We now have preliminary specifications of both the Microsoft Xbox Series X (XSX) and Sony Playstation 5 and it's time to do a quick analysis of their graphics capabilities. Before we begin, a primer: this article is based only on the information released by both companies and their execution and handling of said release. Nothing is presented as the gospel truth for you to believe, all facts and arguments are given clearly.

Sony PS5 vs Xbox XSX specs comparison and graphics analysis

The build-up to the Microsoft XSX and Sony PS5 specification reveal has been littered with a litany of rumors and leaks and on an absolute basis, both consoles have delivered a resounding increase in power levels from the last generation. The Sony PS4 featured a graphics horsepower of 1.84 TFLOPs and the Xbox One featured 1.40 TFLOPs in the S variant. Both companies have delivered a speedup of 5.54x and 8.58x respectively - which is a huge achievement and will undoubtedly result in some spectacular gaming fidelity.

Another interesting trend we saw during this iteration of consoles is that while the current-generation consoles were already obsolete (in terms of graphics horsepower and at the time of release) when compared to PC GPUs, next-generation consoles have narrowed the gap to the point where they are within spitting distance of high-end graphics cards on the market. This is a very welcome trend because it will allow hardcore PC users to consider consoles and shift to the medium without compromising on visual fidelity. Expect the Total Available Market (TAM) of consoles to increase.

Here is where things get murkier though, while Microsoft's reveal was excruciatingly clear, succinct and allowed third-party testers like Digital Foundry to get closeups out, I found the Sony Playstation 5 reveal to be somewhat lacking in clarity and almost, deliberately vague. My primary pain point was when the Sony PS5 was advertised to ship with 10.3 TFLOPs and then the words "variable clock rate" were uttered in the same breath. This, as many of you have guessed is misleading (the magnitude of which depends on a couple of things discussed below).

So what is all the ruckus about? Well, TFLOPs are a very commonly used metric for maximum computational throughput. Theoretically, this allows you to see the maximum potential of any GPU when used in its entirety. TFLOPs are a function of the following: [Clock Speed * 2 * Stream Processors / 1000]. In the case of the next-generation consoles, which are based on AMD's RDNA which in itself uses CUs or Control Units, the equation becomes [Clock Speed * 2 * CU Count * 64 / 1000].

You can now see why clock speeds and the actual hardware specifications (how many control units a GPU has) both play a very big role in how much graphics power a GPU has. With Microsoft, we know that the GPU has 52 CUs (for a total of 3328 stream processors). We also know that the GPU will have a stable clock speed of 1.825 GHz and is fabricated on TSMC's '7nm Enhanced' or N7P process (this gives us further information about what to expect). This also tells us that we can absolutely trust Microsoft's calculation of 12.1472 TFLOPs (1.825 * 2 * 52 * 64/1000).

On the other hand, the Sony PS5 has something called a variable clock rate. What that means is that the console will not run the GPU at 2.23 GHz all the time. Since Microsoft's clock is a static number, just because PS5's clock rate is variable makes the 10.28 TFLOPs number uncomparable to the Xbox Series X and misleading. This is because XSX is displaying the "sustained TFLOPs" figure while PS5 is displaying the "peak TFLOPs" figure. To give you some context, when the industry uses the term TFLOPs, it is usually referring to the sustained TFLOPs figure.