Maybe you’re burning to know how the PS4 and Xbox One’s graphics will stack up against each other. Maybe the way each console handles lighting, textures and detail will be what makes you pick one over the other. Sadly, we don’t even know when the next-gen machines are coming out. But, hey, you could conceivably build PCs with specs that match approximate those of Sony and Microsoft’s upcoming consoles. Sounds like a lot of work though. Good thing somebody else did it, then.
Eurogamer and Digital Foundry built out custom systems with parts that are roughly analogous to the components in the PS4 and Xbox One. With AMD providing the core graphical architecture for both next-gen consoles, they’ll have significant pieces of hardware with a lot in common.
On paper, the PS4 has the edge in terms of raw processing power, but it’s how the other components work with AMD’s Graphics Core Next that will vary. Using a handful of recent top titles as benchmarks, the article offers detailed breakdowns for performance stats like FPS.
The findings make for a meaty read but keep in mind that stand-in PCs can only approximate the capabilities of the final PS4 and Xbox One production units. Of course, you could be of the opinion that graphics aren’t the most important thing a game can deliver. But where’s the fun in that?
Comments
44 responses to “PS4 Vs Xbox One: A Hypothetical Graphics Comparison”
Well, that good enough for me to decide Im not interested.
My year old PC can already beat the PS4 frames for Tomb Raider and Bioshock. And Ive already got my media requirements nailed down.
So far the new consoles are not enticing me with anything.
Yes, I know Im an exception because I spend money on a decent PC rig. Consoles are for people who want exclusives or dont want yearly investments in PC hardware.
Why so you need yearly investment with your Pc lol. I built my rig last year and it will probably last another 2 year at this rate.
As someone who plays PC and consoles, I would like to see all PC talk banished from every next gen console discussion. PC elitist + Console fanboy arguments are so 20th century and the most boring things on earth.
+1
They are what they are. Of course, a well specc’d PC is better. Anyway, I’m looking forward to bashing around on a PS4 when it comes out.
I totally agree, this PC vs. console stuff comes up every time, and it’s getting so tedious. I’m going to scream next time someone brings it up.
Anyway, PC’s are better than consoles because
Because Xbox vs Playstation discussion is so much more exciting.
DERP GDDR5 vs GDDR3… derp number is bigger so Derp
Hallelujah brother!
Agreed, I have PCs and consoles. I’d like to know if he built his PC on console pricing. Its like saying my Ferrari goes faster than your Corolla without taking cost into consideration.
I hate stuff like this and people who don’t understand what they are talking about.
NONE OF THIS IS EVEN FUCKING CLOSE TO THE LEVEL OF CONSOLES.
You 100% can fucking not just just put “equivalent specs” from a console into a pc run a game and say here this is what will happen. ( HINT HINT its the reason those demo rig pc’s have sodding titans in them )
Consoles don’t have complicated OS systems that take up significant portions of power. They don’t have to do 100 different things at once making the power you do have worth less. Consoles are also universal which means they can tailor each game specifically to it getting insane increases from the same specs.
To get the same level of “graphics power” for lack of a better term a pc would need to basically be running $500 + GPUS to match a console at the very best, at worst you are going to need a Titan of some $700 crossfire/sli option. That is the GPU ALONE.
Sure after 3-4 years this wont be the case, but anyone who says “Oh the computer i bought 2 years ago will flog the new consoles is talking out their ass unless of course they spent over $2000 and it was custom built, even then your still likely wrong.
To all those too ignorant, even the guy making the video state its not an actual comparison (or anything close )to what the consoles will be actually achieving in terms of output, he is only trying to see/measure the potential difference between them (although doing it this rough is a waste of time).
@ warcroft, Unless your rig is running something like gtx 780, or HD 7970 ghz or something better (maybe 660ti cross fire or better) the consoles will out perform your PC. If you do have those cards the console is likely to be 20%-30% the cost you paid for your rig 1 year ago.
