Now that both machines have laid out their innards for all to see, which next gen console is more powerful and how can you tell?
Sony has finally revealed some concrete details about the PlayStation 5 and although there’s still no clue what games are coming out for it, how much it will cost, or what it will look like we do know what powers it.
The two sets of stats below are the best way to compare the systems, although it’ll take quite the tech expert to work out what all of it means.
The fact that quite a lot of the numbers on the Xbox Series X’s size of the fence are bigger seems to give it the advantage though and will no doubt keep Internet arguments going from now until the next next gen.
PS5 tech specs
CPU: 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.5GHz (variable frequency)
GPU: 10.28 TFLOPs, 36 CUs at 2.23GHz (variable frequency)
GPU Architecture: Custom RDNA 2
Memory/Interface: 16GB GDDR6/256-bit
Memory Bandwidth: 448GB/s
Internal Storage: Custom 825GB SSD
IO Throughput: 5.5GB/s (raw), typical 8-9GB/s (compressed)
Expandable Storage: NVMe SSD slot
External Storage: USB HDD support
Optical Drive: 4K UHD Blu-ray Drive
The real takeaway though, as expected, is that most of the details seem to be largely the same and you’re probably only looking at a small difference in performance between the two.
The most important factor to bear in mind though is that tech specs often mean little when it comes to the real world and it’s the ease with which developers can harness the power that’s most important.
This has led, in previous generations, to consoles that are more powerful on paper often having inferior versions of multiformat games.
Xbox Series X tech specs
CPU: 8x Cores @ 3.8 GHz (3.6 GHz w/ SMT) Custom Zen 2 CPU
GPU: 12 TFLOPS, 52 CUs @ 1.825 GHz Custom RDNA 2 GPU
Die Size: 360.45 mm2
Process: 7nm Enhanced
Memory: 16 GB GDDR6 w/ 320b bus
Memory Bandwidth: 10GB @ 560 GB/s, 6GB @ 336 GB/s
Internal Storage: 1 TB Custom NVME SSD
I/O Throughput: 2.4 GB/s (raw), 4.8 GB/s (compressed, with custom hardware decompression block)
Expandable Storage: 1 TB Expansion Card (matches internal storage exactly)
External Storage: USB 3.2 External HDD Support
Optical Drive: 4K UHD Blu-Ray Drive
Performance Target: 4K @ 60 FPS, Up to 120 FPS
Whether that will happen this time or not remains to be seen though, and certainly both companies are promising that their format will be the most developer-friendly of the pair.
Although what would be really helpful at this point is if we could see some actual games, so we might tell with our own eyes what all these numbers really add up to.
Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, and follow us on Twitter
MORE: PS5 will be backwards compatible with top 100 PS4 games at launch
MORE: PS5 will load games in just one second as Sony reveals full tech specs
MORE: PS5 and Xbox Series X may be delayed till 2021, says analyst
