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PlayStation 5: the specs and the tech
- jrobn 7y agoConsoles are now branded PCs with DRM lock-in. Makes way more sense to buy a PC.
- fulafel 7y agoYou could have said the same about PS1 or N64 (with s/PCs/workstations/) spec-wise. But the market for fixed function consoles is separate from GP computers if you're not a hardware collector interested in specs only. Cf Palm Pilot vs Game Boy.
- TrumpSucks 7y agoNah, the landscape was vastly different then. These days every console game comes out on PC.
- snvzz 7y agoI'd go further and say they're expensive, very cost-inefficient PCs locked with DRM into only playing licensed games. PC Hardware is cheaper. PC games are also cheaper. And games are seldom console exclusives anymore. When they are, they're not for long. There's no value to be found in consoles anymore. They exploit the tech ignorance of the riffraff.
- city41 7y agoThis is a similar argument between say your own server farm and AWS. Consoles are guaranteed to work correctly and always have 100% compatibility. You don't tinker or deal with any headaches, you just play. For many people, that is worth the extra cost.
- bhaak 7y ago> And games are seldom console exclusives anymore. When they are, they're not for long. That may be true for the Xbox but certainly not for PS4 or Nintendo games.
- Keverw 7y agoWhy expensive? seems like a Xbox One S is a few hundred bucks 299 I see on the site. The One X seems 100 more. Could you buy or even build a comparable gaming PC for that much? Not really to up with all the hardware stuff... so curious. Guess you’d need to pick a case, motherboard and then find similar specs if comparing and compatible hardware combination. Then I thought consoles were some what subsidized since they also get a cut of game sales. Plus targeting the same hardware sounds like a way to be consistent.
- snvzz 7y ago>Why expensive? seems like a Xbox One S is a few hundred bucks 299 I see on the site. The One X seems 100 more. Do look up release prices. These consoles are old now. And keep in mind they're not proper computers: They can only run a selection of programs, which are mostly games. Usefulness-wise, they aren't even comparable.
- Keverw 7y agoYeah. I know a new one is out now but still selling the older models... but I kinda like Microsoft's approach. since even the original Xbox One can still run new releases from my understanding. Instead of each new console requiring all new games and OS.
- vernie 7y agoNo it doesn't
- scott_s 7y agoI like to play games on my couch, without having to hassle with settings or upgrades. I also like having a media center attached to my tv. Yes, one can hook up a PC to a tv. No, that is not without hassle and upgrades. I want a box to play games and watch shows and movies.
- omni 7y ago> I want a box to play games and watch shows and movies. The Nvidia Shield does exactly this. It has Android TV on it and can stream games either from your own PC or from Geforce Now.
- Avamander 7y agoWindows is indeed utterly overcomplicated and thus fragile for gaming use, indeed. I think the same applies to Linux distros, but there's ValveOS that has been an attempt to bring the console seamless experience to PC hardware. If only we'd have more game devs and Nvidia's attention on Linux.
- rospaya 7y agoI had a PS2, an Xbox 360 and now a PS4. Total hardware cost of playing the latest games with zero performance issues, hardware worries or upgrades in the last 20 years is around the price of a single gaming PC, which lasts what, 4-5 years tops? It's just not the same market.
- HenryKissinger 7y agoA Nvidia 2080Ti costs $1,199.99. A Xbox One X costs $499. And this one of the main reasons why consoles will continue to thrive. Because not everyone can afford to drop 3k on a gaming PC. Or 2k. Or even 1k.
- wishinghand 7y ago> the latest games with zero performance issues I don't know what you're playing, but it's a joke to imply that games on consoles run without performance issues.
- gerland 7y agoI was switching between gaming PC and console for the last 15 years and to be honest I had much more trouble with PC games. Just after I buy a PC everything runs very smoothly, but the performance declines very fast with new games. It's always an internal struggle between "I want it to look better" and "I cannot play on this framerate anymore". Console games for the most part run on the same level. It's not great, but in this case I'm grateful that someone took the choice from me. Obviously there are games that are just slower than the average, but everyone knows very fast about them. I would not buy a 3/10 game and I would not buy a game that has performance problems. With PC it's always a bit of a gambit.
