Orbis unmasked: what to expect from the next-gen PlayStation

Digital Foundry presents hard data on the technology inside Sony's new console... and its upcoming Xbox rival.

[TheGamerDood]

Yes! Bring on next-gen!

[Red_Orange_Juice]

excite \o/

[AsimLeonheart]

YEAH! Finally some solid and reliable information.

[deadpoole]

Well PS4 is going to be beast if given specs are true.

And about ppl confused/worrying about 4GB DDR5 vs 8GB DDR3 ... well lemme try to explain in this way.

Would u rather have 12 Cylinder 500Hp car or 8 Cylinder 1000Hp car for racing / performance / speed (exagerrated oversimplification).

The other thing you have to realize, with higher resolution texture even 8GB wouldn't be enough to buffer all the texture because if you might have seen ID5 Tech press conference where Carmack said that uncompressed megatexture file size for the demo was about in 10s of terabytes.

And following taken from Wikipedia about "id Tech 5" ...
"The initial demonstration of the engine featured 20 GB of texture data (using a more advanced MegaTexture approach called Virtual Texturing,[2] which supports textures with resolutions up to 128,000 × 128,000 pixels), and a completely dynamic and changeable world. This technique allows the engine to automatically stream textures into memory as needed, meaning that developers need not concern themselves with memory restraints or texture limits."

It seems that what we need is faster RAM (offering optimized buffering/caching/virtualised solution in sync with HardDisk for loading and offloading texture file) then the slower large size RAM because that will create a bottleneck and result in texture popups, lower draw distance, constant loading screens, frame hiccups etc (which I hate the most).

[darthv72]

Your "horsepower" POV seems more akin to the actual speed/performance of the cpu/gpu.

When looking at memory you have to think about storage. So it would be more like having a 4 passenger car vs an 8 passenger car.

The 8 passenger holds more in one trip but the 4 passenger would have to make two trips to move 8 passengers. It would just drive quicker to compensate for the lack of passenger room.

[Marquis_de_Sade]

"Would u rather have 12 Cylinder 500Hp car or 8 Cylinder 1000Hp car for racing / performance / speed (exagerrated oversimplification)"

You forgot to include daft and erroneous in those brackets there.

[nukeitall]

@darthv72:

It is actually far worse than that.

There is a magnitude of 1000 when going from RAM to hard disk (which is as fast as it gets when it comes to permanent storage these days).

That means if all the data fits in 3.5GB RAM then you will outperform others, but once you go past that 3.5GB RAM you will be severely hampered and significantly (think 100's of times slower) in getting more data.

This is a similar problem that the current PS3 has, with it's dedicated 256MB of graphics memory. It's way faster than the Xbox 360's 512 MB RAM, but PS3 still get plenty more texture popins than the Xbox 360 in games like Rage who uses mega textures and is a perfect example of this.

So who's got it right? How much RAM do you need to output native 1080p with all the glory. Keep in mind that this includes the OS, and all the other background stuff running, not just the graphics. As far as I can tell both uses a shared memory architecture.

@deadpoole:

"Would u rather have 12 Cylinder 500Hp car or 8 Cylinder 1000Hp car for racing / performance / speed (exagerrated oversimplification)."

That is a way oversimplification, but it depends. How far am I going, how much gas do I have and how gas efficient?

We all know, the more HP a car it is far more likely to use far more gas. You might just find yourself out of gas.

Point being, who (MS or Sony) has the distance guessed correctly?

Nobody knows until we are well into the next generation (or this generation if you count Wii U).

[1Victor]

d°0°b hell yeah 1080p 3D or so the rumors say

[deadpoole]

@darthv72

Well even your analogy (regarding 4 Passenger car vs 8 Passenger Car) further proves my above mentioned point regarding why 4Gb DDR5 is far more beneficial/superior then 8Gb DDR3.

First, 8 passenger car will be slow to the destination, second, only 4 persons will be able to get out of the car at any given time, time consumed for first four pasengers to get out, then remaining four passengers to get out (bottleneck) and after that slowly head back to pick 8 more people, time consumed to load 8 people , first four then second four (bottleneck) and then again slowly trasnport back to destination and repeat above process (texture popups, loading screens, frame hiccups etc).

Whereas 4 Passenger car, will be able to deliver 4 passengers much faster to destination, offload, once 4 passengers offloaded (no waiting there), will head back fast, pick another 4 (no waiting there), come back and offload. (thus in sync and continuous streaming process).

7970m GPU DDR5 RAM and Console RAM 4GB DDR5 has to match along with same memory interface width(which in case of orbis it does)

@nukeitall
"We all know, the more HP a car it is far more likely to use far more gas. You might just find yourself out of gas".
Well fuel over here is Electricity which is continuous, constant and available, unless there is a blackout or something, then there are far other real world important things to worry about then fuel for console lolllll.

Example check this video out.
This guy is having GTX470 1.28Gb GDDR5 Graphic Card and slower DDR3 Memory RAM ... this is exactly what you can expect from slower Memory RAM when data is transferred from slower DDR3 Memory RAM to faster DDR5 GPU RAM. (texture popups, loading screens, frame hiccups etc).

[ProjectVulcan]

According to these specs, PS4 will not be a beast. It seems the days of really cutting edge consoles are long gone. However it has a high chance of being the fastest console by a decent distance if thats what you worry about.

I said it wouldn't be a beast in the sense that the specs provided here suggest the machine will not actually be as fast as a 7970M either, detuned slightly. If the performance figures are remotely accurate, then something like a desktop Radeon 7850 @ 1.7 Tflops. I had mooted this sort of performance level in past comments....

This is plenty to give a pretty decent jump over PS3 and xbox 360, and also control costs quite well. But it would have no real hope of competing with a high end desktop PC, especially not by the time they arrive and PC hardware has moved on another step this summer.

Just under 2 teraflops, when the gigahertz edition 7970 pushes a solid 4 Tflops and the replacement for that due this summer most likely around 5-6 Tflops.

So it'll be fairly modest by the time it might launch. The advantage of being a closed platform so that developers can exploit the hardware better than PC will certainly still be there, but not to the effect of cancelling out that sort of performance gap. Potentially 1/3rd the performance of a high end single card by the autumn of 2013.

As long as it is enough for the developers really to do what they want to do and fulfil their ambitions and what they want from the next generation, that is the most important thing to them.

The other thing is just that it is affordable and sustainable as a platform and that is important to everyone as well.

So a beast? Not with these specs, but good enough? I would say so.

[AsimLeonheart]

Many people are comparing the RAM configurations of both consoles but one important thing that many are forgetting is the amount of RAM reserved for the OS. Orbis reserves only 512Mb of its 4Gb of GDDR5 RAM which is roughly 12.8% of the total RAM, whereas the Durango reserves 3Gb of its regular 8Gb of DDR3 RAM which is about 37.5% of the total RAM. Therefore the Orbis will have a higher ratio of RAM available to the developers.

