The upcoming PlayStation 5’s specs were announced at the “Road to PS5” developer conference yesterday, making it possible to compare the hardware to the known hardware of the Xbox Series X.
CPU Winner: Tied
The PS5 features an 8x Zen 2 Core CPU at 3.5GHz at variable frequency, while the Xbox Series X features the same CPU at a higher clock speed of 3.8GHz. Technically, the faster the clock speed is, the more efficient the other components, like GPU and RAM. That said, this platform represents a major step up for console gaming across the board, so the clock speed becomes less important.
GPU Winner: AMD
Both the Xbox Series X and PS5 run on AMD’s Custom RDNA 2 graphics platform, which means AMD is the real winner here – being the sole supplier. The outputs are slightly different though, with the Xbox maxing at 12 Teraflops, while the PlayStation maxes out at 10.28 Teraflops. On a very basic level, the Xbox Series X theoretically runs games at a higher resolution with a higher framerate.
The PS5 also has less Compute Units (CUs), at 36 CUs, while the Xbox Series X has 52 CUs. The real catch is the PS5’s CUs can push out more processing than the CUs on the Xbox. On both systems, the graphical output is expected to be extremely high.
RAM Winner: Xbox Series X
While both systems feature 16GB of GDDR6 memory, the Xbox Series X houses a 320-bit bus, while the PS5 features a 256-bit bus. This means the Xbox can transfer more data per cycle, which means more can be put through to memory at a time.
SSD Winner: PS5
One of the biggest advantages of the PS5 is it’s custom-designed I/O. The new PCI Express 4.0 standard enables the new PlayStation to transfer a whopping 5.5GB of data per second, which is much higher than that of the Xbox’s 2.4GB per second. This may translate to faster load times on the PS5. Both of these speeds are a huge step up from the previous generation, meaning that the PS5 will probably have no loading time on games while the Xbox Series X will have virtually no loading time.
Verdict: Get the console that has your titles
Because these consoles are nearly identical with their specs, it only makes sense to get the console for the games you love. That means getting a PlayStation if you love the Uncharted, Spiderman, or God of War games. The same goes for getting an Xbox if you love the Halo, Gears of War, or Forza games. Either console you pick, the next generation will very much be worth it.