PS5 vs PC vs XBOX SX

[Admin]

XSX performing worse than PS5 was unsurprising
The fact that microsoft refused to show any XSX gameplay other than the disastrous halo infinite demo was a big red flag. There were reasons to believe the theoretical 17% XSX advantage (if you just look at TFLOPS) wouldn't materialize.

1. The GPU performance doesn't scale linearly with the number of compute units.
2. PS5 have the same number of ROPs as XSX but they are running at higher frequency.
3. xbox series x has questionable ram design https://vintologi.com/posts/3698
4. PS5 have unified L3 cache for the CPU this turned out to be false
5. with xbox series X and S there are 2 consoles to worry about meaning less effort will be put into optimizing for each one.
6. PS5 have a custom geometry engine (potentially superior to the XSX geometry engine).

There is no guarantee that XSX will ever surpass PS5 when it comes to performance in games, it's unclear to which degree the bad performance is a hardware issue. If you own an XSX you should probably just sell your system and switch to PC (if you really want the best performance) or PS5 (if you want to keep playing on console).

Microsoft really focused on "games will look and play the best on xbox series X" and now it turns out it's more like third best. Sony is more focused on other things (games, controller, etc) and doesn't really rely on power in their marketing even when they are ahead on that front.

 

[Admin]

What Microsoft should have done
Microsoft could have gotten a significant win in terms of performance but they dropped the ball badly and lost.

0. Clock the GPU far higher (2.19 GHZ instead of 1.825).
1. Have unified ram.
2. instead of the series S offer an all digital version similar to PS5 all digital edition.
3. Name it "xbox scarlett" instead of "xbox series X".
4. Offer a 2TB version.
5. offer a real next-gen controller.

It's unclear if 5 would have been needed, it looks like most xbox fans are not really interested in change with regard to the controller, they want to continue with aim assist and worthless thumb-sticks.

A miner tweak to the series X would have made it far better but then it would be about 40$ more expensive to make

TFLOPs        14.4
Compute units 52
ROPs          64
TMUs          208
GPU frequency 2.19 GHZ
RAM (unified) 20GB GDDR6 @ 560GB/s (320-bit bus)

Another option is to instead opt for a 256-bit bus and 16GB ram

TFLOPs        14.4
Compute units 52
ROPs          64
TMUs          208
GPU frequency 2.19 GHZ
RAM (unified) 16GB GDDR6 @ 448GB/s (256-bit bus)

That would probably be cheaper to make (due to smaller die) and still perform better than the series X. They Could also make the GPU more powerful by adding ROPs and compute units.

TFLOPs        16.6
Compute units 60
ROPs          96
TMUs          208
GPU frequency 2.19 GHZ
RAM (unified) 20GB GDDR6 @ 560GB/s (320-bit bus)

That would of course be more expensive to make but it would be a very powerful system and actually deliver the by far best performance in games. They could then release a cheaper version for people unwilling to pay 600$ for a console.

The following system should be able to emulate xbox one x on a hardware level (same number of compute units and amount of ram)

TFLOPs        11.07
Compute units 40
ROPs          64
TMUs          160
GPU frequency 2.19 GHZ
RAM (unified) 12GB GDDR6 @ 336GB/s (192-bit bus)

That might still outperform the PS5 unless ram is an issue (can be fixed by switching to 16GB ram @ 448GB/s)

The following system would be far better than the series S and not much more expensive to make

TFLOPs        5.54
Compute units 20
ROPs          32
TMUs          80
GPU frequency 2.19 GHZ
RAM (unified) 12GB GDDR6 @ 336GB/s (192-bit bus)

A perhaps cheaper and better option for adding more ram is to add 2 to 8 GiB of DDR4, this would have allowed them to ship with just 10GiB of GDDR6 without facing much issues in practice.

bare minimum:

Compute units 20
ROPs          32
TMUs          80
GPU frequency 2.19 GHZ
RAM (for the game) 10GB GDDR6 @ 280GB/s (160-bit bus)
RAM (for the operating system) 2GB DDR4 @ slow speed

 

[Admin]

XSX performing worse in dirt 5
The 60hz image quality version ran at higher resolution and framerates on the PS5, the trend of PS5 performing better continued.

