Uh oh, two of the most passionate topics on N4G, consoles and their respective performance.

*Insert obligatory popcorn comment here*

Better specs is one thing but to know what youre buying into, instead of trying to cut through totally unnecassary crap is something else.

"Just like our friends we're based on the Sea Islands family"

So both the PS4 and XB1 use rebranded OEM HD7000 parts it seems ---> http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

Lmaooo I like how misterx now says the 27th doesn't matter now ---> http://misterxmedia.livejou...

My gosh you guys should read the comments they're unbelievable

Off to neogaf for more drama...

i have no doubt that xbox can balance that raw power gap between x1 and ps4 but in the end devs will use the extra power that sony gave them..

I honestly wonder what went through the heads of the Hardware Devs up at M$ BS HQ!

If the tools were available to a company that is neck deep in the computing industry to produce a well balanced powerful console why has the xbone been overpowered by SONY's PS4?

Only conclusion I can come to is they wanted to produce the most cost effective product to maximize profits from the get go!

Cloud + Balance = Weak Sauce

Again,

I, personally don't care about power. I mean its not like we're talking about wii-u vs ps4 specs here. The subtle differences between the games are just for pissing contests for the fan boys.

Edit: games matter. Always have, always will. Even this Gen. I'm not trying to downplay the importance of system power, but we won't know a damn thing until we get our hands on the games. Even then, becoming immersed in your favorite game, you forget about specs and just enjoy what you're playing. Specs come into play when you turn off your game and get on the internet.

Both consoles are using the same apu, just customized differently. I doubt that we see game breaking code on either console. It would have to affect both

Both consoles are close enough that it will not make a big difference. When the consoles start to release their system sellers specs won't matter. Halo will sell consoles. GTAVI will sell consoles. Naughty Dog will sell consoles. Hell, even Mario will sell consoles if Nintendo doesn't screw it up

Wow, I've got a headache after reading all that! Sound like they fully believe and understand what and why they have built and speced the Xbox the way they have.

Come on 22nd Nov!

So the XB1 is a far more efficient machine, Makes sense since the games seem to look and run better. I love all the uneducated comments about PR after the tech team shamed every wannabe in this forum....the "proofs in the pudding" as they say and right now MS's pudding looks better...no argument there!

Clear difference between 900p and 1080p. Also, throughout the different test, the PS4 gets all from 4 to 16 fps more than the X1. It averages about 10 fps difference between the consoles.

The trouble is the setup is too complex in an effort to play catch-up. They talk about their 15 processors, but have also said that to improve yields, any of those processors can be redundant and the workload is taken up by the CPU.

This can therefore mean that in any given Xbox One, there could be several non-working processors which kind of screws the whole balance theme. How many Xboxes will run to their full design potential (if any)? What percentage will have several processors crippled at once? Will you have different framerates etc from one machine to the next dependant on how 'lucky' you were with your purchase?

They also make a point of saying that the RAM is no more difficult than the Xbox 360 to program for, however this is a moot point as PS4's is now a lot easier than the X360's ever was. There are some clever 'workarounds' going on in the box, but if they had approached the system in a different way (ala PS4) these complexities would not be necessary in the first place.

The real minus point of the xbox one is its price. The other things are the typical and useless debates about "which is the most powerful hardware" that happen every 5-6 years. The xbox one will be more than capable to face the PS4.

Never seen so much hatters in my life.
Everything he said went completely over my head but didn't change my view much. All I got was xbox 360 but way better specs.
Yet ppl who are unqualified just wanna hate just for the sake of it.

Everything you have heard about the power of each machine is wrong. Everything you have heard is either propaganda and / or corporate PR. It has been delivered by pundits and partisans. It's data that only fools believe because it's exactly what they want to hear.

All the fanboys will tell you the other side is lying, but that only proves their ignorance and further proves my point.

Also one company has a well established reputation for selling their products with lies and hyperbole, and in the end their hardware never delivers the goods.

I consider every disagree vote I receive to be a small victory for the truth, because after all, when you're dealing with fanboys, the truth hurts .

Seemns like Microsoft took a somewhat foolhardy conservative approach to graphical output, set features, latency and system balance. They'll end up paying the price later down the line.

Btw, MisterxMedia is spewing so much BS out of his mouth it's unreal. Somebody should really help that guy/girl.

Here we go let's see what the n4g developers have to say

"we're based on the Sea Islands family" ..BUT...BUT THE NDA!...THE VOLCANIC ISLAND SERIES!??!!? /s

Nice now looking forward to the great games coming out at launch and sometime next year...d4 , sunset overdrive , halo 5, dr3, forza5, ryse ,project spark. by mid next year we will start seeing the next wave of games that will be developed using the consoles full capabilities..personally I'm excited at what rare, 343, blacktusk, epic, remedy, square,crytek,dice, konami , capcom, platinum, lionhead and other talented devs would be able to do with the hardware..this is going to be great..

