So just how powerful are the PS4 and Xbox 720 going to be?

It's been a long time coming, but specs for both of the major next-gen games consoles, the Sony PS4 and the Xbox 720, have been leaked. And they're both based on pure AMD technology.Before we deep dive into the details, is the leaked information accurate? One can never be sure. But the signs are good. First, it checks out in terms of plausibility. The hardware is based on known and realistic tech. The information is detailed, particularly that revealed by vgleaks.com a few days ago. And it makes sense.

[onyoursistersback]

(--Insert cricket sound here--)

[jujubee88]

The next gen will be next gen.

I am going in with no real expectations other than they are machines which can do stuff and distract my time with fun video games.

[Gildarts]

Man the more i read these things the less i believe the leaked specs are true. I mean these specs seem too weak for next-gen consoles, i expected them to at least compare to a affordable high-end pc. but then again in a few years we will have cloud gaming when that happens none of this will matter. your beloved handcrafted with blood and tears gaming rigs will be basically wasted money.

[Computersaysno]

The worlds economical situation coupled with the success of the cheap, less than high tech Wii has changed the industry the past 5 years.

We face a prospect of a round of less than super high end new consoles for the first time.

Seems an inescapable conclusion to me.

There will be a noticeable jump from ps3 and 360 so I can't see all that many complaints when they do arrive. Just not a huge jump.

[RevXM]

I dont see no reason as to why ps4 or the next xbox wouldnt be comparable to an affordable High end rig.

Lets take Sony, they arent holding back much these days. They put a lot of money in to games. Just look at the quality line up for the last years.

The VITA just turned 1 year and it got some serious grunt being a high end portable device but Sony also makes other high end high quality products.
Bravia tvs with 4K and beast spec are coming. Xperia phones, Xperia Z seems incredible to me.
Their Camera's are not bad either, and lots more.

So IMO all they need is time and better marketing strategy.
Reading the latest rumors I cant believe it.
Weak low/mid end AMD hardware?
Id like Sony to go with high end Power PC and Nvidia components again, a speedier BD rom, put in lots of ram and an SSD 60GB, 120GB, 250GB launch models sounds about right but make tham swapable with retail SSD's.

SSD Prices are falling fast!
http://www.computerworld.co...

So it is very possible, but nothing is written in stone yet, not until the consoles goes in to production atleast. So any wishes, rumors and speculations will stay being wishes, speculation and rumors until MS and Sony reveal the systems.

[steve30x]

@ Rexm : Theres no such thing as an affordable high end PC. High end PC's are expensive. A mid range computer is affordable most of the time.

[JackBNimble]

An affordable high end pc for around $350/$400? You console guys don't want to pay much more then that right? You can barely get a high end gpu for that price.

Console gamers want high end specs, but they don't want to pay for it.

[Abdou23]

I hope this speculation threads stops. it's only couple of months people.

[thebudgetgamer]

Five powerful points.

[Root]

Over 9000

[Hufandpuf]

I'd say pretty powerful

[Allsystemgamer]

Devs themselves said its not going to be as significant as last gen. So I'm guessing 1080p standard 60fps with current PC textures. Which I'm fine with. Witcher 2 and bf3 maxed would be eye candy for consoles!

Happy gaming!

[CommonSenseGamer]

You know, I'd even settle for native 720p @60fps, no jaggies and no drop in performance and quality when played in 3D.

[Gamer39]

Witcher 2 and bf3 maxed would be eye candy for consoles!

Absolutely true.

[StrongMan]

Put it this way. PS4 games won't look identical to PS3 games like WiiU games look identical to PS3 games.

[bullymangLer]

look up Resident Evil Remake for gamecube. whuts the significant difference between that and ps3 power ?

[OpenGL]

Maybe the fact that Resident Evil on the Gamecube uses pre-rendered backgrounds so the only thing actually being rendered are the character models. If you were to do the same thing on the PS3/360 we'd get games that look like Avatar, but again like old-Resident Evil games, it wouldn't be a very fluid gameplay experience and would rely on fixed camera angles.

[bullymangLer]

YOU; Maybe the fact that Resident Evil on the Gamecube uses pre-rendered backgrounds

ME: . ha haa a .1st of all, those arent just pre-rendered pictures, THEY ARE ALIVE! .

