunk, the dimensions of XB1 have not been revealed. At best this is some gaffer fanboy cludge based on DVD tray size and I guarantee he's not doing Xbox any favors, purposefully.

In some pictures Xbo-1 looks pretty small.

Hell have PS4 dimensions even been revealed, and can you link them?

Also, there's the quiet factor, Xbo is using a giant 120mm fan. Maybe it's really quite, you know all the input one TV crap at play they want it to be extremely unobtrusive.

 

[Brad Grenz]

Arkham origins was shown at the Sony Ps4 conference irrc

They showed it for PS3 at the Sony conference.

Hell have PS4 dimensions even been revealed, and can you link them?

They were listed in the official press release. http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/release/pdf/130611a_e.pdf

 

[blakjedi]

would you say the setup inside of the xbox one is "more" or "less" efficient then necessary? given the size of the console.

If both Sony and Microsoft are using the same architecture but with sony being the only ones with the higher clock speeds, then why is Microsoft using a massive setup?




that's what i was thinking, the placements of everything needs no 1 million dollar factory to replace or pluck out. the encasing of the xbox one is more than enough space for AMD to work with.

It may be possible that microsoft is just over preparing themselves so nothing ever goes into a wild outbreak. but everything looks like it was made to be displayed and possibly edit if necessary. (coupled with the lack of explaining the GPU or Tflops.)

also, if you listen to the spokes women from microsoft in their pre-E3 video a while back, they say the xbox one it's still a beta.......???? how can they say that when the box is already out the door and standing in front of millions of customers and in their hands?

my guess is microsoft is singing and dancing with weak hardware for the time being (as they might not have a choice) and at the same time letting developers like Remedy and Crytek run wild on stage with target in game graphics.

The teardowsn from anandtech are clearly beta. There is the mysterious port next to the LAN port which seems to be a modem port that was sealed off. There is no way xbox one is shipping with a modem port. Even the pCB wasnt final.

 

[blakjedi]

They showed it for PS3 at the Sony conference.







They were listed in the official press release. http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/release/pdf/130611a_e.pdf

Gotcha. My fault.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

1. You can't even begin to compare the 2 heat sinks because in order to compare the efficiency of them you would have to test them on the same processor while measuring the load temperatures with each of them, that is never going to happen.

2. You can have a small heat sink out perform a large one if it's designed right.

3. We don't know just how much heat they both put out,

True, it might also be that Sony's development Of PS4 is more nearing the end of it's testing; that they're certain they can squeeze it into the design. whereas with Microsoft everything is generalized so they can work easier with more space if necessary.

4. It could just be a point that Microsoft wanted to avoid another RROD so over compensated on the thermals

An other possibility, i too also thought about that.

5. They both run at the same clock speeds, 1.6Ghz CPU and 800Mhz GPU.

That's even more closer than i thought it would be.

Sony have always been good when it comes to heat sinks and thermals...

true.

Predictable enough. I saw and predicted this sort of damage control coming for ,months. Heck you could see it in the gaffer psuedo-insiders and their nonsense tales of "7970 early Durango dev kits, that's why the E3 software might look great, but it will be downgraded!!!111" well before e3 ever happened.

I dont know, I could just see this coming, It just doesn't fit the narrative, does it

well, in Microsoft's case, they showed off the console and let people rip it open and were ok with it.

The reason why i think they're ok with letting people rip the console apart is probably because the setup is a dud. according to real demonstrations, the xbox one is barely even functional.

All microsoft has to really say is that they changed some stuff and still show the same console. it's as simple as them saying its got "HDMI now".

To Microsoft's prospective all that matters to them is that they showed the console and the games that go along with it. if the console was really finished it would be on shelves right now.

 

[AlphaWolf]

The reason why i think they're ok with letting people rip the console apart is probably because the setup is a dud. according to real demonstrations, the xbox one is barely even functional.

All microsoft has to really say is that they changed some stuff and still show the same console. it's as simple as them saying its got "HDMI now".

To Microsoft's prospective all that matters to them is that they showed the console and the games that go along with it. if the console was really finished it would be on shelves right now.

False. There is a difference between having working hardware and having retail hardware and retail levels of inventory of that hardware.

 

[ERP]

They almost certainly had working silicon in small quantities around Xmas, and even that is cutting it close to launch in November. People really underestimate how much work there is in the system software and the services side of consoles.
MS have made this at least twice as hard because they have two operating systems and a hyper visor to get running, along with all the development tools.

Once they had running hardware it would have been iterations on the design, predominantly to fix bugs in the silicon, I don't have any insight into how many silicon versions MS have made. MS traditionally uses the same board design for both devkits and retail units.

Final devkits are based on retail silicon and your lucky if you see those before the platform ships, but the devkits based on earlier silicon are identical except for you hope a few minor hardware bugs that need to be worked around (usually in the system software).

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

False. There is a difference between having working hardware and having retail hardware and retail levels of inventory of that hardware.

Even still, the development of the console hasn't even hit retail yet. it's claimed to still be a beta by microsoft employees and developers.

Edit- In my opinion, It's possible for microsoft to change because they have a generic layout coupled with plenty of space to work with. In comparison to sony which shared fixed numbers and a small console.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Can anyone tell me why the slightly bigger size is a problem? It's not like you're gonna hold it in your hands while gaming, and I have a hard time imagining a room where it can't fit...

Also, the PS4 has much more depth, which could actually cause slightly more trouble if you look at furniture designed for flat TVs and such.

 

[Rangers]

They were listed in the official press release. http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/release/pdf/130611a_e.pdf

hmm

Approx. 275×53×305 mm (width × height × length)
(tentative, excludes largest projection)

but thx for link.

but it still doesn't solve problem of not knowing xbo dimensions. there's a few pics were it looks almost diminutive. Like this one

 

[DrJay24]

but it still doesn't solve problem of not knowing xbo dimensions. there's a few pics were it looks almost diminutive.

