WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.440 There's a new console war brewing, again. 00:00:04.440 --> 00:00:07.640 But it's gonna be quite different from the ones we've seen in the past. 00:00:07.640 --> 00:00:13.920 The Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 will be going head to head during the 2020 holiday season. 00:00:13.920 --> 00:00:19.280 And unlike past consoles where PC gamers have sneered at the lack of power under the hood, 00:00:19.280 --> 00:00:22.720 these two newcomers are packing some serious chops. 00:00:22.720 --> 00:00:25.720 Both consoles will have graphical power on par 00:00:25.720 --> 00:00:29.680 with a high-end gaming PC. But relative to each other 00:00:29.680 --> 00:00:33.000 is one console technologically superior. 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:37.740 And is it going to be in a way that will actually affect your gameplay experience? 00:00:37.740 --> 00:00:40.960 To answer, we spoke with Ryan Smith over at Enantech, 00:00:40.960 --> 00:00:44.320 and we'd like to thank him for his contributions. Love you, Ryan. 00:00:44.320 --> 00:00:48.920 To start, let's take a closer look at how each CPU and GPU is designed. 00:00:48.920 --> 00:00:53.360 Both systems use custom chips based on AMD's RDNA2 architecture, 00:00:53.360 --> 00:00:56.840 but the design philosophies behind each one are slightly different. 00:00:56.840 --> 00:01:01.320 The Xbox Series X generally runs at the same clock frequency all the time, 00:01:01.320 --> 00:01:05.440 3.8 gigahertz on the CPU, or 3.6 with multi-threading enabled, 00:01:05.440 --> 00:01:08.680 and 1.825 gigahertz on the GPU. 00:01:08.680 --> 00:01:12.280 Unless you're running your system in some sort of insanely hot environment, 00:01:12.280 --> 00:01:15.320 gonna have to skip the LAN party at the volcano, I guess. 00:01:15.320 --> 00:01:20.000 You shouldn't see any throttling. And the Xbox Series X also has more memory bandwidth 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:23.300 and more CPU clock speed headroom than the PlayStation. 00:01:23.300 --> 00:01:27.660 So clearly, the Xbox is superior, right? 00:01:27.660 --> 00:01:32.780 Well, maybe not. The PlayStation 5 has a higher base clock on its GPU 00:01:32.780 --> 00:01:35.820 at 2.23 gigahertz, but unlike the Xbox, 00:01:35.820 --> 00:01:41.340 it's designed to throttle if it's getting hit hard. However, keep in mind that with GPU throttling, 00:01:41.340 --> 00:01:45.740 you don't have to lower the clock by much to keep the chip within its thermal design limits. 00:01:45.740 --> 00:01:49.340 So you can expect the PS5 to be running at a higher clock most of the time. 00:01:49.340 --> 00:01:52.460 So here's what this might end up meaning for you, 00:01:52.500 --> 00:01:55.780 the gamer. Those higher clocks on the PlayStation 5 00:01:55.780 --> 00:02:00.940 will favor high polygon counts. Think about highly detailed character models, for example. 00:02:00.940 --> 00:02:06.060 However, the Xbox Series X, with its greater overall performance and consistency, 00:02:06.060 --> 00:02:10.680 might enable slightly nicer visual effects, which are driven more by the shader, 00:02:10.680 --> 00:02:15.300 the part of the GPU largely responsible for applying effects to pixels and vertices. 00:02:15.300 --> 00:02:19.820 A good example of this is the shimmering effect you see in games that try to replicate 00:02:19.820 --> 00:02:24.740 real world heat distortion you'd see on a hot day. Looks like this, just like this. 00:02:24.740 --> 00:02:27.740 Ultimately, which game will look better on which console 00:02:27.740 --> 00:02:31.540 will depend on what the developer is trying to emphasize visually. 00:02:31.540 --> 00:02:36.140 But let's change gears here for a bit and talk about storage, which is radically different 00:02:36.140 --> 00:02:39.840 on both of these new machines than on past generations consoles. 00:02:39.840 --> 00:02:43.840 Gone are the days of consoles shipping with slow mechanical hard drives. 00:02:43.840 --> 00:02:48.300 Not only do both the Xbox Series X and the PS5 come with solid state drives, 00:02:48.340 --> 00:02:52.220 they use NVMe SSDs for huge amounts of storage bandwidth. 00:02:52.220 --> 00:02:55.900 Indeed, the PS5 will have 5.5 gigabytes per second 00:02:55.900 --> 00:02:59.180 of storage bandwidth, compared to 2.4 for the Xbox. 00:02:59.180 --> 00:03:02.940 That's less than half. Regardless though, both systems will still have storage 00:03:02.940 --> 00:03:07.740 quick enough to enable rapid switching between multiple games, so you can pause one 00:03:07.740 --> 00:03:11.440 and quickly jump to another that you're also in the middle of, for some reason. 00:03:11.440 --> 00:03:15.460 As the memory contents of the game you're pausing can quickly be dumped to the SSD, 00:03:15.460 --> 00:03:20.440 then reloaded once you resume playing. Now the advantage that the PS5 might have here 00:03:20.440 --> 00:03:25.880 could be most noticeable when playing games with very high resolution textures and assets. 00:03:25.880 --> 00:03:30.480 The higher memory bandwidth might enable them to load more quickly to avoid popping 00:03:30.480 --> 00:03:33.520 where objects just seem to appear out of thin air. 00:03:33.520 --> 00:03:36.720 Happens to me all the time. Whoa! 00:03:36.720 --> 00:03:41.100 The PS5 will also allow you to expand its storage with standard NVMe drives, 00:03:41.100 --> 00:03:46.380 meaning you could just go buy an M.2 SSD and slot it into your system, but there's a caveat. 00:03:46.400 --> 00:03:50.140 You need a PCI Express 4.0 compatible drive. 00:03:50.140 --> 00:03:53.540 The Xbox, on the other hand, will also support expandable storage, 00:03:53.540 --> 00:03:55.680 but it's proprietary. 00:03:56.780 --> 00:04:00.680 However, you'll get the added convenience of being able to slot in the additional storage 00:04:00.680 --> 00:04:04.380 from the outside of the console, and you'll probably be able to get your hands 00:04:04.380 --> 00:04:07.460 on these mini drives much more quickly. 00:04:07.460 --> 00:04:10.780 So the answer as to what console should you get 00:04:10.780 --> 00:04:14.700 isn't cut and dry at this point as it never is. 00:04:14.700 --> 00:04:18.460 And of course, there's a lot more to talk about than just processors and storage. 00:04:18.460 --> 00:04:23.880 So let us know if you'd like to talk about things like ray tracing, controllers, online play, 00:04:23.880 --> 00:04:27.060 insulting other people's moms, all these things. 00:04:27.060 --> 00:04:31.260 And whichever way you go, remember, they don't come out until late this year, so... 00:04:32.700 --> 00:04:35.900 PCs are pretty cool too. All right, that's it for this video, guys. 00:04:35.900 --> 00:04:39.980 Thanks for watching. I had my thumb ready to tell you to like the video 00:04:39.980 --> 00:04:43.960 or dislike it, you know? I'm not telling you what to do, 00:04:43.960 --> 00:04:47.720 just that you should do one of those things only. Check out our other videos, 00:04:47.720 --> 00:04:52.200 and comment below with video suggestions if you wanna hear us talk about something else. 00:04:52.200 --> 00:04:55.600 You know, maybe we forget what we wanna talk about, 00:04:55.600 --> 00:04:57.300 so let us know. 00:05:00.960 --> 00:05:04.760 Oh, I didn't say subscribe. That's fine, leave it.