The day we've waited for is finally here. While there's no revelation of the actual console design or gameplay, Sony's Mark Cerny did talk in detail about the internal architecture of the PlayStation 5. For this generation, Sony is focusing on a different approach to core clocks, improvements brought forth by AMD's RDNA 2 GPU, the SSD and expandable storage, and the Tempest 3D audio engine. We will discuss all those points in related articles but first, here are the specs.
Component | Xbox Series X | PlayStation 5 | PlayStation 4 |
---|---|---|---|
CPU | 8x Zen 2 cores at 3.8 GHz (3.66 GHz with SMT) | 8x Zen 2 cores at 3.5 GHz (variable frequency) | 8x Jaguar cores at 1.6 GHz |
GPU | Custom RDNA 2, 12.15 TFLOPs, 52 CUs at 1.825 GHz | Custom RDNA 2, 10.28 TFLOPs, 36 CUs at 2.23 GHz (variable frequency), | Custom GCN, 1.84 TFLOPs, 18 CUs at 800 MHz |
RAM | 16 GB GDDR6 | 16 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR5 |
Memory Bandwidth | 10 GB at 560 GB/s, 6 GB at 336 GB/s | 448 GB/s | 176 GB/s |
Storage | Custom 1 TB NVMe SSD and optional 1 TB expansion card; USB 3.2 storage support | Custom 825 GB SSD and expansion slot for external NVMe SSD; USB storage | 500 GB HDD; USB storage |
I/O Throughput | 2.4 GB/s raw, 4.8 GB/s compressed | 5.5 GB/s raw, 8-9 GB/s compressed | 50-100 MB/s |
Optical Drive | 4K UHD Blu-ray drive | 4K UHD Blu-ray drive | Blu-ray drive |
So, on paper, the Microsoft Xbox Series X appears to be the more powerful of the two. But specs alone aren't indicative of the complete picture. For instance, the TFLOPs difference between the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5 is about 1.8, which is actually a full PlayStation 4 no less. Also, the Series X has 44% more ray tracing hardware than the PS5 albeit at lower clocks. This means Microsoft can emphasize more on real time path tracing while Sony looks more towards global illumination.
Ultimately, it depends on how well developers can make use of the extra TFLOPs in the Xbox Series X. Until we see actual games in action, spec sheets can only tell half the story.
Source(s)
PlayStation 5 Live Stream