Next Gen Console vs This Gen PC graphics

[ThePuzzldPirate]

The main question is will the new consoles be more powerful then the current high end gaming PC's ?

No.

Not even close.

The key phrase there is "high end". A high end PC is several times more powerful than next gen console will be.

The funny thing is that most of that power goes to waste on a gaming PC since basically every game released these days is built around being able to run on console hardware, that being where the market is.

Mid range will likely still have more power.

OT: If you can wait it till the other consoles come out, I would grab a card than. With all the console finally up for specs, you will most likely see a jump on us for requirements on PC end since consoles usually set the bottom line.

 

[VeneratedWulfen93]

This makes me sad. I was hoping the next gen would make people consider console gamers as on par with PC gamers but it doesn't look like it will. Believe me I would play PC more if the only games I prefer on mine weren't RTS.

Consoles need a paradigm shift, something to keep them relevant, something groundbreaking and differant. Rather than just churn out a cycle of obsoletion I'd rather see an innovation than just carry on for the sake of money. Console gamers like me get shafted quite regularly and some put up with it(like me) while others get all pissy and buy a PC. Whereas a fair few of people i know are like me and seriously game on their consoles, too many simply buy CoD every year.

Either consoles need to change or console gamers are. At least if the mystic land of equallity in gaming I envision is but mere fantasy.

 

[veloper]

Certainly more powerful than the wiiU atleast.
A PS4 or a next box will prolly be a bit more powerful than the wiiU, but PC gamers aren't likely to require anything more powerful than a core i5 for a very long time to play the upcoming ports.

 

[mohit9206]

next gen consoles from sony and microsoft are going to be equivalent to $500 entry level budget gaming system of todays pc.
which means at launch they will be FAR FAR inferior to a $1000 gaming pc.

 

[Jfswift]

I doubt it. PC builds generally are stronger than the current gen consoles. Like, if Alienware were to make a console it'd be way too expensive and very few would buy it.

 

[Snotnarok]

Certainly more powerful than the wiiU atleast.
A PS4 or a next box will prolly be a bit more powerful than the wiiU, but PC gamers aren't likely to require anything more powerful than a core i5 for a very long time to play the upcoming ports.

Considering the next gen consoles are due out next year I imagine them being far far more powerful than the WiiU which has been said to be comparable to a 360, a 6 year old console.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

While looking for a new graphics card the thought that these may become obsolete when Microsoft and Sony release their new consoles came up.

Current Gen PC graphics card are already very high end but are limited in their capability by developers due to having to make the standards equal across all platforms. I think the current graphics tech in our consoles is already out of date since we can get almost the very same visual experience on the PS Vita.

The main question is will the new consoles be more powerful then the current high end gaming PC's ? It seems unlikely to me since I predict PC will catch up and pass consoles as it always does but the thought that Next Gen consoles having more powerful graphics card is an interesting topic for discussion.

Current gen consoles are 7 years old and their graphics are similarly strugling. Not enough RAM means tiny maps, horribly low-res textures and frequent load screens and 95% of shooters this gen are UE3 engine games. PC GFX cards are up to DX11 now, with tesselation, ambient occlusion and whatever else. Next gen consoles will have started being designed at least 1-2 (or more) years ago, thus on release (whenever that may be), will already be *at least* 1-2 years behind current gen PC graphics. If you bought a decent new PC gfx card today, it will be more powerful than next gen consoles.

It is really that simple. As console lifecycles are what they are, not to mention to the fact they have to be affordable (ie. < £200), their graphics (and other) hardware isn't near current gen enthusiast level PCs. The tragedy is that with consoles being the primary development platform, most publishers only sell console ports on PC anyway, so there's very little to take advantage of the extra horsepower.

 

[thesilentman]

Will the new consoles be more powerful than high end PCs today? No. PC technology is advancing faster than the console playing field, so I don't see anything beating out a PC at launch.

 

[Joccaren]

The main question is will the new consoles be more powerful then the current high end gaming PC's ? It seems unlikely to me since I predict PC will catch up and pass consoles as it always does but the thought that Next Gen consoles having more powerful graphics card is an interesting topic for discussion.