[joab777]

You watch...It will be the same thing. The ps4 will boast better tech, but Durango will make up the difference with architecture. They will be very similar with PlayStation holding first party advantage and Xbox having the better multimedia. It just will. I work in a town that had 3 restaurants. While ours kicked everyone's ass, we were sad when one closed because it's bad for business in town as its a tourist area and a destination. Less to do = less ppl.Sony and Microsoft know this as does Nintendo. Nintendo likes having the lesser console that plays to children and non gaming adults. Sony and Microsoft don't want the other to have a huge advantage but they don't want to be too far ahead either. The antagonism plays well for both. Having both increases the popularity of consoles. If one is dominant, many of the other fanboys may go to PC, strengthening its hold. I may be wrong but it makes sense.

[ChrisW]

Let me explain really quick the biggest misconception that people are having about RAM here.

There is minimal to no difference between DDR3 and DDR5 in terms of clock speeds. You can count MHz and make the numbers look really big, but that's "millihertz"... meaning it's a very SMALL number.

[ABizzel1]

Once again "if this is true".

Then this is everything Next-gen should be. No one will be disappointed and the PS4 will be on par with mid-high PC's Day 1 (think look up 7970M, HD 7870, and HD 7950 for PS4 graphics comparisons if the rumors are true).

[tee_bag242]

I think some people are confusing the Laptop 7970m with the desktop 7970.
Both are great but totally different. 7970m is a mobility laptop gpu, a damn good one at that but it's not as powerful as a desktop. I'm not try to poo poo on the excitement here, but just so you know.

[ElectricKaibutsu]

I'm as excited as anyone for the PS4 to come out, but I'm confused. Since this is a rumor where's that little bar the top that let's you vote on whether or not it's true?

[TheGamerDood]

yo seriously I can't wait for them to debut the new hardware already so that we can move on to the most important thing...the games!

[nukeitall]

In the end it is an overall system of different parts i.e. the entire architecture. How do you make up for the deficiencies and did you anticipate correctly what will be more important. Basically, it is the entire architecture.

There are always trade-offs!

What worries me more is, why is MS demanding 3GBs of memory for OS, while Sony only 512MB?

Sony's OS is way more bloated at 48MB, while MS fits in 32MB on the PS3 and Xbox 360. The situation is that, PS3 can't get cross game chat because of this despite having more memory. Now the situation of memory capacity for OS is reversed?

So what features will be cut or missing next time? What features are MS thinking of that needs 3GB? Even a desktop OS doesn't need that much memory?

@vulcanproject:

One thing to keep in mind are the next generation consoles target a 1080p at 60fps maximum. Nobody is going to do anything more than that, even with 4k in mind. Why put money into something the vast majority can't tell the difference?

What percentage of people will or have a higher resolution TV?

In the olden days, before this crazy resolution war, any extra power would go straight to the screen and be noticeable. We are now at an incremental stage, where things start to be "good enough".

[nirwanda]

@deadpool so even by you example of rage more memory is more important as you could store compressed textures in memory instead of trying to stream them from a slow disk.
For example you could store hundreds gb of highly compressed textures to ram to be decompressed by the cpu core instead of trying to pull it off a disk.
Ram is a hell of a lot faster than any disk based streaming

[Saigon]

Nuke,

Maybe they are applying a form of mobile windows onto the Next XBox...

[hakis86]

I'm getting kind of hyped here right now!

[Saigon]

This is a true next gen rumor, in the fact that it gives massive details to every supposedly aspect of each of the systems; of course in comparison to the crap that was sent out yesterday...This article is a good read...

[imdaboss1]

Just looking forward to all Sony PS4 first party exclusive games!!

[lfclee]

Just checked wow twice the power of Nividia's current gen graphics cards wooooooow!

[landog]

ps4 and nextbox will both have laptop gpu's in them, they are nowhere near the power of a gtx680 (current high end pc card)

they will be able to run a game like bf3 on high in 1080p, vs. ps3/xbox360 running bf3 in the lowest possible settings at 704p and still having bad performance and jaggies and screen tearing

ps4/nextbox will be about on par with a 3 year old gaming pc, a HUGE upgrade from last gen ps3/360 which are about on par with a 7 year old gaming pc

[jmc8888]

Actually no it won't beat out Nvidia's 4XX series. Meanwhile by the time it comes out there will be a 7xx or 8xx out (depending on when it launches).

That's significantly slower.

Also the GTX 690 is the fastest, not 680.

Also on PC you can SLI them, so you can have 2x 690 or 3x 680. Which would destroy these rumored specs.

Hey it'll still be fun, but let's not get unrealistic

[juandren]

I'm a little disappointed about only 4GB on the Orbis, but isn't the difference between DDR3 and DDR5 the fact that DDR5 "quad-pumps" the data while DDR3 dual-pumps it? Combine that with the fact that we will be seeing higher clockspeeds with DDR5 and I reckon the RAM in the Orbis is indeed more powerful

[FGHFGHFGH]

Yea gddr5 does quad data rate. So a 1000mhz GDDR3 chip would be 2000mhz effective speed vs a 1000mhz GDDR5 at 4000mhz data rate.

[josephayal]

The PS3 can be considered next generation

[THC CELL]

Sorry ye wrong, but we are seeing a hint of next gen ai

[Eyeco]

people seriously need to stop over hyping TLOU I agree it looks bad ass and i'm looking forward to it as well, but there are other games to look forward to this year that some will also boast some nice graphics GOW 4, GTA V, GEOW4, MGS GZ, Watch Dogs, Beyond 2 souls, Bioshock Infinite. gheez

[FPStealthRPGamer]

7970M?
4GB of GDDR5?

So guys what do you think is better spec-wise;

Playstation Orbis with fast 4 GB GDDR5 Ram
OR
Durango's rumoured slower 8 GB GDDR3 for next-gen multiplatforms?

[wishingW3L]

more Ram is better than faster Ram in a traditional way. But if the Ram of the PS4 is not segmented like the PS3's then that could lead to faster loading times which is a plus. Because remember that a system works as fast as the slowest component in it.

But let me ad that an HD 7970M is an insanely powerful card for a console. I mean, the rumor from IGN suggested an HD 7670M which only has 480 pipelines but the HD 7970M has 1280 pipelines which is simply insane. It even surpasses the 800 I was expecting for next gen. With this that Samaritan demo is totally achievable in real-time on the PS4. This jump in specs is so huge it blows my mind if it's true because it'll be even bigger than going from PS2 to PS3.

[EL1TE]

I'll speak based on what happens on a PC, shouldn't be much different on a console.

It's true that more RAM is better, even if slower.

Low amount of RAM tends to cause stutter and huge pauses while playing and sometimes the system becomes unresponsive and takes some time to shutdown the game with ATL+F4 or bringing up task manager, which usually happens when you set game textures to the maximum settings.

The main problem with low RAM is that it limits the amount of things people can have opened, being it in-game (textures with higher quality) or 3rd party/system apps, such as voice chat and various stuff running at the same time (like updating games, having more than one game running at the same time without having to close them -- quick switch between games).

As for loading times, while it is true that RAM speed influences loading speed, what matters when it comes to loading is the CPU (processor) and mostly the hard drive.

