In the past 16 days, the details of the hardware powering two of the most important and influential consumer electronics devices of the last 5 years have unfolded: The PlayStation 4 and the Next-Gen Xbox code named the Orbis and Durango respectively. I know.. Some of you are saying, Oh God.. how in the world are more Game Systems remotely important? I will get to that in detail in a bit. But first...
Reliable and trusted sources inside both camps, in addition to the manufacturers themselves have released a litany of details about the hardware in both systems, and what it will mean for consumers. A close examination of the tech docs reveals some impressive hardware:
"Durango" (Next Gen Xbox)
Processor
- x64 Architecture
- 8 Core AMD CPU running @ 1.6Ghz
- 8GB DDR3 Memory/32MB "ESRAM" High Speed RAM connect directly to the GPU, operating in parralel
- Supposed 170GB/s Memory Bandwidth
- Custom D3D11.1 class 800-MHz graphics processor
- 12 shader cores providing a total of 768 threads
- The GPU can effectively issue 1.2 trillion floating-point operations per second
Storage & Memory
- 8 gigabyte (GB) of RAM DDR3 (68 GB/s)
- 32 MB of fast embedded SRAM (ESRAM) (102 GB/s)
- from the GPU’s perspective the bandwidths of system memory and ESRAM are parallel providing combined peak bandwidth of 170 GB/sec.
- Hard drive is always present
- 50 GB 6x Blu-ray Disc drive
Networking:
- Gigabit Ethernet
- Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct
Hardware Accelerators:
- Move engines
- Image, video, and audio codecs
- Kinect multichannel echo cancellation (MEC) hardware
- Cryptography engines for encryption and decryption, and hashing
Of special note here is the the "ESRAM" is connected directly to the northbridge chip that interconnects between all major internal components. This means that this memory is accessible to all the other components in addition to the graphics core. This differs greatly from the current Xbox 360's 10MB of eDRAM, which is connected directly to the Graphics Core alone.
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"Orbis" (PlayStation 4)
CPU:
- x64 Architecture
- 8 Core AMD CPU running @ 1.6Ghz
- Orbis contains eight Jaguar cores at 1.6 Ghz, arranged as two “clusters”
- Each cluster contains 4 cores and a shared 2MB L2 cache
- 256-bit SIMD operations, 128-bit SIMD ALU
- SSE up to SSE4, as well as Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX)
- One hardware thread per core
- Decodes, executes and retires at up to two intructions/cycle
- Out of order execution
- Per-core dedicated L1-I and L1-D cache (32Kb each)
- Two pipes per core yield 12,8 GFlops performance
- 102.4 GFlops for system
GPU:
- GPU is based on AMD’s “R10XX” (Southern Islands) architecture
- DirectX 11.1+ feature set
- Liverpool is an enhanced version of the architecture
- 18 Compute Units (CUs)
- Hardware balanced at 14 CUs
- Shared 512 KB of read/write L2 cache
- 800 Mhz
- 1.843 Tflops, 922 GigaOps/s
- Dual shader engines: 1.6 billion triangles/s, 1.6 billion vertices/s
- 18 texture units: 56 billion bilinear texture reads/s, Can utilize full memory bandwith
- 8 Render backends: 32 color ops/cycle/128 depth ops/cycle/Can utilize full memory bandwith
Storage & Memory:
- 500GB HDD
- 4 GB unified system memory, 176 GB/s
- 3.5 available to games (estimate)
- Single layer (25 GB) or dual layer (50 GB) discs
- Partial constant angular velocity (PCAV)
- Outer half of disc 6x (27 MB/s)
- Inner half varies, 3.3x to 6x
Networking:
- Gigabit Ethernet
- Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct
- Bluetooth
New DualShock
- New pad redesign, same size.
- Touchpad in the center. Forget the Select, PS and Start buttons.
- Touchpad created with the same technology that the rear Vita’s touchpad.
- Save 15 min of your activity. System will save your last 15 min. No processing penalty according the source.
- Share button: Allows the player to take screenshots or videos. Save them in your HDD or share online.
Additional Details:
- Audio Processor (ACP)
- Video encode and decode (VCE/UVD) units
- Display ScanOut Engine (DCE)
- Zlib Decompression Hardware
There is a lot of data to take in, but of special note to all is the total CPU/GPU and Memory bandwidth architecture comparison between the two. As an insider at Games Industry International, ""The new PlayStation Orbis graphics core appears - at face value - to be significantly more powerful than the GPU in Durango".
But technical details aside, putting all the jargon away and looking at the overall picture, what does all of it mean for the next gen of consoles? The next gen consoles have significant sway over the future of the Display market. With 4K TV's making a big splash at CES this year, they are the new rage. However, with the current price tags, many are not in the realm of your average consumer, and not having hardware capable of truly utilizing this deep resolution will also be a prohibitive hurdle. Consoles are always a major release, selling hundreds of thousands in the first week, millions in the first 6 months. That said, with both of these next gen systems supporting 4K resolution, and sell through rates being so high, the next gen consoles will have an significant impact of 4K display market penetration. With Samsung, Sony, Panasonic and LG all banking VERY heavily on 4K's adoption into the market, they all have a vested interest in the success of the next gen consoles.
We will see how much of it all pans out when the PS4 is announced on February 20th.
References:
Specs and Details compiled from multiple articles at VGleaks.com, gamesindustry.biz, ps3news.com.
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