Is this even a discussion?
The answer is, quite simply, no. They won't have more powerful graphics cards. Even if they were to get a top of the line graphics card from the year of release into a console [Which they won't, that'd drive the price of the console to well over $1000], a PC could just install 3 of them and kill the console.

At launch I think we'll be lucky to see the equivalent of a 560Ti in them. Even at their time of release in another two years or W/E, I'm highly doubtful that they would be more powerful than a good PC built this year, even without PCs upgrading.

Also, what is this "PC will catch up and pass consoles as it always does" business. PC has never had to play catch up [Maybe in the really early days, but certainly not in recent times]. Upon release of a new console, PCs have been more powerful than that console for generations. Whilst some individuals might have had to upgrade a weak/old rig upon the release of a new console, people with a good rig from then or a year or two back would have been fine.

 

[Snotnarok]

Certainly more powerful than the wiiU atleast.
A PS4 or a next box will prolly be a bit more powerful than the wiiU, but PC gamers aren't likely to require anything more powerful than a core i5 for a very long time to play the upcoming ports.

Considering the next gen consoles are due out next year I imagine them being far far more powerful than the WiiU which has been said to be comparable to a 360, a 6 year old console.

le sigh...

Alright, first off: we don't know when the SonySoft machines are coming out. People assume sometime 2013, simply because the idea of both companies giving Nintendo anything more than a year's headstart is outrageous. However, neither company has released an iota of official confirmation regarding anything next-gen. It usually takes at least a year from when a console is announced to when it gets released. Nintendo had 2 E3 presentations, after all, before they released the console. If SonySoft do announce anything at the next E3, that would suggest a 2014 release period.

Secondly, the comparisons between the Wii U and current-gen consoles are unsubstantiated. It's got far more RAM, a higher eDRAM count, a GP-GPU several generations ahead... the only reason people keep saying this is because apparently the CPU is underclocked and a tri-core.

What never gets mentioned, of course, is that a lot of the CPU tasks in the Wii U are handled by the GP-GPU. Not only does that mean that the CPU doesn't need to be as advanced thanks to the workload taken by the graphics processor, it also explains why some of the ports have had issues. It's nothing to do with being 'comparable' to current gen, and everything to do with the fact that its architecture is completely different. If you've coded your game based on the assumption that the CPU will the computational processing, and you then quickly and cheaply port it to a console where the GPU handles a lot of the traditional CPU stuff, there are going to be issues. It's no different to how initial ports to the PS3 had abysmal performance issues, given the radically different nature of its CPU to the 360.

Lastly, there isn't a huge amount of evidence to suggest that the PS4 and 720 are going to be that much more powerful. The PS4 is apparently using an AMD A10 APU set up, which isn't exactly the highest of the high end. The 720, meanwhile, is apparently being developed with integrated Kinect 2 as standard. If so, then the cost of bundling a Kinect into a console will mean Microsoft will want to cut tech-costs elsewhere- most likely by not investing in the most expensive hardware they can find, and choosing more medium priced tech instead.

I could be wrong. But to me, that's where the evidence is pointing. Neither Microsoft nor Sony are in the same place they were at the start of this generation, and neither are in the position to take heavy losses on expensive graphics technology again.

I'm simply speculating
And all that extra power you're suggesting for the WiiU, I'm not trying to sound condescending or whatever but think real hard about what else the WiiU has on it. A second screen over a wireless connection, that's going to take up power much like the Wii was slightly more powerful just to compensate for the controllers but wasn't any more impressive than a Gamecube. It has to output video to that thing, even if it's compressed it has to be able to render it, and compress it and stream it to the device. Something that's never exactly been light on system resources.

Who knows in the end? I mean a lot of people still think that consoles output 720p at the very least when many games are less just slightly upscaled. Like GTA4 for PS3 isn't true 720p.

 

[Laughing Man]

As performance increased, so did the cooling requirements.

Sorry but that statement is factually wrong on quite a number of factors, in fact a very quick and easy example is my current system vs my last system. Q6600 and a 560GTX vs a Core i5 750 and 670GTX. The cpu in my older system had a higher TDP and the graphics card had a higher max temp on die with a bigger card and a bigger cooler yet my current system will stomp all over my last one. Performance does not mean you need more cooling. In fact if that were the case why is the new PS3 more powerful than the original yet a fraction of it's size?

