PS4 VS PC, wrong. PS4 = PC, Discuss

[J Tyran]

Hardware manufacturers are already in a rush to outpower the PS4, the PS4 having 8GB of GDDR5 and two teraflops of computing power is nice right? Well Nvidia just dropped the GTX TITAN, a GPU with 4.5 teraflops and processing power and 6GB of RAM. This would obviously be pared with a fast CPU and 16-32GB of system RAM.

Sounds nice right? Sure but just the GPU will set you back £800. [http://www.novatech.co.uk/promo/nvidia-titan.html] The next gen consoles will be friendlier on the budget for the first third or so of the generation.

I wouldn't pay $1000 for a GPU if I were a billionaire.

Its an extraordinary price for a GPU, I cant remember many being that price in recent years. Its good news for us though, price drops on the previous bleeding edge bits and pieces and GPUs like that will be £200 or so in 18-24 months or so. I cant say I wouldn't pay that much if I was a billionaire though, if I was that lucky/resourceful I would probably go to town and build a £10k+ machine just because I would have to have one.

 

[Entitled]

It's not the architecture that separates console from PC, but the functionality.

The biggest differece is PCs being an open platform which allows for more flexibility and diversity.

And the second diference is the different gameplay paradigm that results from the difference between games designed for staring at a TV from a couch with a controller in hand, and for crouching over a monitor at a desk, with a keyboard and a mouse at hand.

 

[bobajob]

Integrated GPUs suck balls when it comes to raw performance, & at least in PCs are strongly discouraged if you intend to try to play a AAA game on one. Because they suck so hard.
This also means any RAM used for rendering & textures etc. has to be subtracted from the total amount available to the system for general use, unlike with a dedicated GPU.

How is sticking one in a machine designed to, durr, play AAA games a good idea?

I would rather have a big lump of a machine that plays smoothly, than a streamlined gadget that struggles to run stuff on medium settings. But that's a debate for another thread......

My £400 GTX 680 does everything fine ATM, running literally anything at max, 1080p at solid 60FPS(I use an older card for separate physX processing for supported games). Anything more is ridiculous.

Cue the flame wars....

 

[Atmos Duality]

Except that every console is a model computer, while PC is completely amorphous in comparison.

Console hardware starts out on plateau or at parity with PC, then quickly falls into obsolescence.
It's only market forces and popularity that keep mainstream gaming developing primarily for consoles.

Same shit, different year.

 

[Christopher Fisher]

Well, not really...will you be able to upgrade that ps4 three years down the road? No, so while the launch games for the PS4 will looks more or less comparable to PC games, those PS4 games are gonna look like crap compared to the games released on PC post-PS4 release.

It's not all about shiny graphics. Better hardware allows a lot more that. How about bigger and more immersive free roaming worlds? Or bigger levels in linear games so we don't always fight in narrow corridors. Also, bigger multiplayer maps with more players etc.

And? I don't get what the point of that was. Like I said, I already have a PC that can do all those things, and I would rather use that $500 to go towards buying better PC hardware rather than buying a PS4. I might get a PS4, but at the moment, I just don't see any reason for doing so. The only real reason I could have seen for doing so are console exclusives, but with the PS4 being literally nothing more than a PC with a proprietary OS, I have a feeling that console exclusivity will be a thing of the past (first party games excluded and like I said, I don't really like most Sony published games).

 

[PJGlenn]

Flexibility and diversity are what players love about their PC's and also what the gaming industry hates about them. Consoles are not meant to compete with or match PC's in hardware at all, consumers decide on the console based on the games, not the interface or the specs, those who truly care will continue to tweak their PC's and ignore the consoles. Who will succeed in the console wars will simply be determined by who has the most widely compatible platform and most importantly the largest game library; hence the longstanding success of the PS2. Arguments as to whether a PC is better or not, whether your console is like a computer or not are completely irrelevant, as the only question that matters is "how good are the games?"

