Is the PS4 a similar leap in tech as the PS2 was?

PS1 [MIPS 33.8MHz] -> PS2 [MIPS 294Mhz] (>8.6x with new instructions)

PS2 [MIPS 294Mhz, 10.4M transistors] -> PS3 [PPC 7 SPU 3.2Ghz, 234M transistors] (a bit of a hard one to directly compare but at least 10x clock speed and 22.5x the transistor count, so falls somewhere between the two most probably)

PS3 [PPC 6 SPU 3.2Ghz, 234M transistors] -> PS4 [X64 Jaguar 8 core 1.6Ghz] (again another hard one, if you are talking clock speeds then it's slower, but it's a totally different architecture and has separate cores. Assuming the Xbox One and PS4 jaguar cores are identical MS claims 7.1 Billion transistors, and from the pictures less than half are for the CPU probably more like 1/3 so that is ~2.5 Billion transistors so up to (~10x).

so...

CPU
PS1 -> PS2 = (~9x)
PS2 -> PS3 = (10-23x)
PS3 -> PS4 = (~5-10x)

RAM
PS1 [3MB] -> PS2 [36MB] (12x)
PS2 [36MB] -> PS3 [512MB] (14.2x)
PS3 [512MB] -> PS4 [8GB] (16x)

Bus Speed
PS1 [132MB/s] -> PS2 [3.2GB/s] (24.8x)
PS2 [3.2GB/s] -> PS3 [16.8 GB/s - 22.4GB/s] (5.25x - 7x) GPU and CPU accesses ram at different speeds.
PS3 [16.8 GB/s - 22.4GB/s] -> PS4 [176GB/s] (7.8 - 10.4x)

Make of that what you will.

@edwardecl:

Good comparison, assuming those numbers are correct! Like i said above we have had more or less the same jump. It's just harder to notice.

You left out the GPU, the most important component. And the jump with that ain't what it should have been. And comparing to the PS3 GPU ain't a fair comparison because the CPU in that system is also responsible for graphics. Because of that X360 is a good system to compare PS4 to and the jump there is only 7X in the GPU department. Not terrible by any stretch but the generation was 8 freakin' years long and therefor should have been 10X.

I honestly thought that the ps4 would have a hd 7970 level gpu, so I expected it to be 15-20x more powerful than the ps3. But they went with a cheaper, smaller design with a relatively low tdp instead.

It's actually quite obvious that most of the trolls here are bored teenagers, and that makes up maybe 50% of the SW population.

83% of all statistics are made up on the spot

Ps1 > Ps2 leap anyday. Thats when Gran Turismo cars stop clipping. Snake's face, actually looks like a face instead of pixels.

That initial leap into ps3 generation wasn't all too exciting it felt like ps2 blown up to hd.

73% of that is incorrect.

I actually notice a lot of performance boost from the new generation vs the older one. We're just too spoiled and expect too much we're not going to get much out of anything to meet our expectations besides bull shots.

Anybody who says No is an idiot that has no idea that PS4 something around 10X more powerful than PS3 was and its always huge increments in power per gen.

Whether your eyes chose pick it up or not. That's just the truth. Its a fact

How can you "not care" about facts? SW just lets any moron post these days...

because proof is in practical use, not numbers.

PS4 is over 9x more powerful than the PS3. The PS3's GPU tops out at 192 Gflops. PS4 is 1.84 Tflops.

I wasn't comparing it to the 360. I was saying going from the PS2 to the PS3 was the biggest leap for a generation.

Noticed a big difference immediately from the Ps1 - Ps2. Even launch and early games on Ps2 looked incredible to me, however Ps4 mostly looks similar to the Ps3.

I bet a none gamer, or very casual gamer would not be able to tell the difference between Ps3 and Ps4 titles, but they would be able to tell Ps1 titles are older than ps2.

I think the casual gamer could tell the difference between these two models without hesitation. PS3 vs PS4.

Whatever happened to that Robot Ron guy? He'd lay the smackdown on this thread with pie charts and graphs and benchmarks. AMD this, Intel that, any thread with Ron was a rollercoaster ride of emotion and suspense.

it's not as big of a leap. The advances in gaming technology has been stagnant for a while now. This is mostly down to the industry and how it has changed from being a modern technological entertainment powerhouse which concentrated on advancement and creativity. To being a crappy industry which is focused only on earning money (reminsescent of the film industry in Hollywood). This is apparent with the fact that all game titles now are mostly sequels and made multi-platform with the sole intention of maximizing sales. Destiny is this years big hitter and even this title must of been held back by its PS3/360 multiplatform nature.

@emgesp said:

@thehig1 said:

Noticed a big difference immediately from the Ps1 - Ps2. Even launch and early games on Ps2 looked incredible to me, however Ps4 mostly looks similar to the Ps3.

I bet a none gamer, or very casual gamer would not be able to tell the difference between Ps3 and Ps4 titles, but they would be able to tell Ps1 titles are older than ps2.

I think the casual gamer could tell the difference between these two models without hesitation. PS3 vs PS4.

I can tell you now my girlfiend would not spot the difference, she might say the PS4 versions looks a little nicer. However same could be said about two differecnt games in the same generation. Skyrim looks nicer than Oblivion for example.

Below is an example of the ps1-ps2 transition using the WWE smackdown games by THQ.

First image is smackdown vs raw from ps2 and second image was WWE smackdown 2 on ps1.