XSX did get higher framerates than the PS5 in the 120hz mode but that was at the prize of significantly worse graphics.

The stated the bad graphics XSX had in the 120hz mode probably was a bug but that is highly unlikely, they simply had to drop the graphics that far to reach a stable 120fps.

As we see PS5 really need to add support for variable refresh rate, with that and some other fixes the PS5 will outright destroy the XSX.

 

[Admin]

PS5 also have issues
The general pattern is that these issues are software issues or sony just being anti-consumer for no good reason. Here are the biggest issues

0. Sony are really bad (worse than microsoft and nintendo) when it comes to censoring videogames.
1. PS5 currently doesn't support variable refresh rate this is now fixed
2. the PS5 HDMI 2.1 is currently limited to 32Gbps (should be fixed soon).
3. Poor support for gyro aiming.
4. No NVME drive has been approved for PS5 yet. this is now fixed
5. no support for 1440p output (might never be fixed).
6. cannot play PS3 games
7. cannot play PS2 games
8. cannot play PS1 games
9. a few PS4 titles (about 10) isn't playable on PS5.

The actual hardware in the PS5 is clearly just fine, not as good as high-end PC but still overall welll-design and most people will be happy with how it performs in games. This actually illustrates that even when the actual hardware is good you are still at the mercy of the console manufactorer, you have to hope they actually let you use the hardware to its potential and this will never happen of course.

Issue 4 might not actually be the fault of sony, the issue could be manufacturers failing to make fast enough drives, we can more of less assume that they will get their eventually.

 

[Admin]

PS5 has better hardware than XSX (overall)
Initially microsoft did push "games will look and play the best on xbox series x" but then when third parties started comparing the consoles PS5 initially performed better, this was somewhat surprising and let to speculation about PS5 having some "secret sauce" (spoiler: it didn't have any significant hidden hardware advantage).

Later XSX did start to catch up in terms of graphics so it may have been just an issue of optimization (developer tools being behind, etc) but XSX also has several hardware disadvantages compared to PS5

The XSX SSD is much slower than the PS5 SSD and this gap is even greater when you compare the speed of the expansion options (you can buy third party NVME drives to PS5 that will outperform the internal drive). This results in PS5 having much faster loading times in next-gen titles (when it's not running in BC mode).

The PS5 Compute units and Raster OutPut units run at up to 22% higher speed than the XSX compute units. The XSX does have 44% more shaders but it does not have more ROPs. The issue here is that the more shaders you have in a GPU the harder it will be to take full advantage of them, because of that the 17% TFLOP advantage XSX has will not actually translate into a 17% advantage in games (overall)

PS5 uses a simpler RAM architechture with a single speed instead of having 2 different speeds to work with https://vintologi.com/threads/ps5-vs-pc-vs-xbox-sx.704/#post-3698

developers also has the xbox series S to worry about on the xbox side, sony instead have the same hardware in the cheaper PS5 all digital (except lack of disk-player) which makes it easier for developers to optimize for their consoles.

In addition the PS5 also has a controller with much better features than the XSX controller offers. The hardware advantages PS5 has (faster loading times, better controller) are far more noticeable than 7 ± 10 perfect better resolution/framerate/graphics.

One weakness with the PS5 is that the CPU and GPU does not run at fixed frequencies (unlike XSX) but this does not seem to have much of an impact on gaming performance (usually the PS5 GPU will run at top speed).

This does not mean that everyone should get a PS5 over XSX, the PS5 still have software weaknesses such as lack of support for VRR and nothing as seamless as "quick resume". XSX also performs better when running in backwards compatibility mode (partly due to xbox one x having much better hardware than PS4 pro). PS5 still cannot play PS3 games even though it has good enough hardware to emulate the PS3, they rather just re-release the game games for PS5 to make money again or have people pay for playstation now.

A lot of people seem to buy XSX just for gamepass.

Sony used to have a big advantage in terms of exclusives you cannot get anywhere else but lately sony has ported more and more of their exclusives to PC, still PC + PS5 is the best combo for people who are willing and able to spend all that money.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1329790828341059588

 

[Admin]

I told xbox fanboys to sell their XSX
While they will be able to get their money back (and more) by selling now most will not actually take that opportunity, instead they will tell themselves "this is just a temporary issue" even though history show hardware that initially perform worse will keep performing worse and never catch up.

