Xbox One: +53 mhz Is a Safe Upclock, but It Might be Way Too Little to Compete with PS4

According to a report by Gamespot the GPU of the Xbox One has been upclocked from 800 to 853 mhz. To those unfamiliar with overclocking that may sound like a big deal. Giuseppe Nelva from DualShockers.com explains that unfortunately it isn't.

[Alexious]

53 mhz really isn't much. It seems like another PR swing; clearly Microsoft is trying to get back at Sony on every level, but their copycat efforts might be rushed.

[sobotz]

If it's a PR swing, why only 53Mhz? they can said it's increased to 1000Mhz+ to compete with Sony

[iamnsuperman]

That isn't a PR spin. That would be lying and misinforming the public.

Edit I think I just jumped into your trap but never mind

[darthv72]

it may not seem like much but improving the speed coupled with efficiency of the OS and memory resources leads to an overall performance gain.

Seeing this as a bad thing makes no sense. It isnt like they are going to increase the price by the same margin they increased the performance.

[HardcoreGamer21]

xbox one is already bigger than the ps4 so it will produce more heat than the ps4, over clocking it too muck will be a bad idea.
I think 53Mhz is a good choice so it won't overheat or become louder(fan) or diminish the life expectancy of the xbox one.
But ps4 is still way more powerfull than the xbox one.

[bicfitness]

But it is a PR play. Not a bad one either. In case you haven't noticed the past few weeks have seen a barrage of positive MS tech articles starting with the DF RAM nonsense (192 GB "theoretical output". They're trying to claw back from the perceived - and quite real - technological inferiority against their direct competitor.

At least this beats Mattick's ramblings or the schizophrenic PR we've been treated to since the unveiling of the X1. Truth is, neither an X1 nor a PS4 stands a chance against anything equipped with an i7, 670m (yes, mobile) or higher. Heck, even two 780ms gives you more than the performance of a Titan in a laptop shape. Still, when it comes down to it and leaving PCs out of the equation, the two consoles are quite similar in parts only one has more TF: PS4. And its $100 cheaper. That right there, is what MS should be attacking or spending their PR $ on: their own price tag.

This is just tech-fluff for the internet hordes to fight over.

[grassyknoll]

It would probably melt!

[creatchee]

I don't know why Microsoft can't do anything to improve their console without people comparing it to Sony.

Is 853MHz better than 800MHz, even if it only means 2-4 frames per second in terms of improvement? YES. So who cares what it is in relation to Sony?

Besides - some people act like the difference between X1 and PS4 graphics is going to be comparable to the one between an Atari 2600 and a high end PC of today. Can't we just enjoy each console for what it is instead of CONSTANTLY worrying about any perceived differences in graphical fidelity?

[HammadTheBeast]

Cause the general public has 0 clue about what a Mhz is.

[mewhy32]

micro$oft has really been caught with their pants down here. They are trying everything to come back against the wildly superior PS4 spec but to anyone who knows about hardware this little bump wont even be noticeable. But to the layman it's going to look like they are now using a better GPU than Sony. Just another way of manipulation by micro$oft.

[GameSpawn]

@bicfitness

Three words: Operating System Overhead

PCs while they outpace consoles in terms of technology for a short while (until the next console comes out) are HORRIDLY inefficient machines. Why are they so inefficient? Well, PCs are designed to be flexible to be able to perform a variety of different tasks.

Why is it that consoles with less powerful hardware than higher spec'ed can put out games that are on par or sometimes better? They are designed to be efficient at doing one thing...playing games. Consoles are streaming systems that you won't be typing a word document on, creating an image in Photoshop, or playing flash based Facebook games while updating your Twitter.

