PS5 vs Xbox Series X: key difference and which to choose

Wyatt21

Member
For console players, 2020 is undoubtedly a happy year. After a long wait, Microsoft and Sony will each launch a new generation of home consoles Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 (hereinafter referred to as XSX and PS5) at the end of this year, which will kick off the new era of console games? What are the key difference between PS5 and Xbox Series X, which one is better to choose? Here we go:

PS5 vs Xbox Series X: key difference

PS5 vs Xbox Series X: key difference and which to choose

1. Theoretical performance: Xbox seizes the advantage

Like the eighth generation, both Sony and Microsoft used AMD's custom processors for the console market. The previous-generation AMD Jaguar processor is based on the simplified Bulldozer (dozer) micro-architecture, and this generation of processors uses the Zen 2 architecture that helps AMD salted fish turn over, and the same-frequency performance has made great progress.

Both PS5 and Xbox Series X are 8-core Zen 2 CPUs, and Microsoft has a slightly higher frequency. Compared with PS5, there is also SMT hyper-threading technology support. If the game is optimized, it should have a clear advantage when running on Xbox Series X.

PS5 vs Xbox Series X: key difference and which to choose

▲ PS5 vs. Xbox Series X

PS5 adopts a dynamic frequency design (according to the load, the CPU frequency can fluctuate within a certain range). In some scenarios, it can reduce CPU power consumption and allocate power consumption to the graphics card.

In terms of GPU, PS5 is more passive. Remember when PS4 and Xbox One were released in 2013, XBox lost to PS4 in GPU performance competition, and had to overclock the processor before the sale to minimize the gap. Despite this, the previous Xbox One still seemed to be unable to run 1080P games, and the resolution could only be set to 900P to be comparable to PS4.

When Microsoft released the Xbox One X in 2017, it improved the GPU CU from 12 to 40 at a stretch, and the single-precision floating point reached 6TFLOPS, taking the first place in host performance.

The performance-oriented style also has obvious traces on the Xbox Series X. The Xbox Series X 52CU has 16 more GPU units than the PS5 36CU, bringing a theoretical 16% performance advantage.

PS5 vs Xbox Series X: key difference and which to choose

In addition to the gap in the number of CUs, we can also see that the GPU frequency of PS5 has reached 2.23GHz, which is much higher than the 1.825GHz of Xbox.

Higher frequency will inevitably bring higher power consumption and heat dissipation pressure. Fortunately, PS5 supports floating frequency in the CPU, which can reduce the heat dissipation pressure caused by high frequency in some scenarios. Sony makes the GPU frequency up to 2.23GHz, indicating that they are confident in the thermal design of PS5 (of course, the possibility of PS5 cooling overturning is not ruled out).

PS5 vs Xbox Series X: key difference and which to choose

On the other hand, PS5 also allows us to see the potential of the RDNA2 architecture, which can exceed such a high frequency. I believe that the upcoming RX 6000 series graphics cards will also perform well.

In addition, the RDNA2 architecture also supports ray tracing, which means that this generation of game consoles will popularize optical chase. In the future, optical chase will become the standard effect of 3A masterpieces.

2.IO performance: PS5 leads the field

In addition to the APU performance difference, the Xbox Series X and PS5 are also a little different, that is SSD.


After so many years of development, SSD has become the standard storage device in PC. In the PS4 era, the first thing that many players get when they get a game console is to replace it with an SSD. After all, the IO bottleneck of the HDD is too serious. In order to reduce the impact of disk reading on the game experience, many games will put a thin corridor in two large scenes, and read the next one when the player passes through the gap.

The Xbox Series X uses a 1TB SSD with IO throughput of 2.4GB/s (raw) and 4.8GB/s (compressed). Compared with this, the PS5's SSD IO throughput has almost doubled, 5.5GB/s (raw), 8-9GB/s (compressed). Obviously, this will bring obvious advantages to Sony, especially in terms of game loading and scene switching.
 