@emgesp said:

@Wickerman777 said:

@miiiiv said:

So basically the leaps are getting smaller and smaller over the generations, from a raw performance perspective and ps2 was the biggest leap over it's predecessor. Also the tdp has increased each generation but this one were it actually decreased instead. We are never going to see ~50x performance increase again unless some revolutionary new processor technology comes along.

Well, no. 50X ain't gonna happen, that'd be insane. But considering that there was an 8 year gap between this gen and last gen I expected a 10X processing improvement. Instead it's 7X for PS4 and 5X for X1.

PS4 is over 9x more powerful than the PS3. The PS3's GPU tops out at 192 Gflops. PS4 is 1.84 Tflops.

I knew somebody was going to cheat like that which is why I said in another reply it should be compared to X360 instead of PS3 because PS3 also draws graphics from the CPU. And when compared to X360 it's roughly 7X as powerful, not 9X and certainly not 10X.

@Wickerman777:

It'd be probably $200 more to jump to a 24CU gpu

For a 24Cu gpu to function optimally it'd require a memory bandwidth increase on both system.

Yields would go down as would chips per wafer so price would go up.

It'd also increase the tdp (peak temp in games) so they'd either have to downclock the apu, separate them onto separate chips or put a more robust cooling system

Increased power consumption would mean a higher watt power supply.

Cows in this thread are hurting my brain.

PS1 was weaker than the N64.

PS2 was significantly weaker than the gamecube and Xbox.

PS3 was a clusterfuck design.

PS4 is a laptop with a shit ton of VRAM.

floppy gym, you're absolutely right. the gentleman's name was ron valencia, and he always delivered - not lols, but as you say charts and graphics and technical explanations.

I knew i wouldn't be alone in missing him! i just knew it!

I don't believe the cost would be $200 higher. All 24 CUs running at 800 mhz would give you is the same power as 7870 running in a PC which has 20 CUs but running at a higher clock. Currently PS4 is running on par with a 7850 (And X1 is on par with 7770). There certainly isn't a $200 difference between a 7870 and 7850. The memory bandwidth for 7870 is also 256 bit. It would mean more wattage but not too much more.

@Wickerman777:

The main memory bandwidth has to satisfy both the cpu and the gpu, additionally there is serious memory contention in shared memory systems, including AMDs line of APUs, which lowers main memory bandwidth significantly from its theoretical peak.

Increasing memory bandwidth in light of all this would mean sony would need to increase memory interface width or switch to a cached based memory system, and MS would likely want to switch to gddr5 for their unified system memory.

Larger chip realestate costs more than to increase clock frequency on an architecture that can achieve high frequency, overclockable like the 78xx lineup.

This.

Whatever. Then make the bus 384 bit. Still wouldn't be a $200 difference. $100 difference, yes. Not $200. We're only talking about 600 extra gflops here.

The GPU in the PS4 will outperform a PC with a 7870, especially down the road when devs take full advantage of the GPGPU functions.

I don't think you are taking account that designing a powerful APU with high yields isn't exactly an easy task. There is a reason why the PS4 consumes less wattage than Fat PS3's. Also, notice you don't see APU's on the market that can outperform the PS4 yet. Making an APU as powerful as a 7970XT probably isn't feasible right now. Perhaps once AMD starts creating APU's with a 20nm, or smaller process we will get that kind of performance. All I know is 3D stacked ram is going to be the next big thing in a couple years. Nvidia claims 1 Terabytes of bandwidth.

PS2 opened up a lot of gameplay possibilities so it felt big.

PS4 has brought... new graphical features that PCs have had since 2010?

The VRAM alone seems like a bottleneck because of its CPU/GPU. Seems like it'll tap out at 3.5/4.5GB of VRAM.

Idk there's been nothing out that truly pushes the ps4 yet. Killzone can go **** off before that's mentioned

Aye, my attempts at being a firm gym have not met much success.

He was another fine SW character who seems to have disappeared from our forums :(

Well, then the biggest leap was the PS1 to Xbox.

Are you really sure about that? The nv2a in the xbox is about on par with the geforce 4 4200ti. The nv2a is made with a smaller process size, has a higher transistor count, higher core frequency, has more gflops and better pixel and texture rates than the gamecube gpu.
Or were you mistyping and meant the cpu instead? That would make more sense since the 485 mhz powerpc in the gamecube could probably hold up very well to the modified 733 mhz pentium 3 in the xbox.

ps1 to ps2 was more noticeable imo

Not really, but PS4 is the world's most powerful video game system in the history of mankind.

Xbox One is the world's 2nd most powerful video game system in the history of mankind.

Wiiu is the world's 3rd most powerful video game system in the history of mankind.

No, I meant from predecessor to successor.

Snes to Nintendo 64 was probably the biggest leap of any generation.

The problem with your logic is that you believe that numbers are everything. We might as well be talking about the bit wars of the nineties, which led to the Jaguar being notoriously the most powerful system of its era. Now, increasing the speeds and the Gflops of systems is the new bit wars. It assumes that graphics potential increases with linearity.

In terms of gaming, the leap from the ps1 to the ps2 was a lot more meaningful than these modern upgrades. That's the only opinion that should matter.

just stop it. xbox and gamecube had some of the best games of that generation. if you're just into jrpg's then ok ps2 had those.

In relation to what, the PS1? The PS2 was a massive leap over that. I think a vastly bigger leap than the PS4 is to the PS3.