With a little knowledge of operating systems, computer organization and computer architecture you would understand and respect this a little more. If you'd like a little reading here are the wiki articles on those subjects:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

I've lived in both worlds and supported both console gaming and PC gaming. Both have their Pros and Cons. The ultimate reason console gaming has become so large and has begun to compete with PC gaming is simply the cost and ease of use. Consoles are still VERY cheap compared to gaming PCs (and NO a $500 gaming-rig will not last very long or play games any better than a console, especially given the next console advantage) and require no fussing with incompatibilities due to drivers or specific hardware that may be installed to cause a conflict.

Console games are GUARANTEED to run when you put the disc in (unless you're an idiot trying to run a 360 game in your PS3). PCs you can run into problems with drivers that you may not know about until you install and try to run the game. Personally I had issues for a short time with Skyrim (PC - I like to mod) and my AMD graphics drivers for my dual 7770's (the issue being related SPECIFICALLY to Crossfire - it was eventually corrected in a newer AMD driver).

If money is no object you could always build a high-end gaming rig that will always rival console, but remember you will be giving up good console exclusive games (the PC gaming market is kind of drab game-wise compared to the consoles). Although, if money was no object you could have both a high end gaming rig and a console or two making the whole argument moot.

[NewsForge]

The Xbox One is now at 1310GFLOPS still 530 GFLOPS
behind the PS4.

[tuglu_pati]

Here we go again.

http://abload.de/img/yourmo...

[adorie]

Talking about 53mhz in a way that would highlight it as something major would constitute PR fluff, more-so than spin.

To me,Spin is saying RRoD wasn't an issue..
or that we will work 2 jobs just to afford the $599.00 PS3...

[Cmk0121]

only 50 mhz separated xbox 360 and ps3 last gen and ps3 was lauded as way more powerful. there are more things that go into the consoles than clockspeed. also added new driver NOT mentioned in the article. in the end if you only play games on console with 5-5 percent better graphics your missing the point

[sAVAge_bEaST]

yea, that's how you increase clock speed,.. by adding a driver,..what's your point exactly?

[hollabox]

@HardcoreGamer21

I wouldn't say the PS4 is way more powerful than XB1. Its not even 50 percent, way more powerful would be 3-5 times the performance or the difference between X360 and the orginal Xbox. PS4 biggest advantage will be its pixel fill rate, something Sony has always had the advantage dating back to the PS2 vs Xbox. The ram seem about even with 5-6 GB being used for games by both systems. The bandwidth will allow greater pixel shader anti aliasing performance for the PS4.

[AngelicIceDiamond]

And at the end of the day after all the theory's flying around, wellsaids all the way to somebody trolling.

The games between the two will look exactly the same. I don't need crystal ball, just knowledge of what happened this gen.

[gobluesamg]

Yeah multiplats maybe.

[CuddlyREDRUM]

Yeah, seems like a slightly meaningless PR jab at Sony.

Personally, I would rather them not mess with it this late in the game. The least they can do is a working console at launch.

[sobotz]

It's a good small 6.62% increased, that's good. but it's still inferior than PS4's GPU

[Wizziokid]

At the point there's nothing they can do in regard to matching the power of PS4 unless they put a delay on the console which no one in there right mind would do.

[Nik_P757]

Since this has come out I've wondered if it's possible for the PS4 CPU to up clock at all? I'm gonna have to do some research on this.

[Abriael]

It's possible to upclock everything that has a clock. Is it safe or useful? That's another story.

[Nik_P757]

At this point it probably wouldn't serve to big of a purpose. If it's not broke don't fix it I guess.

[golding89]

Lol. Another article that's there to sway away people from getting xbox one.

I'll get both system but those articles against xbox one..sheesh lol

[Abriael]

Or maybe its intent is just to inform. Nowhere in the article it says "don't buy the Xbox one" or anything to that effect.

[tuglu_pati]

Its just websites looking for hits.

[Gimmemorebubblez]

Its true clocking the Oc'ing the Xbone will do nothing. The PS4 has more CU's ACE's, VU's making it better no matter what the Xbones clock speed.

