PlayStation 4 Reported As “Noticeably Faster” Than Xbox One

According to the UK magazine, Edge, anonymous developer sources have reported that the PS4  is “noticeably faster” than the Xbox One in what they refer to as “key performance” areas. In the report, the sources state that the memory reads on the PS4 are about 40-50% faster than on the rival next-gen console. Also noted is the arithmetic logic unit (ALU) on Sony’s graphic card is twice as fast.

In the report, one developer gave the example of running a game at different resolution. They explain that a current multiplatform title can run at a resolution of 1920×1080 at 30fps on PlayStation 4, but that on Xbox One the framerate will drop to 20-something at the lower resolution of 1600×900.

“Xbox One is weaker and it’s a pain to use its ESRAM,” added another developer.

Microsoft allegedly tried to combat this growing performance gap by upgrading the processor  to 1.75GHz from 1.6GHz. Both companies are also said to be working on making their graphics drivers even better – an effort that is expected to continue on through launch days.

However, one developer noted that the Xbox One does have its winning traits.

“Let’s say you are using procedural generation or raytracing via parametric surfaces–that is, using a lot of memory writes and not much texturing or ALU–Xbox One will be likely be faster.”

The Edge states that in the end consumers will likely notice little performance difference when it comes to launch titles on both consoles. One developer added that it rarely makes financial sense to optimize a multiplatform game for one particular platform.

“It would be totally fine for us to make one version prettier without any political difficulties but it usually doesn’t make financial sense,” said the developer, “unless it’s a very simple tweak.”

Microsoft will launch the Xbox One on November 22, with Sony opting to release the PlayStation 4 in North America on November 15 and on November 29 in Europe.