2nd of all . . you need to refresh your memory, and go back thru res evil 1 remake for gamecube and pay attention to all the parts you seem to have forgotten about that look ps3 . like the huge snake boss, the sharks in the tank, the water effects, and the way the NON PRE RENDERED water looks, the character models, the fire and soo much more , uh huhh . what is the SIGNIFICANT difference between that game and ps3? . . (:

[nintendoland]

you're almost as good as me :)

[Ezz2013]

what those WiiU games that share the same gfx as TLOU/uncharted3/killzone3/GOWA /Beyond/infamous2/Ni No Kuni ??!!

i have yet to see any wii-u game get even close to that

[bullymangLer]

ni no kuni VS wind Waker

[hivycox]

how do you know that...gee I think you work for sony ...these are rumoured specs so that...and even so
Xenoblades 2 (Trailer from ND few days ago)looks better than ps3 games...

Plus there won't be any noticable changes in graphics... I don't know why everbody here seems to assume this will happen... Even if the PS4 will have a 7970 and a hard-core CPU doesn't show any difference between games from now and to the future...

I'm telling you how it will be= for Nintendo its the first time they make games for HD ...and knowing Nintendo they usually tend to fully utilized the console's power to its limits...

As for Sony and Microsoft = There won't be any leap... what you are saying is that it will be better than games on the Wii U...so my question is =

What is better graphics nowadays??? 10 years ago it was obvious..but not today... I look at Uncharted 2, Tomb Raider, the new Splinter Cell game and can't make out any significant differences... It just looks all the same...

WOW this game has more polygons...this has more tesselation...who the fuck cares ???

I put it this way = We have come to a limit where graphics won't look better anytime soon.. It still need IMO more than one generation to make a leap into somehthing like hyper-reality-graphics...

And thats fact!

[N0S3LFESTEEM]

Ray tracing is in the works as we type... when that translates into consumer products is a different question but until then you'll see a nice jump in the lighting effects, tesselation (which will get rid of pop-ins if properly implemented), and higher resolutions which = a clearer picture. You'll see a noticeable difference for sure with this next generation of consoles no matter how many people want to bash on these so called "Low end specs" which still dwarf the tech in the current consoles.

[dcbronco]

I don't believe the specs leaked so far are any indication of what the ability of next gen machines will be. There have always been rumors of multiple GPUs. And multiple APUs. One of the leaks recently out showed a Northbridge on the CPU. AMD Fusion chips don't have a Northbridge. This is all still speculation. Another huge point is that none of the leaks mention HSA. I believe HSA will be a huge part of next generation. Modified APUs with more updated HSA features will boost the power of the CPUs a ton.

Another huge thing is that even though AMD is working on the MS chip, MS does a ton of the work in-house. So though they may be based on AMD parts, it will be different from what Sony does.

[Liquid_Ocelot]

Exactly, most people when they read the 'specs' think that these parts will be the same parts used on conventional pc's or whatever but it doesn't really work like that. Consoles do not have to deal with all that big OS trouble always running etc, therefore making the hardware more optimized for gaming as it's the whole purpose of this 'closed box'.

Excuse my English. I'm sure there's people here with the knowledge to explain this better than me as I'm far from a 'pro' at these subjects.

I'll leave this here: (most have probably read this already)
http://timothylottes.blogsp...

[SockeyBoy]

I just wish Sega would bring out a new console...

[Ulf]

These AMD CPUs could be Jaguars, or they could be Steamrollers... in any case if BOTH consoles have 8 cores, you can be guaranteed that games made for them will USE all 8 cores, which CANNOT be said for PC games.

PC games, in targetting a low (not "the lowest") common denominator, will usually shoot to have no more than 2 active cores, and will often have *some* ability to utilize more cores during some portions of game loop processing. They do not, however, assume that the machine will have 4-8 cores -- so their engines are intentionally gimped to only use excess CPU function for optional items.

The end result... console games make better use of what they have. Same thing goes for the GPUs -- in knowing what the GPU can handle, and not having to worry about covering a wide range of GPU power, console game makers can customize their render pipeline in a way optimized WAY beyond what a "could be 50% of a 360, a HD 5450, or could be 1200% of a 360, a HD 7970" render pipe can do.

Remember that a PC game must run decently on crap, and only use extra resources for extra stuff. That's not so easy to do as you might think, and a lot of power gets effectively unused, or get shoehorned into extra framerate/resolution only, without any other real improvements.

PCs will always be more powerful than consoles -- but targetting a singular piece of hardware has huge, HUGE advantages that not many people realize. There are good reasons that games like, for example, Morrowind took twice the CPU clock and 4x the memory to look as good on PC as it did on the original XBox.

