PS4 Pro's outdated CPU could bottleneck performance

Sony's new PS4 Pro leverages a brand new beefy Polaris GPU, but the console is missing the other half of the hardware equation: a CPU overhaul.

As such, the PS4 Pro's Polaris GPU will likely be bottlenecked by its lower-end 8-core Jaguar CPU even with overclocking, which means developers will have to make sacrifices across the board when upscaling PS4 games to 4K and enhancing them in 1080p.

We take a look at why Sony made this decision, how Polaris GPUs are specifically designed to be complemented by Zen CPUs in SoC and APU form, and how the console's outdated CPU will affect PS4 Pro's 4K and enhanced 1080p games.

[Neonridr]

"why Sony made this decision" ... so that in 2-3 years time they can release another console with marked improvements and sell for full price.. that's why

[seanpitt23]

This gen will last 6 years that's why the mid gen upgrade came bang on 3 years. Expect the ps5 in Oct/Nov 2019 2 years after the Scorpio and 4K will be in full swing

Microsoft have gone down a different path the xbox one didn't do well and was underpowered so they have gone back to the drawing board and made a system that is totally opposite to the xbox one a premium most powerful console ever made and let's hope it works out for them.

[maybelovehate]

Scorpio is interesting, but them releasing their games on PC is more important in the big picture. Consoles today are just watered down PC's. Eventually all gamers will wake up and just get a PC. And I would not be surprised if Scorpio isn't a MS branded PC that can also run Steam, Blizzard, Origin games etc. I wouldn't buy it as I prefer to build my own, but would be a great gateway to the Console gamers who might be afraid to make that step.

[starsi360]

@maybelovehate

"Eventually all gamers will wake up and just get a PC'

Wow, pretty patronising right there. Personally I like the idea of a console like Scorpio because on the one hand it offers high end PC performance while on the other hand is prescriptive in terms of hardware. Which means games are easier to fine tune to the specific hardware for a start...

My point is, each to their own. I certainly am awake and I still don't want to play games on my PC, I want a console. Plug and play simplicity for me.

[uth11]

@maybelovehate- if PC hasn't replaced consoles in the 35 years it has been around, why would it start now?

Truth is it never will. Console gaming is closer to PC gaming than ever, and for most people it offers a good enough experience without the DIY headaches of PC

[bleedsoe9mm]

i've read some on n4g saying sony has a year advantage on ms , the truth is ms is going to have a 2 year advantage on sony . scorpio is going to be in its own class for at least a couple of years .

[assdan]

A year from now, those specs won't really be impressive at all on the xbox scorpio.

[Raziology]

@maybelovehate

"Eventually all gamers will wake up and just get a PC"

That's the most disrespectful thing that anyone has said to console gamers (Myself included) on N4G.

[Babadook7]

"Most powerful console ever made?" Lol. Kind of like the Pro but with a later release date?

Edit: and then when PS4 ultra/ps5 comes out the following year "most powerful console ever made - right guys?" Heehee

[The 10th Rider]

I think it'll be Oct/Nov 2018 or 2019. I don't get why people want it to be 2020 or later. We're already being held back by old CPU's, even though the pro and scorpio will make use of the new GPU's, devs will still be bound to making their games playable on the old PS4/Xbox One's GPU's. Why anyone would wants games to be bound by already outdated tech for another 4 or 5 years is beyond me.

[XanderZane]

Expect a significant upgrade to the Scorpio in 2020 to counter Sony's PS5. in 2019. They are just going to go back and forth with these updated consoles. Eventually games consoles will be as powerful as mid-high level PCs. What's after 4K?

@assdan
Why not? The technology that will be in the Scorpio is coming out in 2017. I think it will be pretty relevant when it launches in the fall of 2017.

[Jumper09]

This gen will last longer than 6 years...

Both companys wont just throw out a upgraded version of their console, just to kill them 2-3 years later.

Thats just fanboy dreams

[_-EDMIX-_]

lol

Agreed. This is what I like about both Pro and Scorpio.

Let MS and Sony drive down cost more a few years so they can get even BETTER tech in PS5, XNEXT etc.

[IamTylerDurden1]

I actually agree with Neonridr for once. Sony WILL release a new console in 2-3 yrs........it'll be called the PS5 and the improvements will make it significantly more powerful than Scorpio.

It's interesting how someone who seemingly hates Sony is ALWAYS first on Sony articles..

[nix]

Wow Rookie,

Creating new accounts to support your favourite console. This must be the highest point in your life.

[Babadook7]

@rookie. If PS4 pro is bottlenecked by its gpu, how bottlenecked is something with 1/3 the power?

[IamTylerDurden1]

It's funny bc i have nearly 5,000 trophies, 34 platinums, and an 18k g score. I've played a lot more than just a few indies on PS4.

The Last of Us Re was confirmed to run in native 4K on Pro. It's neither an indie nor a PS+ game.

It's cute that all you guys get together and talk and try to dig dirt on ppl. Smooth told you i love indies, you got me! What will you do if they IP ban you?

[EpicSandwich]

Omg lol scorpio 2 will release after ps5 dude 😂

[sammarshall102]

Then Microsoft will release the Scorpio 2

[Aenea]

@epic, @sammarshall

Yeah, and Sony will release the PS5.5, what's your fricking point?

Honestly I am kinda hoping one of them or both are finally waking up and actually make something that can be upgraded without having to buy a new console. Someone needs to get creative and develop a motherboard with a port that allows an APU+RAM to be replaced as easily as the HD in the PS4. Keep/add it for the HD as well and voila, you can upgrade your console whenever you want. If the upgrades only come every 2 or 3 years and are console specific it will be the same exact thing programming wise as now with the Pro/Scorpio. Base console $399, then after 2/3 years upgrade: $200. I could live with that. If it's really future proof (doubtful) and they can extend it to 9 years with a 2nd upgrade that would be even better...

Get on this Sony and MS! STAT!

[Jumper09]

No they wont

[Neonridr]

? Tyler, you do know that I own a PS4 and not an XB1 right? In fact I own a PS4, Wii U, Vita and 3DS. Feel free to add me on PSN if you wish :P (same name as here).

I don't hate Sony at all, far from it. But I also don't blindly hate Microsoft because I support Sony this gen.

[mcstorm]

I don't think people are seeing what Sony are doing with the pro. They are pointing this console at gamers who want the latest and greatest so to speak as well as the VR users. Yes the ps4 can do vr but it's better with the pro.

What will be interacting is to see where Sony go next. Microsoft have already said there will be no more console gens for them as they are looking to make every Xbox forward and backwards compatible and said the life of the Xbox one was made to last 10 years. I am starting to get excited about console gaming again as all 3 look like they have there own ideas which is what I want to see rather than the me to we saw last gen.