WOW!......no surprises, and just what most of us already know. A very nice and powerful machine. But has a number of hoops it needs to go through to get the best performance from. PS4 by contrast, has less hoops to go through to reach its optimal level, which still is the more powerful machine.

Frigid and Elite will not be well after the "shocking revelation" that the gpu is not based on the Volcanic series!

But but the NDA!!!

Well like millions of other people the technical stuff just discussed is something most don't understand. I don't understand it. I understand the ps4 has more power, according to all the hype surrounding it. However that's irrelevant to me. I simply prefer the games X1 has not to mention the superior online experience that has already been established with the 360. In the end its the games & fun factor that does it for me. That's why I'm buying a X1.

Man everyone on this website is a developer and a programmer! Its the best site ever...

/sarcasm

I thought this debate was settled last week,. (except for the secret sauce Believers,, and the NDA -B$ters)

It's ok guys, you still will have a billion transistors, the revolutionary Kinect gimmick, and DA Powaar of da Clowdz!!! ;s

All said and done ....still getting one

Finally a good article to explain and back up MS thinking.

To continue these car analogies. PS4 is a drag racer on a road course, XBox One is now more clearly defined as a Formula1 road course driver.

""Yeah, I think that's right. In terms of getting the best possible combination of performance, memory size, power, the GDDR5 takes you into a little bit of an uncomfortable place,""

-Sounds like Sony engineers outclassed Microsofts!

""This controversy is rather surprising to me, especially when you view as ESRAM as the evolution of eDRAM from the Xbox 360. No-one questions on the Xbox 360 whether we can get the eDRAM bandwidth concurrent with the bandwidth coming out of system memory. In fact, the system design required it," explains Andrew Goosen."

-360 was easy to develop for when compared to PS3. Comparing PS4 to XB1 is completely different and PS4 destroys XB1 in terms of ease of development.

""My take on it is that when you buy a graphics card, do you go by the specs or do you actually run some benchmarks?""

-Both. PS4 wins out no matter which your go by.

""Firstly though, we don't have any games out. You can't see the games. When you see the games you'll be saying, 'what is the performance difference between them""

-We'll see the game in a few months. That'll render your little PR campaign useless.

""We've had the opportunity with the Xbox One to go and check a lot of our balance.""

-Oh, so you're saying PS4 is unbalanced? LOL. Pathetic.

""Everybody knows from the internet that going to 14 CUs should have given us almost 17 per cent more performance," he says, "but in terms of actual measured games - what actually, ultimately counts - is that it was a better engineering decision to raise the clock. There are various bottlenecks you have in the pipeline that can cause you not to get the performance you want if your design is out of balance.""

-We already know the Xbox One GPU is weaker than the PS4s, so increasing the CUs would't really do much FOR YOUR SYSTEM.

""Sony was actually agreeing with us. They said that their system was balanced for 14 CUs. They used that term: balance. Balance is so important in terms of your actual efficient design.""

-Oh, so you agree that Sony's engineers aren't stupid and are capable of building a powerful balanced system? Good.

""Interestingly, the biggest source of your frame-rate drops actually comes from the CPU, not the GPU," Goosen reveals. "Adding the margin on the CPU... we actually had titles that were losing frames largely because they were CPU-bound in terms of their core threads. In providing what looks like a very little boost, it's actually a very significant win for us in making sure that we get the steady frame-rates on our console.""

-SIGH. This will vary from game to game. A game build for consoles should be GPU focused. Let's face it, both PS4 and XB1 have weak-ass CPUs.

""What we're seeing in titles is adopting the notion of dynamic resolution scaling to avoid glitching frame-rate. As they start getting into an area where they're starting to hit on the margin there where they could potentially go over their frame budget, they could start dynamically scaling back on resolution and they can keep their HUD in terms of true resolution and the 3D content is squeezing. Again, from my aspect as a gamer I'd rather have a consistent frame-rate and some squeezing on the number of pixels than have those frame-rate glitches.""

-Or you could have a powerful system that wouldn't need dynamic resolutions at all and have a consistent frame-rate.

NOTICE HOW THEY NEVER SAID THEY HAVE THE MORE POWERFUL CONSOLE OR THAT THEY HAVE BETTER GRAPHICS? THAT'S BECAUSE THAT HONOR BELONGS TO THE PS4. I'm sure the Xbox One is a balanced system. But it's not better than the PS4. Sony 3 generations of engineering experience, that's not even counting Vita or PSP. Sony just has an amazing engineering team. Microsoft never really had a chance.

So it boils down to this:

You are gonna pay $100 more for 25% less frames per second.

Seems reasonable. Not.