[Ulf]

I forgot to add something. This generation, we have something new, with regards to PC gaming.

Nowadays, there is a HUGE gap in available processor power for PCs, that just wasn't present in previous eras. Around 2005, the best gaming processors were Pentium 4s clocked around 3.6 GHz, and the typical PC user had a.. *drum roll* Pentium 4 clocked around 3.0 GHz. (Okay, AMD processors were pretty good at the time, but the overall difference wasn't much better... and Pentium Ds sucked for gaming so I don't count them).

Also, today laptops are so commonplace, you have to consider that a potential gamer could be wanting to run on anything from an Intel Atom to a single core 2.1 GHz i3 to a desktop 3.8 GHz quad core i7. That's a HUGE difference that just wasn't present during previous generations. GPU differences are just as huge today, whereas, again, in 2005, they weren't so much -- there's only about a 5x difference between a nVidia 6200 and a 6800 Ultra. The difference between a Intel HD2500 and a nVidia GTX 680 is over 40x for most considerations. Even nVidia's own low-end boards are probably only 1/20th the muscle of their high-end GPU... and then you have SLI!

People didn't seriously game on laptops in 2005 (because mobile GPUs *stunk*) -- they just didn't. The CPU manufacturers also just didn't offer such a huge range of products.

The end result is that PC developers have to target much further away from the typical gamer's machine than ever before... and that makes the "console difference" all the greater. The rumored PS4 and 720 specs will be more than enough power to impress even the hardest of hardcore PC gamers -- not due to the hardware, but rather due to its ultra-effective usage by the devs working with it. Just like every console cycle ever.

[vulcanproject]

You somewhat exaggerate the situation. They look like Jaguar cores because of the small size(has to be small to fit everything on the die with a GPU as hinted) and cache involved. Steamroller is not due til 2014 and would be highly expensive.

So, 8 low clocked Jaguar cores (designed for tablets/netbooks etc...) will be absolutely no match for any existing decent desktop x86 ivy bridge quad core, near future Haswell, existing 8 cluster AMD bulldozer. Not. Even. Close.

Regardless of the situation with 'lowest common denominator' I assure you that an average quad core gaming PC will surely have plenty of CPU performance over Jaguar based machines with even cores to spare.

Consoles undeniably benefit from optimisation because of fixed hardware, but this also takes time. Early games are just as guilty of leaving untapped performance in console hardware as most PC games are, rendering such a 'fixed hardware' advantage often moot early on in a console's lifecycle.

You mention Morrowind as if PC was ever struggling to match Xbox, when it wasn't. Back in the day Xbox ran said game 640 x 480. It aso in truth didn't look as remotely as good. It was notorious however for needing a powerful PC to reach those heights, but just MATCHING Xbox at its res and look was not that difficult...

Then you talked about nobody gaming on laptops in 2005, when we know they did. Just look at the Geforce go 6800 or mobility Radeon X800.... I don't believe anyone games seriously more on laptops in 2013 than they did in 2005, that is to say, not that many own proper gaming laptops. It is still kinda a small market, serious gaming laptops that is just because of their expense.

Certainly modern PC games are NOT DESIGNED for Atom netbooks and such as you claim. If you look at most popular well known modern games their minimum spec is really aimed at a level above consoles, like an 8800 series.

For example Battlefield 3 is DX10 only and its MINIMUM GPU spec was a Geforce 8800 (which is easily faster than PS3/360), and that is over a year old now.

PC developers making modern games don't have to aim to build a game for an low powered CPU/ integrated GPU laptop just because you pretend they have to and will..

Plainly they don't.

[Ulf]

@vulcanproject

All you will ever get from your quadcore overclocked i7, vs a mid-range hexacore AMD chip, in any PC game, is extra frames, and extra frames over a vsync'ed 30, to boot.

"For example Battlefield 3 is DX10 only and its MINIMUM GPU spec was a Geforce 8800 (which is easily faster than PS3/360), and that is over a year old now. "

Exactly my point. A PC *requires* a GPU at least 2x that of its console counterparts, and arguably looks the same or worse, with said GPU. You made my point for me.

If you think PC devs can thrive on selling to the high-end crowd only, you are way, way off base. The end result is that the new consoles, in addition to being much more powerful than the median PC (which is what matters), will also benefit from the *fact* that CPU and GPU tech advancement is slowing down at an extreme pace.