So seriously, unless you actually know what your talking about everyone stop the the my pc is better lies, it makes you looks stupid….
“I hate stuff like this and people who don’t understand what they are talking about.”
After reading your comment I know how you feel.
Here is the trick:
The comparison is just that approximate specs vs approximate specs. It is not “this is the performance we can expect from the console”, Evan stated this “PCs can only approximate the capabilities of the final PS4 and Xbox One production units”.
The truth is the rigs used, are hugely faster (o/c CPU at 4.3GHz) with way more ram (16GB) than ethier console will have, this will make up for the heavier Windows OS (vs the consoles lighter OS, though any OS has overhead, and the xBox and PS OS use hypervisors for DRM causing) even more overhead. The test should expected difference purely due to graphics.
As for overall performance I doubt it would be possible to get anything even close to accurate with whats currently on the market as both the new consoles are going to be running (different) custom AMD APUs wich use a different architecture than current hardware, and are theoretically way better for graphics.
By the end of the year the next gen APUs will be released for the consumer, and while they will not be the same as the console ones, the would be closer to the truth.
I agree, can a PC run Crysis 3 with 512mb of ram?? my 6 year old 360 can
You should buy a lotto ticket if your 360 is 6 years old and still working.
haha 6 year old specs, 3rd console
Are you sure about that? The number of hardware revisions the 360 has is staggering. I think it’s in the double digits now.
For example, I found that Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey had framerate issues in some areas on my ol’ Black Elite that were not present on my brother’s Halo 3 Edition 360 nor my RE5 edition 360 (I had to replace the Black Elite as the optical drive wore out).
No not sure on anything really, my Elite is still going strong although MS replaced it with the new Jaguar chip or something 3 years back, I just make sure I install everything now keep it running smooth.
Just going to add in the side note that consoles will be running x86 OS’s and therefore games are going to be easier for devs to export to PC. I’m not saying this will suddenly close the gap between console and PC performance, however it should atleast see an increase in frames for PC games across the board.
The next-gen consoles are using components from PC’s. Granted it’s going to be more specialised/customised but you can get some sort of an idea on what they are like.
If consoles are universal then they would only be one console on the market…they are built differently and games need to be coded to utilise whatever hardware it’s running on.
Inside Gaming just did this PC type build for Steam Box, PS4 & Xbone (and they built it to what their hardware specs are and using parts of today)
The Steam Box was a HP Envy 17.3″ laptop with a SSD installed (because it mirrored the Steam Box Specs)
The Xbone was a custom PC with the following specs
CPU – AMD FX-8150
MB – Asus Crosshair V Formula Z
RAM – 8GB Corsair Dominator DDR3 1600
GPU – AMD Radeon 7770 2GB
HDD – 500GB WD Black 3.5″ HDD
The PS4 was a custom PC with the following specs (they had to overclock the RAM because the PS4 uses GDDR5 for both graphics and system memory which you can’t get on a consumer PC)
CPU – AMD FX-8150 3.6Ghz
MB – Asus Crosshair V Formula Z
RAM – 8GB Corsair Dominator DDR3 1600 (over clocked to 2400)
GPU – AMD Radeon 7790 2GB
HDD – 500GB WD Black 3.5″ HDD
All three machines were running Windows 8 and they found that the PS4 PC won all the tests but they did say that major difference will be in the OS and also the PS4 using GDDR5 for both system and graphics memory.
I’m waiting for Watch Dogs to come out and for the reviewers to do a comparison run between them all (360 vs PS3 vs PS4 vs Xbone vs PC)…I’m picking this game because it’s coming out on all platforms (PC, Current gen and Next gen consoles).
So much rage……
Yes. PC elitists like those that compare spec to spec seems to be a lot more ignorant than the average consumer. Knowing a little can be more dangerous than not knowing at all.
It’s the APIs that do the trick. If you run the best games you can find and run it on a GTX680 at top quality, you still have plenty of resources left over on the GPU, even if the frame rates were struggling.