- rospaya 7y agoI'll be honest and say that I don't play games that much anymore so any game I tried ran smoothly. Is QA failing or are Sony and Microsoft allowing shoddy games on their plaforms? Anyway, just graphics cards, CPU upgrades, noise and ventilation... It's expensive and it's a mess for anyone except hardcore gamers and people who need a desktop PC that costs $2000 anyway. For most folks a one time cost of $600 settles their gaming needs for years.
- cactus2093 7y agoIt's kind of true, just like buying a Mac these days is getting worse specs for more money and more lock-in than a buying a PC. But some people just like the convenience of a simple, good-enough plug and play solution.
- dyingkneepad 7y agoI play fighting games and the PS4 versions are generally better than the PC ones. PC is usually a port made by another company (e.g., MK11, and Samsho is promising PC version since forever but nothing yet). Plus, I don't get to worry about updating drivers, checking system requirements, disabling cortana or all that other stuff. I can just sit and play. Maybe I have to plug the pad on the USB port to recharge it.
- owaislone 7y agoI still don't want to deal with maintaining a PC and managing Windows. Console are still way more convenient and so easy to own. You buy one and you are set for almost half a decade if not more. No need to constantly keep updating components, deal with drivers and software in general. I can just pick up the gamepad, press on button and dive right in. I guess in that sense console ARE PCs, just very specialized ones meant to only play games and some other entertainment apps which to me still makes a lot of sense. I like that thing in my living room instead of a big box that needs constant attention on my desk.
- ehsankia 7y agoOr even better, you don't deal with any hardware at all and buy into the Cloud gaming future :) It's really sad that Stadia has flopped so far and that xCloud isn't any closer to being a thing. Nvidia's solution looks better, though still requires a Windows/Mac computer. Maybe the Stadia announcement next week will have some interesting stuff, I'm excited to not have to worry about devices anymore and simply buy games I like.
- owaislone 7y agoI'm all in for it but it unfortunately is not ready yet. The day I'll be able to play multiplayer FPS games with <90ms ping running in the cloud, I'll ditch the console.
- Mobius01 7y agoI’m a layman, so I’d like someone from the community to elaborate on Sony’s approach of constant power to the CPU/GPU while the clocks are variable. My interpretation is that the silicon will downclock based on load - if it is only running the UI dashboard, it will slow down appropriately; if running an intensive software title, it will clock up to theoretical max frequency.
- tracer4201 7y agoI’d like to understand what’s the benefit of this opposed to running at a fixed clock speed? My guess is it has something to do with cost savings (cheaper to manufacture silicon that has to perform “better” some of the time as opposed to all of the time).
- sumofi 7y agoYou can't do that with a console. All of them have to hit the min specs. You can allow one game to use more gpu while reducing cpu and vise versa. Just imagine a cpu heavy rts vs a graphic intense rpg
- wmf 7y agoIf they fixed the clock it would have to be lower which would lead to lower performance.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- hunterloftis 7y agoThat isn't what I took from it; it sounds like various components (the example given was CPU and GPU) can sort of "trade" energy budgets: > send any unused power from the CPU to the GPU so it can squeeze out a few more pixels What it sounded like to me (also a layman) is that they have a fixed energy budget that's tied to the thermal properties of a baseline unit in a neutral environment. As long as they're under that budget, they can boost up the clocks of individual components that are under load. So heavy-rendering cycles can use relatively more GPU and heavy-compute cycles can use relatively more CPU. That might be totally wrong, though, and I would also appreciate an expert's explanation.
- leppr 7y agoShorter load times is an attractive argument, but it doesn't matter when the #1 issue with current-gen consoles is how unoptimized most games are. The traditional argument to game consoles was that it was cheaper and allowed developers to make the most out of known hardware configurations. As things are now, flagship games on the PS4/Xbox One struggle to stay at 30FPS, frequently dropping to 20FPS or less, without the option to reduce graphics quality or resolution PC gamers have. All the while the low power Nintendo Switch is a joy to game on because most games are specifically optimized for it.
