This past few days have seen some exciting revelations come out about the likes of Microsoft and Sony, news which concerns the possible new updated versions of their current consoles. Named the Xbox two and PlayStation 4.5 these already hotly discussed devices have the gaming world all fired up for what could be something really great!
Why New Consoles Now?
As far as new console releases go, the norm is a new one every 8-years or so, for example the last new consoles the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One where launched seven and eight years after the earlier models. However, it looks as though technology has moved on so rapidly since the launch of the current devices. That a PlayStation 4.5 (PlayStation Neo as some call it) and an Xbox Two are needed to fill the technological chasm that has appeared since their launch. So in what will each console offer, what CPU’s will they have, how much internal Storage, will they support 4K etc.
PlayStation 4.5
According to rumors, Sony may have been given a little push by its chip manufacturer AMD. Due to the fact that it has shifted its CPU manufacturing process to a much smaller scale 14nm, which is much smaller than the 28nm found in the PlayStation 4. This would mean that Sony has two choices, stick with an older technology that is now more expensive to produce, or move on to the newer and more efficient CPU.
As for specifications, these details have so far proven difficult to come by however, industry insiders are suggesting that it could have support for 4K media and as luck would have it some secretly revealed information has come my way, so here we go for CPU, Memory and GPU details.
PlayStation 4.5 CPU
This has not been officially confirmed, but it looks as though the Neo will have an upgrade in cores compared to the PS4. With it getting an overclocked version of the previous models processor, running stable at 2.1GHz compared to the 1.6GHz found in the older model.
PlayStation 4.5 Memory
This one on paper does not look to be a huge increase, as Sony has opted to stick with 8GB of GDDR5 however, it looks as though with the PlayStation Neo they have tweaked the RAM a little to increase the efficiency by 24 percent. There are some performance concerns among the more knowledgeable, but all in all there would be a noticeable increase in performance when compared to its predecessor.
PlayStation 4.5 GPU
This is probably the most exciting of the spec increases, as the new GPU gets double the amount of compute units moving from 18 to 36. This increase the graphics clock speed from 800Mhz to 911Mhz, which is a 14 percent increase. So far, this sounds amazing, but again the information released is quite sparse in nature and creates more questions than it answers. I’m hoping that more information comes to light soon on this one.
Xbox Two
A lot has changed since Microsoft originally announced the Xbox One back in 2012, at that time it was considering using cloud computing to make up for the consoles lack of spec. However, outcrys from the Xbox community put pay to that idea and Microsoft had to change direction. Fast-forward four years and consumer attitudes have changed and with the Xbox two Microsoft could well make use of cloud computing as it had previously hoped.
Xbox Two Specs
Of the two consoles, the Xbox two has been the harder of the two devices to come across details for, but I do have some further information to share with you. It’s by no means new news that Microsoft is trying to bring both its Windows PC platform, Windows Phone platform and the Microsoft platform closer together into what has been called a single ECO system.
As such it is believed that with the Xbox Two there will be much more compatibility with the Windows 10 platform and that it could be designed to work side-by-side with Microsoft’s HoloLens augmented reality headset. Right now, there has been nothing officially announced by Microsoft, but speculation suggests that something being said at this year’s E3 even could be a possibility.