The gap between process size shrinks is increasing *dramatically*, thanks to the costs of fabricating chips at those scales being near unaffordable for anyone but the most successful corporations.. and even they are straining. The margin that PCs will improve, over the next 10 years, will be far, FAR less than they were in the past 7.. and that will make these consoles all the more relevant when the developers do get a grasp on them, and the low end PC all the more important to the PC dev, thanks to slowing PC sales.

There is no denying that these consoles will rival their PC counterparts for longer than their predecessors, and the 360 and PS3 are still pulling off some pretty amazing feats vs PC games. Additionally, the similarity between the rumored specs will only make the console versions of games even more optimized, relative to their PC brethren.

I think console gamers have nothing to worry about with these specs. They're getting a deal that will last them much longer than even the recent gen.

[vulcanproject]

What are you on with dude.

"A PC *requires* a GPU at least 2x that of its console counterparts, and arguably looks the same or worse, with said GPU. You made my point for me."

Battlefield 3 running on an 8800 looks better than it does on console and it does at least employ DX10, a more advanced rendering mode not possible on 360/PS3. Your point is boned in that particular case. Yes we know consoles can be optimised, yes we know PCs need more raw performance, but you hugely overstate the extra performance required by PC to match or outstrip consoles and employ poor reasoning and examples.

Most reasonably optimised game engines on PC are plainly better running/looking than the consoles versions on something like an 8800GTX even today, which is only a year newer than Xbox 360. 8800GTX is a weakling by modern PC standards, but it still duffs up the console versions of most games you care to mention in the vast majority. Probably because half the time "low" on PC means "console" these days.

What you get is more performance depending on the game, and who vsyncs their PC games to 30 frames anyway???? Its PC, 60 frames a second land if you can reach those heights, and most want to, being partly the point of more performance...

The *fact* as you claimed is that modern PC games are frickin all designed so they have to run on a feeble atom based netbook. Thats a ludicrous claim by you, when you just need to see today modern PC games do not run on such a machine! They run on a wide variety, but typically they have a design aim to run on most GAMING machines as possible, and most laptops and netbooks are NOT gaming machines. Devs can also ceate games that generate hardware sales, drive improved hardware sales. Crysis was one such game.

You have got it all horribly wrong, the specs of these consoles mean they will struggle to even rival a mid range 2012 gaming PC.

The reason being because if these specs are true, the gap between a high end PC and these consoles will be large before they even launch, LARGER than any other new console generation in history.

Xbox 360 had a cutting edge, state of the art GPU in it late 2005, but the Radeon 7770 equivalent touted for the new Xbox is barely midrange NOW, let alone after the next round of GPUs coming out this summer. These consoles will ALSO take time to master and exploit by devs(you seem to conveniently ignore this obvious fact,) time by which PC hardware has moved the goalposts even further, and it is stil moving, we still have at least a decade before that stops.

The reason for this is to keep costs down as low as possible.

It is already accepted that the leap to these consoles will not be as big as previously experienced, and PC hardware waits for no console.

Completely contrary to what you have said, the consoles seem almost certain to launch with a significant power deficit to a midrange PC let alone a high end one.

[Computersaysno]

Orbis is supposed to be the most powerful if we believe these specs and lets pretend yea we do for now.

Says the article:

'Sony Orbis will deliver roughly half the raw graphics grunt of a top end PC.'

'But there's little doubting the next brace of games consoles fall well short of the best performing current PCs, much less hardware that will be available in six month's time'

Guy above just said that too. I been saying it. I said it even higher up this comment section. Face up to reality Ulf. Optimization only goes so far before sheer strength from a Pc wins out. Pc looks like it will be enough ahead before Orbis even launches to cancel out console optimization gains which as has been pointed out above against takes time.

By the time people even pull more tricks to get the most out the consoles Pc will be far and away over the horizon in hardware terms.

Consoles will make good games and sell loads and people wont care if they are behind Pc. But face up to it ulf lol these consoles will be dated soon as the turn up in comparison.

Thats not a provocation or insult its just how it looks like it will be.

[N0S3LFESTEEM]

WALL O' TEXT... Just wanted to point out that Devs boost their minimal/recommended system requirements yearly so no... they don't gimp their game engines for PC.

[Npugz7]

i wouldn't believe this crap Thats why they are rumours! Just wait for the official specs before speculating anything. These specs could be way off to the final specs of the next consoles!