Wyatt21

Member
SSD is supposed to become the standard of the ninth generation game console, but Microsoft and Sony have different opinions on SSD selection. The Xbox Series X uses a 1TB SSD with IO throughput of 2.4GB/s (raw) and 4.8GB/s (compressed). Compared with this, the PS5's SSD IO throughput has almost doubled, 5.5GB/s (raw), 8-9GB/s (compressed). Obviously, this will bring obvious advantages to Sony, especially in terms of game loading and scene switching.

PS5 and Xbox Series X

Such high IO throughput can not only maximize the potential of the processor, but also reduce the memory capacity requirements. After all, IO is enough, so you don't need to load all scenes into memory in advance.

However, from the perspective of the PC, the SSD IO is certainly important, but it only serves to reduce the memory preload and reduce the problem of scene switching and reading. It does not allow a qualitative increase in the game frame rate. Whether Sony can make good use of powerful IO performance to make up for the shortcomings of processor performance depends on subsequent game optimization.

3.Memory and others: no obvious gap between PS5 and Xbox Series X

Sony has won a big victory in IO performance, and the expansion of external hard drives is also stronger. Compared with Xbox, it only supports Seagate's customized external SSD expansion card. Sony also has a NVMe slot. However, because the built-in hard drive is a PCI-E 4.0 protocol, if you don't want the external hard drive to drag the IO back, at least it has to be. A PCI-E 4.0 NVMe SSD is now relatively expensive.

PS5 and Xbox Series X


In addition to NVMe, PS5 also supports USB HDD, games that are not often played can use HDD as a warehouse disk, which is more conscience than Xbox.

In terms of memory, both sides are 16GB GDDR6, but the 10GB memory bandwidth in Xbox reaches 560GB/s, and the remaining 6GB is lower than PS5, only 336GB/s. As for the actual game effect, we still have to wait for the two parties to go public before comparing.

In terms of optical drives, both sides use 4K UHD Blu-ray drives. The specific reading speed is not widely available, but the optical drive is obviously not the focus.

4.Compatibility: Xbox Series X is better than PS5

The Xbox has supported compatibility with the first generation since the previous generation. If you buy Xbox Series X, you can enjoy the games of the fourth-generation Xbox platform, with higher resolution and frame rate, and some games have better visual effects.

PS5 and Xbox Series X,

PS5 is also backward compatible, but only for PS4 Pro. If you want to play PS3 and PS2 games, you have to use some special methods, such as PlayStation Now, a cloud streaming game.

Conclusion

If you are an old game lover and what you want to play is not Sony's exclusive game, Xbox Series X is indeed a better choice.
If the game you want to play is exclusive to PS, then you have no choice, either buy a PS5, or find an old host on eBay.

From the perspective of exposure parameters, the Xbox Series X has an advantage in terms of performance. If players prefer cross-platform masterpieces (such as games that can also be played on the PC platform), Xbox is a good choice.

But the console market is not a performance-only market. More players choose consoles because there are certain exclusive games on the consoles. If Sony can continue to produce a large number of excellent exclusive works in the PS5 generation, it is not impossible to continue to dominate the market.

There are still more than half a year before these two console login markets. You may wish to wait for the news of the game. There are still many good shows this year. Finally, I will talk about my thoughts: a PS5 dedicated to exclusive games. An AMD high-performance PC, it is beautiful to plug in the handle as an Xbox and connect a mouse to play EU4.
 
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ashley

Member
The price still matters, if xbox series x pricing at like $599, ps5 at $499 then I will choose Sony
The problem now is that Xbox is compatible with more than 1,000 games from the previous generation, but Sony has only confirmed more than 400 games, not including some "exclusive". I think Sony is too picky...
 

bigapple

Member
@Wyatt21 you might be a little bit subjective. Xsx's CPU, GPU, 4K at 60 frames, plus the optimization of cooperation with amd are not mentioned, but the most useless ssd is pulled out separately to catch the eyeballs. Not to mention that Microsoft's actual machine test is available.
PS5 is limited to image performance, and only mention that xsx theoretical performance is "slightly" better.
 
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