Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Vs PS4 Neo: GPU Performance Comparison Shows What Sony’s PlayStation 5 Specs Need For 4K Gaming

The PS4 Neo vs. Xbox One console wars have not even started, and already people are talking about how future Sony PlayStation 5 specs can change gaming. While scrutinizing rumors about the PS5 GPU performance is probably a waste of time, the release of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 video card gives us a good comparison point to know what the PlayStation 4 Neo (also known as the PS4.5) can do for 4K gaming.

Nvidia GTX 1080 Benchmarks Overview

First off, this is not a PC master race article, so you can back off on dumping those barrels of flaming oil (the barrels are red, of course). The goal is to compare the known PS4 Neo GPU specs to the performance of the recently released Nvidia GTX 1080 in order to see how far graphics processing has come and what we might expect out of the PlayStation 4 Neo. With realistic expectations, we might predict what PS4 Neo games will provide graphics and performance-wise.

The Nvidia GTX 1080 reviews have acknowledged that it is the first semi-affordable PC gaming video card to provide sustained high FPS for the 4K resolution in today’s games. For most Nvidia GTX 1080 benchmarks in 4K resolution, the average FPS is around 60 FPS and above while even the minimum FPS is often 45 to 60 FPS. The major exception is The Witcher 3 and the still-punishing Crysis 3, which has been benchmarked at around 30 FPS in 4K resolution.

With these numbers in mind, we can take a look at the basic Nvidia GTX 1080 specs. According to Tech Radar, the Nvidia GTX 1080’s GP104 GPU uses an architecture called Pascal, which provides about 8.9 TeraFLOPS. The new GRRD5X RAM in the GTX 1080 uses a 256-bit memory bus and delivers 320GB/s of memory bandwidth.

In comparison, the PS4 GPU is theoretically capable of 1.84 TeraFLOPS versus the Xbox One’s 1.33 TeraFLOPS. The Xbox One provides 68.3 GB/s of main memory bandwidth and 102 GB/s for its eSRAM, while the PS4 memory provides 176 GB/s. To put this in perspective, the Xbox One GPU is about as capable as an AMD Radeon HD 7850, which goes for less than $100 used on eBay. The Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080 sales for about $600 USD.

PS4 Neo: 4K Gaming Reasonable Or Not?

All in all, the Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080 is about five times as fast as the PlayStation 4 graphics processor. Unfortunately, this giant leap in performance is not expected based on the current PS4 Neo rumors.

According to Giant Bomb, the PS4 Neo CPU is expected to use the same eight AMD Jaguar cores, but the clock rate will be bumped from 1.6 GHz to 2.1 GHz. The memory bandwidth will similarly be bumped from 176 GB/s to 218 GB/s, a 24 percent jump.

The PS4 Neo GPU is where there are many unknowns. The regular PS4 GPU has 18 Radeon GCN compute units running at 800 MHz while the PS4 Neo GPU speed will be at 911 MHz. The biggest difference is that the number of compute units will increase from 18 to 36, which suggests that Sony and AMD will be using the upcoming Polaris 10 technology. Even if we assume greater performance per compute unit, that still puts the PlayStation 4 Neo GPU performance at around 2.5 times the current PS4, not the five times performance of the Nvidia GTX 1080.

What does this mean for PS4 Neo games and 4K TV owners? To be fair, a straight Nvidia GTX 1080 vs. PS4 Neo comparison is not valid since there’s a lot of performance overhead associated with PC gaming due to the necessity of supporting diverse hardware. The PC gaming apple will stay crunchy while developers can squeeze more orange juice out of console hardware.

Regardless, overcoming a 200 percent performance gap is no easy feat. Sony has already announced that PS4 games will co-exist and provide both Base and Neo mode. Even 1080 TV owners will benefit from higher sustained FPS and additional graphics features. The question is how many games will provide a full 4K resolution experience.

PS4 Neo: 4K Upscaling In Our Future?

Even when it comes to AAA titles, if 4K gaming is made optional for PS4 Neo developers, then it’s possible a software upscaler could be used to bring the native resolution up to the 4K resolution. This means that games would be rendered internally at 1080p like usual, but the final 2D output would be 4K resolution.

There is also a middle ground solution. In reality, the largest determination for performance and framerate is the graphical complexity of certain scenes. While the PS4 Neo GPU performance may not be capable of providing a full 4K native resolution all the time, some games may be fully playable at a 2K native resolution of 2560 x 1440, which is then upscaled to 4K 60 FPS. But it’s possible other methods can be used to adjust the resolution based on performance.

Dynamic resolution scaling is one method used to smooth out the framerate between different scenes by switching the native resolution target on the fly. For example, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is framerate locked at 30 FPS on both the PS4 and Xbox One, but the game engine adjusts the native resolution between 900p and 1080p based upon the scene. Halo 5 also uses dynamic resolution scaling to maintain 60 FPS. Technically, some PS4 Neo games should be capable of rendering natively somewhere between 1080p and 4K resolution while maintaining a solid 30 or 60 FPS.

PlayStation 5 Hardware Spec: What Should We Expect?

At this time, the Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080 benchmarks provide the best comparison point for guiding our expectations. Sony knows it will need to providing full PS5 4K gaming years from now.

The jump from the PS3 GPU to the PS4 GPU was about eight times, going from 0.230 TeraFLOPS to 1.84 TeraFLOPS. As stated earlier, the jump from PS4 to PS4 Neo is about 2.5 times at most. Thus, if we assume the same giant leap from the past then it’s possible the PlayStation 5 GPU specs could provide single-point computer power in excess of 10 to 15 TeraFLOPS.

Hopefully, both Sony and Microsoft will choose to go with higher targets for the next generation consoles. If that happens, we can not only expect good 4K gaming, it’s possible that next generation graphics like path tracing engines can become possible. There is also the possibility that Sony may choose to shift to a cloud-based gaming platform based upon PlayStation Now, where the bulk of calculations are handled by giant servers and the video/audio is simply streamed to gamers like NetFlix. Either way, the future is exciting.

What do you think is a reasonable performance target for the PS4 Neo and PlayStation 5?

[Disclaimer: The numbers provided for the Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080 performance reviews are not exact and provided as a general estimate only.]

[Image via Nvidia]