Also it's really hard to get a PS5 for reasonable price now if you didn't make a pre-order, thus it really sucks if you abstained from pre-ordering a PS5 becuase microsoft promised you would get more performance with the series X.

I wrote the following and they ended up deleting the post and banning me for 14 days:

Are you going to sell your XSX now after it failed to perform better than PS5?
Microsoft promised that "games will run and play better on the xbox series X" and now it turns out that was a lie.

The rational thing to do when you get new information is to factor that information into your decisions and possibly change your plans, you should be able to sell your xbox series X at profit now due to the shortage and you can use that money towards a gaming PC or a PS5.

I am aware it's possible that XSX will end up catching up to the PS5 in terms of real-world performance but looking at history that is probably not going to happen, it's rare for a worse performing product to ever catch up to a better performing products. Good developer tools have been available since june which should have been enough time to do a decent optimization for the XSX.

I can still see some reasons for sticking to microsoft but all these reasons can be used for instead going for high-end PC assuming you can afford that

1. sony have started to censor videogames (this is really bad).
2. gamepass providing good value (if you like that service).
3. you like some title not available on the PS5.
4. PS5 currently doesn't support variable refresh rate and 40Gbps HDMI 2.1 (should be fixed soon).

The biggest issue with PC gaming now is shortages so you might end up without a system if you sell now.

https://www.reddit.com/r/XboxSeriesX/comments/jyeser/are_you_going_to_sell_your_xsx_now_after_it/

Only a single individual stated that he was going to get rid of his XSX and instead get a PS5, that's just sad and illustrates how people are hurt by blind brand loyalty, the same thing happened with the original xbox one where fanboys bought it even though playstastion 4 was better in every way.

An4rchy17 wrote:

Not for me. I was sooo close to going ps5, with xbox being the best in class I stuck with xbox. Xbox may get better with time but lifes short so for at least now ill swap to the better versions and ps5 launch line up.

 

[Admin]

This is just sad
Of course i told him to sell the console now when he can get a good price for it. Given the title it seems like he really do care about power and that he bought into a lie. Unfortunatily it does seem like he already bought games for it so he might not be able to recover the money he spent now

 

[Admin]

Observer: system redux
Weirdly they do not offer any mode where they can be easily compared between the consoles, on both however the performance is very poor.

PS5: limited to 1080p when raytracing is enabled.
XSX: has a 4K option

Now let's compare that to an over 2 year old graphics card

https://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/observer-system-redux-ray-tracing-benchmarks-comparison-screenshots/

Of course the newer RTX 3080 perform even better

 

[Admin]

How does performance scale with the number of shaders?
Some people think the PS5 GPU being higher clocked is the reason for it performing better since the performance does not scale linearly with the number of shaders, this however may not be enough to explain the difference in performance.

6800xt vs 6800
shaders: +20%
ROPs: +33%
performance: +14%
performance/hz: +6% (approx)

3080 vs 3070
shaders: +48
performance: +30%

3080 does however also have faster ram but you still do not get a linear performance increase at 1440p.

XSX vs PS5
Shaders: +44%
ROPs: +0%
performance/hz: +10% (approx)

XSX vs XSS
Shaders: +160%
performance/hz: +130% (approx)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzaSrS1fsvc

This strongly indicate that it's something else holding the xbox series X back that is also affecting the series S.

 

[Admin]

Memory bandwidth
This is the by far most likely explanation for why the new xbox consoles perform so poorly, if the issue was just difficulty giving all 52 compute units meaningful work then why is series S performing so poorly?

XSX
16 GB GDDR6 with 320-bit bus
10 GB @ 560 GB/s, 6 GB @ 336 GB/s

XSS
10 GB GDDR6 with 128-bit bus
8 GB @ 224 GB/s, 2 GB @ 56 GB/s

Cache
There was speculation of PS5 having something similar to "infinity cache" but that does not seem to be true. It's probably just that it's easier to work with the PS5 ram since it's fully unified making it easier to develop for the console.

