Sony has finally announced their PlayStation 4, and it truly is a next generation leap. Many of it's features were already known, but Sony only confirmed all that and more for us. Also in is the new Dual Shock controller. PlayStation 4 will pack the new and enhanced Move 2.0 to fight head to head with Microsoft's Kinect 2.0 (in their next XBox console).
PlayStation 4: A PC Inside?
So the PlayStation 4 has PC hardware inside. Big deal! This only makes cross platform game compatibility and development better, naturally encouraging more developers to go for both platforms rather than just one of them (win win for both!). Without any further ado, lets dive into the PlayStation 4 specifications:
PlayStation 4 Specifications
CPU
The 8 cores are from AMD's upcoming Jaguar architecture. What we don't understand is why did Sony opt for tiny Jaguar cores that AMD wants to use to fight Intel's low performance Atom processors with? Surely Piledriver or it's derivative would have performed better. What my hunch is that Sony decided to use 8 of low power CPU cores. Multi-threading is in, raw core power is out. Games that take advantage of all cores efficiently will make this decision right.
GPU
It seems all the brute strength is being given to the GPU. With 1.84 TFLOPS, we are looking at a AMD HD 7850 / HD 7870 class discrete GPU product, which is nothing short of amazing.
Surely the GPU in the PlayStation 4 will perform like a charm. We believe most of all functions will be done on the faster and massively parallel GPU than the CPU.
Live Stream
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/13434793
Memory
We also have 8 GB of GDDR5 memory (that's fast!). Memory bandwidth is a cool 176 GB/s so we won't be having much of constraints from here. Previous rumors were that the PlayStation 4 had 4 GB of memory. We are glad to see 8 GB here instead. The next Xbox on the other hand is rumored to have 8 GB of DDR3 memory, translating to about 68 GB/s of bandwidth only. Hence, the GPU will pack 32 MB of dedicated SRAM which will have nearly 100 GB/s (slightly more) of bandwidth.
Gaikai
After their recent acquisition by Sony, it was only logical for them to include Gaikai's cloud gaming technology into the PlayStation 4. The PlayStation 4 will be able to act as a game server, streaming video out to the PS Vita (which, we all know needs something going for it!).
Storage
The PlayStation will pack physical hard disk drives, maybe somewhere between 250 GB to 1 GB of storage. SSD is naturally not present (much more costlier). We aren't really too concerned about that. Games will be run or installed by the 25 GB / 50 GB Blue Ray disk drive (which will also be seen in the next Xbox as well).
Games
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IuRwp6aCWRw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6kJkiwDeWqQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tHSeyPl--Fw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6LZM3_wp2ps
Dual Shock 4
The new controller by Sony.
"PS4 will come with a new PlayStation 4 Eye camera in the box - similar to how Kinect 2.0 is expected to ship with the next Xbox. PS4 Eye will let users to log in via face recognition and allow the use of gamer's body movements or voices in games. It works using dual camera lenses to capture a better view of the gameplay space, and four microphones to accurately source who's speaking. A mono headset will also be included."
Conclusion
Things look really well for Sony. With an expected release in the November, 2013 time frame, we are looking at the first truly next generation console in 8 years. That's gotta count! The PlayStation 4 has powerful hardware ticking inside it. It's given what the developers wanted, more resources. In addition, it's using PC hardware which only makes things better. On the Green Camp, Microsoft is getting ready to announce their next generation hardware as well. While in the raw performance area Microsoft may end up trailing the PlayStation 4 (if rumors are to be believed) by quite some margin (HD 6670 class GPU), Microsoft knows how to sell a product. Ultimately it's going to boil down to the games offered (some top IPs are expected here), the pricing and of course the advertisement campaign that will be a part of the launch.
Source & Source 2
PlayStation 4: A PC Inside?
So the PlayStation 4 has PC hardware inside. Big deal! This only makes cross platform game compatibility and development better, naturally encouraging more developers to go for both platforms rather than just one of them (win win for both!). Without any further ado, lets dive into the PlayStation 4 specifications:
PlayStation 4 Specifications
- 8-core x86-64 CPU using AMD Jaguar cores (built by AMD)
- High-end PC GPU (also built by AMD), delivering 1.84TFLOPS of performance
- Unified 8GB of GDDR5 memory for use by both the CPU and GPU with 176GB/s of memory bandwidth
- Physical / local hard drive
CPU
The 8 cores are from AMD's upcoming Jaguar architecture. What we don't understand is why did Sony opt for tiny Jaguar cores that AMD wants to use to fight Intel's low performance Atom processors with? Surely Piledriver or it's derivative would have performed better. What my hunch is that Sony decided to use 8 of low power CPU cores. Multi-threading is in, raw core power is out. Games that take advantage of all cores efficiently will make this decision right.
GPU
It seems all the brute strength is being given to the GPU. With 1.84 TFLOPS, we are looking at a AMD HD 7850 / HD 7870 class discrete GPU product, which is nothing short of amazing.
- 18 Compute Units
- 1152 Stream Processors
- 72 Texture Units
- GCN architecture
Surely the GPU in the PlayStation 4 will perform like a charm. We believe most of all functions will be done on the faster and massively parallel GPU than the CPU.
Live Stream
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/13434793
Memory
We also have 8 GB of GDDR5 memory (that's fast!). Memory bandwidth is a cool 176 GB/s so we won't be having much of constraints from here. Previous rumors were that the PlayStation 4 had 4 GB of memory. We are glad to see 8 GB here instead. The next Xbox on the other hand is rumored to have 8 GB of DDR3 memory, translating to about 68 GB/s of bandwidth only. Hence, the GPU will pack 32 MB of dedicated SRAM which will have nearly 100 GB/s (slightly more) of bandwidth.
Gaikai
After their recent acquisition by Sony, it was only logical for them to include Gaikai's cloud gaming technology into the PlayStation 4. The PlayStation 4 will be able to act as a game server, streaming video out to the PS Vita (which, we all know needs something going for it!).
Storage
The PlayStation will pack physical hard disk drives, maybe somewhere between 250 GB to 1 GB of storage. SSD is naturally not present (much more costlier). We aren't really too concerned about that. Games will be run or installed by the 25 GB / 50 GB Blue Ray disk drive (which will also be seen in the next Xbox as well).
Games
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IuRwp6aCWRw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6kJkiwDeWqQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tHSeyPl--Fw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6LZM3_wp2ps
Dual Shock 4
The new controller by Sony.
"PS4 will come with a new PlayStation 4 Eye camera in the box - similar to how Kinect 2.0 is expected to ship with the next Xbox. PS4 Eye will let users to log in via face recognition and allow the use of gamer's body movements or voices in games. It works using dual camera lenses to capture a better view of the gameplay space, and four microphones to accurately source who's speaking. A mono headset will also be included."
Conclusion
Things look really well for Sony. With an expected release in the November, 2013 time frame, we are looking at the first truly next generation console in 8 years. That's gotta count! The PlayStation 4 has powerful hardware ticking inside it. It's given what the developers wanted, more resources. In addition, it's using PC hardware which only makes things better. On the Green Camp, Microsoft is getting ready to announce their next generation hardware as well. While in the raw performance area Microsoft may end up trailing the PlayStation 4 (if rumors are to be believed) by quite some margin (HD 6670 class GPU), Microsoft knows how to sell a product. Ultimately it's going to boil down to the games offered (some top IPs are expected here), the pricing and of course the advertisement campaign that will be a part of the launch.
Source & Source 2