- look_lookatme 7y agoYeah it's brutal. Even loading the Playstation Store takes wayyy too long on my original PS4. It's like it's doing an npm install every time I want to spend money...
- lmilcin 7y agoI play Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled with my kids. I have calculated that you can spend only about 3/4 of the time actually playing the game if you don't play the same map every time, 1/4 is necessarily wasted looking at various loading screens. Pretty disappointing for a relatively simple game.
- karatestomp 7y agoIt’s a lot better than it wa on the PS3. In both cases I suspect the problem is that the store app is a webview wrapper for a “webapp”. Though in the PS4 I also suspect they’ve stuck webtech stuff all over the main menu and it only remains tolerably quick because the machine’s a beast.
- scrumbledober 7y agoand then every menu tab on the left that you scroll through takes forever as well.
- FridgeSeal 7y agoI have a theory that's more to do with their serverside/networking architecture than anything to do with the PS4 itself. Do you find it fails to work when you're most interested in buying something? Because that's how it goes with me, literally as soon as I'm like "oh yes I would like to buy that game" the store stops working completely.
- libertine 7y ago> The only problem is that PC technology is significantly behind PS5. It'll take some time for the newer, PCIe 4.0-based drives with the bandwidth required to match Sony's spec to hit the market. This is what stands out for me (I know this quote is a bit dramatic but bare with me): for a long time consoles have lagged behind PC technology - in the sense that PC was always the early adopter and spread out before consoles. I'll dare to say that the last console that achieved this was probably the PS3. The PS4 was a bit of a turn off for a lot of people spec wise. So it's good to see they're using these platforms to push the early adoption of new standards. Also, good for Sony to let standard NVMEs be used, and not some proprietary form factor that adds no value, and has no benefit to the consumer. That's one of the reasons some of their consoles lost traction - proprietary storage media.
- LeoTinnitus 7y agoWhat? Ps3 and ps4s used 2.5 in form factor drives. They didn't need to be proprietary.
- falcolas 7y agoThese new drives are using a different technology (though NVME is not proprietary), in a form factor that we've seen on the PC for awhile. They offer much more throughput than normal 2.5" form factor. They're attached to the PCI bus, not a separate disk controller on the motherboard.
- stordoff 7y agoDefinitely applies to the the Vita though. Proprietary cards, with 16GB being $60/£45 and 32GB being $100. They never really came down either - I paid £76 for a 64GB card in 2014.
- p1necone 7y agoI remember swapping my PS3 drive for a faster 1TB laptop drive, such a good upgrade. Likewise for sticking an SSD in a PS4, although I never got around to doing that.
- ldng 7y agoInteresting, did AMD just sold the same RDNA 2 GPU to both Sony and Microsoft ?
- mciancia 7y agoThere are some differences, like different clocks, number of CUs and memory bus, so looks like both were customized to some extent
- wmf 7y agoYes, the same GPU (different size though) and same CPU. The previous generation was also mostly the same.
- Entalpi 7y agoSame GPU architecture, different custom chips though.
- mdasen 7y agoI'm not a big gamer, but at this point it seems like Microsoft and Sony are just selling the same hardware. There are very minor differences, but I remember when N64 was such a vastly different experience from the PlayStation. Even the original Xbox was differentiated - it had a hard drive and an Intel Pentium III and Nvidia graphics. Now, they're basically identical hardware. Maybe the PS5 will load games a little faster and maybe the Xbox Series X will have a little more power, but there's nothing radically different. In a lot of ways, it feels like I should be able to buy one and then just buy a license to play games designed for the other system. Why should I buy (basically) the same processor, same RAM, same graphics, etc. twice? N64 and PS1 could do very different things and the consoles felt very different and led to very different games. With XSX and PS5, I'd rather throw Sony some money so I can play PS5 games on an Xbox Series X (or Microsoft to play XSX games on the PS5) than create a lot of e-waste buying an undifferentiated platform twice. Am I missing something about the consoles (other than the whole business/market aspect)?
