Xbox Series X’s Raw GPU Performance is Better Than PS5’s, but Harder to Exploit

The PS5 and Xbox Series X have been around for a couple of years at this point, and though a large portion of new games in that time have launched as cross-gen titles, developers across the industry have nonetheless spent plenty of time with both consoles and been able to get a pretty good feel for their hardware capabilities- including how they compare to each other.

Of course, there isn’t too much of a tangible difference between what the two are capable of, but each does have the leg up over the other in small ways and in different areas. For instance, with its 12 teraflop-GPU with 52 CUs, the Xbox Series X’s processor is better on paper than the PS5’s at 10.28 teraflops at 36 CUs. But what does that mean in actual terms?

As per KT Racing’s Benoit Jacquier, technical director on WRC Generations, the PS5’s faster clockspeed (2.23 GHz as compared to the Xbox Series X’s 1.825 GHz) actually gives it a bit of an advantage, allowing developers more direct and simpler performance advantages.

“Due to faster clockspeed, PS5 gives us direct, simpler performance advantages from previous generation,” Jacquier said in a recent interview with GamingBolt. “Although the Xbox Series X’s GPU raw performance is better, it’s harder to exploit- it requires a better parallelism to exploits the 52 CUs. But I suppose devs could, in the long term, obtain better performance on the Xbox Series X.”

As we move deeper into the generation, cross-gen games are beginning to drop off the map bit by bit, so we are finally getting to the point where new upcoming titles will be able to leverage the new consoles’ hardware much better. Whether that leads to more pronounced differences in what the Xbox Series X and PS5 enable to developers to do remains to be seen.

WRC Generations is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Our full interview with Jacquier will be going live soon, so stay tuned for that.