As for people saying just get a pc that is not for everyone. I have a gaming laptop but want to be able to just sit on my sofa pick up an contoller and play a game on my TV. So having an Xbox one I can do that but also pickup my pc if the other half is in the front room and carry on my game on my pc. For me that works great but I don't even need to have that as I can use the remote play at home no need for a gaming pc then.

[OB1Biker]

'where Sony go next. Microsoft have already said there will be no more console gens for them '
Agreed to that. I know they said to keep a traditional console cycle but I hope they dont go into Ms power race for the sake of it. PS 5 will need exclusive games not playable on current gen so that they can use all the new console s potential. as it is now, these upgraded console, even with new gen chips, cant use all their potential if they only play the same games as previous model.
Exclusive games mean long time development.

[mcstorm]

I agree with you and I expect to see a drop off point in the Xbox one at some point but Ms could have 2 to 3 consoles on the market. Xbox one Xbox one s, Scorpio but when the 4th one comes out this is when the they can they say the Xbox one is not supported for new games but people have the option to upgrade to the s or Scorpio or even the one after.

People seem to forget its not the console that makes the money it's the games. This is part why Ms are making cross platform games with windows 10 but I also see windows and Xbox becoming closer in terms of how it works and what it offers as the years go by. To be this is a massive plus for Microsoft over Sony and Nintendo as there games will reach more people than the other consoles.

[Aenea]

@mcstorm

I agree, tho the S is still the same as the regular One, so that will then be dropped as well.

Same for Sony, when PS5 hits, games will need to be able to run on the PS4 Pro and PS5 but not on PS4, if they do that's nice, but not needed. Also means consumers can always be 2 to 3 years behind the latest and greatest, still run the latest games and have to spend less on consoles since they are half a gen behind....

[iTechHeads]

PS5?

[blackout]

Your are not even get 1080 60 as they promised with the vanilla ps4. Sony knows there fans are STUPID AS F$@K. That's Why.

[DragonPaw]

You are shooting a big gun at a lot of people. If Sony fans are that stupid, what does that make you? The XOne is out performed by the vanilla PS4 if you forgot.

[IamTylerDurden1]

The fact that ppl agreed with blackout's blathering idiocy is scary.

[Babadook7]

What's a derogatory word we can come up with for people that paid less money for a system with more power and better games?

"Uh... nothing comes to mind... uh.. let's call them ponies?"

Lol

[RiseofScorpio]

You and blackout are equals Tyler.

[Aenea]

Ahh, okay, so if Sony fans are stupid af as you say and Xbox One/One S is even less powerful than the PS4 that means all Xbox fans are too.

That is indeed a mighty big group of people you just insulted...

[seanpitt23]

Zen isn't coming out in 2017 it's been pushed back to 2018 so Microsoft will have to go down a different route if they want to keep the 2017 release date.

I think personally they will go for the Puma cpu a step up from jaguar they just cannot have a jaguar cpu in a 6tf machine.
It's just pointless and will bottleneck and you will not get the best out of it.

With the evidence the jaguar cpu is stopping fps that's why 60fps has been so hard to hit this gen unless you dramatically lower the visuals down.
For eg bloodborne, justcause 3 really bad fps and Uncharted 4 mp does 60 but it looks like a completely different game than in single player.
Let's hope Sony knew this and at the end of the day the ps4 pro isn't out yet and we don't know 100% what sony have done. Mark Cerney said 7 modified alterations to the GPU.

What game that has impressed me is bf1 they have got some good tech at dice they hit 900p at 60fps and it still looks incredible.

[Neonridr]

Scorpio was never confirmed to have Zen, that was merely a rumour / speculation.

[Deeke]

Not confirmed, but Microsoft absolutely cannot use a 6 TFLOP GPU with a Jaguar CPU. It'll be horrible. Polaris + Zen (or even Vega + Zen) is the most logical choice.

If you shove a high-end GPU like that with a low-end Jaguar CPU, it will bottleneck like crazy.

[Neonridr]

@Deeke - oh absolutely, bare minimum they will be using Puma or something newer if it is available.

[Deeke]

http://www.tweaktown.com/ne...

[trainsgofast]

That's not a real news site ! It's a blog site the slide says 2017 ZEN id still on track And how is it that some think that you can run 59 cu's with a weak CPU?

[freshslicepizza]

@seanpitt23
"Zen isn't coming out in 2017 it's been pushed back to 2018 so Microsoft will have to go down a different route if they want to keep the 2017 release date."

where are you getting your facts from?

this is just two weeks ago,

http://www.extremetech.com/...

they are talking about next gen vega possibly being delayed. zen is still on track for q1 of 2017. as for the ps4 pro it seems like sony just improved the gpu and not much else.

[seanpitt23]

This is this week Zen info.

http://digiworthy.com/2016/...

[freshslicepizza]

@seanpitt23
"This is this week Zen info.

http://digiworthy.com/2016/... "

it's way too early to announce anything. even within your article it says this

"With that in mind, the other option could be a downclocked version of AMD’s next-gen Vega technology. Some reports also suggest that the new 4K-focused Xbox will be built around a new scaled custom graphics solution that will likely sit between the mid-range Polaris and enthusiast-grade Vega GPU. But, these are all rumors until we get an official word from either Microsoft or AMD."

one thing is for sure, it won't be the current cpu on the xbox one. what i will say is amd needs to get their act together, their cpu (and gpu) has fallen behind for many years now and these constant delays are not helping them.

[IamTylerDurden1]

They doubled the GPU and upped the clock speed. It's going from 1.8 teraflops to 4.2. I'd say on paper 1.8 to 4.2 is quite significant. Watch the Horizon demo in 4K and you should be a believer.

I'd love it if the cowards that disagree would please explain why they do.

[trainsgofast]

@moldybread
That's not a real news site ! It's a blog site! note how no one from AMD says " AMD has already announced that Zen-based semi-custom SoCs for game consoles will not arrive before 2018,"
Even the slide says it's 2017.

[meche334]

nah it got pushed to 2017. it was supposed to release this year. still dont know if scorpio will use zen though

[trainsgofast]

@seanpitt23, EDMIX,MrSec84

http://www.pcgamesn.com/amd...
AMD have though now said that the official release of Zen is going to be 'early 2017.' We may still see press review sampling of the Zen CPUs before the end of the year while actual full release is likely to follow a full CES reveal in January. With AMD now confidently showing off engineering samples on stage the likelihood of having final silicon in our hands this year is looking ever more promising, even if it won't actually be on the shelves.

http://www.usatoday.com/sto...
Loftis says Microsoft is already exploring virtual reality options and games for Xbox, which will support VR with Scorpio, as well as prepping titles for the boost in visual quality. "Any games we're making that we're launching in the Scorpio time frame, we're making sure they can natively render at 4K."
So you go with that OLD CPU i will go with a ZEN type maybe the LAPTOP cores

[Ck1x]

What if Microsoft chooses to switch from APU design back to separate CPU and GPU setup? AMD has stated Zen won't be available for custom solutions such as APU , but Microsoft could easily put a cut down version of the CPU in the Scorpio!