I look at it from a PC gamer perspective. When upgrading a graphics card (or any other part) never ever have I said "Oh look at that, its more expensive and it doesn't perform as well as the competition, I'll take it!" lolz.

Why is it that 90% of the comments in this thread are from Sony supporters? Will someone please explain to me the lure of posting derogatory statements in a thread dedicated to a competitors gaming console? It's so asinine...I don't get it.

I would even equate some of your comments to a form of bullying or bigotry. Most of the people that comment on N4G are in the camp of "if you're not with me then you are my enemy". What ever happened to sportsmanship and the concept of tolerance? Why can't you just accept other console owners as gamers instead of "the competition"? When it comes down to it we all love games and that should be enough to establish a binding sense of community.

The PS4 is a bit more powerful than the XBOX One. WHO CARES! Just buy what you want and be happy with that decision. Don't stick you meager chest out and belittle someone for making a different purchase than you. Frankly, you guys come off as narrow minded hate mongers.

I've singled PS4 owners out because it seems that they permeate every article revolving around the XBOX One. But make no mistake, XBOX fans can be just as obtuse.

I happen to be buying both consoles because I can appreciate the merits of each system. But even if I just stuck with the PS4 or XBOX One I wouldn't let that fact dictate my behavior or influence my interaction with other gamers.

Its a good read and definitely sheds light of some of the math from MS. Does it totally answer everything? No but MS goesmuch much deeper than previously in other interviews which great..

My money is going to a company that is making gains. Not a company struggling to make profit the last four years. XB1!

Secret sauce...

I think MS should have just stuck to advertising there system by number of transistors water cooler sizes and types of science.

That's what I love about Rabid Sony fans, they're all incredibly clued up on tech. There I was thinking they were mostly idiots

I find it interesting that many defenders on here of X1 always use the MS designed the system so its balanced and all the tech tweaks will make the consoles close in power, yet they never mention that Sony has tweaked and optimized the PS4 just like MS did with X1 so its not like X1 is optimized and PS4 is not.

I just find it funny that is used as a arguement point for X1 totally disregarding Sony as a hardware manufacturing and enginering company.

Seems they are going to be great consoles with great functions and games. they the same but different, they use different ways to bring the functions alive. But the fun value will be great for both consoles.

Basically MS is saying " listen up suckeres, you lots are fools, we know everything and you don't, so shut it! Our words mean more than everyone else, and your tests are wrong"

Ok MS. Keep trying to justify the OS and Kinect, rather than optimising for GAMES!

LOL !

can this PLEASE put to bed the nonsense about all the hidden special power that misterX is spreading? forget about this NDA nonsense and MS making a reveal later this month...

MS is being very open about their tech now...there is nothing else hidden

I don't understand the tech talk, so all I can go off is history. The PS3 was supposed to be the vastly superior machine, and for all intents and purposes, it didn't deliver. The 360 was the easier machine to design around, now both the PS4 and X1 are saying how easy their new consoles can be optimized with developers. So we as gamers win regardless.

Who cares if the raw power says the PS4 can give us a couple more wrinkles on a skin texture. All of the tech is theoretical, meaning possibilities not assurances. Both machines will be great, but all of this backwards and forwards is foolish. We all by now have chosen which console we will get. Some days I'll play my brother's PS4, heck I already have Infamous Second Son pre-ordered for myself on his console!

Maybe we are in the age of entitled gamers...

the only thing this article shows is out of touch the MS engineers are because unlike Mark Cerny they aren't actual game developers. All their R&D is based on theory and not practice.

They say that they find surprising that some game developers find the esRam hard to work with because it is an evolution of the edRam on the X360. But what they don't tell you is that most developers used the 10MB of edRam for free 4x MSAA to not having to deal with it. In fact, Cerny did a presentation discussing why Sony didn't go with 4GB of GDDR5 and esRam even though it gave them a bandwidth of 1000 GB/s. I think these MS engineers should go watch it and learn something because if Sony learned something with the PS3 is that theoretical numbers are meaningless.

"Every one of the Xbox One dev kits actually has 14 CUs on the silicon. Two of those CUs are reserved for redundancy in manufacturing, but we could go and do the experiment - if we were actually at 14 CUs what kind of performance benefit would we get versus 12? And if we raised the GPU clock what sort of performance advantage would we get? And we actually saw on the launch titles - we looked at a lot of titles in a lot of depth - we found that going to 14 CUs wasn't as effective as the 6.6 per cent clock upgrade that we did."

And THIS is BS because...

http://anandtech.com/bench/...

I see extra circuits built in to reduce the work needed done by the cpu, gpu and memory. I also see software being matched with the hardware. Sony went with brute force Microsoft went with a more complicated design. I think it will all depend on the tools given to the game developer and money they have to work with more than the hardware. In the end both ps4 and Xbox one will play games great. Also I get tired of the Xbox one costs one hundred dollars more. You get the Kinect. And if it is that big of a deal I doubt you can afford either. Both will cost you too much.