- mafuyu 7y agoYeah, Xbox and PlayStation are basically differentiating on services and exclusive IP at this point. Things like ability to cross play, online services, etc. Xbox Live used to be huge, and then Sony caught up. Microsoft tried to shift the Xbox One into a home entertainment center and that failed miserably. Sony has stuff like the PSVR. Nintendo's really the only one really trying to do something different and not just go for the latest and greatest hardware. They have the benefit of having a lot of beloved IP and ability to make great games around them, so raw computing power is less of a focus.
- klodolph 7y ago> Nintendo's really the only one really trying to do something different and not just go for the latest and greatest hardware. At this point, that version of “different” is basically “sell a mid-range phone with a gamepad attached to it”. Don’t get me wrong, the Switch is great, but it’s very boring on the inside.
- 7y ago
- overeater 7y agoI wish they would differentiate on connectivity. Like usb-c ports for video and power delivery, Bluetooth 5.0, WiFi 6, usb-c rechargeable controllers, etc.
- maerF0x0 7y ago> PlayStation 5 VS PlayStation 4 The proper comparison would have been against the PS4 Pro
- jasondclinton 7y agoThe PS4 Pro GPU is literally just exactly 2x of the GCN that shipped in the original PS4 with scan line interleaving enabled to split the load across the two GPU's.
- HenryKissinger 7y agoELI5?
- andai 7y agoThe screen is cut into slices, one row of pixels at a time, and then dealt between two GPUs like a pack of cards.
- TrumpSucks 7y agoSSD the next gen dream? Samsung 980 pro is future tech? Lmao!
- mstaoru 7y agoI'm not from the industry, but from the outside, it looks to me as if the actual graphics quality these days is more about the studio art budget than clever tricks with hardware. Further improvement - to my eye - brings diminishing returns. In this context, converging hardware with multiple compatible frameworks on top looks like a logical choice. Console differentiation is more about exclusivity contracts these days.
- gentleman11 7y agoThe CPU in these machines is better than the one in my desktop. Hard to guess what kind of GPU equivalent it will have, but from a cost POV, these new consoles seem too good to be true. It completely changes my assumptions about what sort of graphics the game I am working on can output on consoles (although, the vast majority of pc owners will have weaker hardware; unusual!) I sold custom gaming pcs very briefly, these components aren’t free!
- grecy 7y agoI believe Microsoft were selling the current XBox at a loss, and making it up in game and services sales.
- bsaul 7y agoThe bits about hrtf made me smile : this technology is at least 25 years old. That’s how every single 3D audio over headphone has been done since the beginning.
- jansan 7y agoRemember that PS2 required a military export license because it could be used as a missile guidance device? I quote: "Parts of the machine resemble a small supercomputer". Isn't that funny as hell from today's point of view? Here is a link to that story: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-apr-17-fi-20482-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-apr-17-fi-20482...
- favorited 7y agoAnd a few years later, there were several PS3 supercomputer clusters. The US Air Force built a supercomputer out of PS3 nodes, and it was the 33rd largest in the world! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster
- person_of_color 7y agoIs it x86?
- Synaesthesia 7y agoYes. AMD Zen 2
- tumidpandora 7y agoI’m hyped, the PS5 sounds incredible. The SSD is twice as fast as the XB SX and the 3D audio chip is huge. The design is fascinating and it includes a ton of propriety tech. Sony’s devs will have a field day with this. Watch how 1st party games blow Microsoft out the box at 10.3 teraflops. Ppl spouting that 12 teraflops from the SX will steamroll Sony’s 10.3 are fools. Teraflops is a vastly overstated term purposely popularized by Microsoft. It isn’t the sole determining factor for performance, nor are all teraflops necessarily created equal. PS5 is going to be the premier console next gen with the best games and….VR