@nickp757

I don't think Sony will increase the clock speed, increasing it will bare little or no difference. If they do it will be purely for marketing.

[zebramocha]

@gimme while a small increase in core frequency,there still a performance jump.
Here is an example for the xbone and a ps4 adjustment.

Xbone 800-853MHz. Ps4 800-853
Tflops 1.2-1.3. Tflops 1.8-1.9
P fill rate 12.8-13.6. 25.6-27.2 P/s
T fill rate 38.4-40. 57.6-61 T/s

To get flops you do gpu core count x base frequency x 2. (12 CU x800 MHz x2)
To get fill rate you do base frequency x rops for pixels and tmu x frequency texture fill rate.

[Gimmemorebubblez]

@Zebra but the performance difference will be next to nothing but I suppose its better than nothing.

[sarcastoid]

Sometimes... just reporting actual facts can lead people away from systems.

[Clarence]

The article could be just to inform people.

[pyramidshead]

it's trying to compete? :/

[No_Limit]

a small bump is still good no matter what. Also most importantly, that deflate the rumor of a GPU downgrade from 800mhz to 750mhz due to yield issue. It seems like everyday the XB1 news are getting better and better.

[Electric-flamingo]

When Sony fanboys and the word superior are In every article, you know the Xbox one is looking good

[tuglu_pati]

^^ This

[No_Limit]

Also, judging from the "Disagree" we are getting in a Xbox only article, you know the Xbox 1 goods news is getting into them. LOL

[n4rc]

They seem terrified of Xbox.. Its rather comical

Don't be scuured. Its only a game console :p

[Limegreen]

Even if xbone was more powerful, which it's not! I would tell you that games are more important !!!!

[xReDeMpTiOnx]

Alot of it depends on the developers and how they can utilize what's given. But if we are talking about devs then Sony devs defiantly do a better job pushing titles quality to the limit compared to Microsoft.

[RGB]

So it's 1310 GFLOP/s now... Still 533 GFLOP/s behind PS4's GPU computational power.

[AnteCash]

Dont forget 10% of gpu is reserved for OS, so its 1.18TF

[DonFreezer]

Can you please inform us who don't know a lot of the technical stuff why teraflops matter so much and why when I go to graphics card retailers I can't find info on how many does a graphics card has?Why do I think that the whole rops and teraflops thing is nitpicking things that the ps4 gpu has advantage off?

[RGB]

It's all paperwork really, GFLOP/s or TFLOP/s just tell people the overall computational power of something.

Whole AMD GPU history, GFLOP/s on each card;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

Also, whole Nvidia GPU history, GFLOP/s on each card;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

Fact is though, PS4 has 50% more shader cores than Xbox One. 768 Vs 1152. 384 more shader cores will make a massive difference.

It doesn't matter how people paint it, PS4 is vastly superior GPU wise.

[MRMagoo123]

I have a feeling donfreezer was just trying to catch you out there RGB, but i guess it backfired, the ps4 gpu is by far the better one and it will show in games within a year. The ps4 WILL have better and more stable framer per second and it WILL have better textures because of this along with the ram giving it better draw distances.It doesnt matter what console someone buys the ps4 will be the better performing console and thats that.

[DonFreezer]

I'm still waiting for my reply.If they matter so much why do I see only their memory amount and clock speed in all those shops.I mean are they greedy and show us only the things they like?I mean lets say I want to buy a graphics card why can't I find those specs in the shops if they matter so much?

[Fireseed]

Great another round of specs... I keep saying it, but specs should be no concern to consumers.

[keabrown79]

Still doesn't matter if devs don't take advantage of it.. Since they will want to keep platform parity none of the advantages will be taken advantage of.

[GraveLord]

What are you talking about? The PS4 still has the advantage. A measly 53MhZ overclock really isn't that big of a deal.

PS4 GPU = 1.8TFLOPS
Xbox One GPU = 1.3TFLOPS

PS4 still has the performance advantage. PS4 is still more powerful.

