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EDGE: "Power struggle: the real differences between PS4 and Xbox One performance"

Vizzeh

Banned
We might see a $50 price drop come E3 and a Kinect free version at $400

I personally dont think they will drop Kinect bundle, have seen so many quotes from Microsoft on why they think the success to kinect is paramount to it shipping with every console so the install base is there, dont forget microsoft are not just counting on kinect adaptation for next GEN consoles, but they have visions of capitalizing on hospitals, business conferences etc.

I do think the price drop will come down the line as they re-negotiate with AMD etc and the price of silicon drops or they refine + get better yields etc.
 
I personally dont think they will drop Kinect bundle, have seen so many quotes from Microsoft on why they think the success to kinect is paramount to it shipping with every console so the install base is there, dont forget microsoft are not just counting on kinect adaptation for next GEN consoles, but they have visions of capitalizing on hospitals, business conferences etc.

I do think the price drop will come down the line as they re-negotiate with AMD etc and the price of silicon drops or they refine + get better yields etc.

Nintendo dropped the 3D from the DS to save some bucks, it's not like there are that many Kinect2 exclusive games.
 

Jack cw

Member
Another generation of forced parity?

Well at least higher res or less frequent frame drops on PS4, I guess.
Wat?
Xbox > NGC > PS2
360 > PS3
PS4 > Xbone
in terms of multiplats. Most of them showed some muscle on the strongest system. Nothing was forced and it wont be forced this time. Developers use what they can.
 
Something that has bothered me in that comparison, can anyone explain it?
So apparently the XBO would only be able to handle games at 900p@20FPS while PS4 would be able to do 1080p@30FPS.
The difference between 900p and 1080p is 44% and the difference between 20FPS and 30FPS is 50%, multiplying that, it ends up with 116% no?

I'm sorry but how is 40-50% paper spec advantage ends up with 116% difference in running real world applications?

This doesn't make any sense to me at all.

It actually says 900p@ 20 something Fps nor specifically 20
 

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
What how is it? Its based on latency that has been discussed a million times in this thread. About GDDR5 v DDR3 and how they perform on the same family of Radeon cards (Like the X1 and PS4) - Bit of an exageration there

Not really, it should give you a good idea what difference the PS4 ram will have between Xbone.

Should make MS poop their pants.

You'd be absolutely right if it weren't for how wrong you are.

The video in particular is 100% relevant to the conversation.

Yes but:-

1. None of those cards have esram. I know it gets a lot of stick on this board but it will make a difference in real world performance if used correctly for Xbox One.
2. The memory interfaces to the Xbox One and PS4 are different to these mobile devices.
3. The GPU driver on the consoles will be different and highly optimised for the individual processors. GPU driver can make a huge difference in performance.
4. The games will be written to take advantage of the unique strengths of the consoles.

This is why comparing those two mobile GPU's is totally irrelevant to the real world performance of the GPU's in the new consoles.
 

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
"brings the systems into balance"
he used the terms essentially implied they are equal

No. It's clever marketing speak which enables you to confer your own meaning on the sentence.
 
Yes but:-

1. None of those cards have esram. I know it gets a lot of stick on this board but it will make a difference in real world performance if used correctly for Xbox One.
2. The memory interfaces to the Xbox One and PS4 are different to these mobile devices.
3. The GPU driver on the consoles will be different and highly optimised for the individual processors. GPU driver can make a huge difference in performance.
4. The games will be written to take advantage of the unique strengths of the consoles.

This is why comparing those two mobile GPU's is totally irrelevant to the real world performance of the GPU's in the new consoles.

agree. these consoles aren't floating GPU's in a box. they both have a ton of optimizations that render their real world performance completely distinct from an off the shelf graphics card running benchmark software.
 

dreamfall

Member
I'm getting a PS4 at launch.

But what the hell is? Who are these representatives/contacts they keep mentioning in their article without any citation?

Game journalism is utter shit. If they could've substantiated the claims even in the slightest with names/references of their contacts, maybe I could actually give some belief to this.
 

Freshmaker

I am Korean.
I'm getting a PS4 at launch.