They have to use something better than the excavator cores because they have been anchor dragging down this generation.

[Mystogan]

source for zen delay please.

[fingazblank]

ohhh weird

[trainsgofast]

Zen is coming out in 2017 i think that it will be a LAPTOP ZEN CPU!

http://wccftech.com/zen-bas...

[RegorL]

Actually I do not think the CPU is a problem at the moment. The problem right now is to learn howto use the PS4 architecture - no it is not a PC!

PS4, and PS4 Pro, is really a GPU with an added CPU to handle those tasks that the GPU does not handle well.

So here you have a new open world game... what parts of the game do you want to run on CPU?
- User input processing, yes probably
- Network input, yea
- Physics? No, better calculated with number crunching on GPU
- AI? Probably, but you can run basic AI algorithms on GPU too.
- AI strategy has to remain on CPU.
- Issue draw calls to the GPU - well, same memory for both CPU and GPU. With modern APIs it is mostly about sending a pointer - run this.
- Storage, loading and saving areas visited.
- Help the GPU by determining what triangles should be drawn...
- Could work as long as you can stay within the CPU caches, hitting system memory is costly.
- But the GPU would do this even faster if structured correctly.

I repeat: PS4, PS4 Pro and Scorpio (most likely) it is the GPU that owns the system memory, and is the first class citizen. CPU accesses cost more than GPU accesses...
- maybe it is better improve the GPU HW...

I am pretty sure SONY (and Microsoft) have enough data to be certain that a GPU upgrade while keeping the CPU more or less at the same gives great performance benefits.

EDIT: I pretty sure Frostbite is one of the game engines that uses these architectures the best, they talked about this change in perspective many years ago.
http://www.frostbite.com/20...
http://www.frostbite.com/20...

[FasterThanFTL1]

Could? It already does.

[RiseofScorpio]

True. The thing was made to aid VR, nothing else.

[sinspirit]

Every system has a "bottleneck". There is always one item that is less of a performer in its field than the other. No matter what the product is. Using this term just shows inadequacy and a cheap try at getting views. The GPU is far more important for GAMING, and being a console has far more control over resources. And, with the other hardware which keeps some of the extra things off of the CPU it still has good head room.

I have a core i7 and a 965m on my laptop. My 965m is technically my bottleneck but I can still max out most games no problem.

[JoeDG]

A lot of fanboys here hope for a delay of the zen cpu. Since amd doesn't stated anything like that im still except the first cpus for q1. Zen and the raven ridge apus will come 2017. Ms will order a custom variant of one of them.

[_-EDMIX-_]

It could.

Not sure how much it will matter. This is an optional upgrade, its not its own generation or market. I'm not sure most will care as if all games get a 1080p 60fps feature and a 4k 30fps mode, not sure many will REALLY care that it could have been slightly better, its made to be BETTER then PS4, not to be a PS5. So I would say the power in Pro or even Scorpio isn't really THAT important as its not the base, its merely the sku used to upgrade performance from the base.

PS4 Pro and Scorpio is for performance ABOVE XONE and PS4, sorry folks but once you go past those specs, your are sorta getting diminishing returns. I'm not honesty sure how the upgrades would be THAT much better considering they still have to have a base on PS4 and XONE.

ie running Half Life 1 on a HD 5770, doesn't mean that when I get a GTX 1080 vs a HD 5970 that the difference will be HUGE between them lol. Remember where the base is folks and why Pro and Scorpio exist in the first place. The difference will be there yes, but after a point, I don't think its just going to turn a game into real life...

[Valkron1]

First, I think you meant diminishing returns, not demolishing returns. Second, your example ridiculous. You bring up how Half Life 1, a game released in 1998, wouldn't see much benefit from a 1080 card. Why not say playing PacMan on a PlayStation 1 would be about the same as playing it on a Titan X, so there is no real upgrade. It's true that not every game will get an automatic boost on a better system. It's also true there may be no boost on the Pro for Witcher 3 and Destiny since the developers aren't going to patch for it

[_-EDMIX-_]

fixed.

It was meant to be "ridiculous" for a reason. Its showing that you can only improve on a game by GPU power by so much.

"Why not say playing PacMan on a PlayStation 1 would be about the same as playing it on a Titan X, so there is no real upgrade. It's true that not every game will get an automatic boost on a better system"

Agreed, sorta my point.

" It's also true there may be no boost on the Pro for Witcher 3 and Destiny since the developers aren't going to patch for it"

Agreed, that is up to developers to decide. Even as a PC and console gamer, I actually just don't see the upgrades being THAT big of a deal as they are going to run the games better, I don't really think to what degree is really that important. I think the upgrades from both PS and XB are good enough, I'm not sure if them being any better even matters to the end user.

They still need to be affordable.

[hamzilla]

I think Destiny will be a patched game for the Pro? I thought I heard that on a vid I seen on YouTube. Cuz of Bungies partnership with Sony they I swear I heard were working closely with Sony on this Pro to make the game look better for PS4 Pro players. could be wrong. but with its semi old engine (was uses on PS3/360) I think it could be jumped to 4k especially if Last of us can be

[trainsgofast]

Look at it this way if i had a 1080 in a console and a 1080 in a PC who would win ?
the console will run away with it and leave the PC far behind. As said here

" FLOPS can be used as a rough stand-in for gaming performance only within the same architecture. Eurogamer thinks that the next-generation Scorpius uses AMD’s Vega, and Vega is a complete departure from previous the previous GCN uarch. For proof of this, consider the GTX 580 (1.58TFLOPS of single-precision floating point) compared to the GTX 650 Ti Boost (~1.5TFLOPs of single-precision floating point). As Anandtech’s Bench figures show, the GTX 580 is regularly ~30% faster than the 650 Ti Boost, even though they have roughly equivalent GFLOPS metrics. Unless the underlying architectures are extremely similar, GFLOPS simply isn’t a good metric to rely on."
http://www.extremetech.com/...

6TF in a console is of GCN4 is not the same in a PC get ready for a 4K 60FPS from a console

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

I wouldn't be that optimistic, 4k 60 FPS on many new games requires a GPU with more than 8 teraflops paired with a high end i7 CPU (often overclocked).

[Babadook7]

GCN 4

http://wccftech.com/amd-veg...

Edit: And you edited - no longer gcn5.