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

How is sticking one in a machine designed to, durr, play AAA games a good idea?

Consoles don't work the same as PC. Of course the GPU is integrated. What did you think? That you can remove it and replace it with another one? Everything in a console is integrated. That's how they work.

 

[Antari]

So now we know what the insides of the new Playstation will be. There is becoming even less of a distinction between consoles and PC's. The Playstation is a PC in a custom case running proprietary software. I will not be surprised if the new Xbox does not tread a similar path.

So the story of the next of "consoles" will be that they have tried so hard to copy the functionality of PC's that they have pretty much become PC's.

No its still PS4 vs PC. You see the Xbox360 is basically a Pentium 3 450mhz by inital design so this isn't exactly new. Keep in mind PC's can be upgraded easily and cheaply. Consoles cannot. So they are by no means equal just yet. And good luck hoping Sony will let you run anything that they don't approve on it. The PS4's design is down to the fact that Sony can't afford to do anything other than build a system out of currently available parts.

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

Even if they're becoming more PC-like, which makes sense in this age of ports and multiplatform games, they still aren't up to PC standards. The PS4, even if it is absurdly powerful compared to the current generation, is still miles behind actual enthusiast-level PC hardware.

As it's always been, consoles will be about convenience and ease-of-use, not about pushing the limits of hardware capability.

 

[gorfias]

I have a I7-2600K with HD7970. This is good stuff. I don't think my PC can do this stuff as it does not have 8 Gig of DDR5 RAM:


I love all gaming stuff: tablets to cell phones, PC and consoles. I'm as excited as hell about this.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I'm confused. In all of the threads there are some people saying that it's on par with current high end PC's. Then there's some saying that it's a little bit weaker, then there's others saying it's way behind...

Which is it and how is there this much discrepancy?

 

[MorganL4]

I'm not buying that analogy somehow...

Just because the power gap has been narrowed, doesn't mean the next gen of consoles will be anymore like PCs than the last gen.


Hell, the power gap is already widening, and the console isn't even out yet, and with no way of upgrading the thing, it'll only get worse.

Yeah, this basically..... I mean they announced 8 gig of DDR3 RAM..... Which is great by current standards. What about 3 years from now? Right now we are in 2013, DDR4 is expected to release in 2014...... So right out of the gate the RAM is going to be outdated, and it is the most modern aspect of the console (as best I can tell so far)

Im saving up to build a Gaming rig with a price tag of 2k.... it is gonna have a hex core 64 gig of DDR3 2TB HD and a solid state for my dual boot OS set up..... I will be making that build in about 3 months....

 

[The Madman]

I'm confused. In all of the threads there are some people saying that it's on par with current high end PC's. Then there's some saying that it's a little bit weaker, then there's others saying it's way behind...

Which is it and how is there this much discrepancy?

PS4 is the equivalent of a pretty good gaming PC but it's not cutting edge.

PC Gamer did an article where they wanted to see how much it would cost to assemble a computer with the equivalent specs of the PS4, and ultimately came up with a cost of around $600 or so. Mind you a console will have improved performance over the equivalent PC since it's a closed system dedicated purely to gaming as opposed to a PC and all its myriad uses and background programs, so the PS4 WILL have better performance than the equivalent PC, but even so it's not the best tech available today.

PC-wise I'd say wait a few months after the release of the PS4 and by that time a computer roughly twice as powerful will be available at a reasonable cost. The technology already exists and is available but it's pretty damned expensive.

 

[Drewmeister11]

A computer is constantly upgrading. PS4 might be as powerful as the most powerful computer or, solely for the sake of argument, let's say it's better. A year down the road, do you think it will still be as good as the best computer? How about 5 years? Sooner or later, unless Sony comes up with a way to keep upgrading the graphical powers of their machine, it will become outdated. This is true with pretty much every console.

