To one’s surprise, there’s been a lot of debate about which of the two upcoming next-gen consoles is the more powerful one ever since Microsoft and Sony both revealed tech details for them, and each time, the answer varies (also to no one’s surprise). While the pure, raw figures on-paper put the Xbox Series X ahead of the competition, the PS5, with things such as its impressive SSD, has impressed more than a few developers with its own innards.
One developer who seems to prefer what Sony are doing is Crytek rendering engineer Ali Salehi. Speaking in an interview with Persian website Vigiato, Salehi dropped some interesting details on the tech of both consoles. The article has since been removed for unknown reasons but thanks to users on ResetEra, we still have translations of what Salehi said.
According to Salehi, the PS5 is a console that’s much easier to code and develop for than the Xbox Series X. He cites multiple reasons for this, one of them being the fact that the Xbox Series X, much like its predecessor, splits the RAM in two, with both having different bandwidths, which will be one of several factors that will create bottlenecks and prevent the console from reaching max capacity.
Salehi also said that the PS5’s variable clock speed as opposed to the Xbox Series X’s fixed numbers are a more “logical” solution, because it can decide what to prioritize from situation-to-situation.
“What Sony has done is much more logical because it decides whether the graphics card’s frequency is higher or the CPU’s frequency at certain times, depending on the processing load,” said Salehi. “For example, on a loading page, only the CPU is needed and the GPU is not used. Or in a close-up scene of the character’s face, GPU gets involved and CPU plays a very small role. On the other hand, it’s good that the X-Series has good cooling and guarantees to keep the frequency constant and it doesn’t have throttling, but the practical freedom that Sony has given is really a big deal.”
Finally, when asked about which of the two consoles he as a developer prefers in terms of coding, Salehi responded, “Definitely PlayStation 5.”
“As a programmer, I would say that the PlayStation 5 is much better, and I don’t think you can find a programmer who can outperform the PlayStation 5 from the Xbox Series X,” he added. “For the Xbox, they have to put DirectX and Windows on the console, which is many years old, but for each new console that Sony builds, it also rebuilds the software and APIs in any way it wants. It is in their interest and in our interest. Because there is only one way to do everything, and theirs is the best way possible.”
We have heard reports earlier about developers claiming the PS5 to be more impressive than the Xbox Series X in various ways, so Salehi’s statements don’t come as too much of a surprise in that context- though I suppose we will only know for sure when we’ve seen both consoles in action.
Microsoft, meanwhile, continue to grow increasingly confident in what they’ve built with their next-gen system.
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