Sony Unlocks Seventh PS4 Core, Gives it an Edge Over Xbox One
The tussle between PlayStation 4 and Xbox One for the title of ‘ultimate gaming console’ has been gong on for a while now, with no clear winner. Now, some new reports have suggested that Sony has quietly released an SDK that will boost Sony’s position over Xbox One in terms of graphics.
Apparently, out of the eight Jaguar cores that is found in the PlayStation 4, two had been reserved for the operating system and other vital console tasks. Now, if the reports are true, then Sony has opened up one more core to developers to work on more graphically detailed games.
In a similar move, Microsoft released an update for Xbox One last year unlocking more GPU bandwidth and another of the system’s cores, giving developers access to the event core. However, the loss of the seventh core meant that Microsoft had to sacrifice certain Kinetic performance like voice commands – a feature that was quite popular with the system.
Now, while tests reveal that the Xbox is slightly faster than the PS4, the latter dominates in frame rates and higher resolution graphics. Sony’s console features a 1.84 teraflop GPU, while Microsoft’s is 1.31 teraflops. With the event core unlocked by Sony, the GPU increases by 0.13, which can be used by developers if they so choose.
PS4 users won’t see major changes soon, and it will take a while before developers begin work on more graphically advanced games. Sony has managed to sell more hits of the PS4 than Microsoft has with the Xbox One. One of the reasons behind this is Sony’s decision to slash the price of the console around the world. We’ll have to wait for a weeks before we get a clear picture on Sony’s rumoured update.