Hmmmmmm i think its kind of funny how their are a lot of MS fans here with the comment " I dont have a clue about any of this stuff but i believe major nelson" Yet in other articles about actual devs saying the ps4 is better off their own backs and we get comments like "The devs have no clue MS have super secrets that no one knows about"

All i got from this article is what we knew all along, the secret NDA and the dGPU was bs and can all be put to bed, the ps4 is the most powerful hardware of the two.

I am sure MS will have some good games on their console anyway but lets not pretend they will have a console on par with the ps4 performance wise when its not true, even if we try to say that MS somehow configured all the components to their peak, Sony would have done the same thing with the better hardware.

Straight from the Microsoft's technicians own mouth "... {DDR3]memory is cheaper as well so you can afford more. "

OK so you chose DDR3 because your cheap with the excuse being because you could add more for less, yet you didn't add any more.... Well done Microsoft, well done!

fact cant be avoided that the xbox one is gonna have to run to where the ps4 can skip to.

MS has done it again! ...which is fooling the bots lol

Said it before but I would pay the extra 100 bux not to have sony logo on my console.

All these numbers mean to me is that games are going to look and play way better than the current gen versions, so I win no matter what system I choose(which will always be all of them eventually). Call me when math class is over, lol.

Here is what is going to happen. Just like last gen sony is going to be a little more powerful. Ryse looks great and so does kz. I'm getting XB1 first because I like to game on live and so do my friends. I see bias gamers acting like choosing one or the other makes you dumb. Choose the system you feel comfortable with or both. Arguing about a small difference in the consoles is stupid when pc's blow them away. I like consoles more than pc's because I don't like the idea of upgrading often. Good article to read.

Ryse drops to 900p with crap gameplay, dead rising barely made 30fps with low resolution and now Forza has been seen to have a visual downgrade at tgs Lol great balance, meanwhile at Sony camp kz sf mp 1089p with 60fps, resogun 1080p at 60 fps, infamous looks better than anything on next gen consoles and ppl are really asking where the 50% difference in speed and 30% in raw power is seen! Selective memory and ignoring things doesn't make your argument true. So many idiots hoping for the dgpu and now that that is dead thy talk about about special architecture, some of you guys are really sad, just give it up man especially since thy both have customized architecture and ps4 even has more customized Chips for instant dling and other stuff.

You guys still going at it...

All talk but no proof.

I don't even know why most of you brother with this PR rant.

I don't know about yall..

I need proof...show some games demos, better yet show me titan fall running on an X1 hardware.

GIVE US SOME PROOF MS.

What I can't get away from is that they were paying a lot of attention to power consumption, GDDR5 is more power hungry than DDR3 and the Xbox One is a media centre meant to be left on for long periods of time, but GDDR5 is undoubtably the better RAM for gaming purposes. Essentially the games portion has been compromised for the media portion.

May be an overly simplistic point of view but that's how it seems on the face of it.

60% of the time the console with the best developers wins all of the time.

Wow there are a lot of people in these threads that know absolutely nothing about system design and architecture.

REALITY:

We will not know which console has the better design and architecture until about year 3-5 of the generation.

The games now look good on both consoles, but outside of Killzone's AI, Forza 5's AI and physics engine and deadrising's bizillion's of zombies on screen at once there has been very little earth shattering news from either console on changes to gameplay this generation. Sure the graphics of all the games are greatly improved, but graphics are only a small part of what makes a game great.

Time will tell the true story.

I don't understand how people just look at the paper specs and jump to conclusions from that. I'm picking the X1 first because my experience on live has been better than PSN. The free games are awesome but the chat is inferior to line xbox offering, for me at least. I feel more comfortable with an xbox controller and now with all the upgrades it will be even better. The GPU, CPU, RAM, have nothing to do with why I'm picking the X1 over the PS4 at launch. Not to mention, for me, Home Gold will be cheaper than PS+. I'll get practically two subscriptions for $60 with gold. Home console and my gamertag. Anyone can get gold on the home console in the family room and I'll get it on my console in my room with my gamertag. I'll have three consoles in my home so I'll pay $120 but if I add another it will still be $120 because of the home console and gamertag thing. With PS+ it's $50 per gamertag. 3 tags means $150 and 4 is $200. I know you'll get to take them anywhere but all the people I know will have home gold which means it wont be a problem if I go and play at their house even if the gold wasn't linked to my gamertag.
I think everyone should make their decision on all factors, not just internal components.

It's simple arithmetic. The one with the highest number wins. That's the PS4 ftw. Only the inbread with two left hands, and no basic understanding of math. Will pick X1.