The Xbox One: Hardware Analysis & Comparison to PlayStation 4
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 22, 2013 8:00 AM ESTFinal Words
It’s nearly impossible for the Xbox One not to be a substantial upgrade over the Xbox 360. The fact that Microsoft could ship a single integrated SoC instead of a multi-chip CPU+GPU solution this generation is telling enough. You don’t need to integrate anywhere near the fastest CPUs and GPUs to outperform the Xbox 360, something closer to the middle of the road works just fine.
Microsoft won’t have any issues delivering many times the performance of the Xbox 360. The Xbox One features far more compute power and memory bandwidth than the Xbox 360. Going to 8GB of RAM is also a welcome upgrade, especially since it’s identical to what Sony will ship on the PlayStation 4. As AMD is supplying relatively similar x86 CPU and GCN GPU IP to both consoles, porting between them (and porting to PCs) should be far easier than ever before. The theoretical performance comparison between the two next-gen consoles is where things get a bit sticky.
Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. We’ll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that it’s usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms.
On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques.
Differences in the memory subsytems also gives us some insight into each approach to the next-gen consoles. Microsoft opted for embedded SRAM + DDR3, while Sony went for a very fast GDDR5 memory interface. Sony’s approach (especially when combined with a beefier GPU) is exactly what you’d build if you wanted to give game developers the fastest hardware. Microsoft’s approach on the other hand looks a little more broad. The Xbox One still gives game developers a significant performance boost over the previous generation, but also attempts to widen the audience for the console. It’s a risky strategy for sure, especially given the similarities in the underlying architectures between the Xbox One and PS4. If the market for high-end game consoles has already hit its peak, then Microsoft’s approach is likely the right one from a business standpoint. If the market for dedicated high-end game consoles hasn’t peaked however, Microsoft will have to rely even more on the Kinect experience, TV integration and its exclusive franchises to compete.
Arguably the most interesting thing in all of this is the dual-OS + hypervisor software setup behind the Xbox One. With the Windows kernel running alongside the Xbox OS, I wonder how much of a stretch it would be to one day bring the same setup to PCs. Well before the Xbox One hits the end of its life, mainstream PC APUs will likely be capable of delivering similar performance. Imagine a future Surface tablet capable of doing everything your Xbox One can do. That's really the trump card in all of this. The day Microsoft treats Xbox as a platform and not a console is the day that Apple and Google have a much more formidable competitor. Xbox One at least gets the software architecture in order, then we need PC/mobile hardware to follow suit and finally for Microsoft to come to this realization and actually make it happen. We already have the Windows kernel running on phones, tablets, PCs and the Xbox, now we just need the Xbox OS across all platforms as well.
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elitewolverine - Thursday, May 23, 2013 - link
its the same gpu at heart, sure shaders are lower, because of eSram. You might want to rethink how internals work. Advantage will be very minimalalex@1234 - Friday, May 24, 2013 - link
In every place its mentioned 32% higher GPU power, I don't think A GTX 660 TI and GTX 680 are equal. For sure PS4 holds the advantage. Lower shaders and lower in everything compared to PS4, DDR3 Xbox one-PS4 DDR5. For ESRAM, I will tell you something have a SSD, have 32 GB RAM, it cannot make it for a better GPU.cjb110 - Thursday, May 23, 2013 - link
In some ways this is the opposite to the previous generation. The 360 screamed games (at least its original dashboard), whereas the PS3 had all the potential media support (the xbar interface though let it down) as well as being an excellent blu-ray player (which is the whole reason I got mine).This time around MS have gone all out entertainment, that can do games, where as Sony seems to have gone games first. I'm imagining that physically the PS4 is more flashy too like the PS3 and 360 where...game devices not family entertainment boxes.
Personally I'm keeping the 360 for my games library, and the One will likely replace the PS3.
Tuvok86 - Thursday, May 23, 2013 - link
Xbox One ~ 7770 GhzPS4 ~ 7850
jnemesh - Thursday, May 23, 2013 - link
One of my biggest concerns with the new system is the Kinect requirement. I have my Xbox and other electronics in a rack in the closet. I would need to extend the USB 3.0 (and I am assuming this time around, the Kinect is using a standard USB connector on all models) over 40 feet to get the wire from my closet to the location beneath or above my wall mounted TV. With the existing Kinect for the 360, I never bothered with it, but you COULD buy a fairly expensive USB over cat5 extender (Gefen makes one of the more reliable models, but it's $499!). I know of no such adapter for USB 3.0, and since Kinect HAS to be used for the console to operate, this means I won't be buying an Xbox One! Does anyone know of a product that will extend USB 3.0 over a cat5 or cat6 cable? Or any solution?epobirs - Saturday, May 25, 2013 - link
There are USB 3.0 over fiber solutions available but frankly, I doubt anyone at MS is losing sleep over those few homes with such odd arrangements.Panzerknacker - Thursday, May 23, 2013 - link
Is it just me or are these new gen consoles seriously lacking in CPU performance? According to the benchmarks of the A4-5000, of which you could say the consoles have two, the CPU power is not even going to come close to any i5 or maybe even i3 chip.Considering the fact they are running the X86 platform this time, which probably is not the most efficient to run games (probably the reason why consoles in the past never used x86), and the fact that they run lots of secondary applications next to the game (which leaves maybe 6/8 cores left for the game on average), I think CPU performance is seriously lacking. CPU intensive games will be a no-no on this next gen on consoles.
Th-z - Saturday, May 25, 2013 - link
The first Xbox used x86 CPU. Cost was the main reason not many consoles used x86 CPU in the past, unlike IBM Power and ARM, x86 doesn't give out license to whatever company to make their own CPU. But this time they probably see benefit has outweighed the cost (or even less cost) with x86 APU design from AMD - good performance per dollar/per watt for both CPU and GPU. I am not sure if Power today can reach this kind of performance per dollar/per watt for a CPU, or ARM has the CPU performance to run high end games. Also bear in mind that consoles use less CPU cycle to run games than PC.hfm - Thursday, May 23, 2013 - link
"Differences in the memory subsytems also gives us some insight into each approach to the next-gen consoles. Microsoft opted for embedded SRAM + DDR3, while Sony went for a very fast GDDR5 memory interface. Sony’s approach (especially when combined with a beefier GPU) is exactly what you’d build if you wanted to give game developers the fastest hardware. Microsoft’s approach on the other hand looks a little more broad. The Xbox One still gives game developers a significant performance boost over the previous generation, but also attempts to widen the audience for the console."I don't quite understand how their choice of memory is going to "widen the audience for the console". Unless it's going to cause the XBox One to truly be cheaper, which I doubt. Or if you are referring to the entire package with Kinect, though it didn't seem so in the context of the statement.
FloppySnake - Friday, May 24, 2013 - link
It's my understanding (following an AMD statement during a phone conference over 8000m announcement) that ZeroCore had been enhanced for graceful fall-back, powering-down individual GPU segments not just the entire GPU. If this is employed we could see the PS4 delivering power as needed (not sure what control they'll have over GDDR5 clocks if any), but potentially not power hungry unless it needs to be. Perhaps warrants further investigation?I agree with the article that if used appropriately, the 32MB SRAM buffer could compensate for limited bandwidth, but only in a traditional pipeline; it could severely limit GPGPU potential as there's limited back-and-forth bandwidth between the CPU and GPU, a buffer won't help here.
For clarity, the new Kinect uses a time-of-flight depth sensor, completely different technology to the previous Kinect. This offers superior depth resolution and fps but the XY resolution is actually something like 500x500 (or some combination that adds up to 250,000 pixels).