Why Does PS5 Often Outperform Xbox Series X Despite Lower Hardware Parameters
TapTechNews July 2nd news, although the ninth-generation console war has been close to its fourth year, there is still one question that remains unanswered: Why does Sony's PS5 game console often outperform the Microsoft Xbox Series X with stronger hardware parameters? Some famous examples include Resident Evil 4, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, and the next-generation version of GTA 5.
First of all, both PS5 and Xbox Series X use custom AMD processor architectures, including Zen2 CPU and RDNA2 GPU. Looking at the paper parameters, Microsoft's console has an eight-core CPU with a 3.8 GHz clock frequency (3.6 GHz when SMT is enabled), a GPU with 52 compute units and a clock frequency of 1.825 GHz, with an estimated floating-point computing power of 12.16 TFLOPs, and is equipped with 16GB GDDR6 SDRAM video memory, using a split design (10GB of video memory has a 320-bit bandwidth and a bandwidth of 560 GB/s; the other 6GB of video memory has a 192-bit bandwidth and a bandwidth of 336 GB/s).
On the other hand, PS5 has a variable-frequency eight-core CPU with a maximum of 3.5 GHz, a GPU with 36 compute units and a variable clock frequency with a maximum of 2.23 GHz, with an estimated floating-point computing power of 10.13 TFLOPs, and is equipped with 16GB GDDR6 SDRAM video memory with a 256-bit bandwidth and a 448 GB/s bandwidth.
TapTechNews noticed that DigitalFoundry has released a weekly program called DFDirect today, trying to give the final explanation to this problem. The host, John Linneman, said that they learned from the developers that the shader compiler and API of PlayStation 5 are both more efficient.
One of the key factors we've heard many times is that the PS5's shader compiler runs very efficiently and is optimized. There are some complex principles involved here, but simply put, the compiler can make better use of hardware resources, allowing the PS5 to achieve a faster performance, which seems to be a very important factor. Of course, Microsoft is also working hard to improve this aspect, but currently developers seem to prefer Sony's solution.
The topic of DirectX is very interesting. It is mentioned in the program that Microsoft's API design concept for seamless operation between the PC and the Xbox console may compromise on some underlying optimizations for the console side.
However, the performance difference is not all. According to another guest, Alex Battaglia, games made with the Unreal Engine 5 can usually benefit from the higher number of compute units of the Xbox Series X. However, games with other engines may perform better on the PS5 instead due to the higher clock frequency of the PS5.
In addition, in terms of Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) support, Microsoft's console also has some advantages. For example, Elden Ring developed by FromSoftware runs faster on the PS5, but the Xbox Series X offers a more stable and smooth experience. In conclusion, in most games, the performance gap between the two consoles is relatively small and can provide a similar gaming experience.