This is why there is so much focus on performance analysis and debugging tools, to try and optimize how certain APIs take advantage of the hardware.
Example: Your fat PS3 is now capable of adaptive tessellation.
The FPS is not what you should be taking away from this vid, it’s the percentage difference between the components. Therefore you can try and estimate the percentage difference in graphical cababilities between XBox One and PS4. The FPS of both consoles if running these games will likely flog your PC.
Comparing FPS across platforms is completely misleading. You need to be comparing RGBA pixel accuracy for each frame. Only then will you be able to compare the “quality” of the graphic rendering. We are living in a world of “console->PC” ports, not the “PC->console” ports we had a decade ago, so i suspect PC ports will look almost identical to the console versions (even though the PC is capable of so much more).
Games are made on dev machines then ran on either a console or a PC. Like many others, I am tired of the console-port scape goat. It simply has no legs.
They look the same because publishers are so desperate for a dollar they want games done the same away as a Java program: write once, run anywhere.
Everything is about minimising overhead. It’s no longer focusing on the core most element of games: game play.
Games are developed on PCs, is not a clear argument. Machines used to develop different elements of games vary as well. Graphic artists may prefer MACs, and engine creators and some rendering is done on Linux based systems.
Sure PCs with Windows are used often in developing games, but engines are designed to take advantage of a certain baseline spec, which is often decided in the initial phase of game design.
Running instance of a game engine is different from what you use to develop elements of game creation.
Every year!?! You’re spending a LOT more than you have to.
My rig is like 3yrs old and I can barely even think about upgrading, because there’s just no need. 95% of games run v-sync’d and AA’d.
But I’m a PC guy and I bought a PS3 for the blu-ray as it was about the same price as a stand alone player back then, and I’ve had a great time with it. I still use it pretty regularly when someone’s on the PC. And it’s a lot more social playing a console than a PC. Console, you’re still
‘in the room’ but once I sit in front of the PC, there’s more of a ‘leave me alone’ vibe going on.
They’re both good, but they do slightly different things.
Too bad about the console exclusives though… that’s the only reason I’m getting a PS4
exactly. platform exclusives is the only reason to buy one console over the other (why not buy both?)
Platform exclusives only account for <10% of the platform releases though, at least in the current generation.
What console exclusives? Sure there maybe a few but for how long? Besides the likes of Uncharted what is left? And before anyone mentions them, the likes of Metal Gear Solid does not count as those are interactive movies, not games.
Publishers actually fear exclusives these days because it means they are penning themselves into a market demographic.
They want to capture the whole market because any part they miss is revenue they miss. Even though their trying to capture all is actually capturing none.
Off the top of my head for PS4:
inFamous: Second Son
Killzone: Shadow Fall
Driveclub
Knack
The Order: 1886
and that’s just in the launch period.
Plus there’s the console exclusive games that won’t come to PC. How was Red Dead Redemption on PC.. oh wait.
Or console games that receive poor rushed PC ports, or console games that are only available on PC via Origin (which I hate) or GFWL (which I begrudgingly put up with when I have to) – I’ll have the PS4 for those.
About 30% of my PS3 collection is made up of PS3 exclusive titles, and another chunk are console exclusive.
PC is my platform of choice but there’s other games I’ll want that I’ll need a PS4 for.
Im not sure. none of those games were realy ‘next gen’ games… Its like 10 years ago playing a ps2 game on pc’s speced like ps3’s or xbox 360’s and saying that pc is way better… Cos these games are not next gen or made for next gen with the new renderers or anything like that…
This was purly to test SOME (not all) of the differences in hardware. Note that this didnt take into acount the many many more ROPS the ps4 has…
Also, well done Kotaku on re-posting a 3 day old Digital foundry article today.
