Sony has announced details about the architecture and technical specifications of the Playstation 4, which is expected to go on sale during the 2013 holiday season (November). The manufacturer claims that it has managed to create a home entertainment console that does not hinder the boundless imagination of game developers, but rather "stands out for its high performance and the ease it offers in game development.".
The PS4 is based on a powerful, custom-built processor, which integrates eight x86-64 cores "and a leading graphics circuit," the announcement states
The graphics processing unit (GPU) has been improved in various ways to allow it to be more easily used as a GPU for general purpose computing (GP GPU), such as physics simulation. The GPU incorporates an array of 18 units, which together offer 1.84 Teraflops of processing power. This power can be freely utilized for graphics processing, simulation processes, or both processes in parallel.
The PS4 is equipped with 8 GB of system memory (unified architecture), facilitating game development and expanding the available content. The memory is of the GDDR5 type, offering the system a bandwidth of 176 GB/second and giving an additional boost to the performance of the graphics processor.
"The end result for gamers is new games with rich, high-definition graphics and unique experiences that exceed all expectations," Sony promises.
In detail, the technical specifications announced by the manufacturer are:
- Basic Processor
Dedicated processing unit (Single-chip)
CPU: x86-64 AMD “Jaguar”, 8 cores
GPU: 1.84 TFLOPS, AMD next-generation Radeon™ based graphics processor
- GDDR5 8GB memory
- Hard Drive built-in
- Optical disc (read only): BD 6xCA, DVD 8xCAV
I/O
- Super-Speed USB (USB 3.0) AUX
Connectivity:
- Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T)
- IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
- Bluetooth® 2.1 (EDR)
Exits
- HDMI
- Analogue video (Analog-AV out)
- Digital audio (optical)
