Xbox Project Scorpio vs. PlayStation 4 Pro: What Console Wins Battle of Native 4K Gaming Experience?
Now that Microsoft has let the world get a peek of their highly anticipated gaming console dubbed as the Xbox Project Scorpio, it is impossible not to compare it to Sony's PlayStation 4 Pro, especially when both products promise to deliver a genuine 4K gaming experience.
Last Thursday, Eurogamer division Digital Foundry released its exclusive pre-release review of the Xbox Project Scorpio. They were given the chance to see the device firsthand and got a glimpse of it in action using a "Forza" title running in native 4K.
To see which console could possibly deliver a better performance in playing native 4K titles, it is important to compare the technical specifications of the Project Scorpio and PS4 Pro.
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Right off the bat, Project Scorpio gets the advantage in terms of its processor and graphics processing unit. Microsoft's upcoming console is powered by eight custom x86 cores with a clock speed of 2.3 gigahertz and a custom GPU with 40 compute units running at 1,172 megahertz, according to Digital Foundry.
On the other hand, the PS4 Pro has eight Jaguar cores capable of delivering a 2.1 GHz clock speed paired with AMD's 36 improved Graphics Core Next expected to run at 911 MHz.
In terms of memory and memory bandwidth, Project Scorpio seems to have the upper hand as well. While both are equipped with a GDDR5 video random access memory component, Project Scorpio's capacity is at 12 GB while the PS4 Pro sits at 8 GB. The yet-to-be unveiled Xbox console promises to deliver a 326 GB per second memory speed while the PS4 Pro is known to perform at 218 GB per second.
Above all, it is important to note that Digital Foundry's report also shared that Microsoft did deliver on the promise of a console that performs with six teraflops, which is another blow to PS4 Pro's 4.2 teraflop specification.
Ultimately, both consoles can play games running at 1080p up to optimized 4K resolutions. However, since Project Scorpio was conceived, Microsoft has been very vocal that their main goal is to deliver native 4K gaming, and it looks like their upcoming console will do just that.
Technology enthusiasts know that for any type of device, the set of technical specifications are always one aspect while actual performance is another. Digital Foundry made that point as well. Microsoft purportedly gave them just the proof they need as it showcased how promising Project Scorpio can be by showing them a demo using a "Forza" game.
Turn 10 Studio software architect Chris Tector told Digital Foundry: "This is us. This is ForzaTech running 60 frames a second, 4K." He added: "We're still running with settings that we would have used in Forza 6... but this is also including 4K content. ... We pushed it through and made sure the 4K textures were flowing through. We've got them all there at the right resolutions and they're not giving us enough of a bandwidth hit to offset that. If we drop back to when we originally ran and we didn't have 4K assets, it was maybe one per cent different."
The exclusive report provided a screenshot of the said demo.
Project Scorpio is expected to launch in the holiday of 2017.