And while you can argue that Sony is making sure the PS4 can perform multiple functions other than play video games, in that respect it will NEVER be like a PC. You can't use programs on the PS4 that they don't specifically allow you to use, so you'd never be able to get the type of software you'd like to use (like, for example, the Adobe suite or Microsoft Office). The PS4 is for entertainment, pure and simple, and comparing it to a PC is just ridiculous.

 

[J Tyran]

Integrated GPUs suck balls when it comes to raw performance, & at least in PCs are strongly discouraged if you intend to try to play a AAA game on one. Because they suck so hard.
This also means any RAM used for rendering & textures etc. has to be subtracted from the total amount available to the system for general use, unlike with a dedicated GPU.

How is sticking one in a machine designed to, durr, play AAA games a good idea?

I would rather have a big lump of a machine that plays smoothly, than a streamlined gadget that struggles to run stuff on medium settings. But that's a debate for another thread......

My £400 GTX 680 does everything fine ATM, running literally anything at max, 1080p at solid 60FPS(I use an older card for separate physX processing for supported games). Anything more is ridiculous.

Cue the flame wars....

Actually they don't suck balls at all, obviously they cannot match a discrete GPU but they do a pretty adequate job. During my last build I had some problems and had to RMA the GPU, but I was able to play Battlefield 3 at medium specs using the Ivy Bridge 3570k HD Graphics 4000 while I waited for the new card to arrive. Medium specs look a bit shitty compared to high or ultra but medium looks kinda like BF3 does on the XBox 360, so perfectly playable and not that bad in fidelity.

The GTX 680 is overkill for running games at max in 1080p, my old machine thats been relegated to a back up rig with a Radeon HD 4890 can run any PC game apart from Metro 2033 at full specs. PC games just aint that demanding atm.

 

[Mirroga]

PC can play older games. PS4 better take notes and keep/make all units be backwards compatible. Because I seriously do not want to invest on a company who can't support their older works without the possible aid of cloud or the internet. Not every person's PS3 is connected to the internet, especially mine.

 

[Sejs Cube]

Can I spot upgrade my PS4? Can I get into the guts if I so wish and directly access game files? Can I go online and download mods that might drastically change my gameplay experience? Until I can freely and openly access the system side of the crap that I already own, no a PS4 is not a PC. A PS4 is a PS4 and a PC is a PC.

 

[DoPo]

I'm confused. In all of the threads there are some people saying that it's on par with current high end PC's. Then there's some saying that it's a little bit weaker, then there's others saying it's way behind...

Which is it and how is there this much discrepancy?

PS4 is the equivalent of a pretty good gaming PC but it's not cutting edge.

Yeah, what he said. It's good but not high end and certainly not bleeding edge when it comes to gaming. It's also about equal to a high-end-ish non-gaming PC. That's hardware-wise, though - the performance of a console can be optimiseddue to the constrained nature of the hardware. On the other hand, PCs benefit from Moore's law so raw productivity is always going up and the cost of that productivity is always going down. Consoles are a bit like the Protoss - highly evolved and highly efficient but slow while the PCs are like Zerg - capable of more morphing just maybe even just zerg rushing more computing power at a problem.

 

[Waaghpowa]

It's obvious that consoles are losing their distinction between conventional PC's (Personal computers) in a hardware sense, but they're still not "PC's". When the day comes that a Playstation X is capable of completing the same tasks as my desktop as well as play games, they won't actually be Pc's.

 

[Arina Love]

Just recently i've entered in to PC gaming and here is my problem with pc. So i bought pc for effing 1000 bucks and i bought games with it among those games was far cry 3. Thing is i can't effing play the damn game it's gliching out on my constantly glitching out on me driver failure warnings and fps in 10ths after 5 minutes of 60FPS. I bought PC out of necessity because my old one died, i don't have time to d*ck around with drivers and troubleshooting because i just can pop a game in to a console and be PLAYING the damn game. In all of my gaming life with consoles i never encountered a game that was not be playable. With PS4 i'm sure glad that they made it easy to develop for, it's best of both worlds, PClike structure without all PC shit.