Xbox One CPU Speed Boost Adds 150 MHz: Is PlayStation 4 Using Turbo Core?

A Xbox One CPU speed boost attempts to compete with the PlayStation 4 by adding 150 MHz at the last minute as the Xbox One mass production begins.

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, the Xbox One GPU boost bumped the clock speed from 800 MHz to 853 MHz.

Microsoft claims the Xbox One is worth $100 over the PlayStation 4 because of the Kinect 2.0 and its overall gaming and entertainment package. The PlayStation 4 uses voice recognition just like the Kinect, but you’ll have to purchase the camera through separate PlayStation 4 bundles.

Previously, Microsoft announced the Xbox One would run an eight core 1.6 GHz processor. The 853 MHz graphics processing unit (GPU) has 768 shader cores and 48 Texture Mapping Units (TMU) inside the Xbox One System On a Chip design. While a PlayStation 4 and Xbox One GPU comparison is difficult to make, overall the PS4 has a faster GPU and higher bandwidth while the Xbox One will be better at low latency rendering operations.

The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 CPU were originally thought to be the same Jaguar CPU design from AMD. Now Microsoft says the Xbox One CPU boost will raise the bar by 150 MHz up to 1.75 GHz:

“We recently just went into full production, so we’re now producing en masse Xbox One consoles. We’ve had real good progress on the system. In fact, we just updated the CPU performance to 1.75 GHz on top of the graphics performance improvement, so the system is really going to shine [and] the games look pretty incredible.”

But a Sony PlayStation 4 FCC filing revealed the PS4 CPU is faster than previously thought at 2.75 GHz. But since we know how AMD has designed the Jaguar it’s possible Sony is saying the PlayStation 4 will use AMD Turbo Core. So it’s possible the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One will share this same potential.

The way Turbo Core works is by monitoring how busy the CPU cores are and whether single threaded operations are prominent. Turbo Core can switch off several of the idling cores and use them as thermal heatsinks so the active cores can run at higher speeds. Thus, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One CPU would only be running at such high speeds with only two or four cores switched on, which may not affect too many gaming scenarios.