The year 2020 is all about powerful hardware and Sony’s upcoming gaming console sure is packing some serious specifications. The company revealed the official specification of the PS5 at an event streamed online.
The PS5 is a significant upgrade over the PS4 Slim and the Pro in terms of specifications, but does it stand shoulder to shoulder against its rival from Microsoft, the Xbox Series X?
Here’s a quick comparison between the two and what they offer.
Design
Sony has taken the wraps off the design of the PS5 so there is still ambiguity around what the final console would look like.
However, there have been several renders that have surfaced online which suggest that the new Sony console is going to sport a design completely different from the standard rectangular design philosophy we have seen to date.
Here’s what Twitterati thinks the new PS5 will look like:
Sony has confirmed that the console will be launching during the holiday season this year.
The Xbox Series X is nothing like its previous generation consoles and sports an upright tower design which comes with an air vent at the top with circular mesh. It’s currently been seen in an all-black avatar, but we might also get to see it in white.
It comes with a physical eject button and the controller is strikingly similar to the older version of the console.
It is also said that the PS5 could be a bit smaller compared to the current generation Xbox.
Hardware
The big difference in terms of performance is the fact that the new PS5 comes with an AMD-based Zen 2 processor clocked at 3.5Ghz which is relatively slower compared to the eight-core 3.8Ghz AMD processor on the Xbox.
They both take advantage of the 8-core 16-thread Ryzen processor. So again, very similar to high-end Ryzen.
The only major difference is that the Xbox can clock a little bit higher at 3.8Ghz. However, with simultaneous multithreading, the CPU clock drops to 3.6Ghz so there’s hardly a difference in performance.
Both the consoles come with 16GB GDDR5 RAM. However, the PS5 is still almost 20 percent slower than the Xbox Series X and likely could fall even lower as the Xbox has a wider memory bus and because of that 10 gigs of their 16GB of RAM run at 560 Gb/s, which is slightly faster than what you get on PS5 which runs 448 Gb/s.
Graphics & Performance
Both the consoles come with AMD’s RDNA 2 GPUs where the Xbox graphics performance.
Sony has customised its GPU which provides 10.28 teraflops of power with 36 compute units (CU) running at 2.23GHz each while Microsoft’s graphics unit can achieve 12 teraflops of power with 52 CUs at 1.825GHz each.
To sum up, the performance of the Xbox Series X has been confirmed to go up to 12 teraflops while the PS5 can go up to 10.8 teraflops. You also need to know that the Xbox will be consuming more power considering its architecture and requirements.
Both have also introduced ray-tracing technology which enhances the graphics and overall gameplay by folds. Both will offer support for HDR and 8K gaming.
Both have also talked about offering back-compatibility. However, with the PS5 you’ll only be able to play games post the PS3 generation.
Storage
The PS 5 has an 825 GB SSD which is a very strange number, although it's not a standard SSD built into the PS5. Essentially they've done everything they can to customise it to be as quick as possible so that game-loading times can be reduced and you also get bigger worlds in the game. This could also mean better detailing for the game as you have so much power to use.
What is going to be a struggle is attaching expandable storage which is going to a problem with Sony initially due to limited options.
The Xbox comes with 1TB SSD storage and the company is also offering compatible modular expansion storage which you can directly purchase from Microsoft.
Price
Considering that cloud gaming services like Google Stadia and even Microsoft’s Project X Cloud are options many would like to consider it is going to be key how Sony and Microsoft price their respective gaming consoles.
At present, a Google Stadia starter pack costs $130 with a 10 months subscription pack. This service offers games at 4K with cloud storage bundled in the package. Project X Cloud service is also expected to float around the same price.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)