PS5 Vs XBox Series X

Sony and Microsoft are ready for another battle of the consoles come the festive period and things look very different for the new generation. Here’s everything you need to know about both

- Louise Blain

PLAYSTATION 5

There’s no denying it. 2020 has been a turbulent year. And now, for the first time since the original grey game changer 25 years ago, Sony is launching a console generation with a colorful box. Well, monochrome and some blue lighting. Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

The PS5 has finally been revealed with a striking design in two flavors. If you’re buying a next-gen console for access to 4K Blu-rays as well as games, you’ll want the full-fat version with the UHD disc drive, but if you’ve chosen a physical-media-free future, there’s a slightly slimmer Digital Edition. This should also slim down the wad of cash you’ll be handing over but no pricing has been revealed as yet.

So what’s inside the so-clearly designed-for-maximum-airflow box? On paper, the PS5’s internals looks strikingly similar to the Xbox Series X. Both have a custom eight-core Zen2 CPU, custom AMD RDNA 2 graphics card, 16GB of GDDR6 RAM and even custom SSDs but that’s where the similarities stop and the word custom comes into play.

Sony and Microsoft have very different approaches to console architecture. To save breaking down the silicon-based granularities of lead system architect Mark Cerny’s PS5 conference earlier this year, it’s fair to say that Sony’s focus is on processing power with a 3.5Ghz processor – oh hello ray tracing – but also on ease of use for developers. The PS5 has what’s known as a variable frequency to make the most of the GPU and CPUs respectively when necessary for those ultimate Spidey-swinging-4K moments.