Microsoft announced the specifications of its new Xbox Series X on Monday. Sony followed up on Wednesday with more details about the PlayStation 5. The competing consoles should hit the market around the holidays.
If you compare the details of the new Xbox and PlayStation side by side, you will see that the two game consoles on paper are more similar than their predecessors. However, there are other differences between the consoles. These are the specifications of both game consoles:
Xbox Series X
- CPU: Zen 2 (AMD) with 8 cores at 3.8 GHz (3.6 GHz with SMT)
- GPU: 12 teraflops, 52 cu’s at 1.825 GHz
- Memory: 16 GB GDDR6 with a 320-bit memory bus
- Bandwidth: 10 GB at 560 GB / s, 6 GB at 336 GB / s
- Storage capacity: 1 TB
- SSD bandwidth: 2.4 GB / s (raw), 4.8 GB (compressed)
- Performance target: 4K at 60 fps, up to 120 fps
–
–
–
PlayStation 5
- CPU: Zen 2 (AMD) with 8 cores at 3.5 GHz (SMT support unclear)
- GPU: 10.28 teraflops, 36 cu’s at 2.23 GHz
- Memory: 16 GB GDDR6 with a 256-bit memory bus
- Bandwidth: 448 GB / s
- Storage capacity: 825 GB
- SSD bandwidth: 5.5 GB / s (raw), 9 GB / s (compressed)
- Performance target: 4K at 60 fps, up to 120 fps
–
–
–
Cheat sheet for definitions
- The CPU (processor) is the hardware required to execute instructions. The stronger, the faster a computer can perform tasks. The clock speed is expressed in a maximum number of GHz.
- SMT stands for simultaneous multithreading. This is a technique that allows a CPU to work more efficiently, because several tasks can be performed simultaneously.
- The GPU (graphics processor) is aimed at displaying video images, which plays a major role in gaming. The computing power is expressed in teraflops.
- The GPU is made up of a number compute units (cu’s): more of these calculation parts in the processor offers games more possibilities, but with less it is possible to achieve a higher speed (in GHz).
- The type memory in both consoles is a so-called SG computer memory (SGRAM).
- Memory performance is expressed in bandwidth: the speed at which data can be processed by a processor, expressed in GB per second.
- The storage capacity says something about how much space is available on the solid state drive (SSD), for example to store games.
- The SSD also has one bandwidth, similar to what happens on the RAM. Compressing data makes files smaller, making processing faster.
- It performance target says something about the maximum visual experience. A 4K resolution offers about four thousand pixels in width, making the image sharper than, for example, 1080p. The refresh rate of the image is expressed in frames per second (fps).
A side note to be made is that manufacturers share their maximum specifications on paper. That means that in practice it remains to be seen how the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5 differ in different games. A game developer can use the hardware of a game computer in different ways, for example by choosing less cu’s, but a higher speed.
Both the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 are expected to go on sale around the holidays. Both Microsoft and Sony have not yet announced how expensive the two consoles are.
– .