For example, games these days use bigger sized textures, which not only takes a lot more RAM but increase a LOT the disk loading, an SSD makes an HUGE difference when compared to a normal hard drive, it pretty much removes all the stutter (slow pauses in-game), Skyrim started to be smooth and flows so well, MMORPGs (which loads a lot the disk even with low textures due to the amount of people running around), it's wonderful what an SSD does, i know some people tested SSDs on consoles and the improvements were not much, this is because the interface used was not SATA3 since that technology wasn't even available at that time, same for SATA2, which cuts the Reading/Writing speeds a LOT. The problem people might have with an SSD is that they are still a bit expensive.

[zebramocha]

@wishing google translate had similar specs,the difference was,it had an apu instead of a octo core CPU,the ram was 2Gb but devs wanted 4Gb.

[guitarded77]

More RAM is always great, but there are limitations on what is actually being used. The more important thing is the processor. The article says "feature eight-core CPUs clocked at 1.6GHz". Modern architecture is based on more cores to get away from the problem of heat. When comparing the speed of processors to RAM to hard disc, you see why the processor is so important... With an 8 core machine, the PS4 should be a multitasking monster. Hopefully we'll see the ability to use many apps and cross game chat without having to shut down a game. But 8gb of RAM on the NextBOX is still a rumor too, I really don't know if it will be that high. I think 4gb is going to be the standard for Sony and MS... I could be wrong though.

[iamnsuperman]

There is a limit of what is needed for a gaming console though. I would say 8 is a little bit excessive and anything less than 4 isn't enough. 6 gig would be my ideal number for a games console.

[DivineAssault]

true but durango has 3G of that ram reserved for the OS.. That means only 5GB of DDR3 for games.. It will be similiar.. Once again, MS will have an edge on the UI but it wont be as big this time... Sony is focusing on games which is my sole reason for buying a system.. This sounds like great news & its consistant with many of the rumors that have been floating around since CES.. These are sites theyre being found on arent going to tarnish credibility if there wasnt some truth to it

[NameRemoved0017]

Doubt it will use a 7970m those cost $600+ by itself... I call fake because 7970 alone would make the console $600, with other hardware your looking $1000-$1500 at launch if these specs are right.

[bunfighterii]

@HDshatter

The card is available for $450.00 retail if you look hard enough, and Sony, ordering commercial manufacturing quantities, will not be paying anywhere near that for the parts.

Attaching prices we pay at retail for hardware doesn't compare to what large companies making orders in the millions pay for wholesale. I've worked for a large automaker, and what we paid for externally sourced parts was somewhere in the region of 35-45% of retail. Different business, same principle- they trade on smaller margins and greater volume.

[lfclee]

This machine is AWESOME !

[aquamala]

7970m is a laptop chip an is not nearly as powerful as the desktop 7970, it's actually worse than the desktop 7870, which is a $200-250 card

http://www.tomshardware.com...

[Sarcasm]

It's a 7970M, not a 7970.

And I'm not sure if Sony is going to do the same as they did with the PS3 in which it costed them roughly $850 per PS3 and sold each one at a loss. If Sony is to survive financially, I cant see them spending more than $600 on the system and selling it at a loss again.

[zebramocha]

@sarcasm the radeon 7970m cost $200 dollar but Sony are have a custom version of this,there may not be any problems because amd is a one stop shop for parts that could end up in a console.

[InactiveUser]

For anyone interested:
http://www.videocardbenchma...

7970M is a high end video card; 15th overall according to that site.

This definitely sounds better than the 7670 and similar cards that were in other rumors.

7970M = 3883 PassMark Score; 15th overall
7670 = 1123 PassMark Score; 136th overall (previous rumors)

For comparison:
"Sony staff were quoted in PlayStation Magazine saying that the "RSX shares a lot of inner workings with NVIDIA 7800...""

A GeForce Go 7800 has a PassMark Svore of 219

I don't know enough to know if this is accurate, but a possible comparison:

PS4: 7970M = 3883 PassMark Score; 15th overall
PS3: 7800 = 219 PassMark Score; 779th overall

Also, if you take the 'doubles every 1.5 - 2 years' rule; 219 doubling every 2 years would be 3504 in Nov 2014. Doubling every 1.5 years would be 3504 in Nov 2012; so the 7970M's 3883 in 2013-2014 seems accurate.

[aquamala]

^^^. That shows 7970m is between 7850 and 7870, how is that high end? It's mid range, in January 2013

[InactiveUser]

@aqua

I was saying that it's high end compared to what was originally rumored.. the 7670.

I don't really fully know what I'm talking about here, but being the M.. a Mobile (laptop) video card means that it is smaller and uses less power and creates less heat, right? While still having nearly the same performance as the 7870 desktop card via the stats in your link.

As far as laptop video cards go, it looks like it's at the top of the list (2nd?).

Yea, desktop cards outperform it, but that would mean we'd likely get another gigantic phatty launch model, possibly with heat-related unreliability again.

As far as I can tell, going with this mobile card means we'd get a PS4 that's plenty capable, smaller, quieter, more reliable, lower power consumption, less heat, etc.

[jidery]

That would depend if this RAM is shared between the system and the GPU. I expect it isn't and in both system the GPU's will have their own RAM (probably 1-2gb).

In that case I would expect that the faster RAM will help the system in a game scenario, faster loading times and better performance. However, the 4gb will be much worse at multitasking as the Durango is rumored to have a whopping 3gb saved for the OS, which will make it a multitasking beast. Early in the generation the 4gb will be better, but later down the line when games get more ambitious and larger, the 8gb will probably shine.

If I am wrong and its shared RAM in both systems the 4gb DDR5 is plenty fast but not enough RAM, and the 8gb GDDR3 has the capacity but would be much too slow for GPU work. Both would be weak in that aspect.

[bunfighterii]

The article states that of the 4GB of PS4s ram, 512mb will be dedicated to the OS, leaving some 3.5 for pure gaming. I suspect though, with rumours of seamless transition between OS and games, this might be higher.

[UnholyLight]

Thanks for your comment E1ITE and wishingW3L. It is helpful to have someone with your knowledge and explanations that make sense to people who arenèt complete tech experts such as myself. I love tech and learning about it, but I am not very good at knowing chip specs and RAM and stuff so that was cool that you made a lot of sense in your comment to me anyways.

[ProjectVulcan]

Not quite as easy as knowing how fast the RAM is. Need to know the overall bandwidth of the bus the memory is actually on.

For example 2000mhz GDDR3 on a 512bit bus has MASSIVELY more bandwidth (ergo faster) than 4000mhz GDDR5 on a 128bit bus.

Bandwidth is important but not actually devastatingly so. More RAM can be important, but not devastatingly so.

It also depends on whether that bus bandwidth is shared or dedicated. 360 technically has LESS main memory bandwidth than PS3 because it is shared, but designing it very well means it is not at a disadvantage. eDRAM for example is one way to somewhat offset that. This is mentioned in the article again, that Microsoft are likely to have a bunch of eDRAM in there.

I could imagine that developers would actually prefer more memory, on the proviso IT IS NOT TOO MUCH SLOWER than the option with less but faster memory.

Any gap would determine which is more useful. Impossible to determine for sure right now because of the lack of confirmed specs.