16GB GDDR6
256-bit, 448GB/s

Mark cerny did talk about helping with the development of the SoC and this may have included some tweaks that microsoft were not allowed to use (AMD being allowed to use their innovations for PC only, not their console competitor), so far this is just speculation.

https://twitter.com/RedGamingTech/status/1313413866148319236?s=20

Microsoft used a solution for this with the original xbox one to compensate for slow ram (ddr3).

 

[Admin]

Does PS5 have RNDA3+ features?
Since sony customized their GPU they may have some advantages even compared to PC but looking at the actual performance in games it really doesn't show considering how much better even a 6800 perform.

https://www.theverge.com/21572796/amd-radeon-rx-6800-review-4k-gaming-test-benchmarks

The 6800 is actually lower clocked than the PS5 GPU

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-rx-6800.c3713

 

[Admin]

Will XSX surpass PS5 with optimizations?
We can look at history to conclude that this is very unlikely to happen. Sony fans were hoping that the PS3 would eventually surpass the 360 in multi-platform games once developers learned to properly use the cell processor but that didn't really happen

 

[Admin]

Conclusion
PS5 is simply a superior system, the TFLOP advantage XSX had fails to result in better performance due to xbox series X having poor memory bandwidth, low GPU clock and the fact that GPU performance will not scale linearly with the number of shaders.

This will naturally be hard for xbox fanboys to accept and thus many of them will keep their xbox instead of getting their money back(or more) by selling/returning their console. There are many sad cases of xbox fans telling themselves "the game looks better on xbox" when it's just the dynamic weather system (reality: PS5 version have better graphics and framerate).

 

[Admin]

xbox series X is being crushed between PS5 and PC
Sony is well aware PC gaming is a very real competitor to consoles, this is why they launched the PS4 pro even though at the time they already had the far more powerful console.

Meanwhile valve has been trying to make PC more competetive for something like console gaming, they have made multiple attempts at that
0. The steam big picture mode (success)
1. The steam controller (limited success)
2. Steam machines (as expected, it failed).

This is why the xbox one X didn't sell well, it simply couldn't compete with PC, having better hardware than PS4 pro simply didn't cut it.

 

[Admin]

Dev mode
Turns out there is a mode allowing you to use use your console more freely after paying 20$

Unfortunately the developer mode is really limited and inconvenient to use, just get a PC instead, it's much better.

Microsoft giving PC features to their consoles could be a way to make them more relevant. Thus microsoft will be able to leverage their PC dominance to compete better against sony.

The xbox consoles run a lock-down (crippled) version of windows, by removing restrictions they give better value to their customers. The only issue with this strategy is that most console gamers are not actually interested in these things, they just want to sit in their cough and play halo.

 

[Admin]

Partial win for XSX in COD Black Ops Cold War
XSX performed better in the 60fps raytraced mode but lost in the 120hz mode.

This is the second case of XSX performing better in the low framerate mode but once settings were lowered it did not take as good use of the higher compute unit count and ended up losing.

A lot of people responded claiming the raytraced PS5 version ran at higher settings, this could explain the occasional drops the XSX doesn't suffer from

https://twitter.com/Diego70884986/status/1330991827462320129/photo/3

 

[Maximushkz]

Watch dogs legions
In game there is no clear win here, both ran terribly (30fps). PS5 does however have faster loading screens which is the only noticable difference between the versions.

Earlier digitalfoundry stated (based on info from .ini files) that the PS5 and XSX version should have the same settings but the maker of the video above did see differences (that probably wasn't there):

Let's go with another NextGen comparison! This time the results are somewhat more interesting, but not much. Both versions run at a dynamic resolution between 1440p and 2160p. PS5 has a higher average resolution (at least in the parts that I have compared it is noticeably better in some areas), on the other hand, the drawing distance and the anisotropic filtering are higher in XSX. Regarding the framerate, both consoles run at a rate of 30fps. I have not experienced falls or tearing in any, however, I have not subjected them to very marked stress (many explosions, large load of enemies on the screen ... etc). Ray Tracing is exactly the same on both platforms, the equivalent of the low PC setting.