Well that is not a complete XB1, you are missing a piece

The estimate for the XB1 is fairly accurate, they released high def shots from all sides and there are standard ports to extrapolate from. The error can't be too large.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

Well that is not a complete XB1, you are missing a piece

The estimate for the XB1 is fairly accurate, they released high def shots from all sides and there are standard ports to extrapolate from. The error can't be too large.

even if the dimensions of the xbox one are not 100% on the dime, the fan and heatsink says enough. they have enough room to put that in.

 

[Strange]

I remember somewhere before people talked about cooling solutions and they usually manage to do two of the three.

1. cheap
2. small
3. quiet

So far we know that it's small and by the pricing it's not too expensive.
I'd love to hear how quiet it may be and surprise us.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

I remember somewhere before people talked about cooling solutions and they usually manage to do two of the three.

1. cheap
2. small
3. quiet

So far we know that it's small and by the pricing it's not too expensive.
I'd love to hear how quiet it may be and surprise us.

If you're talking about xbox one's cooling solution being small i don't think so. It's as big as the blu-ray drive and 1/4th the case.

COPS N RAPPERS
Cage assured thats it all realtime and there some more tech details

that's very interesting. is there a link?

 

[Jwm]

I think the box on stage at the MS reveal was large to show up better on tv? Otherwise it has looked much smaller compared to that day.

I have it at 2.5 controllers wide, but the controller was offset forward in the picture making it hard to use. Not sure I like the USB method either, due to angle changes and maybe even camera distance changes.

I am thinking it will fit nicely on top of an av receiver. PS4 is going to hang off the back, so I will leave it vertical.

 

[Orion]

As Graham already pointed out, this is a totally ludicrous comparison and utterly invalid. Putting aside the fact that Crysis 1 is no-where near the most demanding game available today, and the fact that dual GPU's is a very sub optimal way of doubling GPU performance, there are still plenty of examples out there that will show greater than 80% scaling by going from 1 GPU to 2. In fact I think you must have had to hunt pretty hard to find an example that didn't directly disprove your point.

I'm not quite sure who you thought you were tryng to fool with that one.

So if the PS4 has 50% more CU's at the same clock speed then you can bet damn well that it'll have 50% more real world performance in purely compute limited scenario's. Obviously that won't translate to 50% more performance across the board as not every part of the system is 50% faster. In some cases it may actually be more (when setup or ROP limited) and others it may be less such as when bandwidth limited. But regardless, 50% more theoretical performance from one particular part of the system is going to result in 50% more real world performance from that particular part of the systsem when not limited by other parts.

Incidentally, PS4 doesn't seem like it has enough juice to take a 30fps Xbone game to 60fps or 720p to 1080p so I expect the improvements we see will be a little less straight forward. Perhaps a rock solid 30fps vs a shakey one. Or both consoles running 1080p but PS4 with some fancy shader based AA and Xbone with none. I'm sure there'll be subtle but consistent improvements in the core graphics as well, e.g. better shadows, draw distance, lighting etc... all pretty subtle though.

So I take it the rumors of the downclock remain in limbo?

 

[BeyondTed]

hmm

but thx for link.

but it still doesn't solve problem of not knowing xbo dimensions. there's a few pics were it looks almost diminutive. Like this one

Using a measurement of 5.75 inches off of a generic DVD drive width I get about 146 mm width for that heatsink/fan.

The front of that is in the same plane as the front of the heatsink so perhaps it is not distorted much in the photo.

For now that seems like an ok estimate until we get more solid info.

DVD disc is about 120mm, so seems to match up. Drive is a bit wider and heatsink is a bit wider still. Pretty big.

That seems like a way to get a calibrated ruler on the dimensions.

 

[(((interference)))]

I agree with interference, but that doesn't mean it comes without side benefits, such as the ones that sebbbi (iirc) outlined, where it could function as a large low latency cache for certain computations, where it could then outperform the PS4. Certainly enough though it will be a juggling act with helping keep the data flowing.

Yes, of course the ultra low latency ESRAM might let it do things that the PS4 can't, but it'll be like how the PS2 could outperform the Xbox 1 in things like transparencies, particles (or even geometry) but games generally looked better on Xbox.

We also have to remember that devs do not have any direct access to the hardware on XB1, now that's not going to be a big deal, but libGCM on PS4 might allow better utilisation of the hardware if devs choose to go down that route.

I wouldn't call the ESRAM a cache and I doubt MS is telling people to put the frame buffer in DDR3 unless you don't consider the G-buffer to be part of the frame buffer. On a forward renderer I expect the depth and color buffers to be in ESRAM.


It's far to early to tell who made the best decision as we don't know what GDDR5 and DDR3 prices will be over the lifetime of the console.

I'm saying performance wise the bet paid off (ie since GDDR5 ended up being cheap enough for Sony to include 8GB of it and still undercut MS on price). But yes, I have no idea who's BOM will end up being more expensive over the generation given MS is bundling Kinect and the 5bn transistor APU could have poor yields.

 

[blakjedi]

Yes, of course the ultra low latency ESRAM might let it do things that the PS4 can't, but it'll be like how the PS2 could outperform the Xbox 1 in things like transparencies, particles (or even geometry) but games generally looked better on Xbox.

We also have to remember that devs do not have any direct access to the hardware on XB1, now that's not going to be a big deal, but libGCM on PS4 might allow better utilisation of the hardware if devs choose to go down that route.

The gpu in the Xbox had capabilities well beyond the "Reality Engine" in ps2. Not an accurate comparison. The featureset of both system gpus is the same. PS4 can do more but not better.