[OpenGL]

Agreed, although I find it highly unlikely either system will have 4GB of DDR5 as the memory controller used in current AMD APUs does not have support for anything newer than DDR3 and that is not likely to change anytime soon, plus 4GB of GDDR5 would be fairly expensive and not all that useful on a console that won't be able to output in resolutions higher than 1080p at 60Hz.

[Dasteru]

GDDR5 is VRam, Not DIM Ram.

GDDR stands for Graphics double data rate, it is VRam for use on video cards, it is physically impossible to use it as normal Ram.

DDR3 is the newest standard of DIM Ram.

Neither the PS4 or Nextbox will be using GDDR5 as it is literally impossible, the system wouldn't even turn on if they tried.

As for 4Gb of GDDR5 on the GPU, the cheapest video card right now with 4Gb of GDDR5 is the GTX670 superclock which is $420.

If Sony uses that in the PS4, expect it to launch at $1000 minimum.

[ProjectVulcan]

It depends on the memory controller and operating system. The way the memory is treated.

Xbox 360 uses GDDR3 memory as system memory. It was done 7 years ago in a console! Look it up. It is perfectly possible to use GDDR as system memory if you wanted. It is still memory, just a special type of memory with specs that made it commonly used as graphics memory and labelled as such.

Heck you can use hard drive space as virtual memory space so that your OS recognises it as RAM. A few years ago Intel tried an idea of using USB flash drives plugged into a USB port as 'turbo memory' to expand the amount of RAM available. Both worked fine, but suck because they were just slow/limited. Have you never owned a PC?

You can use anything really you want as memory that can perform that sort of function. Its how you treat it that matters.

[Pillsbury1]

"There'll be a relatively high CPU overhead too, with potentially two cores reserved for the customisable apps Microsoft wants to run in parallel with gameplay. Orbis has no such ambitions and may power past the new Xbox simply because it focuses its resources on out-and-out games power"

PS 4 GAMERS.

[FGHFGHFGH]

For graphics faster ram is better I think. All high end video cards use GDDR5.

[Tctczach]

:( I dont know what to believe anymore.

[iamnsuperman]

Which is why I am going to freeze myself until then.

[wsoutlaw87]

Bad idea, ask Cartman.

[OhReginald]

that would really suck if ps4 gets stuck with 4 gb of ram.

I smell ps3/ 360 multiplat scenario again....

[Kur0]

a good 80% of games on PC barely use 2gb of RAM.

[osamaq]

if 8gb of RAM xbox will have, it will have advantage over ps4

[Muerte2494]

it's rumored that Microsoft is going to have 3gigs of the 8gigs dedicated to the OS.

"Volume of RAM is the key element in Durango's favour - there'll be 8GB in total, with a significant amount (two sources we've spoken to suggest 3GB in total) reserved for the OS."

it it would really only have about 5GB of DDR3 available for games.

[Eldyraen]

As Kur0 said, most games really don't use much ram at all and those that require more than 2 (for game alone that is) are almost always due to giving background programs and OS plenty of free memory.

The main reason Durango is likely to have so much is due to rumor its based on a Windows 8 version OS and likely to have Smartglass, Kinect, and social/app heavy support out of the box. With more things demanding system resources all at once they would have to leave even more free both for games and future XBL updates that will eventually add even more new features.

PS and Xbox next gen is likely to do much of the same type of stuff, but I think MS is choosing a more flashy way to do it and wants to sort of show off a bit--technically speaking. I expect Live will have some seriously cool features either at launch or later on down the road that PS won't, but when gaming the differences will be rather minor (sort of like multiplatform games today). Not much different from now really, XBL is a bit showy (I always think of it as the Times Square of console hubs) but XMB still gets the job done just fine.

[coolmast3r]

if this information is legit then i am DEEPLY disappointed. really hoped for much, MUCH more from 2013-devices. both ps3 and xbox 360 just shocked me when they were announced, though i don't have "this special feeling" about ps4 and 720 right now... but lets wait and see.

[imdaboss1]

PS4 for Sony first party exclusive games..Imagine God of war ratchet and clank uncharted littlebigplanet killzone resistance killzone infamous and etc..

[Jakens]

I dream about the sound output of Sony's Machine!

[Eldyraen]

Sounds very reasonable but I still want to see it in action more than knowing what specs are. As everyone agrees, specs are only a part of it as dedicating gaming platform allows for better optimization, therefore better quality/graphics than equalivent PC hardware. Still, it doesn't sound bad at all (still not a fan of slower cpu clock speeds even if in long run could pay off with better multithreaded support). I wasn't really expecting top tier PC hardware anyways and game developers can work wonders with what they have if they try (Sony devs especially really do push things to their limit).

I was pretty much expecting Crysis 2 at 1080p and 60fps anyways (PC with dx11 and HD textures really is a big leap) but a little disappointed that test specs for Battlefield 3 couldn't max and do the same. But should be possible once a game is designed with the architecture in mind so just a matter of time as this is still just theory and "closest" over the market parts used with games optimized for different tech.

[Munky]

So these specs are basically 100% confirmed?

CPU: Eight-core AMD processor running at 1.6GHz
Graphics core: Radeon HD hardware, 18 compute units at 800MHz
Additional hardware: GPU-like Compute module, some resources reserved by the OS
System-on-chip codename: Liverpool
Memory: 4GB GDDR5, 512MB reserved by the OS

But at the same time the specs for "Durango" are still very much under speculation?

SO much BS out there man, until Sony and MS come out with an official spec sheet I'm not putting any stock into any of these "what to expect" articles.

[EffectO]

Rumor,but

DF has good sources,so I would say yes.

Pretty neat machine.Basically "big playstation Vita",speaking in terms of system design.

[Munky]

Agreed, so from what they are saying they know nothing about the Durango/Kryptos/720.

[Eldyraen]

With latest rumor about Durango having similar specs (just a couple days ago) it makes it even more feasible to me that these are at least "close" to final design specs (for one of them at least). It sounds like the differences are going to be pretty minor again in long run and really come down to what devs can do with the hardware.

Going with this gen as an example, I have better faith in Sony but as most of MS studios/IPs haven't even been touched in years maybe they'll surprise us this time around (or so I hope as I usually get multiplatform on PC anyways now).

No matter what specs are though I'm sure there will be great games that I love and that is all that really matters.

[Munky]

That's my point, all the recent articles about the supposed specs have been relatively similar (including this article) in regards to the power for both consoles.

So how could DF be so sure about the PS4 and not have any concrete info about the "720", It just seems odd to me.

[jp_footy2]

Is this a rumour article?

[Munky]

From what they are saying the specs listed in the article are basically confirmed.

Not being technical at all, I wish I knew what it all meant.

[ApolloTheBoss]

My money is ready.

[DigitalSmoke]

The PS3's Cellis packing 7! SPU's at 3,2 Gigahertz.
Sony will not release a weaker CPU system within the PS3, mark my words.

[OC_MurphysLaw]

In reading the specs, its not a weaker system....so there you go. Its a better overall system and direction. You should be happy they are ditching the Cell and going x86 also no memory bottle necks like the horrible memory design of the PS3 that just made things more complicated than it should have been. So again.... its better....you will be happy.