[Fireseed]

So?

[PFFT]

Yes BUT does it have the Optimization skills and awesome Tools MS has to offer?? NOPE so even if the PS4 has the upper hand you can bet your ass MS will do everything it can with their tools so that the XBO games can look and be some what on par with whatever the PS4 comes up with.

[thexmanone]

Link to Xbox One specs from Microsoft Please.

[badkolo]

yet the ps4 isnt doing 60fps and the x1 is

[AnteCash]

Why post such nonesense.
Developers wont take advantage? , clearly you know nothing xD.

[keabrown79]

Sure..., this is why in spite of the PS3 being a more powerful system over the xbox 360 very few PS3 multiplat games are significantly better then the 360 counterpart. Now, when it comes to exclusives sure.. nothing on 360 comes close.. Just don't expect devs to make a multiplat that much better then another version. So, clearly in fact, you, are the one that knows nothing.. It's called history.. check it out sometime.

[RGB]

I doubt these developers/publishers will keep "platform parity" when PS4 exclusives (1st or 3rd) smoke all 3rd party titles on console.

[stuna1]

Console parity to multiplatforms perhaps, but exclusives, that's a totally different story! And as it stands IMO Sony has always had the upper hand. That's not to say Microsoft doesn't have some stunningly looking good games, but when you have 3rd party developers outdoing what your 1st party developers should have been doing early on in the console life cycle it doesn't look good! Example compare the Witcher 2 to the majority of the Xbox 360 1st party developers, it holds up to most if not all.

The good thing about this coming generation is the fact that I believe Microsoft have a opportunity to show what they've learned from the previous two generation, but what they do with that knowledge is up to them. Have they become seasoned veterans or, are we in for the "Same Old, Same Old?

[AnteCash]

This gen PS3 had little more power maybe 5% over 360 , its 50% difference in GPU performance betwen ps4 and x1.

Just becuz there are multi does not mean they wont use the extra power, did that stop them using the extra power in multis on N64 vs the ps1, or xbox vs ps2.
So, clearly in fact, you, are the one that knows nothing.. It's called history.. check it out sometime.

[gamertk421]

This is just minor tweaking to optimize final build. You always want to squeeze what you can out of the system, if it can be done safely. Not sure how this can be considered a negative.

[GraveLord]

It's not a negative. More like "too little, too late".

Seems like MS is finally noticing the difference in power but it's too late to do anything about it.

[gamertk421]

On N4G, anything XB1 is a negative.

[JBSleek]

Too little to compete?

Under that stupid assertion the PS2 should have never been able to compete.

[GraveLord]

By compete he means "surpass".
Of course Xbox One is competitive.

[Hicken]

I think it's in terms of power. Had the PS2 been releasing at the same time as all the competition, and with none of the other advantages it had, being more expensive than the rest while being weaker, and had a somewhat tarnished reputation, then MAYBE it'd be an applicable parallel.

Even though the PS2 was weaker than the rest, it wasn't in the same situation the XB1 is in now.

[Belking]

Too little I don't think so. Just look at the games already.

[Jury]

Yes but what were they running on? Best wait till they are released huh?

[Belking]

Yea, that means they will be even better on final hardware.

[MRMagoo123]

yes look at the games like ryse with its shitty textures and badly modeled characters lol then compare that to infamous lol, the ps4 games put it to shame and ryse is supposed to be the xboners looker.

http://s.pro-gmedia.com/vid...

http://s.pro-gmedia.com/vid...

[vigilante_man]

The question to ask is why do it at this late stage?

It does look on the outside as a vain attempt to compete with what it considers to be a more GPU-superior machine. Is it optimisation or desperation?

At this stage in development, let it be.

[GraveLord]

Might be too little? It is too little. There's literally nothing they can do at this point to surpass the PS4 on any level. The hardware is set in stone. Clock Speeds will not get any significant changes to make a difference. There's a thermal budget that has to be respected unless you want RROD 2.0.

