How the PlayStation 4 is better than a PC

[cmdrdredd]

So it's NOT ok for someone else to talk about what resolution the PS4 might support (like 1080p which is a pretty safe bet), but you CAN say what it WON'T support...I see

Yes, because the PS4 can't do 5760x1080 across 3 monitors.

On the same token, most people already have a 360/PS3 that is already the equivalent of a cheap laptop on "medium" settings. So the total out of pocket for those users is zero. Just play the PS3/360 for 2-3 more years. Anyone wanting to play next gen games gonna have to come out of pocket.

It's not zero, it's the cost of the initial investment + the TV. Just like you can't use a PC without a monitor (unless it's a laptop). There's always a cost, it just may have been already absorbed. Just like someone might already have a PC and just need a video card upgrade.

 

[itsmydamnation]

less pc fanboysm please,
a HD7850 can easily handle 1080p games, and some with x4 MSAA
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/778

and orbis is faster than a 7850

I doubt we will see many 1080p games. Simple reason, Pretty pixels beat more pixels. Prettier pixels at the distance people play a console at obliterates more pixels.

6mbps H264 L5.1 720P vs 12mbps H264 L5.1 1080P video. I challenge people to spot the differences at "standard viewing distances" especially while in motion. edit: Then try 12mbps 720P .

If game devs target 1080P console games i will be disappointed. Much better things to spent bandwidth on. Everyone here should be hopping the same because that is what's going to allow you put good use to all that GPU grunt we all have.

 

[Sohaltang]

This assumes that in the person making this choice has to build an entire pc just for gaming, which isn't true a lot of the time. While it is very difficult(at present) to build a gaming pc to match the ps4's performance at the same price, it is not difficult to upgrade an existing pc to match a ps4's performance for the same price.

Most people have not upgraded their PC in 2-4 years. We kinda hit a point where most people PC's are "good enough" a couple years back. The sales numbers show it. Tablets and phones have dated the average users PC. Those of us on PC are doing it because we are doing work on it or extreme gamers. Even then my 965BE, 4gb, 5770, 3 TB drives that I built 3 years ago was doing a fine job is until my kid spilled on it. New MB, 3770K, 8gb RAM, 256 SSD, and a 7970. Im into the rebuild for over 1k. CS6 is very smooth, encoding HDvideo is faster, and the free games are ok. Still find myself picking up one of my 3 ps3's most of the day. Maybe gaming on PC is for a different type of gamer than I.

 

[Sohaltang]

I doubt we will see many 1080p games. Simple reason, Pretty pixels beat more pixels. Prettier pixels at the distance people play a console at obliterates more pixels.

6mbps H264 L5.1 720P vs 12mbps H264 L5.1 1080P video. I challenge people to spot the differences at "standard viewing distances" especially while in motion. edit: Then try 12mbps 720P .

Very much agree. I dont care for 3 monitors or ultra HD. Put a nice 63-70 inch plasma 10 feet away and Im good for my gaming experience. I think the vast majority are, thats why even the 7 year old ps3 sells a ton more games than PC's do. I like to push the power button and be into the game a minute later. If my kid or GF is having problem with a game then the ps3 must be broken. I dont have to work on it.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Is it just me, or do some people feel extremely threatened by the PS4? Sure seems like it given the arguments coming from every possible angle trying to prove why the PS4 is vastly inferior to a gaming PC. If you think the PS4 is just a toy and won't even come close to what your precious rig can throw at the screen, great. Sleep well knowing that.

And people should be very very happy the PS4 is very similar in some respects to your gaming PC, no more game ports that are so badly cross compiled it takes a high end system to get barely playable frame rates.

 

[3DVagabond]

I think many of the people who have been talking it down so much have done it because it's AMD powered. And to be fair, if it were nVidia powered we'd have another group of people doing the same thing for the same reason.

I believe once we get games that were designed from the ground up to run on it, we're going to see some pretty impressive improvements. I also think it's going to take a lot of PC power to take advantage of everything we're going to get from this. Certainly something the equivalent of the 7850 isn't going to be able to play these games at "max" settings.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I think many of the people who have been talking it UP so much have done it because it's AMD powered.

See what I did?

And thats exactly what is happening. Its 8 very weak cores and a mainstream GFX card. Lets not make it more than it is.

This was what Sony could afford and what the TDP allowed.

I think people are overly dissapointed because its nowhere near what the old consoles was at release. Remember these consoles are not even out yet, and every day the hardware gets more obsolete.

 

[AnandThenMan]

See what I did?

And thats exactly what is happening. Its 8 very weak cores and a mainstream GFX card. Lets not make it more than it is.

This was what Sony could afford and what the TDP allowed.

I think people are overly dissapointed because its nowhere near what the old consoles was at release. Remember these consoles are not even out yet, and every day the hardware gets more obsolete.

Who could have offered a better solution than AMD?

 

[Ibra]

Who could have offered a better solution than AMD?

IBM?

 

[ShintaiDK]

Who could have offered a better solution than AMD?

You already see this in the wrong way I guess.