But what the hell is? Who are these representatives/contacts they keep mentioning in their article without any citation?

Game journalism is utter shit. If they could've substantiated the claims even in the slightest with names/references of their contacts, maybe I could actually give some belief to this.
Reporting from sources all under NDA's makes that rather difficult.
 
I'm getting a PS4 at launch.

But what the hell is? Who are these representatives/contacts they keep mentioning in their article without any citation?

Game journalism is utter shit. If they could've substantiated the claims even in the slightest with names/references of their contacts, maybe I could actually give some belief to this.

It's like that everywhere. See Iphone rumors or espn "rumors"
 

Mandoric

Banned
1. None of those cards have esram. I know it gets a lot of stick on this board but it will make a difference in real world performance if used correctly for Xbox One.

eSRAM isn't a magic wand. If intelligently managed it should supplement some, not all, of the memory performance gap (remember, even if it's running at the purported 200 GB/s plus speeds, only half of that each is available for reads and writes.) But it doesn't do a thing about the gap in actual processing power.
 
I'm getting a PS4 at launch.

But what the hell is? Who are these representatives/contacts they keep mentioning in their article without any citation?

Game journalism is utter shit. If they could've substantiated the claims even in the slightest with names/references of their contacts, maybe I could actually give some belief to this.

So I guess when the Washington Times used anonymous sources during the Watergate scandal they were 'utter shit' too? Reputable publications can use sources that are anonymous.
 

dreamfall

Member
Edge's sources on PS4 specs were pretty accurate before the reveal.

I believe it. I'm sure they were more than legit.

But does that qualify every new article published to fall back on game developers/contacts without giving any evidence? There are no standards for this shit.

I want to believe. I'm sure there are major console differences, I'm sure they'll lead to poorer multiplatform title parity. But anytime an article goes up like this, I'd like a name or something of who these people are. Anything.
 

dreamfall

Member
So I guess when the Washington Times used anonymous sources during the Watergate scandal they were 'utter shit' too? Reputable publications can use sources that are anonymous.

You're right- anonymous sources can qualify. It's just hard to read. Maybe I'm inflecting my own ideas on how I'd like to give credence to the claims, which isn't right either.

But I still would love to know who the developers are- maybe in an edit, after the systems come out.
 

TechnicPuppet

Nothing! I said nothing!
Of course there are neutral developers who have came out in public and said there is little difference.

They are largely ignored.
 
It amazes me that this can be an argument.

It's accurate to say that both will feature some of the prettiest games in existence, and that PS4 has a sizable technical advantage. I mean purely GPU floppage is a similar difference between PS4 and One as One and WiiU. No matter the featureset advantage One theoretically has because of the fabled might of Direct X that leaves a fairly sizable capability gap. A gap that is in favor of PS4. Then you've got the memory architecture differences. Again in PS4's favor.

I don't see how One can be at parity with PS4 when you're talking about differences like that. Both based on similar GPU tech, one with just more. More CU's, more shader ops, more TMU's all the shiny bells and whistles that power the graphics engines of the new era. And faster memory to pull from.

I'm no rocket surgeon but its not like this isn't quantifiable. PR regardless. First generation where the technical differences among consoles launching in a similar timeframe are so stark... actually nix that part. Wii and PS3 difference was much larger.

Saying that we'll still see some of the prettiest games ever on One. We're talking a significant amount of power anyway. Even if it is muted in comparison to industry history.
 

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
It amazes me that this can be an argument.

It's accurate to say that both will feature some of the prettiest games in existence, and that PS4 has a sizable technical advantage. I mean purely GPU floppage is a similar difference between PS4 and One as One and WiiU. No matter the featureset advantage One theoretically has because of the fabled might of Direct X that leaves a fairly sizable capability gap. A gap that is in favor of PS4. Then you've got the memory architecture differences. Again in PS4's favor.

I don't see how One can be at parity with PS4 when you're talking about differences like that. Both based on similar GPU tech, one with just more. More CU's, more shader ops, more TMU's all the shiny bells and whistles that power the graphics engines of the new era. And faster memory to pull from.

