Every time a launch a new console, PC gamers – like myself – will quickly remind the gaming community that our platform of choice offers more power and flexibility than even the newest, oldest console . That’s still true this time, but things feel a little … different.
In fact, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are more powerful than both of the midrange gaming PCs in my office – something that wouldn’t be heard in the PS4 and Xbox One days. Although the PC still has a big leg in terms of performance range– that is, you can spend more to get more – the latest consoles are more like PC than ever, and they are closing the performance gap more than their predecessors did.
When Sony announced the PlayStation 4, hardware experts knew it was going to be on the underground side. AnandTech noted that console makers didn’t take CPU performance badly enough, and that the GPU was the equivalent of a Radeon HD 7850 or 7870 – then graphics cards $ 140 and $ 170. That’s lower the midrange price point, which means you could build a PC that would knock the pants off the PS4 and Xbox One very affordable – of course, lower frames, reduced graphics, or the both compared to mid-range PCs at the time. (This wasn’t generally true – some famous PC ports had their own issues – but it’s clear that even a midrange PC would get you more raw power to play with.)
Part of this was due to Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), the semiconductor company that designed the graphics processors and chips within Sony and Microsoft consoles for the last two generations. “When the last-gen consoles launched, AMD was in bad shape,” explains Brad Chacos, senior editor of games and graphics at PC World. “They were still running their old Bulldozer architecture, which was a big gamble that didn’t pay for them.”
That failed them to play the second fiddle to Intel for years instead of PC, and the Jaguar processors within the PS4 and Xbox One were down-to-earth, power-efficient versions of that product that was already weak. So while game developers could top it off for that set hardware, it was still not possible to stick a candle to a well-built PC.
This year, as Chacos puts it, AMD is “firing on every cylinder,” with their latest Ryzen 5000 processors beating Intel across the board for the first time in a decade and a half. And since those chips also reside in PS5 and Xbox Series X – compared to the old Jaguar processors, almost tablet-esque in last-generation consoles – they can come a lot closer to the performance you would find in a good gaming PC.
It’s not just the processors and graphics, though. State-of-the-art drives, or SSDs, have finally come to consoles as well, providing the fast charging times we’ve been enjoying on PC for years. SSDs also allow for faster patch download and snappier speed travel, which are real quality-of-life improvements that have made previous consoles feel old and slow out of the gate. Put all that together, and the latest consoles look very similar to game PCs in terms of graphics capability.
To be fair, this year’s consoles are also slightly more expensive than their predecessors – $ 500 for the high-end PS5 and Xbox Series X compared to the $ 400 PS4 and Xbox One (removed after Kinect ). That higher price tag gives manufacturers a bit of wiggle room to introduce more powerful hardware – but Chacos notes that these consoles are still “values on half, ”especially since PC hardware is set to become a major hit in 2020 (thanks, Covid-19). $ 500 may be more expensive than last gen, but it’s a solid price for the graphic fidelity you get, and the digital PS4 hits that old $ 400 price point with the same performance as the $ 500 version. (While I would argue that Sony is offering that lowest price hopefully you will pay more for digital games in the long run.)