[GNCFLYER]

TLDR

More xbox fan shit.

[meche334]

No its not. Its facts. I still may get pro but the JAG cpu is not powerful at all

[JoeDG]

Have preordered mine but since i understand a little bit about how technology works and how important the cpu & bandwidth is for over 1080p gaming. I see a very big bottleneck in the cpu. For 30 fps it will Be ok but with 60 fps i see a lot of problems. Jaguar is a tablet cpu... i don't now if gpgpu will help.

[Babadook7]

It's by no means a FACT that the CPU will bottleneck the gpu. The bump in CPU clock will support the higher res and effects sufficiently. And for the record, for $50 less, you'd be nuts to get and Xbox one s. Totally useless system.

[The 10th Rider]

@Babadook7,

It is a fact. The CPU already bottlenecks games and the slightly higher clock speed isn't going to magically stop that, especially with the GPU increase. Granted the GPU can make games look better, but they will preform only slightly better. Some games may no longer get frame rate drops, but 30fps to 60fps is unlikely. The CPU will still be the bottleneck.

" And for the record, for $50 less, you'd be nuts to get and Xbox one s."

That's just silly. The Xbox One S does have a 4K Bluray drive...Which would be $100 separately. The Slim is also readily available at MSRP bundled with a game, the PS4 Pro won't be for a little bit. If you don't care about the improvements of the PS4 Pro and/or you need a 4K Bluray drive, you'd be nuts not to consider the Xbox One S.

[Babadook7]

@10th

Wrong. The Pro will run the same game as og PS4. Same levels, same ai. But the CPU is bumped. The frame rate will have the same goal as on og PS4 but it will hit that goal more consistently because of the bump. Sony has in fact mandated that the frame rate must be equal or greater for the reason that it is dead simple to do so. Higher res DOES NOT impact CPU in a meaningful way. Hence the CPU in pro is LESS of a bottleneck than PS4 and xbone S.

[DragonPaw]

This is what happens when only one brand releases a console. It is disappointing how much hate seems to be coming out of the woodworks. That is almost everything here. All these opinion pieces are irrelevant and only good for people who want to hate. I am not one of those...

[meche334]

I like both consoles but you cant stir up facts

[Altovoltage]

People don't seem to understand that the Pro it's just an upgrade not a new generation console. I bet 3 to 4 years from now the PS5 will out.

[The 10th Rider]

Honestly, I think it's meant to be Sony's main console now. The Slim will be presented as a budget option. It only makes sense for them to make the most of the new GPUs.

[madmonkey01]

Pretty sure the engineers would of thought of that. And understand it better than a random internet blogger

[Deeke]

Of course they did. That's basically what I'm getting at, and I want gamers to understand what's happening and to see through Sony's PR-speak. The PS4 Pro is a great value, but I just wanted to let everyone know what to expect from the system.

That's why the PS4 Pro's "RX 470 equivalent" GPU isn't what everyone thinks it is. It'll be highly customized to be offset by the outdated CPU, so the Jaguar CPU doesn't pull it down. It will -not- deliver desktop GPU level performance, and if it can't even deliver RX 470 level desktop graphics, the PS4 Pro assuredly doesn't compare with a Radeon RX 480.

Sure AMD was able to overclock the Jaguar CPU a bit to help reduce the bottlenecks, but devs are still going to hit a very real ceiling with specific games.

It's a big upgrade in terms of toolset and GPU potential performance, but there's still major restrictions that are only there because Sony decided to initiate the first-strike against Microsoft.

[meche334]

Im not intrested because of 4k. im interested for the 1080p better graphical quality presets and i still want to game on console

[RiseofScorpio]

Doesn't work like that when they are aiming to keep price as low as possible.

[rainslacker]

Anyone who understands tech understands why this is wrong. The current original systems are not bottle necked by the CPU, because most of the code runs on the GPU, and the GPU can run completely independently of the CPU with it's own memory access. The current CPU's would be more than sufficient for the most demanding games, so long as the devs utilize the hardware the way it's been intended, the way it's set up in the API's to begin with, the way every tool out there uses the GPU, and so long as they don't try to do a CPU bound game like that AC game, which is the only game this gen which has been bottle necked by the CPU, and that was more down to sloppy coding on the CPU, than the slight 10% difference in CPU speed between the PS4 and X1.

@Deeke

If you want people to understand what you're getting at, maybe you should understand why what you're getting at isn't worth getting at in the first place.

There is nothing wrong with current CPU's. They could even step it back a couple generations and be fine, because current game system CPU's come nowhere close to being fully utilized, and spend more time performing system or OS tasks than they do running game tasks.

I'm afraid you aren't qualified to explain to people the principals involved to help them understand what's happening, or what they should expect from the system.

Even those assuming that MS is going to use a Zen CPU in the Scorpio don't realize what a total waste it would be, and only serve to drive up costs unnecessarily. The Jaguar CPU isn't overclocked. It's being set to run within it's original maximum rated speed. It won't deliver desktop GPU level performance, but it doesn't need to, because the consoles don't perform the same kinds of tasks in the same way. It may make more difference for Scorpio where they allow apps from the store, but those won't be so demanding it will make a difference either.

You also seem to not understand that the CPU and GPU are two distinct entities within the APU, and are not rated together. But the current CPU's, and the one's in the Neo, can indeed feed the GPU no problem.

No, the Neo 470 doesn't compare to a 480, but it doesn't have the same overhead as PC, so it's kind of a wash in terms of actual real world performance.

The same restrictions exist that existed to begin with....and that comes from legacy support. Since the only things that will make much of a difference due to the legacy support mandate are graphical/performance improvements, all that was really needed to upgrade was the GPU, as the current stock CPU's were more than sufficient, and the memory can still feed the GPU within it's rated parameters.

Sony didn't design the system to deliver a first strike. They were well into development and are delivering the system they planned from the start, in a way they want to deliver it. Nothing about the time lines involved suggest that Sony is rushing this to market, or doing it in response to anything MS is doing with Scorpio.

[The 10th Rider]

"They could even step it back a couple generations and be fine"

What sort of fantasy world do you live in?

That's why games like the Witcher 3, Grand Theft Auto V, the upcoming Final Fantasy XV—or, you know, anything really CPU heavy—sees FPS drops. Oh, wait...

[rainslacker]

I live in the fantasy world that my job depends on me understanding how games are made, to develop the tools that game developers use in their engines to make games. As such, I do have an understanding of how games are made, and what tools devs are using to make their games, as well as a good understanding of what the CPU and GPU's are capable of within the systems, along with varying levels of GCN architecture where it's pertinent to my work.

When I say a couple generations, I'm not talking about going back to a Pentium II, but rather, any multi-core CPU that has existed within the 2-3 years prior to the release of the stock console.

