While never announced by Sony, educated speculation concluded the PS4’s eight-core Jaguar processor runs at a clock speed of 1.6GHz. A recent post by Sony UK on Google+ has given that guess a thumbs-up, comparing the latest-gen console’s power to that of a PS2. Sorry, make that 43 PS2s.
As you can see in the image above, which can be found on Sony UK’s Google+ page, the PS4 is apparently equivalent in performance to 43 PS2s, though the formula Sony’s used to come up with the number doesn’t provide a clear picture. Basically, it’s multiplied 1600 by 8, and divided it by ~299 (the rough speed of the PS2’s CPU in MHz).
The problem with this calculation is it doesn’t take into consideration the efficiency of the pipelines, cache performance, branch prediction and all the other bits and pieces that make up a CPU’s architecture. Outside of the same product line, raw cycle comparisons have been fairly useless for years.
It’d also be more appropriate if the PS3 was used instead, but that’s much less favourable — the PS3 used the custom-engineered Cell processor, which had a PowerPC core and eight “Synergistic Processing Elements”, or SPEs, running at 3.2GHz. Even taking away the two SPEs in the PS3 that aren’t available for use by developers, the PS4 is a little over half as powerful as a PS3, according to Sony’s maths.
Then there are the GPUs, but I think there’s enough headache material here without diving into that kettle of fish.
Sony UK [Google+]
Comments
25 responses to “Sony Finally Confirms PS4 Clock Speed And Compares It To The… PS2?”
Yep I figured they hadn’t mentioned it till now because direct comparisons are useless as you said. Back in the day the 33mhz PS1 used to kick the ass of 400mhz PC’s in terms of game speed and graphics.. custom chips and the GPU make all the difference.
If you’re talking about a pentium 1 system I agree that back in 95-96 the ps1 would shit all over it The (1st gen pentium was 66mhz). Since you’re bringing up 400mhz you’re obviously talking about the pentium 2 from 98, which when combined with a voodoo 2 or even the onboard of the day could max out games like Half-Life, Deus Ex, Shogo Mobile Armour Division, and even RUN a ps1 emulator at full framerate (remember bleem? I used to run tekken 3 on that without a single issue, it was quite impressive for its time).
Edit: To fix the worst part of my terrible grammar.
Haha voodoo card. Memories
No joke, I’ve got a Voodoo 2 card hanging on my partition wall at work.
8MB of pure power.
I was a privileged child and had the 12mb version. I remember playing counterstrike on this card through my CRT monitor with build in speakers (plugged into the side of the monitor).
It was an arse kicking machine at 300 ping.
Yeah, this card at work is from a salvaged PC. On my home computer back in the day I think I had a Monster 3D, then a Riva TNT 2.
Still remember how jealous i was when my mate got his second voodoo 2 so he could run them in SLI…… SO crazyyyyyyyy
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat, you mean you can run 2 graphics cards at hte same time!? What manner of sorcery / voodoo is this? ;p
S3 Trio, get on my level
a Voodoo 2 could not max out Half Life, or Dues Ex. A Voodoo 3, yes.
maybe if you had the 4mb version, I had sli 12mb v2’s. had them all the way up until i got my geforce 4 mx 440
can confirm, i had voodoo 2 12mb version. Played HL and CS maxed.
Um, no.
We had a Pentium 166 and I swear that Fury 3, Mechwarrior 2 and Super EF 2000 looked and played a thousand times better than anything on PS1. If fact I had the first Need for Speed game too and remember playing it on my friends Sony and thinking that it looked rubbish..
Also, if they compared it to the PS3 it’d be like 3x PS3s next to a PS4. No-one would care for that chrt. At least this way, it’s sensationalized and will draw sales.
Plus it gets the people who think they’re too smart to fall for bad comparison actually talking and thinking more about the PS4, which is just what they want. =)
Hang on. Correct me if I am wrong, but the article states:
“Even taking away the two SPEs in the PS3 that aren’t available for use by developers, the PS4 is a little over half as powerful as a PS3, according to Sony’s maths.”
Doesn’t that mean there’d only be approx 0.5 of a PS3 vs a whole PS4?
I’m hoping that’s a typo in the article and was meant to be 1.5x
The PS3 uses 3.2Ghz * 6 versus 1.6Ghz * 4 in the PS4, so by SONY’S maths, yes, the PS4 is a bit over half as powerful as a PS3… It makes sense. Marketing ploy.
Don’t knock the sheer power of the PS2, apparently Iraq secretly had designs to use several PS2s to construct military weapons! LOL
http://www.zdnet.com/uk-intelligence-dismisses-ps2-missile-fears-3002083302/
So the PS3 had Blast Processing?!
Feel free to like this comment, Megadrive/Genesis fans!
Sega does what Ninten don’t
It reminds me of when Apple compared the speed of the iPhone 5S to the Original iPhone. Just marketing
Soo according to sony my 3 and a half year old pc is faster than a ps4
And it can be a steam machine or at least run steam and office and lightroom etc. and use xbox 360 controllers. I don’t see the point of consoles any more.
GADS… I remember my first 3D Graphics cards.. RIVA TNT 2 8MB… man i played the shit out of Warcraft 3 with that thing. God i was so angry / Jealous that i didn’t have pixel shaders at the time haha.
currently running 2x in Crossfire. Gigabyte Windforce – AMD Radeon 7950 Overclocked with 3GB ram each… times have sure changed.