[kickerz]

Go back to Springfield

[Infamous298]

Wait a minute....did Microsoft say that specs don't matter??? Lol

[Coach_McGuirk]

guys, if you want to bicker about hardware and clock speeds just get a pc already.

[Electric-flamingo]

I did a teraflop in my pool the other day. Hurt my stomach.

[KillrateOmega]

While that joke may have been lame, it still made me chuckle :)

[FrigidDARKNESS]

Once again folks are using old specs from Vgleaks on a two year old dev kit to compareit with the ps4 . The xb1 is a full HSA custom Gpu GCN 2 0 . Its GPU power already surpasser the ps4 .

[RGB]

How do you come to that conclusion?!

12 compute units = 768 cores. 768 cores x 853MHz x 2 cycles per instruction = 1310 GFLOP/s.

[DoesUs]

I'm sorry but you are as bad as greenpowerz. Those rose tinted glasses seem to be glued on. You really shouldn't talk as you just make yourself look rather silly. And you really need to stop with this GPU nonsense, because that's what it is. If your clinging on to the hope that the GPU is magically better than the PS4 GPU then I'm afraid it's a long wait for you Sunny Jim.

[FrigidDARKNESS]

Everything i read and say from insiders dude please on't hate.

[DoesUs]

Then i will simply say, don't believe anything your being told.

[FrigidDARKNESS]

Like i say in another thread do you people really think MS going to release a console with two year old specs from vgleaks that has a three to four year old GPU?

[DarkHeroZX]

@frigid

Yes! An old 2-3 year old GPU is still very relevant in the console market. They don't need the latest and greatest GPU because even many older GPUs are un-optimized for years. Plus if you want the $399-499 price tags then they have to use old hardware so you can get that and they can either take small loses or make profit. Using newer tech is what made the ps3 such a burden at launch. Not just because of performance but newer tech like bluray, the cell, and (at the time) fairly to date GPU.

[DoesUs]

Yes, because that what they are. As i've said before, i've been in the industry for 20 yrs, have many developer/publisher/platform holder friends...So trust me when i say, they are accurate. Its not rocket science, MS are not holding out do do a spec reveal.........they are what they are, theres enough information out there for you to digest, but it seems you don't wish to believe it.

[DarkHeroZX]

Lol what insider are you getting your data from? Your just speaking out your ass. And Dev kits are more powerful then the console so if the Dev kits out now aren't much more powerful just more refined then then yes the X1 is a great deal weaker.

[Rhythmattic]

Im over all this fanboy FUD regarding both consoles ...

Lets just wait and see what we get, for real.

[KillrateOmega]

It's nice, but a 53 MHz increase isn't that much...

[Tei777]

Its such a small amount that I assume it actually serves some logistical purpose as opposed to mcirosoft actually trying to "compete" with sony.

[OC_MurphysLaw]

An increase is an increase...I am all for improvments under the hood prior to release. Once a console gets released all attempts to get "hardware" improvements tend to stop and it becomes more about efficiency/shrinking of chip sizes.

[Corpser]

Time to update your talking points from 50% to 38%

[Corpser]

Correction, it's actually just 33% now

[ElementX]

Gotta love how Dualshockers gets their news from Gamespot and then writes their own article.... lol

This article doesn't take into account the optimized drivers for the Xbox One GPU. They don't even use the same GPU.

The boost is about a 6% increase. You can't just OC a faster GPU by 53mhz and have the same percentage increase. It's completely invalid.

[jah-Fu]

So a quarter closer to ps4 specs and its barely negligible in terms of visual difference. So somehow there is a big difference between the two consoles to make a fuss about? Even if its 200 mhz?

~ ps4 is 1066, X0 is now 856

and yeah the ddr5 stuff but. How big a dif will it be really? Really? At the end of the day?
At this point i call it pretty moot. Yes moot. I said it.