Yes, some games rely too heavily on the CPU. GTAV and FFXV don't see frame drops due to the CPU, they see frame drops due to over emphasis on effects which are rendered on the GPU. Can't say about W3, because I'm not familiar with it, but being primarily built for PC, I'd imagine that the CPU is a bottleneck, because the dev didn't spend as much time optimizing for a different design paradigm inherent in consoles, and relied on DX11 where optimization between the CPU and GPU isn't anywhere near what the API's provide with the current consoles.

Consoles, for the vast majority of games, barely utilize their CPU's beyond 50% for game related tasks. Giving more CPU power isn't going to affect games that much if they're designed around GPU Compute the way it's intended with these consoles to begin with, and the way that PC's are moving as we speak.

[The 10th Rider]

My bad, I thought you meant a few console generations back with the CPU, which would not work at all.

Yes, games only utilize a small portion of the CPU, but that's not going to change. Console makers are still going to limit a certain portion of the GPU to the OS. Most FPS games, things like that are fine on current consoles, and most of them rarely suffer from frame rate drops. However, many open world games suffer drops. GTAV in particular suffered drops from effects, as you said, on Xbox One . . . But on PS4 is suffered frame rate drops during processor intensive portions. I guess it would be more accurate to say that the CPU will still be a bottleneck on open world games.

[meche334]

It doesn't have the same overhead but thats how the consoles can do what they do now and you think the same cpu they can fully utilize a 4.2tflop cpu. idk. i hope it can. but im just not feeling to keen on that

[rainslacker]

@meche

The point is, the game design itself remains the same due to the legacy support mandate. There is no difference, or very little depending on the implementation of additional features, that would add more stress to the CPU. Maybe some fps could be affected, but the current CPU's can feed 60fps as it is. There are also better ways to set it up so the rendering loop isn't reliant on the game loop to finish, which can make it sort of a moot point. This is actually fairly common nowadays with both the CPU and GPU having distinct access to memory, and the GPU itself being able to update a variable directly in memory without having to go through the CPU, which would be more common pre-DX12 PC's where the system has stricter control.

Open world games tend to have a lot of variables in the background, and it's not so much the CPU can't keep up, it's that memory can't keep up and feed the variables fast enough for the CPU to calculate whatever it is that it needs to do. It's actually a drawback to having a high speed RAM as opposed to a low latency RAM. That won't change in the Neo, except there is more bandwidth to prevent bottle necking where the GPU will require more of the memory resources.

Overall, there shouldn't be much of a problem, because currently, there isn't much of a problem. It's all in how the game is designed, and some games may see a bottleneck, but as we've seen so far this gen, the examples of it are pretty few and far between.

[MagicBeanz]

They should have put a state of the art current CPU in there and then tried retailing it for $800.00 so you could have bitched about that instead.

[ninsigma]

I agree on this. It's likely to be the big offender when games hit their limit with the pro down the line. I would have liked a new cpu that hit 3ghz. However that would have likely driven up the cost and considering Sonys intention is not to create a 4k beast but to give a lot more head room for developers and gamers to have options, I don't think this will be too much of an issue before the ps5 is released. Now, if the pro had been intended to be a replacement for the ps4, then that cpu certainly would have been a bigger issue but it's not so I think it'll be fine.

[medman]

Based on what Microsoft has shown thus far, it appears they are taking a similar approach and sticking with a Jaguar core. Both Pro and Scorpio will be hampered by the cpu, but both Sony and Microsoft are well on record saying these are mid gen refreshes and not meant to be "next gen" machines, so what's your point, author? Have you not been paying attention?

[Deeke]

I absolutely disagree with this. Sticking a 6 TFLOP GPU with a Jaguar CPU would defeat the entire purpose of the Scorpio.

There are still going to "generations", but they will be iterative cycles instead of brand new gens that reset everything that came before it. That doesn't mean Sony and Microsoft won't stick in new hardware you'd expect from a traditional generation cycle: all it means is that they will refresh consoles a lot sooner, and that all older games and accessories will work.

The iterative cycle pretty much means we won't ever have to rebuy games again, and that new, better consoles will come out every 2-3 years...but the industry isn't going to reset itself ever again on a consumer or developer level.

But it WILL reset itself in terms of hardware. There's absolutely no reason for Microsoft to use an old, outdated CPU with its powerful GPU hardware that will deliver "true" 4K. If that "true 4K" translates to "native 4K", Scorpio will need a Zen CPU (which naturally complements the Polaris AND Vega GPU line) to prevent bottlenecking.

Then, of course, there's the price. Microsoft has already confirmed Project Scorpio will be a "premium" system. If it does rock Zen + Polaris (or Vega), it'll be priced at at least $600.

I've been covering both Project Scorpio and Sony's PS4 Pro for a loong time now, and I have a ton of content written on TweakTown :P

http://www.tweaktown.com/ta...

http://www.tweaktown.com/ta...

http://www.tweaktown.com/ta...

[medman]

Uhhhh...if you say so....

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

[mkis007]

I think if MS is really accurate about native 4k, $599 is going to be the price.

[DeeBeers]

Pspro is half steppin. Seems Sony should have waited abit longer. 4 years out and a markedly more powerful console seems like the better choice.

[ninsigma]

But if Sony didn't want to go that far and create a console that may as well be the next gen of playstation then it's the perfect choice. Considering it's a half step they've done a good job and they're release at a decent price a year before it's more powerful competitor will at likely a very premium price.

[Ysmir6723]

No....I cant believe that a 50$ tablet cpu could bottleneck a 150$ gpu...

[Kurdishcurse]

could?? no...it will actually bottleneck.

[MrSec84]

A zen CPU isn't happening in any console yet, that type of core is way to big for platform creators to fit 8 of them in the same chip as a 36CU GPU.
Jaguar cores are tiny, which means that they don't take up much space next to the updated GPU.

If people wanted less GPU and to wait until Zen releases, then they could maybe have 4 Zen cores and a 20CU GPU, but you wouldn't be getting GPU performance like the PS4 Pro will be capable of, then Sony would potentially have compatibility problems between games because there would be very different CPU code set-ups between both systems.

PS4 Pro's CPU is about 31% faster compared to the launch PS4 and since games are meant to be designed with the kind of GPU heavy hardware set-up in the PS4 ecosystem I doubt there will be issues for most devs.
The point of the Pro is for games to look prettier and run smoother than the launch PS4 or Slim.