[wishingW3L]

the CPU might be weaker but the machine is packing a high-end GPU with 1200 cores dude. PS3 only has a really old GPU with 24 cores that don't even support unified shading! And don't forget about the GPGPU implementations, at the end the CPU being weaker will be irrelevant.

Another thing is, are you seeing how well the games still hold up on that ancient hardware of the PS3? Well, with these rumored specs of the PS4 plus the wizardry optimization Developers achieve on consoles the games will keep looking fantastic for a very long time. Because the thing is that is not just the raw power which is better but the overall architecture too.

[Hoje0308]

If either of you think that the CPU in Orbis is weaker than the CELL, then you need to stop talking about tech, because both of you are clueless. Cell is single core and will get destroyed by just about any CPU with a modern architecture.

[DigitalSmoke]

That make's a lot of sense.

Sony machines have always has a learning curve, developers didn't really like it but it did unlock more power as more knowladge was gained.

So over time the games grew more complex and visualy impressive, hope they continue this trend, your explanation is in synv wit their normals ways.

[porkChop]

The GHz doesn't matter, neither do the SPUs. Those SPUs are shit, an SPU is not equal to an actual core. The Cell only has 1 real core. And while it has 7 SPEs/SPUs, only 6 of them are useable by developers. The GHz don't matter because what's important is how efficient the architecture is and how much it's capable of doing per cycle. This rumored 8 core would be much more efficient than the Cell is.

[kevnb]

its not weaker, thats all you need to know.

[stuntman_mike]

sounding excellent if true. also good to see Rich Leadbetter still doing the rounds been reading his stuff since the beginning.

[OC_MurphysLaw]

Interesting but as I read the article it appears they mask a lot of speculation into the article. Not sure what to believe.

[solid_warlord]

Radeon 7970M has been rumared for the XBOX Next and PS4 for couple of months now...this GPU is a high end for what i read but next year it will be a mid range graphics card in PC terms, apparently.

I defo think its logical. These rumars defo based on some good sources. The Wii U was rumared to have a tablet based controller with a screen on it and that turned out true long before nintendo even announced Wii U. Same with the specs such as the Wii U's GPU being based on 2008 Radeon 4000 series which also was correct.

As for 4gb DDR5 RAM, i read mix report that it will be DDR4 not 5. I never knew DDR5 for Rams existed. Well it should make stuff like loading times faster but to be honest...DDR3 is good enough. My ass clown freind who is a PC geek thinks its more than enough for him and he has a powerful PC. I rather go for more RAM than higher bandwidth or have 4GB DDR4/5 along with 1gb DDR3 RAM for OS.

[BrianG]

It's called GDDR5, it exists for graphics cards.

[bunfighterii]

Your spelling is horrible.

[jmc8888]

Not high end.

A GTX 670 is midrange. Maybe upper midrange. That's basically twice as fast as a 7970m (7970m is not 7970 desktop).

Also GTX 6 series graphics line is 8 months old. It'll be replaced soon with something that should have a bigger increase than what the 6 series had over the 5. Maxwell (the GPU name, as series 6 is Kepler) a midrange 7 series Maxwell should be 4x a 7970m.

This is if the PS4 comes out this year, when the Maxwell would be 3-7 months old (if it too is on schedule).

If the PS4 comes out late 2014 then the 7970m would be
measured against a GTX 8 series, and I haven't even heard the code name for that one yet but could be 6-8x faster than a 7970m. Of course a PC can also utilize 2 or 3 graphics cards and it would be much faster.

Still be a fun console, but people need to get their expectations to a realistic place. A 200-300 watt console costing $349-500 isn't going to compete against a desktop that sucks up 700-1500 watts and costs $1000-3000 and utilizes the most current graphic card lines.

[Belking]

what to expect from the next-gen PlayStation?

Hopefully, prettier longer games. Now devs can't use the lack of RAM as an excuse. I especially want to see how sports games use it. We should see more realistic grass and not the same cut scenes over and over.

[RegorL]

There is a dead end ahead...

You just can't add bigger and bigger textures, takes time to produce them, time to load, ... and also time to make.

I really think you want procedural grass! Imagine grass as a fractal when zooming in you get more and more detail.

Calculating a texture takes CPU/GPU cycles and a fast memory. Not necessarily a lot since you calculate the parts that are needed.

Result? Designer says - this area is covered with grass, but not that - done! Could work down to individual straws,,,

On the other hand - just start that DMA transfer and use your CPU resources to do other important stuff.

Interesting times ahead!

[one2thr]

You should see the Grass in "Flower", its individual straw(s) like(ish) and it is/was capable on an inferior console compared to the specs mentioned in the provided article, and the system barely had 1/2 of a gig of RAM at its disposal... But it was only possible seeing that, even though the quantity of RAM was very low, the quality of the RAM was very good: Very fast...

Btw: I do/did not disagree with you

[TheKayle]

sorry but the kryptos will no be similar to the ps3 as u expect.....bookmark this page..and permban me if isnt true

amd would never give to sony the same cards of ms...

and ibm?..where is the ibm part that they have in the xbox if theres nothing from ibm on that orbis specs.......lots of eng. from ibm amd and ms working from 2007 in the kryptos

remember that the power of MS make them bring the cell solution in another type of processor in the x360 just paying good ...ibm....

- i dont know where they find that voice about 3 gb reserved to the OS........it will be 1

the kryptos will have two gpu working separately in a new way........wait and u will see

the orbis will be an full hsa ..so the memory is shared by cpu and gpu

http://www.anandtech.com/sh...

so will be something like 4 -512 or 4 -1024 for the OS in the orbis

in Kryptos that 8 -1 gb is for the cpu and will be ddr3/4.....the two gpu will have gddr5 1.5gb for gpu +edram or esdram ...if u think kryptos will use ddr3 on the gpu u really dont know what u r talkign about...coz every graphic card around also a 50$ card go out with gddr
will be more like our high end pc ddr3/4 memory system gddr5 on the gpu nothing more nothing less

the gddr will give orbis a no bottleneck system but that will no be enough to do stuff other than games...

[deadfrag]

And what gamers want is games!If this is actually true Sony have build a console that is devoted more to gaming M$ this time will be in seriuos trouble ,they dont have a year of advance start over Sony, the m$ console is rumor to be weaker and it seems that the main target to m$ is casual gaming,kinect (that they think is going to have sucess) and media apps more than games.Frankly has a gamer that owns all this generation systems plus a high end PC,IF m$ only haves this to show im not getting the next xbox.I want a console to play games,and great exclusives i dont need my console to be a media hub!Another thing is that m$ main focus for media apps is to USA and UK,i live in Europe and the support from m$ this generation is just bad regarding media apps,Sony support for the European countrys in terms of media apps is way better M$ even Nintendo with the Wii U haves a better project in terms of media apps for the European market,thats another reason that i most likely will get a Sony new console over any thing from M$.M$ is also counting that they will have the full support from people that own an xbox 360 and especially from the USA market;again they are wrong!

[specsmatter]

Cant wait to see Gow, UCseries, KZ,Soul series in all its next gen glory.

Seen alot of rumors around and for the most part im happy and if true will be putting a 150 pre order immediately .