The topic point is worthless anyway, the objectives behind the next gen consoles was not to hit the floor with the most powerful system what's the point when their are next to no console exclusive titles to show the raw grunt of your console? If all games will be launched on all consoles and PC and the development will be a simple case of making the game look and run as well as it can on the least powerful system then the objective for the next gen becomes meeting a few set standards, i.e 1080p and 30 or 60fps and then jamming as much extra stuff in to the console for the least cost.

The next gen consoles will be a price performance ratio factor why make a console that can stomp all over PC graphics when every developer makes their games for console first and THEN converts them to PC?

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

2) larger scale =/= good, nor does better hardware ensure greater numbers, case in point, the Dynasty Warriors series, bringing you 600 + NPC battle since >.> the PS1 maybe?

The original Dynasty Warriors was a 1v1 fighting game. The hardware wasn't powerful enough for what the later games would throw at us until the 6th generation.

Hardware limitations are why it took until this generation for us to get proper physics-based destruction engines and hardware limitations are why they're still not that great.

Honestly, there's a lot more we could do if we had just a bit more tech. You're probably right, though, we'll likely just get prettier pictures in ever-diminishing resolutions with just a few games pushing the tech for the sake of gameplay again.

 

[Darmy647]

While looking for a new graphics card the thought that these may become obsolete when Microsoft and Sony release their new consoles came up.

Current Gen PC graphics card are already very high end but are limited in their capability by developers due to having to make the standards equal across all platforms. I think the current graphics tech in our consoles is already out of date since we can get almost the very same visual experience on the PS Vita.

The main question is will the new consoles be more powerful then the current high end gaming PC's ? It seems unlikely to me since I predict PC will catch up and pass consoles as it always does but the thought that Next Gen consoles having more powerful graphics card is an interesting topic for discussion.

...Where in the bloody buttfuck are you people getting these wild ideas that a PS4, a Wii U, or even a Xbox 720 bullshit could even BEGIN to match a gaming pc? WHO THE HELL STARTED SPREADING THESE LIES?!

 

[Lunar Templar]

2) larger scale =/= good, nor does better hardware ensure greater numbers, case in point, the Dynasty Warriors series, bringing you 600 + NPC battle since >.> the PS1 maybe?

The original Dynasty Warriors was a 1v1 fighting game. The hardware wasn't powerful enough for what the later games would throw at us until the 6th generation.

Hardware limitations are why it took until this generation for us to get proper physics-based destruction engines and hardware limitations are why they're still not that great.

Honestly, there's a lot more we could do if we had just a bit more tech. You're probably right, though, we'll likely just get prettier pictures in ever-diminishing resolutions with just a few games pushing the tech for the sake of gameplay again.

ah, good to know, didn't know Dynasty Warriors was a fighter at first, i just kinda figured it was always a large scale brawler.

I'd rather like to be wrong about that whole next gen prediction thing, but i've got no reason to think other wise :/

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well it is physically impossible for them to be more powerful because by the time they come from research and development to the shelves it has been at least a year and more probably two so it's old tech by that point.

But what they can offer is bang for buck like no PC can, because it's all printed to a single board by one manufacturer with zero extras and they don't even mind loosing money on each unit because having the system completely locked means every single penny made on it goes through them afterwards.

 

[Folji]

No, they wont be anywhere close.

Thermodynamics (The thermal output of a high end GPU and CPU is very large compared to a 360) would limit them to around about 1/4 to 1/6 of the performance of the best GPU's of the time (2013/14 assuming a very low 25% performance increase for the next two generations) if MS and Sony pushed the boat out as much as they possibly can. They could get more if they spent a LOT of cooling ect. but we know that isn't happening (RROD anyone?). But they wont because neither can take that kind of expense on the chin considering they'd also need a hefty CPU to back it up anyway, further increasing the cost and thermal demands.