I'm no rocket surgeon but its not like this isn't quantifiable. PR regardless. First generation where the technical differences among consoles launching in a similar timeframe are so stark... actually nix that part. Wii and PS3 difference was much larger.

Saying that we'll still see some of the prettiest games ever on One. We're talking a significant amount of power anyway. Even if it is muted in comparison to industry history.

I don't think any sane individual is saying that the performance is going to be the same. The debate is now how big a difference will it be.
 

Biker19

Banned
Wat?
Xbox > NGC > PS2
360 > PS3
PS4 > Xbone
in terms of multiplats. Most of them showed some muscle on the strongest system. Nothing was forced and it wont be forced this time. Developers use what they can.

This. Anyone who seriously believes that there will be plenty of multiplatform parity between both Xbox One & PS4 are delusional.

Multiplatform parity hasn't ever happened in any generation of consoles. Why would PS4 & Xbox One be different?
 

Duke2k

Neo Member
Hi everyone, this is my first post here. The debate is interesting, so here's my take.

I have read quite a few debates on GPU and RAM performance, but not so much on CPU. Now its understood that a PC cannot be compared to console, but we can be start somewhere. Here's a link showing how a 7870 performs as CPU varies:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-performance-comparison,3370-16.html

Now these are Tom's hardware CPU charts but fortunately were using a 7870 as GPU. If we take 3dmark11 as an example, it scales all the way from about 1700 to 6500 marks as the CPU gets better. Now the question where do we place the PS4 Jaguar on this? Well here's another link which tries to estimate the Jaguar performance

http://www.redgamingtech.com/amd-jaguar-ps4s-cpu-vs-pc-desktop/

He essentially estimates that a Jaguar would be about, very generously, 3600 passmarks. I don't know how passmark estimates or whether this equivalence is realistic, but still, the guy sounds reasonable. So take 3600 passmarks, and we can find that a i5-750s is about there(http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html).

Now see the 3dmark11 score of i5-750s in first link and you get a score of 4600 marks.

So for a PC with Jaguar CPU and 7870 we can estimate 4600 3dmarks. Considering that a 7870 scales all the way up 6500 marks, this is about 70% utilisation.

Now if you read statements that the CUs in PS4 are 14-4 split, 14 for Graphics usage and 4 for general (GPGPU stuff?), then this seems to make sense, i.e. rest of the PS4 hardware is not enough to push the GPU to the limit. Myabe its only enough to use 14 fully for graphics.

Coming Xbox One, MS says it has balanced hardware. How does this sound?
 

SapientWolf

Trucker Sexologist
Of course there are neutral developers who have came out in public and said there is little difference.

They are largely ignored.
They want pre-orders from people on both platforms, so if there's a significant performance gap their carefully worded PR would tiptoe around it.
 
Fathers who aren't gamers or tech enthusiasts? Probably the same as soccer moms and bored housewives.

this isn't the 80s. average console gamer age is somewhere between 35 and 40. 60-70% of men in this age range play games regularly. This is the generation that grew up on the NES, SNES, and Genesis. Bought and Played the PS1 in high school or college.

these are typically the people who have young kids now.

Dads of young kids who ARENT gamers (and yes, i'm including the madden/COD crowd in with this) are the minority. They're more likely to consider something that works for them AND their kids when buying a console for $400-500, not pick up whatever looked shiny on Ellen.
 

AgentP

Thinks mods influence posters politics. Promoted to QAnon Editor.
So we should only believe anonymous developers or 2nd party Sony developers who more than likely don't even have an XB1 devkit. Got it.

Believe who you want, but most devs are going to be diplomatic in public and make generic statements.
 

badb0y

Member
Hi everyone, this is my first post here. The debate is interesting, so here's my take.

I have read quite a few debates on GPU and RAM performance, but not so much on CPU. Now its understood that a PC cannot be compared to console, but we can be start somewhere. Here's a link showing how a 7870 performs as CPU varies:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-performance-comparison,3370-16.html

Now these are Tom's hardware CPU charts but fortunately were using a 7870 as GPU. If we take 3dmark11 as an example, it scales all the way from about 1700 to 6500 marks as the CPU gets better. Now the question where do we place the PS4 Jaguar on this? Well here's another link which tries to estimate the Jaguar performance

http://www.redgamingtech.com/amd-jaguar-ps4s-cpu-vs-pc-desktop/

He essentially estimates that a Jaguar would be about, very generously, 3600 passmarks. I don't know how passmark estimates or whether this equivalence is realistic, but still, the guy sounds reasonable. So take 3600 passmarks, and we can find that a i5-750s is about there(http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html).