[Kos-Mos]

So does this mean more of the same multi-platform games?

[Adityac]

Fucking hell man calm down with all these fucking NEXT GEN Articles making stupid assumptions and theories.

[Tzuno]

If they go cheap like Nintendo Microsoft will take advantage.

[ethomaz]

Now we are talking about strong specs in line with VG247 rumors.

[nunley33]

"However, there's a fair amount of "secret sauce" in Orbis and we can disclose details on one of the more interesting additions. Paired up with the eight AMD cores, we find a bespoke GPU-like "Compute" module, designed to ease the burden on certain operations - physics calculations are a good example of traditional CPU work that are often hived off to GPU cores. We're assured that this is bespoke hardware that is not a part of the main graphics pipeline but we remain rather mystified by its standalone inclusion, bearing in mind Compute functions could be run off the main graphics cores and that devs could have the option to utilise that power for additional graphical grunt, if they so chose". Anyone else think the mystery hardware mentioned doing calculations all to its self could be a CELL since that was its big strength and wouldn't cost much to include it ?

[TheKayle]

probably is that VTE - Vector Troughput Engine that a lots of rumors r talking about

look this patents related to Eric Mejdrich that is the Xbox SOC Architect

http://www.google.com/paten...

http://www.google.com/paten...

..u remember when AMD director of ISV relationships Neal Robison stated

"that the next Xbox will be capable of the level of graphical detail seen in James Cameron's movie Avatar. Even on PC, that kind of technology just isn't here yet, but AMD claims the Xbox 720 will launch with it."

raytracing say something?? no one know :)

pss - for that rumor about 3gb reserved to the kryptos OS........Windows 8 Pro for pc as 1 gb of memory (and everyone know that pc have usually more ram than 4gb and they r also easly upgradable)......and ppl saying that a console OS would have 3gb reserved...yessssssssssss sure...

[nunley33]

Yeah it's not likely a Cell but something new. The 3GB for the 720 OS would be way overkill so i call shananigans on that rumor.

[deafdani]

I'm no tech savvy at all. I don't understand those numbers and letters.

Can someone with an actually OBJECTIVE point of view (hard to find, I know) tell me how those rumoured specs compare to that of the Wii U?

[RandomDude655]

Gpu wise- around 600 gf compared to 1800 gf in the orbis. At least a three time leap in Gpu "grunt"

CPU wise: the wiiU is about at the level of 360, but more efficient.

[Pandamobile]

Quite a bit better than the Wii U's offering.

[wishingW3L]

quite a bit? The difference is gigantic!

[black911]

Everyone don't forget Gakai aswell. Specs don't matter.

[3GenGames]

I hope they cut 2 to 4GB of RAM out of the 720 and make it DDR5 too. COmputers of next gen will need the speed IMO. Although them using DDR5 would mean they'd probably want to up the clock too because 1.6Ghz probably have very low latency with DDR3 (Don't recall access time off the top of my head, but it's slower than 1.6Ghz) but still, I think using DDR3 will handicap them in a way nothing else can. A HUGE cache L2+L3 would be needed to offset the DDR3 usage...it'll be interesting. I hope both consoles have large cache's too, we need that key performance item that most people don't look at!

It'll be interesting. I was an XBox guy this gen, but with those specs I may look at a PS4 more. Although, these still aren't confirmed, so we'll have to wait for something official. It's looking good if these are even semi-accurate, though.

[hazardman]

Dude I think you ll be good with either one as spec are very similar. Ill be buying both so its whatever I guess.

[Veni Vidi Vici]

I'm more interested in the controllers than anything else.

[BabyTownFrolics]

cant wait, I will be owning both consoles next gen just like I did this gen. Bring the next gen on!

[ajax17]

I wish Sony would just stick with the Cell processor.

[3GenGames]

Cell processor turned out to be hard to use to even get equal power to normal processor. Them moving to little endian and normal (for gaming, BETTER) architecture is a good thing for everyone.

[dboyman]

I agree. Only reason Cell processor should be in the PS4 is for backwards compatibility with PS3 software. Gaikai should not end all for BC,since currently especially in places in North America, there's issues with places with poor bandwidth and data caps...

[profgerbik]

I can't believe this just because look how wrong people were about the Wii U for so long.. I am just going to stay away from these articles and wait till Sony shows what they have to give this time around.

[Godchild1020]

As long as it can play games, I will get one. Apps and stuff comes second.

[MasterCornholio]

Well at least according to these rumors the PS4 will be a generation ahead of the Wii U in terms of power. I dont know how it will compare to the durango though because even though the PS4 has faster ram it will have less ram then the durango.

[Sarobi]

Games only use 2gb at max (currently), so faster ram has the advantage here.

[dboyman]

Since the PS4 is not even announced officially yet, Sony could change the spec for the system to 8GB DDR5...

[Y_5150]

I want to know more about "the secret sauce" about the PS4.

[joeorc]

@Y_5150

"I want to know more about "the secret sauce" about the PS4."

sounds like this:

And now more exciting news, SCEA posted a patent application for "DYNAMIC CONTEXT SWITCHING BETWEEN ARCHITECTURALLY DISTINCT GRAPHICS PROCESSORS":

"Graphics processing in a computer graphics apparatus having architecturally dissimilar first and second graphics processing units (GPU) is disclosed. Graphics input is produced in a format having an architecture-neutral display list. One or more instructions in the architecture neutral display list are translated into GPU instructions in an architecture specific format for an active GPU of the first and second GPU."

http://appft.uspto.gov/neta...

this was filed by:

Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc.
July 30, 2012

the inventor:

http://www.patentbuddy.com/...

they have 4 patents under their belt

[Y_5150]

If I understood this correctly, the next PlayStation will have two GPUs? One that has high performance and another for low performance to reduces heat and electric use?

[joeorc]

"If I understood this correctly, the next PlayStation will have two GPUs? One that has high performance and another for low performance to reduces heat and electric use?"

your understanding correctly, but it could be upto 3 GPU! chips instead of just 2!, with the 3rd can be used by developer's if they want to use it or not ie: A SPURS ENGINE FOR gpu ACCELERATION , and to offer PhysX support right on the die..along with PS3 backward compatability for PS3 software support right on the SOC' PACKAGE DIE!

example"
in Orbis and we can disclose details on one of the more interesting additions. Paired up with the eight AMD cores, we find a bespoke GPU-like "Compute" module, designed to ease the burden on certain operations - physics calculations are a good example of traditional CPU work that are often hived off to GPU cores.

than they went on to state:

" By our reckoning, the more efficient eight-core set-up still leaves plenty of space for integrating the main GPU onto the same die, with space to spare. This offers up significant production cost savings and brings down overall power consumption."

than to go from there:

if you look at Sony's patent about GPU task switching.

Means Sony indeed could have

CPU/ small GPU+ Spur's engine + The Radeon 7970M ALL ON THE SAME DIE IN A:

TSV 3D stacked CHIP!

What is a TSV 3D stacked chip, well Sony has employed this chip technology in the PSVita!