People thinking that Scorpio is going to have an 8 Core Zen CPU, alongside a 36CU GPU or bigger Vega Core are out of their tiny little minds, they need to actually educate themselves on how console hardware works or how much silicon space hardware developers have access to.
Scorpio will most likely use an 8 Core Jaguar CPU clocked closer to the max clock speed of the architecture to help out the faster clocked GPU, it's very unlikely Microsoft will use more than 36CUs on their GPU because going bigger adds way too much to the cost of the chip, they're likely taking longer to release because of AMD having to add a bigger memory controller and the shape Audio block to a chip similar to PS4 Pro's chip design.
MS will have higher clock speeds for CPU and GPU and probably a bigger console case, with a bigger APU cooler and more memory chips to add memory bandwidth and some added capacity to handle the bigger processing performance load.

Scorpio will not be a new generation XBox, it will be a hardware refresh like Pro is, but more powerful, simples.

[trainsgofast]

Everything you said is an opinion not based in reality. Xbox head on stage said we could have done the same thing Sony did but decided to do true 4 K game what part of that don't you get? So that one statement completely destroys most of what you say in your post, like that only using 32 CU's that sounds like the same thing Sony did and we know how that turned out because the PlayStation can't Do true 4K gaming 60fps .

"Any games we're making that we're launching in the Scorpio time frame, we're making sure they can natively render at 4K."

http://www.usatoday.com/sto...

PS 4 Pro is already running at the limits of over heating so how could they clock it up any higher?

[MrSec84]

Everything I wrote is fact, there are hard limits on how many chips you can make on a single wafer and still expect to pay reasonable prices, also the size of area you have to work with on a motherboard in a console has it's limits too, BTW 4K isn't happening in all games, not without graphical and frame rate compromises compared to what's been seen on current XB1 games.

Even the base XB1 doesn't do 1080p in all games, it has ones that run at 900p, 720p and somewhere inbetween.
A 4.6X improvement compared 1.31Tflops in the base XB1 and 4.28X compared to 1.4TFlops in the XB1-S isn't going to let Microsoft push games like Battlefield 1 to 4K, when that runs at 1280X720.
For reference 1280X720= 921,600 pixels per frame, if you times that by 4.6 it'll show you that the maximum resolution Scorpio's GPU will be able to hit in BF1 is 4,239,360 or slightly higher than 2X1080p (1920X1080=2,073,600, X2 equals 4,147,200 pixels per frame).

Math completely destroys the statements of lying PR men and you're buying their nonsense.
You will not see games running on Scorpio at 4K with modern graphics, compromises will be needed and FYI Scorpio certainly cannot do 4K 60FPS in modern titles, not when even the base XB1 has to run games like BF1 can't do higher than 720p.

Anyway keep buying the nonsense Microsoft are spitting and don't cry too hard when teardowns happen for the thing or Microsoft confirms the real specs of the system.
It won't have an 8 Core Zen, it'll have an 8 Core Jaguar CPU, just clocked somewhere closer to the limits of the architecture (which is 2.75Ghz in the 28nm model, so maybe Scorpio will go higher now that Jaguar is being made at 16nm).
Zen is massively overkill, the chip hits performance close to a Broadwell-E i7, which is too much for even a 9Tflop Pascal GPU.

[trainsgofast]

IF it was then MS thinks your wrong! ZEN is in Scorpio. What you are saying is nonsense on many levels. Scorpio won't be 32 CU is why because you have to clocked them so high, consuls don't run at PC level power consumption. That's why you have no example showing they do. Next up is the fact that you can't also have a CPU overclocked that high in a console environment. It's way too hot. It's Vega and Zen and the sin core is probably from a laptop models clocked much lower. No one in the industry agrees with the crap that you are spewing here. Not euro gamer not extreme gamer no one. Another common mistake you make you cannot compare using teraflops with a GPU of different architectures which Vega is GCN 4.0. Here is another situation where Microsoft is telling me that it is impossible to get Jaguar cores to run for 4 K natively. So your philosophy of Jaguar cores running a 36 CU is ridiculous because we already seen how this will work out with your beloved PlayStation Pro.

http://wccftech.com/microso...

[trainsgofast]

What was that about ZEN not coming out?

http://wccftech.com/zen-bas...

[MrSec84]

Re-read my older posts above, I never said Zen wasn't releasing.

FYI that link is about Zen based notebooks, yields would have to be sufficient to meet the needs of all markets Zen would be used in and this link of yours says nothing about Zen in Scorpio:

The one below outright refutes Zen being in Scorpio, it's pretty recent too:

http://digiworthy.com/2016/...

FYI Eurogamer's Richard Ledbetter said in his Scorpio Spec Analysis that he thought Zen would be too big for the console to fit alongside a 6TFlop GPU, you can see it on the digital foundry youtube page.
RedGamingTech on youtube is very respectable and says the same thing.

Polaris is 4th gen GCN, Vega is just the bigger chip, with some minor efficiency gains, so flops are directly comparable, it's just that power consumption may be somewhat better.

Jaguar at 14nm would be considerably cooler than the 28nm version in PS4 and XB1 launch consoles, it's 14nm is roughly 50% more efficient.
A 2.75Ghz Jag 8 Core CPU at 14nm wouldn't use more than 30 watts, Zen was rumored to be at around 95 watts for up to 3.2ghz, so at 1.6ghz it would need 47.5 watts, sure performance would destroy Jaguar, but you'd need more power and Microsoft have stated 8 cores, as I've said plenty of people who understand how big these chips are have agreed with me that Zen is likely way too big for a console APU.

Anyway you've made no solid arguments supporting Zen or Vega going into Scorpio's SOC, hell we have a picture of the motherboard in the MS E3 2016 reveal and it's about the same size as the 8 Core Zen FX chip that AMD are release in 2017, no way you'd a Vega GPU alongside 8 Zen cores.
MS will use a Jaguar CPU and overclock it to run faster than the XB1-S, the cores are tiny at 14nm.

BTW you're assuming I'm buying Pro, I've never said that I am, I'm happy with my launch PS4 right now, if Microsoft would bother to actually make real exclusives and properly support their consoles in the 8th gen then I would buy a Scorpio next Fall, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I have a 360 which was awesome, bought an OG XBox and loved the platform.

What I've said about what it takes to render 4K is fact, you only need to look up benchmarks or tests in games to see what's possible with the level of hardware Microsoft are planning to use, it's not running modern games at 4K with reasonable frame rates of even 30FPS for console gamers.

Educate yourself, otherwise you'll just end up disappointed when Scorpio doesn't perform as you're expecting.
Unless you're actually going to provide a legitimate source from Microsoft or AMD stating that Zen is going to be in Scorpio I wouldn't bother replying again, you're just blowing hot air.