[Coach_McGuirk]

Yep. I can't wait to see the comments once the actual comparisons are out and everyone sees no difference.

[6DEAD6END6]

Lets be real the differences will in exclusives and everyone else will just waste their time with comparing third party games which are suppose to look and run the same. Just like the gen Sony has shown first party games look far better on their console, and the same will happen this new gen between PS4 and Xbox One. People are for getting launch titles never look at that impressive until a few months down the road, InFamous: SS is a great example of this. Show me one game on the Xbox One that comes close to matching InFamous: SS.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?...

[OC_MurphysLaw]

Yeah I really do agree that most aren't gonna see big differences looking from box to box. I mean the the average consumer will seethis:
8GB of RAM

They really wont see/understand a difference of 8GB of GDDR3 vs GDDR5...it will be just 8GB of RAM in both.

@6DEAD6END6... Ryse looks as good imo regardless of what you think of gameplay, Ryse looks the business from a graphics standpoint.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[6DEAD6END6]

@Dlacy13g

You do relies that InFamous: SS is a open world game right. Your comparing the graphic of a linear game to a open world game right, that just shows how great InFamous: SS graphics are :)

[PFFT]

Here you go!
Open World, No load times more characters on screen than in Second son.

And yes graphic wise its on par with SS.
http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Good day to you fanboy.

[DarkHeroZX]

@PFFT

Dude Dead Rising 3 looks this gen, the textures are pretty bad too. And its not as open as SS. Open world games are generally games that allow you to explore the entire game world before you even start the story. You can still have some open spaces but you can only advance when the script allows you to.

[thrust]

Does anyone have a link that shows me Microsoft saying what gfx card is in the Xbox one and the clock speeds?

[OC_MurphysLaw]

MS has never stated exactly what the card is....just a custom AMD GPU that now runs at 853mhz.

[thrust]

So the 853mhz is confirm?

Can you give me a link please?

[OC_MurphysLaw]

@thrust... from this weeks Major Nelson podcast with Marc Whitten...right around the 22:30 mark he starts talking about it.

http://majornelson.com/cast...

[thrust]

Great thx

[badkolo]

they all cried and lied weeks ago how the x1 was getting down clocked, so far every little thing they moaned and lied about to make the ps4 feel better is being trounced on in every way, drm issues, gone, indie issues, gonme and trumped, better games, more features and now this, poor sony bots

[BG11579]

And then MS announces that they increased the ram of the xbox 180 to 12Gb!!!

[DarkHeroZX]

You gotta let people know your just being sarcastic.

[jjb1981]

They're not considering the external factors of overheating into the equation. I couldn't imagine the nightmare for Microsoft if another RRoD situation occurred.

[o-Sunny-o]

MS is silly. ^~^ PS4 wins again.

[vigilante_man]

Guess the power of the cloud is not ready to use yet. Not to mention specs don't count. Mixed messages that almost contradict.

But I guess more for free is a good thing.

[mmj]

Xbox One GPU is about 60-65% as powerful as the PS4 GPU so a 6% clock increase (if it's a straight clockspeed increase) is not that impressive.

[jamsam360]

This all sounds so familliar, All of these posts remind me of 360 and ps3 forum nonsense at there launches! Playstation fan boys announcing there ps3 as superior and in all cases it was, And xbox fanboys defending the 360 with every fiber of there being!
And yet The weaker 360 ended up being the preferred console that i dare say won that generation! Every thing is following the same exact way it did last gen. So the weaker Xbox one will presumably win this next gen! And i will be on the winning side again!!!!

[Xtremist]

SONY needs to upclock their gpu to 870 mhz, not in order to compete directly with MS but mostly to break the psychological limit of 2 Tflops.

