News - Microsoft boosts Xbox One GPU by 53MHz in pre-launch tweak

[HEXUS]

That's a 6.6 per cent increase in GPU speed made to finalise the specifications.

Read more.

[ajones]

I still think it looks like a 1980's video player.

[KrisWragg]

Not sure a 6% increase in frequency will make up for the fact it has 50% less graphics cores than the PS4.

[Lucio]

Not sure a 6% increase in frequency will make up for the fact it has 50% less graphics cores than the PS4.

As with all things IT, a single number, taken in isolation, doesn't directly translate into a real world metric.

An arguement that can also be applied to this articles claim that 53Mhz clock speed increase translates to a 6.6% performance improvement. That'd likely only be true if the game fully saturated the processor and was continually waiting for the next cycle

[sykobee]

Early games won't make the most of either the XBox One or the PS4, although the PS4's less esoteric hardware configuration should mean that developers can quickly ramp up the performance on that hardware, whilst with the XBox One they have to learn to make best use of the ESRAM and the Move Engines to get the most out of the hardware. And we also don't know how good the PS4's graphics drivers are (or these XBox One 'mono' drivers).

[sirtrouserpress]

I fear Microsoft are stuck a little in the past with this, this next gen console wouldn't have looked all that out of place two years ago as a 'cheapish' mid range build, I for one am a little disapointed...

[kalniel]

I fear Microsoft are stuck a little in the past with this, this next gen console wouldn't have looked all that out of place two years ago as a 'cheapish' mid range build

I don't think that's the case at all. Sure, if you were willing to put up with the cost and size of a desktop PC then the specs look a little out, but these things are a different category - far more like laptops in terms of the power/size envelope they are targeting, and to get a laptop spec matching these systems would not have been possible for this kind of price two years ago.

[crossy]

Not sure a 6% increase in frequency will make up for the fact it has 50% less graphics cores than the PS4.

awooga, awooga, awooga ... dumb question alert!
If the PS4 has more graphic cores then what's to stop Sony - at some future juncture - from "overclocking" their cores the same way Microsoft has and ending up with something even "better" than the XBone?

Oh and the PS4 looks less ugly than the XBone. (says the XBox owner).

[george1979]

Not sure a 6% increase in frequency will make up for the fact it has 50% less graphics cores than the PS4.

Most devs are saying the performance is pretty similar. Also most specs about these always say the GPUs are 'like a 7790' or 'like a 7850' - for the reason that they are both custom APUs so trying to do direct comparisons isn't really possible as the hardware in the PS4 and Xbox One isn't available to purchase outside of those consoles. Lets face it the chances are all the games will look fairly similar, or exactly the same, except for exclusive titles.

Last time around the PS3 had the better specs and it didn't make any difference whatsoever to its success.

All this e-peen measuring over specs is pointless in my opinion. All that matters are the games. I for one will be waiting till they have both been out a while before deciding which one I'll get.

[saunders]

I still think it looks like a 1980's video player.

hey its all good, I love the look of the unit. the more power they pack in the better.

[sykobee]

Last time around the PS3 had the better specs and it didn't make any difference whatsoever to its success.

No it did not, the only thing the PS3 had that the XBox 360 didn't was the six SPUs that were hard for developers to get used to. Otherwise it had 1/3rd of the CPU power, and the graphics chip was not as good as the 360's either. Those SPUs were powerful if they were used well, and could do some great stuff for post-processing, physics and vertex processing offloading later on in the console's life, but the single PPU was very limiting for the CPU-bound game code.

It showed in games in the first three years of the console's life. PS3 games didn't look quite as good as the 360 games.

And of course now the PS3 is the overall sales leader when comparing world-wide to the 360. I presume the game library has something to do with that, as there are some very compelling PS3 exclusives these days.

/PS3 owner

[Saracen]

Not a whole 53Mhz?

Be still my beating heart.

Will it fail to change my buying decision? Do birds fly? Do fish swim? Do bears you-know-what in the woods?

[Butuz]

It's ALL about optimisation. If you look at the titles that came out with the 360 launch, they look absolutely archaic compared to something like Battlefield 3. I think we are going to be amazed with what the developers end up squeezing out of the Xbox One over the next few years.

Butuz

[Scribe]

Most devs are saying the performance is pretty similar. Also most specs about these always say the GPUs are 'like a 7790' or 'like a 7850' - for the reason that they are both custom APUs so trying to do direct comparisons isn't really possible as the hardware in the PS4 and Xbox One isn't available to purchase outside of those consoles. Lets face it the chances are all the games will look fairly similar, or exactly the same, except for exclusive titles.

Last time around the PS3 had the better specs and it didn't make any difference whatsoever to its success.

Not what I've been hearing, a fair few say they're able to push the PS4 that much further and/or compromise less. Then there's the extra GPGPU power that devs will be able to exploit further down the line to add on-top. Unlike with the PS3, the PS4 is very easy to code for and doesn't have segmented memory, which was the advantage that the 360 held over the PS3.

[george1979]

Not what I've been hearing, a fair few say they're able to push the PS4 that much further and/or compromise less. Then there's the extra GPGPU power that devs will be able to exploit further down the line to add on-top. Unlike with the PS3, the PS4 is very easy to code for and doesn't have segmented memory, which was the advantage that the 360 held over the PS3.

I read an article recently where John Carmack was saying the two consoles performed roughly on a par with each other but I'd agree that down the line the extra oomph may be more evident in PS4 exclusives. I've had the last two Xboxes but I'm leaning towards the PS4 this time mainly on the basis of the types of single player exclusives the PS3 had. A few of them definitely seemed more interesting to me i.e. Heavy Rain, The Last of Us, Infamous, Uncharted etc.
I'm much more interested in those types of games than some of the more multiplayer focused stuff but again I'll wait and see how things pan out for a few months after release before deciding.

[addz17]

You can buy more powerful laptops.... I wont be buying any of the new consoles till its less than £200.