Sony finally gave us some details on the PlayStation 5 from a live stream by Mark Cerny earlier this week, and a lot of fans are either mixed on the details revealed or disappointed. This is not to say that the PS5 is a weak console by any means. It’s the most powerful and technologically advanced device Sony has made yet. Despite this, though, the PS5 and Xbox Series X are quite different in many ways.
You can check out the full Reveal video below.
The main differences between the consoles can be found in their variation of CPU, GPU, and SSD speed. Different as they are, they are still pretty close.
The Xbox Series X has a better advantage to Sony in terms of GPU speeds at 12 TFLOPs, 52 CUs at 1.825GHz, compared to the PS5’s 10.28 TFLOPs, 36 CUs at 2. 23GHz. The Xbox’s GPU has more computing speed, but the PS5 runs at a much higher frequency at 2.23GHz, pushing out more processing than the Xbox Series X. Storage-wise, both consoles are close while using NVME SSD storage, the Xbox Series X has an internal storage of 1TB and the PS5 has a lesser Custom 825GB.
The CPU runs vary very slightly to one another, but the Xbox Series X gets the advantage in this regard as well, clocking 3.8GHz frequency compared to Sony’s 3.6GHz. This barely matters though, as both consoles utilize the power of Zen 2 CPUs, which are quite high-end and much better than what we have in our consoles today.
The PS5 also has a significant advantage over the Xbox Series X in terms of I/O throughput though, as it uses the PCI Express 4.0 data interface with a stunning 5.5GB per second of information which the Xbox Series X only does at 2.4GB per second. Less than half of what the PS5 is capable of. This is important at it will determine how fast worlds will be able to render or load around the player and drastically reduce overall load times.
The image of an in-depth comparison between the two consoles can be found below
It’s all good to compare specs of the Xbox Series X vs PlayStation 5, But when it comes down to it, what really matters is the content available and how well each console will be able to enhance the experience of a game, which includes increasing the level of immersion older consoles weren’t able to.
For now, we still are yet to know some crucial details, such as how the PS5 looks, for instance, as it seems Sony isn’t ready to show us the design just yet. We’re also unsure of the pricing of these consoles, which is important, as this will be a significant factor in the decision for many players.
A fact we do know, however, is that both Sony and Microsoft have confirmed backwards compatibility support on the next-gen consoles. The Xbox Series X promises “four generations of content, better than you’ve ever seen them before.” Meaning the console will be able to play games from the Xbox One, Xbox 360 and the original Xbox as well. While Sony recently confirmed the PS5 would be able to play games from the PS4 era, they sadly have not mentioned if it would support backwards compatibility from the previous consoles as well.
Finally, we know of some games coming to both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, but we haven’t seen them in action as of yet. It would be great to know how changes in framerates, load times, and the promised ray tracing would reflect on some of these games announced.
It’s also worthy to note that exclusive titles will be another major selling factor for these consoles and is something Sony has used to its advantage many times.
With a new generation of consoles, comes many new advances in gaming and many new experiences each game can provide. We can see the prospects of more depth in gameplay, more lifelike characters, and much smoother graphics.
Either way, both consoles will launch this holiday 2020 with Sony and Microsoft no doubt releasing more details before then.