Here it is and explain's it very well:

Sony’s PS Vita Uses Chip-on-Chip SiP – 3D, but not 3D

By combining the processor with the different memories in the same package in the Vita, Sony and Toshiba have produced one of the few true system-in-package (SiP) parts that we have seen. And I would call it 3D, even though industry convention is now restricting that term to TSV-based parts – so it’s not 3D, in our current argot.

In a way this device highlights the commercial barriers to introducing TSVs into the SiP world, since not only do the corresponding parts have to be designed to suit the I/Os, but at least for a two-stack the technology is already there; so the performance cost/benefit has to be critical enough to require TSVs for that third and more die. Admittedly the demands on mobile devices are increasing at an astounding pace, but it still seems a while before we’ll see TSVs in commercial devices. Time will tell!

http://www.chipworks.com/bl...

[AWBrawler]

I'd be lying if i said i wasn't hype for E3 already. I want to see what new ideas Sony brings into the Next Generation, or how they can improve on unrealized ideas. They have a knack for making "broken" ideas work way better.

[Sarobi]

I have 6 gigs of ram in my computer.. and when I game it only takes up about 1gb.. so I wouldn't be worried about having 4gb on a device that is strictly based on media (games/movies/music/etc)

[mr_kubrick]

Nice joke...learn to read the ram usage in your task-manager then. GTA4 uses easily 4gb....skyrim with mods can uses 6gb easily...

[Sarobi]

"learn to read the ram usage in your task-manager"

>>Implying that I am not looking there.

I've played GTA 4 and Skyrim for countless hours and I've checked various of times. GTA 4 only needs 1.5 gb to run and to get it going on max it needs 2gb with 1gb of gpu ram. Skyrim with mods may go over that, but the game it self only needs 2gb to run smooth.

[mr_kubrick]

GTA 4 uses only 1.5gb? Yeah on 640x480 maybe....on 1080p its easily 4gigs with texture filtering 16x...but i assume u use windows xp so NO game can address up to more than app. 3 - 3.5 gigs due to its limitation.

[JAMurida]

One of the main things I'm REALLY hoping for is that PS4 supports SATA III and allow you to use whatever HDD you want like PS3 did. I'm sure it will ship with a 250 GB normal HDD, but think how much better it would be if you could install an SSD into your PS4, (and with the support of SATA III), be able to read at SSD speeds instead of normal HDD, which means smoother performance and WAY faster loading times.

That would be a HUGE plus in my book if Sony does this.

[esemce]

PL4YST4TION!

[C0MPUT3R]

Very Interesting if this article is true.
.
720 8cores @ 1.6ghz = PS4 8cores @ 1.6ghz
.
BUT
720 2cores reserved for OS < PS4 1core reserved for OS
.
720 5GB DDR3 for games (3GB OS) < PS4 3.5GB GDDR5 for games (512MB OS)
.
The PS4 will be more powerful due to it having superior RAM and less resources allocated to the OS.
.
The 720 will multitask better and may appeal more to the casual market.
.
Multiplats will be better on all platforms PC,720,PS4, next gen due to the similar architecture.
.
Exclusives will be the differentiators. Multiplats will be redundant.
.
Getting the GPU/CPU on the same die would be amazing. The systems would cost a lot less, and run cooler/quieter.
.
PS4 would be about 10x more powerful than PS3 and retail for $399.
.
I hope this is legit because it looks perfect. SSD would be the cherry on top.

[steve30x]

If the 720 will have windows 8 as its OS it will need that 3GB of ram for the OS.

[mochachino]

Looks like PS4 is a bit more focused on power and 720 is bit more focused on multimedia functionality.

[jalen247]

I am glad my system of choice will be the one more focused on games! Can't wait!

[StreetsofRage]

Enough rumors and enough words. I want gameplay footage.

[3-4-5]

Won't this lower prices on everything thus making computers that much cheaper to build and thus allowing them to compete with consoles more than ever ?

[EverydayGuy]

I want eyefinity for Gran Turismo

[isyourhouseonfire]

I heard the PS4 was originally going to be called the 'Orbit', but since Microsoft has knocked Sony out of orbit in the current gen, they changed it to Orbis.

[NoSuchUserName]

Regardless of speed, I too think I've would've preferred more RAM and am slightly surprised that Sony would put the PlayStation in this position again, just think about Skyrim. One would think they would have learned the lesson after all poorly performing ports. Also, things like a browser probably benefits from more rather than fast RAM, and if they are reserving only 512mb to OS features they risk ending up with a basically unusable browser etc yet again

[imt558]

I think in the near future Sony will shrink RAM needed for OS. Just like he did with PS3.

[dboyman]

Or Sony should increase the RAM to 8 GB DDR5

[ElectricKaibutsu]

Can someone please explain to me why this rumor is true and the other rumors were not true?

[profgerbik]

No idea.. Wish someone could do the same for me also..

[DudeJets]

It's because It's a believable spec its cost effective and efficient, it's a significant upgrade to current gen but not miles higher than it needs to be. All other rumours have been either end of the spectrum.

[ElectricKaibutsu]

Thank you

[brettski]

Great avatar by the way!

[Bladesfist]

More ram is nearly always greater than faster ram. For example the difference between a graphics card running at x16 vs x4 is nearly nonexistent. They both have enough ram for now but I am sure that it will become a limiting factor by the end of the gen.

[Kennytaur]

I know it's not too likely, but I hope Sony fits an SSD in the PS4.

[DudeJets]

The specs are nothing jaw dropping however are believable and more than adequate. I approve and hand this the DudeJets slightly believable hardware badge. Good article the ps4 would out perform the 720 according to this. @c0mput3r has summed it all up perfectly

[steve30x]

The PS4 and Next Xbox will only be as powerful as gaming laptops by the looks of it and before anybody disagrees the CPU will only be 1.6GHz and the GPU will be a slightly cut down laptop mobile 7870 which isnt even as powerful as a desktop 7870. Even though they will be mostly dedicated to gaming the specs of the PS4 looks no better than a gaming laptop at best.

[Rebo00]

Gb = Gigabit
GB = Gigabyte
Mb = Megabit
MB = Megabyte
Big difference so make sure you use the right one ;)

[evil_element]

Sony will unveil details about the PS4 on 4th Feb 2013.

[Nivalis]

In this thread, people thinking 3gb of video memory isn't enough when the GTX680, which is a hell of a lot more powerful, only comes in 2gb and 4gb flavors, both of which are more than capable of running virtually all pc games at maximum settings - providing visuals that exceed that of the next generation of consoles that have yet to release yet.

If a pc can do that with 2-4gb of ram, i'm sure 3gb for video memory is more than enough for a console.

What you should be really worried about is the more or less given fact that the 720 is going to release with a console going version of Windows 8's Metro UI, which is probably why it's needing so much memory for UI/OS, god knows how many of the panels are going to be adverts.

[Bordel_1900]

The 4GB of GDDR5 RAM are for both OS and graphics. According to the article; 512MB for OS and 3.5GB graphics and game code.

Remember a PC game often has a recommended requirement of 4GB System RAM and 1-2 GB video.

Consoles games are though optimized for the specific hardware and should perform better on console than on comparable PC hardware.

[Silkside]

Based of these rumored specs the ps4 will be more game focused while the nextbox will be more live/media focused.

Still getting both can't wait.

