Today I will compare all official technical information about PlayStation 5 (PS5) and Xbox Scarlett that have been released so far. There is quite a lot of information to digest so let’s get into this.
CPU:
Both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Scarlett will use a ZEN 2 based CPU. PlayStation 5 will ship with 8 core variant while Xbox’s CPU core count has not been confirmed. Clock Speeds for both consoles have not been confirmed either.
GPU:
Both machines GPUs will be build based off of NAVI’s RDNA architecture. Unfortunately, we still don’t know the Compute Unit count or clock speeds for any of them to establish how powerful these machines will be graphically. What we do know though is that both PS5 and Next Xbox will support Ray Tracing. The new graphics technique that allows producing very realistic shadows, lighting effects and reflections. It’s also worth mentioning that Microsoft confirmed that Xbox Project Scarlett will use hardware-accelerated ray tracing, meaning that at least one of the GPU cores will be dedicated to exclusively processing ray-tracing calculations. Sony did not do that, so we don’t know what implementation they have chosen for PS5. Both consoles will support 8K resolution and frame rates up to 120 FPS in games.
Storage:
Both companies selected super-fast SSDs for their console’s storage solution. This will allow for fast load times and more smooth transitions between levels and within the game’s world making games more immersive. Microsoft said that Scarlett’s SSD drive will be 40 times faster than Xbox One’s 100 MB/s read/write hard drive, which is very impressive.
Memory Type:
Both consoles will use the latest GDDR6 memory. We know that now for sure. But we still are waiting for an official confirmation of the size of memory, speed, bus width, and memory bandwidth.
Release Date:
Microsoft confirmed that Xbox Scarlett is coming Holiday 2020 so late next year, but the exact date is still unknown. The PlayStation 5 release date has not been confirmed either. However, during their latest financial call, Sony did confirm that PS5 will not launch this financial year though. This means no PS5 by the end of March 2020. What happens later is anybody’s guess. Though Microsoft knows the advantage of being first to market brings so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them try to beat Sony to market.
Price:
One of the most important info about next-gen consoles is always the price. Unfortunately, none of the companies said anything about price other than price will be fair for the power we will be getting. So still not much information here really.
Features:
New consoles should come with old and new features and here are some of the stuff that has been confirmed by both companies:
- Backward compatibility – Xbox Scarlett will play all Xbox One games and all OG Xbox and Xbox 360 games that are already running on Xbox One. MS is proud to support 4 generations of games on a console. PlayStation 5 will be PS4 backward compatible. No info on backward compatibility for PS3, PS2, and PS One games for now. Don’t be surprised to see Sony leverage their PS Now service into the next-gen though.
- Microsoft confirmed that most of Xbox One accessories like controllers etc. will also work on Xbox Scarlett. No info on KINECT support though.
- PlayStation 5 will be compatible with PlayStation VR but there is no other info on compatibility with other PS4 accessories right now.
This is all info I was able to gather about PS5 and Xbox Scarlett. Even though we don’t know the exact specs of these consoles there is quite a lot of info out there as you can hear. I’m always excited for next-generation consoles and now is the best time to get hyped for the days ahead.