[ssbains]

53MHz, whoop de doo, that should make the $100 extra cost worth while, sense desperation in Microsoft for their less powerful console. They could have left GPU compute to the cloud! I thought that's where their strategy and infinite power was ......hehe

[Mister_G]

MS are worried

[JunioRS101]

"Xbox One is really pushing the boundaries. We've increased all our specs since E3, to make sure we really get the most out of our amazing machine."

Meanwhile, all those specs improved by about .0001%.

Wowwwwwwwie I'm sold! Mommy please buy me an Xbox!

[Mkai28]

Ps4 has the paper edge on the X1. Ps4 has raw performance, with faster ram and more shaders on the GPU(18 Units)..As for the X1, it has slower memory ram with a lesser GPU having 12 units..
We have to include the exclusive Direct X 11.1/11.2 for better optimization. Turning 3GBs of texture data into 16MBs..
We still don't know how the EsRAM of 32MBs will benefit for Ram to GPU.. We have to account the " Move Engines" as well: How to make effective use of ever-increasing numbers of transistors without breaking the bank on power consumption?
The Xbox One GPU includes a number of fixed-function accelerators or mini gpus.. Move engines are one of them.
Xbox One hardware has four move engines for fast direct memory access (DMA)

This accelerators are truly fixed-function, in the sense that their algorithms are embedded in hardware. They can usually be considered black boxes with no intermediate results that are visible to software. When used for their designed purpose, however, they can offload work from the rest of the system and obtain useful results at minimal cost.

The four move engines all have a common baseline ability to move memory in any combination of the following ways:

From main RAM or from ESRAM
To main RAM or to ESRAM
From linear or tiled memory format
To linear or tiled memory format
From a sub-rectangle of a texture
To a sub-rectangle of a texture
From a sub-box of a 3D texture
To a sub-box of a 3D texture
The move engines can also be used to set an area of memory to a constant value.

DMA Performance

Each move engine can read and write 256 bits of data per GPU clock cycle, which equates to a peak throughput of 25.6 GB/s both ways. Raw copy operations, as well as most forms of tiling and untiling, can occur at the peak rate. The four move engines share a single memory path, yielding a total maximum throughput for all the move engines that is the same as for a single move engine. The move engines share their bandwidth with other components of the GPU, for instance, video encode and decode, the command processor, and the display output. These other clients are generally only capable of consuming a small fraction of the shared bandwidth.

The careful reader may deduce that raw performance of the move engines is less than could be achieved by a shader reading and writing the same data.

Copy Operation Peak throughput using move engine(s) Peak throughput using shader
RAM ->RAM 25.6 GB/s 34 GB/s
RAM ->ESRAM 25.6 GB/s 68 GB/s
ESRAM -> RAM 25.6 GB/s 68 GB/s
ESRAM -> ESRAM 25.6 GB/s 51.2 GB/s

The advantage of the move engines lies in the fact that they can operate in parallel with computation. During times when the GPU is compute bound, move engine operations are effectively free. Even while the GPU is bandwidth bound, move engine operations may still be free if they use different pathways. For example, a move engine copy from RAM to RAM would not be impacted by a shader that only accesses ESRAM.

Vgleaks

Remember, the Xbox 360 had the GPU advantage over the PS3.. But utilizing the Cell Processors helped the weaker GPU in the PS3 to do things the 360 couldn't do.. Am I saying the X1 move engines are able to do the same feat? No, it's able to do it better, but it remains to be seen if its able to make on par or exceed the PS4 capabilities..

[THC CELL]

ps4 is 44% more powerful now, still a big gap.

[fsfsxii]

Reading the comment section in articles like these makes me feel like its the jungle and i'm watching life go on. Really makes you think

[MSpence516]

The game cube and Xbox og were more powerful than the ps2. Hell, the n64 was more powerful than the ps1. The ps3 is more powerful than the 360. According to the past, the most powerful console hardly ever wins the so called war.

Tl;dr
Spend YOUR money how YOU want to spend it.