Now see the 3dmark11 score of i5-750s in first link and you get a score of 4600 marks.

So for a PC with Jaguar CPU and 7870 we can estimate 4600 3dmarks. Considering that a 7870 scales all the way up 6500 marks, this is about 70% utilisation.

Now if you read statements that the CUs in PS4 are 14-4 split, 14 for Graphics usage and 4 for general (GPGPU stuff?), then this seems to make sense, i.e. rest of the PS4 hardware is not enough to push the GPU to the limit. Myabe its only enough to use 14 fully for graphics.

Coming Xbox One, MS says it has balanced hardware. How does this sound?
14+4 split was debunked I thought?

As for the utilization, consoles are a closed platform therefore they have optimizations that allows them to perform efficiently compared to PC counterparts.
 

Majanew

Banned
It amazes me that this can be an argument.

It's accurate to say that both will feature some of the prettiest games in existence, and that PS4 has a sizable technical advantage. I mean purely GPU floppage is a similar difference between PS4 and One as One and WiiU.

No.

Wii U GPU = 176 GFLOPS
Xbox One GPU = 1.31 TFLOPS
PS4 GPU = 1.84 TFLOPS
 

Tsundere

Banned
Of course there are neutral developers who have came out in public and said there is little difference.

They are largely ignored.

If you're only going to buy one of the consoles, especially only an XBOX ONE, why do you care about the power difference? To you, it would make no difference whatsoever since you'll only have the choice of buying games for one platform. Whether they are the inferior versions or not doesn't make a difference to you since you can only play that version.
 
I don't think any sane individual is saying that the performance is going to be the same. The debate is now how big a difference will it be.
Depending on the game I'd wager it could be quite large. The amount of raw data the PS4 will be pushing through at any given moment can be much higher than One. Devs will find something to fill it with even if in the end it just ends up being used for higher res textures. Or general texture and asset diversity.

Everything about the GPU and memory architecture gives PS4 an advantage. Raw capability advantage. One's pool of eSram could give it minor advantages in the area of transparencies and efficiency in other post processing effects. But we ain't talking large advantages either. And PS4 has simplicity in its favor. Just one large and fast pool of memory to flood data through instead of a memory subsystem to route through.

I'd wager the differences could end up being quite stark. Still not saying One won't have stunners. Just saying the truly impressive works will come easier and more commonly to PS4.

No.

Wii U GPU = 176 GFLOPS
Xbox One GPU = 1.31 TFLOPS
PS4 GPU = 1.84 TFLOPS
Right right sorry. The difference PS4 and One is half as large as the difference between One and WiiU
 
No.

Wii U GPU = 176 GFLOPS
Xbox One GPU = 1.31 TFLOPS
PS4 GPU = 1.84 TFLOPS
Wait... What? 176 GF??? Really? Not even 250 GF to top the 360???

So the difference between PS4 and the XBONE is Wii U + PS360 single precision performance! Wow! People were posting how ps4 has the power of all the consoles combined... Now I believe it!
 

TechnicPuppet

Nothing! I said nothing!
Well, in public, they have to make both companies happy. While under to cover of anonymity, though, developers can say what's really going on.

There is a problem when the only people we can believe are the ones talking about massive differences. Can you not see the inherent flaw here.

If you're only going to buy one of the consoles, especially only an XBOX ONE, why do you care about the power difference? To you, it would make no difference whatsoever since you'll only have the choice of buying games for one platform. Whether they are the inferior versions or not doesn't make a difference to you since you can only play that version.

Not sure what this has to do with what I said but in any case I am buying both.
 

KoopaTheCasual

Junior Member
So we should only believe anonymous developers or 2nd party Sony developers who more than likely don't even have an XB1 devkit. Got it.