Isn't that kind of ignoring how different the GPU architecture is on a console compared to a PC? Sure consoles theoretically have a much greater cooling issue than a proper PC rig would ever have, but a console's GPU is still designed to focus all its power on rendering the game. That's all its power literally, just look at the Xenos chip in the 360; it's built to give everything it has in a way a PC GPU wouldn't be able to! More performance from less GPU stress is what's kept this console generation around so stupidly long, so who's to say next generation of consoles won't follow a similar suit?

 

[The Comfy Chair]

No, they wont be anywhere close.

Thermodynamics (The thermal output of a high end GPU and CPU is very large compared to a 360) would limit them to around about 1/4 to 1/6 of the performance of the best GPU's of the time (2013/14 assuming a very low 25% performance increase for the next two generations) if MS and Sony pushed the boat out as much as they possibly can. They could get more if they spent a LOT of cooling ect. but we know that isn't happening (RROD anyone?). But they wont because neither can take that kind of expense on the chin considering they'd also need a hefty CPU to back it up anyway, further increasing the cost and thermal demands.

Isn't that kind of ignoring how different the GPU architecture is on a console compared to a PC? Sure consoles theoretically have a much greater cooling issue than a proper PC rig would ever have, but a console's GPU is still designed to focus all its power on rendering the game. That's all its power literally, just look at the Xenos chip in the 360; it's built to give everything it has in a way a PC GPU wouldn't be able to! More performance from less GPU stress is what's kept this console generation around so stupidly long, so who's to say next generation of consoles won't follow a similar suit?

No, as the 360 has a HD2000 based GPU (yep, that's xenos, a precursor to a GPU architecture that was an atrocity until it was fixed up for the HD4xxx generation, and was absolutely roflstomped by the Nvidia 8 series), and the PS3 has an nvidia 7 series GPU. Nothing special, nothing unique, and were instantly surpassed by PC graphics cards

The thing to realize, and this is where theses kind of falsities stay alive (because people somehow don't think consoles are made by PC manufacturers), is that consoles are not the major target market for AMD/Nvidia. They will not spend money developing 'new architectures' for it. Same as the CPU aspect of it too, the reason both consoles have IBM based processors is not because IBM are amazing, it's because IBM aren't relevant enough in the CPU world to charge high prices (relatively) for developing the chips. AMD and Intel would laugh at anyone asking them to design a new CPU architecture just for console (Intel basically said 'FU' to microsoft with the 360).

The rumors are that the PS4 will use an AMD APU, which is fine as AMD already make them (albeit they're the low end). Same as the Wii U which uses an 'off the shelf' low end AMD embedded GPU. They'll never get anything that's not already in PC, because the PC is where the money is for those companies, why hamstring your target audience for the sake of selling a pitiful ~100m low profit chips over 6 years when the main target audience buys ~100m graphics cards every 2? So even if, say, microsoft spend a few billion to get AMD to make a new architecture specific to games that they somehow didn't already make (because we all know graphics cards weren't designed for that) AMD would instantly produce the new PC cards on that as well.

The reason consoles are still around is not because they're good enough, far from it. They're still around because marketing got its claws into people, and people suddenly start believing that what we have is all we'll ever get. Do you honestly think that this gen was somehow far more powerful relative to PC's than the ps2/xbox generation was? or the ps1 generation? When it's only this generation where PC components have increased dramatically in cooling requirements to the point the next gen consoles can never compete?

No, it's not the hardware being amazing, it's the marketing. I understand your confusion though, a lot of people have been spouting this for a while, unfortunately they have no idea what they're talking about >< A cursory look into what makes a console and how companies like AMD/Intel/Nvidia work demolishes the theory.

P.S. A 360 level PC plays PC games at roughly 360 level, it's just that no-one plays PC games at <30fps at 1280x720 The directx layer is a small hindrance, but we're looking at 10-20% tops in terms of like for like hardware performance in games. The glorified 'optimization' doesn't amount to much i'm afraid. I know that people like the idea that a console can somehow keep up with hardware 20x faster than it via some fancy coding, but it doesn't work like that. if it did, no-one would ever upgrade on PC since we could just rely on driver updates. But in reality driver updates provide around 10-15% more performance most of the time over the life of a card. It's not much better for consoles.