The latest PlayStation 4 development kits still don’t look like the consumer units – that’s not likely to change until nearer the retail release – but they are – as far as we can tell – slightly different from the one that leaked a while back.
These images, dug up from the FCC filings [via] list the development kit as the DUH-D1000AA, with the FCC interested in its Bluetooth and 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi radios.
The development kit appears to house extra ports, and be substantially bigger than the consumer units will be – presumably to assist with cooling. The documents state a maximum clock frequency of 2.75GHz, although that could well refer to the PS4’s meaty RAM.
CrawFail
I really don’t get how modern processors are ‘clocked’. 2.8GHz isn’t much more than was available like 5 years ago. My mac is A 2.9Ghz Quadcore something or other. Does that mean its faster than a PS4? I don’t get it.
Alex C
The PS3’s Cell is more powerful than the PS4’s CPU, isn’t it?
Danny-c-2k9
I think it’s something to do with being a console, I paid £1500 for my iMac (3.2GHz Quad i5) with a good graphics card too but by the looks of it looks like PS4 will be loads better. I don’t think consoles need to keep any cr*p in the background, I dunno lol
ron_mcphatty
But isn’t it more about spreading the load around the system with cheaper components now instead of one meaty processor doing all the work?
teflon
Ah the Megahertz Myth, how I have missed you!
There’s a LOT of factors to take into account, but the “2.9Ghz” or whatever is just the biggest, shiniest number which they can plaster on the front, and people used to lap it up.
It’s all about what the CPU can do with each tick, though, and this is constantly improving. So a 2Ghz Core i5 from this year will be able to outpace a 2Ghz Core 2 Duo from 4 years ago, because of the improvements to the way it processes data. Additionally, programmers can then go and use specific new tricks on the CPUs which can speed things up even further.
So the Ghz really doesn’t matter without the greater context.
As for the Cell vs. this APU, that’s a trickier one. The new APU isn’t powerful enough to totally eclipse it, but the Cell is also a beast for processing very specific kinds of data, which is why we see it handling offloaded GPU functions, things which will now be handled by the GPU again, alongside things like physics.
Anyway, the CPU in Craw’s iMac is more powerful than the PS4’s CPU. Quadcore, octocore or otherwise. The PS4 is better balanced with CPU and GPU working in tandem, and as always, we’ll get a lot more out of it that an equivalent PC.
beeje13
A current quad core AMD cpu at 4GHz is slower (generally) than a current quad core Intel cpu at 3GHz. Not knocking AMD cpus though, they’re great value and their APU’s are perfect for the average user and casual gamer.
RoadRunner
It’s all about instruction sets, memory bandwidths, GPU shader counts and other stuff.
All you need to know, is that the PS4 totally kills the Xbox One in every single area.
It has 50% more GPU shaders, it’s memory is 70% quicker, the OS in the PS4 only uses 1GB, leaving 7GB for games, the Xbone needs 3GB, leaving 5GB for games.
Did I also mention it’s got user replaceable HDD, and is £80 cheaper…
beeje13
I’m guessing its the GDDR5 physical clock. As its dual data rate then effective clock is 5.5GHz, cheapest card on scan.co.uk with that clock was a 243 quid 7950 (It has 3GB of GDDR5). Looks like its not the cheapest GDDR5 either (not that its cheap anyway).
Might be the most expensive component of the PS4…
Tuffcub
I only need to know one thing: where they are. [Mimes pointing a gun].
No, wait, that’s Aliens.
I only need to know one thing: does it play bloody good games?
Yes it does. Numbers irrelevant.
OA77__
Can you fly bobby? hold on thats Robocop! yep if it plays bloody good games (there the best kind) ill be happy.
Adam Garrett
Even if this is related to the CPU clockspeed, the dev kit is likely to be clocked at higher speeds anyway due to the stuff it has to do on top of playing the games such as performance diagnostics.
bunimomike
The way I see it, is that a motorway is “clocked to” 70mph but that doesn’t stop them adding more lanes. Getting the cars closer to each other. Allowing them to change lanes if there’s a bottleneck, lengthening the vehicles so they carry more passengers, etc.
Basically, there’ll always be clever ways to maximise computer architecture.
ron_mcphatty
Good metaphor, well done! Now go and half a look for Volvo’s autopilot cars that do 70mph 6 inches apart. Robots are definitely worse tailgaters than humans :)
Kennykazey
Wasn’t it originally suspected to be clocked at 1.6? If so, this is a huge boost.
Kennykazey
Right,it is likely the APUs combined frequency, so CPU and GPU combined.