It's unclear why they do not offer a 60fps version, well that's the typical console experience.

 

[Maximusvom]

The PS5 framerate problem was a glitch (RT mode of cod cold war)
Turns out the issue wasn't hardware, it was just a glitch.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1331324152024879108

 

[Admin]

Theoretical performance in perspective
Lets say xbox series X somehow manage to deliver 17% more performance as promised (very unlikely) in the future.

The price of old hardware was set to the approximate ebay price.

If that additional performance man to much to you why are you not playing on PC?

Of course how fun you have with a console/PC will depend on how powerful it is but it will not be linear, twice the power does not mean twice the fun.

 

[Admin]

Assassins creed valhalla has been updated
They added an unplayable (30fps) mode for people obsessed with graphics.

So far no information regarding how the PS5 version stack up to the XSX version after the update, it has been claimed that the performance issues on the xbox series X has been fixed but did that actually happen and if it was fixed did it come at a cost?

Update
The update will ruin framerate on the PS5 and improve it on xbox series S.

Apparently, until DF/Dictator confirms all this and based on Tom's and John's tweets:
- PS5 version seem to run worse than before, however a recent tweet from John seems to suggest is not that bad and previously reported FPS drops may not happen that often or drop that low (a video on YT shows PS5 dropping 15fps every 15-20 seconds, could be a capturing issue).
- Some twitter users are suggesting that reinstalling the game fixes framerate drops on PS5.
- XBSX version runs better than before, there are also some cryptic tweets from John implying XBSX may drop to a lower res to maintain a more constant framerate and prevent tearing.
- Based on what Tom mentioned, XBSX (and apparently PS5 as well) run at locked 30fps on quality mode.
- XBSS seems to be the console to get the nicest bump in performance.

What probably happened
Most likely ubisoft changed the PS5 settings to push more aggressively for graphics on the PS5 version at the expense of screantearing, the typical console experience of having little to no control over graphic settings.

It can be argued the xbox series X version actually look better than the PC and PS5 version due to lacking bloom.

 

[Admin]

Will the trend continue?
So far the results have overall favoured the PS5

But this is early versions meaning there will be bugs and other issues both console versions suffer from. Still it does seem like the PS5 will keep delivering superior performance in next-generation titles.

 

[Admin]

Backwards compatibility
The PS5 can run all PS4 games except 10 on the PS5 while the series X can run all titles that doesn't require the kinect (that microsoft forced people to buy only to later not even have a port for).

The xbox series X can also run xbox 360 and original xbox titles while the PS5 does not currently offer any such emulation.

When playing last-gen titles the system will emulate the older weaker hardware, luckily for sony the base PS4 is more powerful than the original xbox one and the xbox one S. Microsoft did however later leanch the xbox one X that is more powerful than the PS4 pro, thus last game titles (that are not given a patch for PS5/XSX) will run better on the XSX iff the game was enhanced for the xbox one X.

https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/xbox-one/xbox-one-x-enhanced-list

This is why a lot of backwards compatible ltitles load faster on XSX, the slow emulated CPU speed will bottleneck the fast PS5 SSD and thus XSX will end up loading slighly faster.

 

[Admin]

VG Tech ps5 vs XSX patch poerformane, drops to ps5 1368p and XSX 1080p
As expected the PS5 version runs at higher resolution, they did however push to hard for resolution resulting in lower frame-rate. No wonder PS5 is struggeling when it at the minimum resolution have to render 60% more pixels than the minimum xbox series X resolution. The general consensus is that the original PS5 version is superior (better framerate at 1440p minimum)

This however illustrates the issue of dynamic resolution, it's still hard for the game to pick the correct resolution for a stable 60fps, often it will set the resolution too low (causing dips) or too high (meaning the GPU will not be fully utilized).

Having variable refresh rate (consistently above 120fps) is a far better solution.

