@fitzy_2812: I did read but I did not remember... comes with age, I guess :)
Good on them. As long as it doesn't get tweaked for retail console, or does not impact noise levels or shorten hardware life.
I don't know exactly how is hardware development organised at MS, but we are seeing a lot of thermal issues with their other hardware - namely Surface products. On that side MS seems to prioritize form over function a bit, so I'd hope that they are not applying same principles in console design.
@pcps4xb: All true, but these things can change too. Even the best franchises get tired. Eventually, we had 3 Uncharted titles for PS3 and only 1 for PS4, which pretty much ended the story (they can still go back in time, focus on young Sully or even turn Nathan into new Sully and his daughter into new main character). Two GoW on PS3 and one on PS4. One GT game on PS4, and even that one took ages to get there (with additional content). But PS4 did well with new franchises such as Bloodborne, Horizon etc. From that perspective, Xbox can crank up some cool new IPs this generation.
Reading through the comments, I wonder - why is no one considering that Xbox might throttle as well? They have given us max clock/TFs for new Xbox, but they haven't confirmed - nor denied - that console will be able to achieve sustainable run at max. speeds all the time.
It is safe to presume they are based on same architecture. CPU in X can end up being slightly higher clocked PS5 CPU. Maybe they will pair it with more efficient cooling, maybe they will not. GPU is running on lower clock (equals less heat) but does have more CUs in the APU (equals more heat). Again, it might or might not be able to run at max performance all the time.
Reason I am saying this is, MS marketing has some legacy of poetic presentations that don't necessarily reflect full picture, only best parts of it. For me, only solid confirmation that X will not downclock in any scenario would be something to consider - everything else is guessing game.
@gamer112696: Well it is to be expected that they will both have same/similar architecture, so TFLOPS should compare better than in case of AMD and Nvidia... regardless, difference in TFs is much smaller than it was in PS4Pro/X1X case, so I'd agree that real in-game performance will be vastly the same, as long as both ports receive similar attention in terms of optimization.
Equally, I don't expect that slower SSD will hurt Xbox. Maybe initial game load will be noticeably (but not dramatically) slower, but in-game assets streaming? I think that Xbox's bandwidth will still be plentiful to avoid popups etc in majority of scenarios.
I am very curious about RAM speed approach - not sure what is MS trying to achieve with two memory blocks running at different speed. Does it also mean that one block will be exclusively used for graphics and the other for code (with devs being able to select which one goes where), or will both CPU and GPU be able to share both blocks dynamically? At this stage PS5 approach looks to me simpler and easier to deal with.
@notafan: Sony played to their strengths last gen, and so will they both play this gen as well.
Eventually, Sony's advantage last gen wasn't just performance - price was lower, too. If Sony positions PS5 correctly, price-wise, performance deficit will not hurt them in the eyes of majority of gamers. Just as it hasn't hurt PS2 vs Xbox, PS1 vs N64 and Wii vs PS3/X360.
I am talking about hardware sales, of course. Real fight will be won, or lost, on actual games' side.
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