[Tzuno]

:), can you do something about it? yes you Mr. gamer :)

[IamTylerDurden1]

Sony knows how to design powerful hardware, it wasn't the PS4 that had power issues and needed to dump features just to hit 900p. The pro is built to do exactly what it needs to do, it outputs at 4.2 teraflops and will enhance your games and render them in 4K hdr. Some will be native 4K, more will be upscaled, but the outcome will be gorgeous.

[Yetter]

considering how bad framerate performance is on several PS4 games already, I'm not so sure they 'know how to design powerful hardware'.

[ssj27]

That's developer's fault. Or more like publisher's not giving enough time and space to optimize their games.

[RiseofScorpio]

Seriously how much?

[EpicSandwich]

How much does Sony pay to spew all this crap for them day and night seriously

[DarkJedi526]

The power of the unreleased Scorpio has to work with a user base called XB1. Their gaming ecology has to work across all MS platforms. The Scorpio can be 4 times more powerful than XB1, but the games still have to run on each platform. If the system is a premium product, it will cost north of $500. Run games native 4k but, those games will still have to run on XB1. Since there are no exclusives to take advantage of it raw power, the upgrade is relative to the PS4 Pro. The extra power will give MS the bragging speak but the games people play will be held to the underpowered XB1. Both PA and XB1 started this generation, MS built the weaker system to start. 20 million consoles in the have to support that base. In the end PS4 Pro is going in the right direction. 2016 release, holiday 2016, games, games, games, games friendly price, based on PS4 system that is has more power to begin with. Base PS4 games will still have an advantage over XB1 base games. The extra power of the unreleased Scorpio will offer the same as PS4 Pro only a year later and more expensive.

[Father__Merrin]

are people think or something? they have to make equipment to be mass market and affordable therefore its not feasible for them to lump £200 cpus in there to keep n4g happy. the games will do the talking you dont need to worry

[ninsigma]

"to keep n4g happy"
lmao brilliant xD

Yeah I do wish for a stronger cpu but not at the cost of upping the price. €399 makes it justifiable imo and from what I've seen it do over 1080p stream, I'm more than happy with what I'll be getting. Honestly I didn't expect any 4K at all. In my head it was just gonna be for solid 1080p/60fps.

[corroios]

This was again the keep the price 399 and launch the console in november. There arent any miracles with a price of 399. New tech and more powerfull cant be 399. Very simple.

[UnR34L_DEAF]

PS4 Pro is not PS5, dudeeee. PS4 Pro might not be native 4K but PS4P gives developers chance to develop games at 4K before PS5 comes out. Of Course PS5 will be more powerful 5x to 10x times than PS4P in 2-4 years I bet. So PS5 WILl running native 4K by then and which 4KTVs price will go down in couple years--not many people dont have 4ktv. Look these beautiful games on original PS4 anyways. I rather PS4 is being focused as only GAMING SYSTEM, so apparently I dont care about 4k Blueray.

[andresegr]

Settle down Keyboard Engineers.

If your first name isnt Mark and your last name Cerny, you are in no position to discuss this matter.

Whether the Ps4 has a tablet CPU or not, there is no game that looks as good as Uncharted 4 in the market.

[rainslacker]

As someone who writes tools for game development, I can assure people that the CPU will not be the problem within the system if the devs themselves design their games right. The tools, for the most part, do not emphasize many tasks to run off the CPU and it's delegated to variable updates and system tasks like loading levels, or setting up the game before the player even sees it. Some tasks for games still remain, but it runs independently of the GPU, and variables get updated within memory for direct access by the GPU with no reason to go through the CPU except for the CPU to execute the current game loop, which the stock systems are more than capable of handling, much less the speedier one in the PS4P.

Memory would be more of a concern due to bandwidth restrictions, but Sony has bumped up the memory speed of the PS4P, and the stock PS4's memory was still more than capable of feeding a 4.2TFlop GPU.

The author is clueless on how these things work, and he shows it in the title, the article itself, and his comments in this forum. The Xbox fans who keep yelling Zen don't even realize what a waste of power it would be that could be better spent somewhere else if MS is looking at making an expensive console.

Truth is, current CPU's in the stock machines barely get any use relative to the overall game design. One notable exception aside....which was more down to sloppy design....and no game, on either system, has shown any signs that the CPU was a bottleneck. Since the games will essentially be the same outside of visuals, why would it suddenly become a problem now?

[MrSec84]

Considering that AMD's 8Core Zen bench-marked faster than a $1000 Broadwell-E i7 CPU these people really are clueless, those kinds of CPUs aren't meant for gaming, you'd be looking at something more like $300 i7 or slightly cheaper i5 to run alongside even a GTX 1080, a downclocked RX 480 is fine paired alongside a 2.1Ghz 8 Core Jaguar CPU.

If MS are shooting for a 6TFlop Polaris GPU then simply upclocking the Jaguar to it's top speed of 2.75Ghz would be fine, assuming data actually needs that much extra CPU time, but I doubt it.
As far as I'm aware Microsoft hasn't said a thing about Scorpio being a new generation, it'll likely run the same games that XB1 and S do, so moving to a newer CPU architecture is unnecessary.
If a generational shift was happening then an even bigger memory pool and significantly faster bandwidth would have been shown, but MS hasn't done that.

If Scorpio used an 8 Core Zen, alongside even a 36CU Polaris GPU then it would be a massive piece of silicon, that would effect volume of chip production, cutting numbers in half and costs would be in the realms of double what Sony are paying, adding even more GPU hardware would make things even worse and then there's the issue of adding a bigger bus, the shape audio block that XB1 games use.
People thinking Microsoft will go with what would have to be such a massive SOC Die have no idea.
AMD aren't going to have anything that huge on 14nm, I doubt they're even having a Zen APU release with a GPU anywhere close to that size GPU until 2018.

[rainslacker]

You'd be looking at whatever AMD has akin to an i3, with some added hyper-threading elements built in either through the design of the chip itself, or through customization if it doesn't already exist in that form...which it does in the Jaguar. The amount of power required from the CPU for a game system is pretty minimal in comparison to what's available out there. Without the overhead of a multi-tasking OS, and the use of extremely optimized hyper-visors which allow everything to run in virtual environments, there is a lot of processing power available to games from the most basic of modern CPU architectures.

i5 and i7 parts of the intel line of chips aren't there for gaming purposes, nor are they really that relevant when games are designed to run through GPU compute. i5 and i7 do have better memory access through the southbridge bus, but that is irrelevant to game systems which use their own memory bus, which itself is programmable to the developers needs....whereas in a PC, the CPU has to control such things. They're beneficial in an environment like Windows, but wholly unnecessary in a closed console system.