VG Tech wrote:

PS5 in Performance Mode uses a dynamic resolution with the highest native resolution found being 3840x2160 and the lowest native resolution found being approximately 2432x1368. PS5 in Performance Mode rarely renders at a native resolution of 3840x2160. Xbox Series X in Performance Mode uses a dynamic resolution with the highest native resolution found being 3840x2160 and the lowest native resolution found being 1920x1080. Xbox Series X in Performance Mode rarely renders at a native resolution of 3840x2160 and drops in resolution down to 1920x1080 seem to be uncommon. In scenes such as 8:14 the PS5 in Performance Mode runs at a higher native resolution than the Xbox Series X in Performance Mode but with worse performance. However, in many scenes the PS5 and Xbox Series X render at a very similar resolution in Performance Mode. PS5 and Xbox Series X in Performance Mode use a form of temporal reconstruction to increase the resolution up to 3840x2160 when rendering natively below this resolution. PS5 and Xbox Series X in Quality Mode uses a dynamic resolution with the highest native resolution found being 3840x2160 and the lowest native resolution found being approximately 3552x1998. On both consoles in Quality Mode drops in resolution below 3840x2160 seem to be uncommon. Xbox Series S in Performance Mode uses a dynamic resolution with the highest native resolution found being 1920x1080 and the lowest native resolution found being approximately 1200x675. Xbox Series S in Performance Mode uses a form of temporal reconstruction to increase the resolution up to 1920x1080 when rendering natively below this resolution. Xbox Series S in Quality Mode uses a dynamic resolution with the highest native resolution found being 2880x1620 and the lowest native resolution found being approximately 2048x1152. Xbox Series S in Quality Mode uses a form of temporal reconstruction to increase the resolution up to 2880x1620 when rendering natively below this resolution.

 

[Admin]

New COD cold war comparison
60hz mode: draw
120hz mode: PS5 version is superior

 

[Admin]

Assassins creed valhalla still run worse on xbox series X
There was talk about the previous PS5 version performing better but that seem to be false alarm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibRsM1Nnpmk

The PS5 and XSX framerate is now about the same in the performance mode but the PS5 version do run at higher resolution

 

[Admin]

xbox series X vs PS5 die
The xbox series X die is 360.4 mm²

tweaktown.com/news/74560/this-is-the-gpu-die-shot-of-xbox-series-rdna-2-looks-delicious/index.html

The PS5 die is smaller (308 mm²). PS5 will have 2 fewer memory controllers and 16 fewer compute units.

PS5 having 2 fewer memory controllers will save 14 mm²

PS5 having 16 fewer compute units would save 49mm² if the entire GPU area (47.5%) was used for compute units, in that case PS5 would only have 11 mm² die-space awailable for things like infinity cache. PS5 do actually have the same number of ROPs as the XSX, it does however have less compute units and TMUs

 

[Admin]

Xbox series X have 52 active compute units and 4 disabled compute units.

6900xt have 80 compute units and have a die size of 520mm².

XSX have less die size relative to the number of compute units despite having a large part of the die utilized for other things such as CPU cores, this is explained by Microsoft not including desktop features such as infinity cache.

 

[Admin]

PS5 have custom-designed GPU
Mark Cerny stated that they developed the APU together with AMD and that a lot of that would also come to PC, some things would however remain exclusive to PS5

This could explain why the xbox series X perform so poorly, if a feature developed by sony carry over to PC it will still not carry over to their console competitor.

appuals.com/sources-suggest-the-custom-geometry-engine-of-the-ps5-makes-it-superior-to-the-mighty-xbox-series-x/

 

[Admin]

PS5 technical details leak
Turns out PS5 will also lock one CPU core (2 threads) to the operating system so it's not better than the xbox series X in that regard.

PS5 is superior than xbox series X by having unified L3 cache for the CPU.

PS5 lacks sample feedback streaming.

He did give support to the notion that lack of good developer tools are holding back the xbox series X causing it to underperform.

PS5 have a geometry engine that is hard to fully master, thus it has a lot of untapped potential (potentially more than XSX).