But I dont think people care about who delivers. But rather about what they deliver. If the PS4 had been a 7970 and 4 fast PD cores, I would personally be satisfied. Or even better, SR core based and the refresh of HD7xxx.

But Sony and MS picked a discount solution instead compared to previous. Consoles are in deep trouble and the 2 companies stockholders have serious questions about both companies further engagement in consoles due to the huge losses. So I guess thats our loss. These consoles might be the last consoles we ever see.

 

[Sohaltang]

You already see this in the wrong way I guess.

But I dont think people care about who delivers. But rather about what they deliver. If the PS4 had been a 7970 and 4 fast PD cores, possible on 20nm, I would personally be satisfied.

But Sony and MS picked a discount solution instead compared to previous. Consoles are in deep trouble and the 2 companies stockholders have serious questions about both companies further engagement in consoles due to the huge losses. So I guess thats our loss. These consoles might be the last consoles we ever see.

Wow! You want a console to have a flagship GPU that costs 400-500$? Then a CPU, 8gb DDR5, bluray, codec licenses, wifi, controller, R&D, and packed in a nice little 200 watt energy efficient box? How many 1200$ consoles do you think they would sell? I would buy one but 99% would tell you to f off. I wish I lived in dream world with candy mailboxes and chocolate streets. :whiste: Maybe the ps5 will give a reach around for every achievement.

 

[AnandThenMan]

IBM?

Huh?

You already see this in the wrong way I guess.

But I dont think people care about who delivers. But rather about what they deliver. If the PS4 had been a 7970 and 4 fast PD cores, I would personally be satisfied.

Well Sony saw it differently (same with Microsoft) so I'm guessing they might know a bit more about it than you.

These consoles might be the last consoles we ever see.

And they might succeed brilliantly.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Wow! You want a console to have a flagship GPU that costs 400-500$? Then a CPU, 8gb DDR5, bluray, codec licenses, wifi, controller, R&D, and packed in a nice little 200 watt energy efficient box? How many 1200$ consoles do you think they would sell? I would buy one but 99% would tell you to f off. I wish I lived in dream world with candy mailboxes and chocolate streets. :whiste: Maybe the ps5 will give a reach around for every achievement.

Last gen we got this.

 

[Ibra]

Except the industry is going the other way, GPU cores in the CPU.

Call me when AMD will do something original. Or they will start putting CPU into GPU, like got interest in ARM when Nvidia said that ARM is the future?

Starting next year with nVidia's Logan you get the same features even in smartphones and tablets. In 3 years from now you get the same GPU performance in a smartphone or in a tablet.

Consoles are dead. :|

Not so late. Consoles death may come sooner:

The roadmap in question clearly shows Maxwell arriving in 2014, one year behind the original schedule. One of key features of this architecture will be Unified Virtual Memory, expanding from the shackles of 1, 2 (and soon, 4 Gbit) GDDR5 memory chips to addressing the memory. However, what might surprise you is that Nvidia is not referring to the standard addressing of the Host CPU memory but through Fusion-io Solid State Storage as well. The company signed a technology partnership agreement with Fusion-io and they're both looking into optimizing the future GPU architectures. The way how future GPUs (whole line up - Consumer, Professional and Compute) are going to operate is the minimal amount of on-board memory (SRAM Cache), significant amount of GDDR/SDRAM memory as close to GPU as possible and then tertiary memory subsystem in the form of either CPU host memory or Fusion-IO cache/work memory.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Can someone decipher the above post for me?

 

[showb1z]

Is it just me, or do some people feel extremely threatened by the PS4? Sure seems like it given the arguments coming from every possible angle trying to prove why the PS4 is vastly inferior to a gaming PC. If you think the PS4 is just a toy and won't even come close to what your precious rig can throw at the screen, great. Sleep well knowing that.

People are just being realistic. It's all PR. Remember how amazing Cell was gonna be? It was gonna deliver the performance of a NASA supercomputer in your living room or some other hyperbole. Riiiight.
The only concrete information we have are specs: a weak CPU and a midrange GPU, at least they didn't cheap out on the ram this time. We'll see what they get out of it. But I find it highly unlikely this will keep up with the performance of 20nm GPU's that will be releasing next year.

 

[DaveSimmons]

People are just being realistic. It's all PR. Remember how amazing Cell was gonna be? It was gonna deliver the performance of a NASA supercomputer in your living room or some other hyperbole. Riiiight.
The only concrete information we have are specs: a weak CPU and a midrange GPU, at least they didn't cheap out on the ram this time. We'll see what they get out of it. But I find it highly unlikely this will keep up with the performance of 20nm GPU's that will be releasing next year.

Exactly. I don't "feel threatened" or "dislike it because it's AMD instead of nvidia". I just realize that it's unlikely to be much if any better than the GTX 680 and i5 quad-core that I have now, let alone next year's high-end hardware from intel, AMD and nvidia.

If there are some good exclusives for it then I'll buy one. If not, I won't. For cross-platform games I'll stick with a high-end PC.