There's no rhyme or reason to go full force on the CPU, because it's wasted money which can be better spent elsewhere, or used to make the system cheaper so it's likely to be brought by consumers. MS may be looking at delivering the most powerful gaming machine for the discerning or enthusiast gamer, but it's still a consumer level device, and as such, even MS knows that it can not succeed commercially by pricing itself out of the market, and relying solely on the extremely niche high end power user to buy their systems. Doing so would pretty much cripple any chance MS has to make headway in the market, and if they can't manage to make a reasonable install base, it means they get no support, or struggle at every turn(or pay) to get that support, for what would only lead to marginal software sales at best. MS, and any intelligent person knows, that without the games support, their elite system is dead in the water, and they will not price it beyond mass market adoption prices. It may be priced high at first, just to get that extra power early on, but that power won't be wasted on something as trivial as a high end CPU. They'd be better off spending an extra $100 on the GPU or better memory architecture, than spending another $100 on the GPU. Any dev will say this, anyone that understands tech will say this. Even the high end elite PC users will tell you this. It's authors like this, and ignorant fan boys who want to believe otherwise.

[Lonnie18]

This article is bottlenecking my performance!

[Babadook7]

Nah. It'll be fine. Just run games at same frame rate as PS4. 30 or 60. And get a noticeably more consistent performance. Sounds good to me.

[EpicSandwich]

Wow such an upgrade

[Errorist76]

Better than none at all, right boy?!

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

The Jaguar CPUs of the PS4 and XB1 already restrict performance, notably frame rate. The Jaguar CPU will again restrict performance on the PS4 Pro and the Scorpio (assuming it has one).

[MrSec84]

The Jaguar CPUs used in XB1 and PS4 are clocked slower than the one in PS4 Pro and Scorpio's is likely going to be clocked faster than PS4 Pro's if MS feels it's necessary.
In PS4 the cores are clocked 1.6Ghz, in Xb1 1.75Ghz and in the PS4 Pro it's 2.1Ghz.

Considering games like Doom hit maintain a pretty stable 60FPS upping clock speeds in Jaguar helps to iron out any CPU heavy parts of the game code, GPU improvements would help when GPU heavy code is a problem.
Jaguar can go up to 2.75GHz at 28nm, it's possible at 14nm or 16nm that clocks can be pushed higher, but the smaller core size means that they don't take up much space on the APU die, that's a benefit for production capacities because you can get more chips out of a silicon wafer.

Performance isn't actually that bad when developers actually make games properly for how these APUs are intended to be used, sure there are limitations on the CPU side, but that's why the platform holders made the systems more GPU heavy, because GPUs can be used for a lot more than just graphics now.

[Sm00thNinja]

Isn't this just a souped up PS4? It just needs to do what the PS4 does but better. The only real bottleneck is the standard PS4.

[n1kki6]

Console gamers caring about pc stuff once again

[BrettAwesome]

How hard does the ps4pro suck? How much does it suck compared to xbox one or xbox one s? I assume the dicks that talk shit about the pro, bought one of those boxes. I simply can't think of at SINGLE reason why at pc gamer would even care about console. Why would they?

[Errorist76]

I game for 25 years on PC but man, most of the best games ever are PlayStation exclusives. PC and PS is the Dreamteam...always has been.

[BrettAwesome]

Soooo. We should all do the right thing and warn everybody not to buy this inferior product, but we must congratulate MS for their recent succesful launch of a waaay weaker machine? Why?

[iTechHeads]

PS4 Pro is still a PS4. Why don't people understand that?
They need to keep the specs as close as possible without breaking game compatibility.

Upping the GPU's power was the easiest thing to do and it will show once the PS4 to PS4 Pro comparisons come around.

[PFFT]

The exact same thing can happen to the Scorpio if MS isnt careful. Here is hoping this doesnt come to pass though.

[sk8ofmnd]

Not it could but it will. But this is common knowledge as all consoles bottleneck eventually. Im willing to bet most*** console gamers in 2016-2018 are fine with 1080 60 anyways. Reports show about 15% of america alone has 4k sets. I cant imagine it even being 50% by holiday 2018. Whats the rush? Bragging rights? The other camp can have that poimt but at what cost? 599$ console that most cant even take advantage of? I think sony is playing it smart. They know that the most powerful console does not win a generation... Stylistically speaking.

[quent]

the base models of both sony and ms have already had cpu bottleneck issues, so a gpu running @ more then x2 the performance of the base models with the same cpu, technically, YES , YES it will

[noksucow73]

Much as I prefer AMD products, I'm surprised that neither Sony, nor Microsoft went with a stronger custom cpu for these next consoles. The i3 that is in my Alpha console performs outstanding and I can run GTAV with much higher settings on it, and it looks, and runs much better than my Xbox 1. Unless Microsoft goes with a Zen cpu, but that's doubtful. I also don't think we'll see a bottleneck in the ps4, mainly because of how optimized it will be.

[krypt1983]

Just means xbox will be the lead platform when they start making games next year on all 3rd party games, the pspro is pointles say what you want Sony die hards but they should have delayed the system until next year period, they don't have a problem delaying a game for 10yrs then announcing a firm release date only to delay the game again get it together this has been a terrible week for Sony ...

[SonyAddict]

Looking at the games I don't see bottlenecks just desperate articles!!

[Guyfamily999]

Unlike Scorpio, this really is meant to be an upgrade over the base model. By only really upgrading the GPU, they make cross development much easier across the two models (all developers have to do is bump up the resolution and or increase some GPU heavy effects), it isn't like an entirely different SKU. They don't have to fundamentally change code.

The other main upside is that it's only 400 dollars. If they overhauled the CPU and added more ram, not only would they have to charge 500 (because I can't see 449, not a nice number to look at), but it wouldn't be nice for developers.

This isn't a "twice as powerful" system, nor is it meant to be. It's an upgraded PS4, that while costing only 100 dollars more than the base system will deliver near 4K quality resolution. I think I heard that there will be a 1TB slim PS4 (that would probably be 350), so really you're paying 50 bucks for a doubled GPU.

The Scorpio will probably have that 40 percent GPU edge (same as between PS4 and X1), but also a twice as powerful CPU vs the pro and 4 more gigs ram. However, it comes out a full year later, and will no doubt be more expensive. Will the graphics be better? Yes, the disparity will (on paper) be greater than between the PS4 and X1 due to the ram and CPU differences. But it still won't matter that much, just like the PS4 X1 gap doesn't matter that much. What matters to me (and to the majority of consumers) are games and price.

[Shineon]

its like the exact opposite of PS3, Ps3 still has one of the strogest cpu's ever put in a console to this date but the gpu and ram setup were not in the same leauge which caused some 3rd party games to suffer the most.I think Ps4 pro will be alright tho

[wotta]

This is a load of rubbish. Most of the article us presuming what Scorpio will have, when in fact it has not been confirmed. Based on what this site says, Scorpio will likely cost about $800 or more.