Fanboys Incoming
going by the numbers therse a difference but am I the only one that hardly saw a visible difference in 95% fo those scenes? I think i saw a bit more smoothness on PS4 setup for one of those tomb raider closeups and thats it.
Realistically though Dev’s are fine tuning these games to run on the consoles and will work much more efficiently on the consoles.
Going a few years down the track when games are much more graphically intensive and theyre startign to harness more of the full potential of both consoles will be much better comparisons of multi-platform games for PS4/X1.
It will also be curious to see whether the ESRAM ends up being good or shit.
as far as games go for the next few years though, they’ll look the fkn same on both consoles.
This was not a visual comparison. It was a framerate comparison.
Who cares about the graphics or what machine the game runs on? If a game is great or stinks it will be great or stink irrespective of how it looks or what you run it on.
Its nice to know what your game will run smoothest on though, now that they are pretty much the same type of hardware they will probably both look identical but one will run at 40+fps while the other runs at 30.
Got me there. When I go for games these days, I try and found out what platform has the most focus because publishers are really strong arming most developers to get the game out to meet the expectations (illusions) of their market research.
As a result, some games are not ported to properly utilise the hardware they run on. That is while for a while the PS3 had a lot of poor ports. The developer either did not understand the hardware or was not given the time to properly utilise it.
Ghostbusters and Skyrim are two that come to mind.
I like halo LANs so an Xbox is a must have, but will consider a PS if it really looks 30% better……but mind you PS3 was meant to be heaps better but on some multiplat form games the graphics looked worse….so I will wait and see.
I hardly PC game as I spend 8+ hours a day on a PC at work, just can’t go home and jump in PC
All this PC versus console stuff is just rubbish anyway. There are games that will always play better on a PC and then there’s games that will always play better on consoles. For me I like to have the best of both worlds and am happy to leave the morons to their stupid arguments.
The one big advantage of consoles is this: When I was growing up it was a game console and lollies that got your friends in one place. Now that I’m an adult it’s still the game console that gets friends coming around (only with alcohol instead of lollies. Well sometimes there’s still lollies.)
PC vs Consoles is not a valid argument, and it never will be.
Honestly, the hardware push on PC’s is creating a generation of lazy developers. They don’t need to bother writing efficient code any more, because the raw power of the PC’s are high enough to take anything they write and run with it.
The level of graphics seen in a high end PC today, is possible on the PS4, and will be for years to come. Console development DOES promote efficient code and architecture because it is a close ended system, with no option to improve it over time. PC’s will eventually over take consoles again, but that is due to Moore’s law.
Sad but very true. This is another reason why I like the old school games. They took the time to research the hardware and fine tricks with the data buses to milk the most out of the system without needing hardware extensions.
FPS is the only thing you can take from these videos. realistically Multi-Platform releases will Cap their FPS’s anyway so they can keep a stready resolution. Itll be the same on both platforms.
Visible difference in graphics will depend on bandwidth and whether the theoretical 192GB/S limit of the ESRAM on the X1 can actually be harnessed in the same way that the PS4’s limit can.
if it can, games will look and play the same, if it cant, they’ll play the same but look better on PS4.
pretty much easiest way to sum it up.
Seriously, a discussion on graphics is not what this industry needs. This industry needs to set a fucking standard in game design; stop making shooters, they’re all, in essence, the same game, no matter how many “RPG elements” you add on to them.
I thought the rise of indie games and the push for retro would be enough to make this obvious to the triple A and console development world. I guess not.
meh, both suck
Ridiculous comparison!
The only major reasoning you should consider for deciding which console to buy is:
1. The games
2. What the majority of your friends will be getting
All these specs/controller/kinect/OS arguments are honestly pretty petty. They’re both great consoles that will be sure to entertain the masses for many years to come. I plan on purchasing a ps4 primarily to continue playing the series of games only available on Playstation.. If majority of my friends get an Xbox then I would have no issue jumping consoles. I’d much rather play games with my mates than buy a console for minute differences in specs.
Just my 2c