[ThaBlackBaron]

I never understand why these articles never tell ALL of Wii U specs!?!?

[MasterCornholio]

I personally believe that the PS4 and the 720 will be more noticeably more powerful than the WIi U but when compared to each other they will be about the same. Basically its a repeat of the Wii vs the PS3 and the 360.

[steve30x]

In all honesty I highly doubt the PS4 and Xbox 720 will only have a CPU clocked at 1.6GHz. Maybe thats its idle clock speed and it boosts to 3.2GHz+ when its needed. a 1.6GHz CPU will bottleneck that 7870 GPU.

[hobohunterz]

Ya hopefully it wil be higher than 1.6ghz, anyways they are probably just going by what the normal specs of that cpu would be. But MS and Sony dont just slap in an off the shelf component and not modify or tune it at all.

[stuna1]

My question is to those in the know! How do we know that Sony & Microsoft aren't doing the same thing they did with the PS3 & Xbox 360 chips? Those chips were worked on behind closed doors.

They were not made ready available util after the release of the consoles. Also is it true that the chip that is in the Xbox 360 is a hybrid or cousin of the manufactured cell chip?

[steve30x]

The two people that disagreed really need to get educated in computer hardware , because what I said was 100% correct. If you disagreed with what I said then you dont have a clue how computer hardware works.

[lfclee]

I'm just going to wait and not going to say anything until the official specs are released .

[Monkeysmoke]

2PPU Cell @ 3.2ghz >>> 8 core CPU Buldozer @ 1.6ghz

2PPU has 16 Spus/semi cores + the PPU is dual threaded making it 20 processing units all together.

Cell CPU will ensure PS3 backward compatibility.

Cell CPU is the reason why these games : Killzone 2, Killzone 3, Uncharted 2, Uncharted 3, God of War 3, are the best looking games on any consoles now.

3rd party devs have all gotten used to the cell architecture :Resident Evil 6, Far Cry 3, Assassins Creed 3, MOD warfighter etc all latest games now are all identical on PS3 and Xbox 360 now.

The Cell is the only CPU that can handle graphic tasks (post processing, AA effects) it can actually offload works from the GPU unlike most CPU.

I hope all these leaked specs am seeing are all fake. All sony has to do is use an advanced Cell CPU + a good GPU with like 6-8 gb of RAM we will all have our self a future proof console.

Because of the PS3's architecture its still yielding graphically magnificent games like: God of War Ascension, Last of Us, and Beyond Two Souls.

But what does the XBOX with PC architecture has to offer? It has long hit its potential so its dead now.

[StreetsofRage]

The exclusive games you mentioned are nice with the minor exception of Killzone which has inconsistent textures. But, it's pretty easy to accomplish graphics like Uncharted 2 or God of War when it's an extremely linear game. A small box game. What I mean by that is that the entire game is pretty much confined to a small area. So as a developer, it's much easier to have impressive graphics when you just have to worry about a small area using the ps3's power.

In contrast, Halo 4 accomplishes amazing textures and graphics with huge open levels. That is something that PS3 hasn't done. Ps3 games that have huge maps at the top of my head are Mag, Twisted Metal, Infamous, and Starhawk/Warhawk and they all look below average. No where near the graphical peak of Uncharted 2. The Resistance Trilogy, which is my favorite FPS on the ps3, doesn't get near to Halo 4's graphics and size.

What impresses me the most are games like Skyrim, GTA4, Fallout 3, or Red Dead. Only because open world games to me are just visually breath taking. Seeing entire living breathing worlds in front of you is truly a video game experience. While, Uncharted 2 is just a point A to point B video game.

Beyond Two Souls? Well I played Heavy Rain and the character models were nice but everything else looked horrible. This right here is the definition of a linear game. The Last of Us? Another nice looking game with linear gameplay. :(

I want my next gen experience to be bigger! More Halo 4 type levels or more Skyrim type worlds with 60 fps and next gen graphics. Don't give me another point A to point B game please.

[N0S3LFESTEEM]

Just saying bro... your comparing Halo 4's single player and comparing it to 3 games focused on multiplayer excluding Infamous. Not to mention that those games weren't really pushing the graphical boundaries when they released XD. MAG's main selling point was "WHOA LOOK AT ALL THE PEEPS... wait wuts gameplay".

[Platinum_k]

720 will have blue-ray drives???

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I guess the more they sell the more money Sony makes out of them :p

I doubt micro$oft will do such a thing...