As the ninth console generation approaches its fourth year, one question remained unanswered: how does Sony’s PS5 console often outperform Microsoft’s Xbox Series X, which is more powerful on paper? A few notable examples include Resident Evil 4, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, and Grand Theft Auto V following the next-generation update.
As a reminder, both PS5 and Xbox Series X are powered by custom AMD hardware featuring Zen 2 and RDNA 2 CPU/GPU architectures. Microsoft’s console has an eight-core CPU clocked at 3.8 GHz (3.6 GHz with simultaneous multithreading enabled), a GPU powered by 52 Compute Units clocked at 1.825 GHz for an estimated 12.16 TeraFLOPS of computing power, and 16GB of GDDR6 SDRAM with a split design (10GB with 320-bit bus and 560 GB/s bandwidth and 6 GB with 192-bit bus and 336 GB/s bandwidth).
On the other hand, PS5 has an eight-core CPU with variable frequency that is capped at 3.5 GHz, a GPU powered by 36 Compute Units with variable frequency up to 2.23 GHz for an estimated TeraFLOPS peak of 10.13, and 16GB of GDDR6 SDRAM with a 256-bit bus and 448 GB/s bandwidth.
Well, today, Digital Foundry published a new DF Direct weekly episode in which they attempted to share a more or less final take on the subject. John Linneman mentioned hearing from developers that the shader compiler and the API itself are faster on the PlayStation 5 side.
One of the big ones that we’ve heard referenced multiple times now is the shader compiler on the PS5 side is just extremely fast and optimized. It gets pretty complex, but it makes better use of the actual silicon in a way that allows the PS5 to speedier performance. That seems to be a huge thing. Obviously, Microsoft wouldn’t be sleeping on that, they’re clearly putting in the work on that, but so is Sony, and developers just seem to prefer Sony’s implementation for this. Along those same lines, the PS5’s main API also seems to be quite fast, faster than what Microsoft’s doing with DirectX.
The DirectX topic is interesting, as it is mentioned that Microsoft’s choice to provide an API that works fairly seamlessly between PC and Xbox consoles may prove to be a slight penalty in how low-level it is on the console side.
That’s not the whole story. According to Alex Battaglia, Unreal Engine 5-powered games generally benefit from the Xbox Series X’s higher count of Compute Units. However, other engines may well be more performant on PS5 due to its higher clock rate.
There’s more to consider, anyway, as Microsoft’s console has the advantage when it comes to variable refresh rate (VRR) implementation. For example, while FromSoftware’s Elden Ring runs faster on Sony’s console, the Xbox Series X provides a smoother and more stable experience. Ultimately, though, the differences between the two consoles are relatively minor in most games, providing a comparable experience.