[Bordel_1900]

Interesting from an article from 27. May 2012.

"The Pitcairn core is fairly small, occupying 212mm2 of area. Compare that with the 240mm2 of the RSX in the launch version of the PlayStation 3 and the 180mm2 of the Xbox 360's original 90nm Xenos GPU and we have a ballpark match. Of more interest is power consumption: at full tilt, the 7970M sucks up around 65 watts of power. That's not going to be especially good news for a laptop running on battery power alone, but considering that the launch versions of the Xbox 360 and PS3 both consumed around 200W in total, again we see an eminently suitable match.

But times have moved on from 2005 - Microsoft won't need to invest so much in gaining market share next time around, while Sony simply can't afford to lose hundreds of dollars per unit as it did with PlayStation 3 back in the day. While a Pitcairn core is viable for a next-gen console, the fact remains that it's an expensive, high-end piece of kit and there's no guarantee that the raw power of this remarkable GPU will end up in the new console designs. But if it were, we can reasonably expect next-gen games to outperform what we have shown in this article - the advantages of a fixed architecture in a console mean that developers target the specific strengths of the GPU, inevitably producing results that punch above their weight compared to the same hardware running on PC."

Edit: http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...

[fingazblank]

The winner here is amd/ati, providing true next gen hardware, nvidia must be kicking themselves no wonder there entering the hand held market. Amd processors are good but intel just blow them away every time, but i understand going with Amd because of the cost. A 8 core Intel would cost more than a decent second hand car these days. Would of been nice to see some physx in console games, but oh well.

Not sure if these will be the true specs, ball park figures are good enough now to fuel the fire for the fan boy wars. I will be getting a xbox, i have always used xbox over sony's stuff. I believe it will come down to that, if you used xbox you will stick with it if you used sony then you'll probably just stick with them. Unless of course sony blows away the competition, with exclusives good enough to tempt me away, a decent online community and of course a better designed pad!

Microsoft on the other hand will just win me over again probably, going on these specs it should be a beast just as the new Sony machine will be. It will just come down to my point earlier.

My opinion, they need some of that gddr5 ram, then that way the consoles will be an even playing field, but is that what we want.

[QuantumWake]

MS wanted more RAM for the OS so it could pretty much be a multitask, multimedia machine. They are most likely going to go with eDRAM again so that Durago isn't bandwidth starved.

[Rageanitus]

not really, even though its not a primary gaming platform their tegra technlogy will sell on tablets and phones. The turn around for these devices are much higher.

[LtFaku]

Im the only one here who just wants retrocompatibility?

[HardCover]

Not wasting my time and money with next gen consoles. They're already baby PCs with incredibly strict limitations, expensive software, and **** performance compared to PC.

Things are not going to be changing that much, I imagine.

[susanto1228]

Okay so my PC has a ROG mobo one of the best

4.0 Quadcore hyperthreaded to 8 cores
16 gb DDR 3 memory
with a GTX 680 DDR5 2 gb

so don't get me wrong I find the specs of these new
consoles still pretty impressive (for consoles) but I've had these specs
on my modded PC for the past year...couldn't Sony and Msoft done better on the specs on these consoles?

[DigitalSmoke]

it doesn't matter since no developer will work sweat and tears to have its game run great on a million different hardware setups.
And so you will always be playing a shallow version of the possible game for that hardware.

A stable platform does get a lot more attention then dynamic PC setups.

[Nivalis]

No they'll just continue to build games on the latest current tech available with resolution and texture detail options to allow the game to run on lower end hardware, just as they always have.

The only time a PC game suffers is when it's a multiplatform game that's been limited because the content is too similar to the console counterpart, but even in those cases the resolution, anti aliasing and ability to be played in 3d still trump the console version.

What, do you think because there's a million different pc setups that developers shoot for the mid range computers?, were you even a gamer when the doom 3 beta leaked, and got all of 10fps of most peoples rigs because the hardware ID were using in making the game was beyond the scope (and wallet) of most people at the time?

[DwightOwen]

No thanks, I'll stick with my PC.

Thank God Unreal Engine 4, Frostbite 2, and CryEngine 3 are all scaleable so that those of us with PCs will get all the multiplat games the way they were intended to look, instead of the crappy DX9 ports we got this gen.

[Rageanitus]

honestly if those are the specs..... its gonna be very hard to push games at full native 1080p at 45+ FPS blech

[gamedebater]

How are these specs gonna run 4K? LIES

[DevilishSix]

I have supported MS alot this and last gen, but I also had Playstations. My XBLA Gold runs out in August, which I planned so I could see what these next consoles offered.

With that said, what has really keep me favoring Xbox is cross game chat and friends, however, if PS4 has cross game chat and continues free online multiplayer, then that is a big strike against the new xbox.

Lastly if the article actually becomes true and the new Xbox uses 3 of 8 RAM GB's for Kinect and OS then I will pass. I im not going to purchase a system that is subsidizing Microsoft to include Kinect in every Xbox and using up 40% of its system resources to do so. That is extra resources that could actually be applied to games I play, which are not Kinect games. In this scenario I'll pass.

Oh and for the record I am a 10 year XBL member.

[1nsomniac]

I'm excited. I want the most powerful gaming machine & I don't care how much I pay for it!

[DwightOwen]

www.tigerdirect.com/sectors/ca tegory/computer-parts.asp

Go crazy.

[Ethereal]

Oh man, I hope this is what Sony is cooking up.

[1nsomniac]

I already have a top-spec gaming PC, Thats not the point. I want a top-spec console to plug into my big-ass TV that I can play on the couch!

[Nivalis]

Get a wireless 360 controller for pc, and a long hdmi cable and hook it up to your gaming pc, run emulators or the latest games and enjoy resolutions consoles only dream of on that big tv.

[1nsomniac]

Got all the above, PC's arnt designed for gamepad use. Which means having to switch between keyboard, mouse & gamepad which is a massive pain in the ass.

The best PC games are keybaord & mouse aswell...

Have any of you ever tried keyboard & mouse on a couch?? its not easy & not fun!

The 2 dont mix. You need a seperate PC & console, thats just the way it is.

[Nivalis]

A large majority of PC games these days come pre shipped fully setup to handle the 360 windows controller, complete with button specific indications on screen, what's your problem?

[Bordel_1900]

You are right, I have done exactly that.

I have hooked up my PC to my 55 inch TV and I have both a PS3 controller and an X360 controller that I use with my PC.

Steam even has a Big Picture mode that is easily navigated with controllers. I do all my gaming on the couch with a console controller.

@1nsomniac
"The best PC games are keybaord & mouse aswell... "

All the multiplat games control just as good on PC as their console counterpart. So, all shooters, Crysis, BF, CoD, Far Cry, etc. etc. are much much better on PC. Games like DmC, Darksiders, Dark Souls, FIFA, Assassins Creed, NFS, Mass Effect, Skyrim, Oblivion, The Walking Dead, F1, Fallout, etc. etc. are ALL much much better on PC. That leaves you with only exclusives that are not available on PC, everything else it much better on PC.

[lilbroRx]

I noticed that almost everyone on the front page completely avoided/evaded talking about the CPU clock speed...lol