Xbox One X vs PlayStation 4 Pro

Finally, Project Scorpio has a name, date and price. So how does it stack up against the PlayStation Pro?

Timing

Xbox One X (henceforth X) releases over a year after the PS4 Pro (henceforth Pro), on November 7th. It was a simple matter of being early versus being more powerful. The X silicon simply wasn't manufacturable in quantity in 2016. Meanwhile, PS4 Pro opted to go with a smaller, less powerful die, but in return gaining a time-to-market advantage.

Performance

There's a lot go through, but we'll of course begin with the GPU. Both Pro and X feature an AMD SoC with largely similar architectures. Both are also manufactured at TSMC's 16nm process, though it's likely X uses an 16FF+.

GPU

Right away, X has a massive advantage over the Pro. With 2560 shaders @ 1172 MHz, the X churns out 6 Tflops of compute, while the PS4 Pro has to settle for 2304 shaders @ 911 MHz. That is 4.2 Tflops. Interestingly, both feature pretty similar number of compute units - it's just that the Xbox is clocked significantly higher. The net result is an over 40% uplift in GPU performance! It is also an incredible 4x over the Xbox One S.

While some had speculated X would feature the Vega architecture, it looks like both X and Pro are based on Polaris instead, with some features from Vega.

CPU

Both consoles feature relatively minor enhancements to the CPU from their base hardware. PS4 Pro features 8 "Enhanced Jaguar" cores at 2.1 GHz, while X has 8 "Custom" cores at 2.3 GHz. Though the extent of customization is not well known, we can safely say that it's pretty much Jaguar with some enhancements. Could be a minor IPC improvement over PS4 Pro's Jaguar cores, but either way, it'll be a fairly minor 10% improvement.

With the move to GPU compute, it makes sense to focus more on GPU resources than CPU resources. That said, certain unoptimised games will definitely run into CPU bottlenecks, so the developers have their work cut out.

RAM

Once again, the X dominates here, with 12 GB RAM versus Pro's 8 GB. Microsoft has announced that 9 GB of this are available to developers, while on the Pro that is 6 GB. Over time they can optimize the OS to offer developers more. Either way, with 50% greater RAM, X sure has greater headroom.

RAM capacity is great for hi-res textures and assets, but GPU performance is actually bound more by memory bandwidth. Here, X features a 384-bit memory bus, capable of 326 GB/s. Meanwhile Pro is way behind with both a smaller 256-bit bus and lower clocked memory, resulting in 218 GB/s. Once again, this is a 50% advantage for Pro.

Media features

Both consoles have UHD output, of course, and both support HDR 10. However, X has a UHD Blu-ray player while the Pro is restricted to HD. X also supports Dolby Atmos, while Pro does not. That said, I'm not aware of any consumer Atmos systems just yet, but it's great for future proofing anyway.

Frame rate and variable refresh rate

A lot of PC gamers had hoped that these new consoles would target 60 fps. Instead, it looks like the focus is squarely on higher resolutions, better image quality, targeting 30 fps. As we know, higher frame rates need greater CPU resources as well, and it is pretty clear that the CPU has only been given relatively minor updates for both X and Pro.

In the end, I'd expect most games to end up targeting 30 fps, though there'll surely be some hitting 60 fps like Forza Motorsport 7.

Xbox One X has an ace up its sleeve though - support for Variable refresh rate. Till now, this was a PC exclusive tech with AMD offering Freesync and Nvidia G-Sync. It's an absolute must for gamers, in my opinion, allowing the monitor to sync with the GPU. So the frame rate can be arbitrary without any tearing or stuttering. Today, we need either a 30 fps lock or a 60 fps lock to avoid those issues.

VRR has been ratified in the HDMI 2.1 spec, and that's what X will support.

VR

VR is coming with Xbox One X, and indeed the console is far better suited for VR than the PlayStation 4s. However, it's definitely not coming at release time. That's fine - the PlayStation VR is pretty half baked, so it'd be worthwhile taking their time and getting it right. Meanwhile, I bet Sony are working on PSVR v2!

I'd also like to see support for third party VR headsets similar to Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. I can't see why that won't be the case.

Performance expectations

We have seen PS4 Pro games rarely hit native UHD. This is fine, of course, even the 2560x1440 or 3200x1800 is a pretty major boost over 1920x1080. With 40% greater performance on tap, however, Xbox One X has the potential to go further and hit that native 4K. I'm sure not all games will hit native 4K, but they'll run much better than on PS4 Pro. I'd expect games that run at 2560x1440 on Pro to move up to 3200x1800 on X; games running at 3200x1800 on Pro to move up to full UHD on X. This is pretty much a reversal of the Xbox One / PS4 battle where a lot of X1 games ran at 1600x900 while PS4 moved up to 1920x1080.

I don't expect any games that run at 30 fps on Pro to move up to 60 fps on X. However, with a compatible VRR HDMI 2.1 display, we can expect X to have an uncapped frame rate. So X games can end up running smoothly between 30 and 45 fps while Pro will be restricted to the 30 fps cap.

Given that X gets much closer to the stated target of UHD gaming than the Pro, I'd say the one year wait was the right decision.

Design

Not really crucial for a games console, but people seem to care about this a lot. The PS4 Pro already had a pretty attractive design, though the stair step design flair is not for everyone.

Xbox One X goes a more minimalist route. It's also smaller than the PS4 Pro - once again a reversal of the PS4 / X1 generation. Ultimately, this is a matter of personal preference. Both look pretty good to me, though this is hardly an important selling point.

The X does consume more power, and they had to use vapour chamber cooling to keep the temperatures down as well as fit it all into a smaller space.

Price and conclusion

Finally, there's the price. At $499, Xbox One X is a full $100 over the PlayStation 4 Pro. Incidentally, these are the same launch prices as the original Xbox One and the PS4.

Usually, we are used to massive premiums as the performance increases. Not here. $500 is actually a very competitive price for X, and lower than what many had feared. With 40% greater potential performance, additional features like Atmos, VRR and UHD Blu-ray, the 25% bump in price is easily justified.

The only area where PS4 Pro seems to have an advantage is quality of exclusive games incoming, though as always, most games will be cross-platform.

After a disappointing Xbox One, Microsoft is back in the high-performance console game with what looks like a stunning product. I'm a PC gamer, so I'll probably not be picking this up, but for every enthusiast gamer this promises to be the new standard for console gaming.