 

[Sohaltang]

People are just being realistic. It's all PR. Remember how amazing Cell was gonna be? It was gonna deliver the performance of a NASA supercomputer in your living room or some other hyperbole. Riiiight.
The only concrete information we have are specs: a weak CPU and a midrange GPU, at least they didn't cheap out on the ram this time. We'll see what they get out of it. But I find it highly unlikely this will keep up with the performance of 20nm GPU's that will be releasing next year.

Your comparing it to a yet unreleased chip that will likely cost 400+ ALONE. And you wanna talk unrealistic? Original Wii(production 2006) games are outselling current cutting edge PC games.

What we do know is the next gen ps will out perform the current 7 year old model that most people are quite happy with. The biggest threat to the ps4??? The ps3

 

[alcoholbob]

Last gen we got this.

Last gen had a solution that could fit a 250W entire system TDP--this generation AMD and Nvidia are both at least 2 years away from giving you 7970 performance with 7850 TDP...last gen you didn't get magic.

 

[lakedude]

A 7800 GTX 512MB,..., could pump out playable frame rates at 2048x1536 with MSAA.

Um, maybe you should put quotes around the word "playable" or something...

 

[Will Robinson]

Originally Posted by ShintaiDK
Last gen we got this.
Astrallite replied:

Last gen had a solution that could fit a 250W entire system TDP--this generation AMD and Nvidia are both at least 2 years away from giving you 7970 performance with 7850 TDP...last gen you didn't get magic.

This^...and yes Shintai...the comment about people talking down the PS4 applies to you.

AnandThenManIs it just me, or do some people feel extremely threatened by the PS4? Sure seems like it given the arguments coming from every possible angle trying to prove why the PS4 is vastly inferior to a gaming PC. If you think the PS4 is just a toy and won't even come close to what your precious rig can throw at the screen, great. Sleep well knowing that.

And people should be very very happy the PS4 is very similar in some respects to your gaming PC, no more game ports that are so badly cross compiled it takes a high end system to get barely playable frame rates.Today 12:30 PM

This is correct:thumbsup:
​

 

[3DVagabond]

I think many of the people who have been talking it down so much have done it because it's AMD powered. And to be fair, if it were nVidia powered we'd have another group of people doing the same thing for the same reason.

I believe once we get games that were designed from the ground up to run on it, we're going to see some pretty impressive improvements. I also think it's going to take a lot of PC power to take advantage of everything we're going to get from this. Certainly something the equivalent of the 7850 isn't going to be able to play these games at "max" settings.

See what I did?

And thats exactly what is happening. Its 8 very weak cores and a mainstream GFX card. Lets not make it more than it is.

This was what Sony could afford and what the TDP allowed.

I think people are overly dissapointed because its nowhere near what the old consoles was at release. Remember these consoles are not even out yet, and every day the hardware gets more obsolete.

Yes, I see what you did. You ignored what I posted and took part of it out of context to make it seem like I said something that I didn't. Note the bolded part in my prior post that you quoted, but left out. It makes it clear that I realize there would be people who would hate on it if it was nVidia powered, simply for that one reason as well.

What would you suggest Sony use that would've been better? Keep in mind the criteria, which is more than simply price and TDP. After all there has never been a commercial project that didn't have to consider such factors.

 

[showb1z]

Your comparing it to a yet unreleased chip that will likely cost 400+ ALONE. And you wanna talk unrealistic?

I stated a reason why people are sceptical about these PS4 > PC threads that are popping up, what does price have to with anything?
Unreleased like the PS4?

Original Wii(production 2006) games are outselling current cutting edge PC games.

What do Wii game sales have to do with PS4 and PC hardware? (Where would you even get PC games sales numbers? Digital distribution is never included.)

What we do know is the next gen ps will out perform the current 7 year old model that most people are quite happy with. The biggest threat to the ps4??? The ps3

Yea we do know it'll outperform a PS3. But a PC? We'll see, but so far it's just PR-fueled speculation.

In the end, you're looking at this all wrong. I don't set up a spreadsheet to compare the long term cost of gaming on pc vs consoles. I don't care, if I got a free PS4 and new Xbox I'd STILL get a pc, cause that's the experience I prefer.
You don't tell a car fanatic to settle for a Ford Focus cause it's cheaper and it's a car "most people are quite happy with" right?

 

[Sohaltang]

Your trying to compare a 250K dragster to a Mustang with 20K in mods. People are all butt hurt that they spent 10X as much and the 50K mustang might be 75% as fast for 1/5 the cost.

 

[blastingcap]

That's fine. Just don't go about trying to smear lipstick on a pig. The ps4 is a low level PC subsidized so the jobless 25 year old stay at home dad can play Madden all day.

In all seriousness though the unified mem may allow some neat tricks, particularly without DirectX layers getting in the way. But PCs continue to evolve, whereas many consoles are not designed for upgraded CPU/GPU/memory. I suppose the Steambox might be an exception, but that's unproven.

All I know is that by the time my PC can't play console ports, it'll be so many years down the road that I would want to upgrade for other reasons anyway, such as improved SATA, PCIe, USB, energy efficiency, etc.