 

[Admin]

Xbox series X

Shading Units 3328
TMUs          208
ROPs          64
Compute Unita 52
L2 Cache/MB   5

GPU frequency = 1.825 Ghz

PS5

Shading Units 2304                                                              
TMUs          144
ROPs          64                                                          
Compute Units 36                                                                                                        
L2 Cache/MB   4

GPU frequency = 2.23 Ghz

6800XT

Shading Units 4608
TMUs          288
ROPs          128
Compute Units 72
L0 Cache/KB   32 per WGP
L1 Cache/KB   128 per Array
L2 Cache/MB   4
L3 Cache/MB   128 (infinity cache)

GPU frequency = 2.25Ghz

 

[adolf512]

 

[Admin]

The real reasons games run better on PS5 than xbox series X
Microsoft claimed that "games will look and play the best on xbox series X" but it turns out it was more like third best

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1HbGf2R7yk

So why does a 10.28 TFLOP GPU outperform a 12TFLOP GPU?

Let's take a closer look at the specs

Xbox series X

Shading Units 3328
TMUs          208
ROPs          64
Compute Unita 52
L2 Cache/MB   5

PS5

Shading Units 2304
TMUs          144
ROPs          64
Compute Units 36
L2 Cache/MB   4

So while xbox series X do have more 44% more compute units and TMUs it does not have more ROPs. The PS5 GPU is however running at up to 22% higher frequency giving it the advantage when ROPs are the bottleneck.

The performance does however not scale linearly with the number of shaders so 44% more compute units will only give about 29% higher performance at the same frequency

https://vintologi.com/threads/ps5-vs-pc-vs-xbox-sx.704/page-2#post-4800

From that we can expect the xbox series X to at best be 10% faster than the PS5 and at worst it will perform 18% worse (depending on workload).

The PS5 do however have other potential advantages

1. unified ram (xbox series X isn't unified if more than 7.5GB is used) https://vintologi.com/posts/3698
2. PS5 is a more popular console than XSX so more effort will be put into optimizing games for it (the cheaper xbox series S have different specs).
3. it seems like sony does a better job in helping developers optimize games for their system (getting developer kits out early, better tools, etc).
4. PS5 have a custom "geometry engine" (unclear what this means).

I have seen some xbox fanboys claim their console will perform better than PS5 eventually but i do not think that is going to happen, historically worse performing have almost always kept performing worse.

Does this even matter?
In most games you would probably not notice any difference between the consoles and if the best performance is really important to you you should look at getting a high end PC assuming you can afford that.

The better controller and SSD in the PS5 is far more valuable than running games at slightly higher resolution. PS5 also (unlike xbox) offer games you can only play on that platform.

This does however demonstrate the importance of waiting for third party benchmark before declaring one piece of hardware to offer better performance, sure you can guess based on specs (worked in the case of PS4 vs xbox one) but often when you try to do that you will go wrong, especially when the specs you have access to are far from complete.

 

[Admin]

Series S comparison
The minimum resolution in assassins creed valhalla (performance mode) is

PS5: 1440p (+46%)
XSX: 1188p (+172%)
XSS: 720p

It does however seem like the framerate was actually more stable on the series S performance mode so the actual advantage series S have is more like 150%

Now let's compare power (XSX vs XSS)
ROPs: +108%
shaders: +171%

If the issue with XSX was ROPs not being powerful enough or the performance scaling poorly with the number of shaders we would expect XSS to perform better and the PS5 lead to be at best 22% (not 46%). This game does however seem to be an outlier, in most titles there is no big performance difference.

 

[Admin]

Borderlands 3
The PS5 version is superior again, better graphics and shorter load times.

Xbox series S runs at up to 1440p but it can drop as low as 2118*1188, due to lower resolution it actually runs at a more stable 60fps.

Only series X and PS5 have a 120fps performance mode for now.

edit: series X run slighly better in the 120hz mode for some reason.

I didn't hear them provide any info regarding the PS5 and XSX resolution scaling other than that it was less agressive than on the series S.

In the resolution mode the PS5 and XSX runs at 125% higher max resolution than the series S, this support the notion that ROPs is a limiting factor here bottlenecking the series X in the resolution mode.

 

[Admin]

What if you are invested into the xbox ecosystem?
A lot of people will probably buy xbox series X becuase they already have a lot of games and also controllers for xbox one and then that will carry over (with enhancements) to xbox series X.

You do however have the option to just sell everything and move on to PC (rebuying or pirating the games you used to play).

You might be better off just cutting your losses (and getting money back) instead of falling victim to the sunk cost fallacy.