Do you think there will actually be no difference? Even MS has skirted around the fact that there will be a discrepancy. What exactly is outlandish about a claim that the more powerful hardware yields the better unoptimized code? Seriously, I'm trying to understand people who want to talk down developer testimony.
 

Jonm1010

Banned
There is a problem when the only people we can believe are the ones talking about massive differences. Can you not see the inherent flaw here.



Not sure what this has to do with what I said but in any case I am buying both.

So on the one hand we have developers being diplomatic and saying safe things about te consoles and then on the other hand we have the specs and a not insignificant number of developers saying the ps4 is notably more powerful. But no one, not even Microsoft, trying to claim the xbone will outperform the ps4.

Yet you have been tying yourself in knots trying to claim what exactly? Do you honestly think there isn't a power difference between the two? Are you secretly thinking that somehow Microsoft, beyond all accounts we have, actually has the more powerful system or close too?

I'm just not understanding what is so controversial. We have the specs, we have developer info and by all knowledge we know the ps4 is anywhere from at a slight but likely noticeable advantage to a possibly strong advantage.
 
Do you think there will actually be no difference? Even MS has skirted around the fact that there will be a discrepancy. What exactly is outlandish about a claim that the more powerful hardware yields the better unoptimized code? Seriously, I'm trying to understand people who want to talk down developer testimony.

Deny what you don't like, accept what you do. That appears to be the approach of some in regards to this previously known, but recently confirmed power gap
 

KMS

Member
How much of the imagery for the XBO out there is from actual XBO hardware and not the pc dev kits? Can anyone point me to images or video that they know for sure comes from XBO hardware and not the PC kits we saw at E3?
 

tzare

Member
So we should only believe anonymous developers or 2nd party Sony developers who more than likely don't even have an XB1 devkit. Got it.
Maybe we should believe MS' PR or ignore the fact that ps4 has gpu with more punch as well a sensible advantage with ram speed.
 

Dukey

Banned
How much of the imagery for the XBO out there is from actual XBO hardware and not the pc dev kits? Can anyone point me to images or video that they know for sure comes from XBO hardware and not the PC kits we saw at E3?

Pretty much everything since E3 has been shown on Xbox One kits. There was even youtube footage of a kid playing Ryse in his home. Microsoft has had a few in-store demos using dev kits. They're not hiding anything.
 

TechnicPuppet

Nothing! I said nothing!
Do you think there will actually be no difference? Even MS has skirted around the fact that there will be a discrepancy. What exactly is outlandish about a claim that the more powerful hardware yields the better unoptimized code? Seriously, I'm trying to understand people who want to talk down developer testimony.

So on the one hand we have developers being diplomatic and saying safe things about te consoles and then on the other hand we have the specs and a not insignificant number of developers saying the ps4 is notably more powerful. But no one, not even Microsoft, trying to claim the xbone will outperform the ps4.

Yet you have been tying yourself in knots trying to claim what exactly? Do you honestly think there isn't a power difference between the two? Are you secretly thinking that somehow Microsoft, beyond all accounts we have, actually has the more powerful system or close too?

I'm just not understanding what is so controversial. We have the specs, we have developer info and by all knowledge we know the ps4 is anywhere from at a slight but likely noticeable advantage to a possibly strong advantage.

You are both putting a lot of words in my mouth, please don't.

I think(know) the PS4 is graphically more powerful but I think that this will result in minimal differences largely unnoticeable to the untrained eye. So basically what developers have said.
 

KMS

Member
Pretty much everything since E3 has been shown on Xbox One kits. There was even youtube footage of a kid playing Ryse in his home. Microsoft has had a few in-store demos using dev kits. They're not hiding anything.

Thanks
 
It amazes me that this can be an argument.

It's accurate to say that both will feature some of the prettiest games in existence, and that PS4 has a sizable technical advantage. I mean purely GPU floppage is a similar difference between PS4 and One as One and WiiU. wer anyway. Even if it is muted in comparison to industry history.

?

Xbox One has almost a Tflop advantage over the Wii U, not to mention the advantages everywhere else.
 
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