PS5 And Xbox Series X: Why I'm Looking Forward To The New Consoles As A PC Player

2023 Author: Sheila Hailey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-08-25 04:29

Around a year and a half ago, Nvidia presented its RTX graphics cards with Turing architecture. The biggest selling point of the new GPUs: ray tracing. The new hardware gave PC gamers the opportunity to use graphics technology in games with a reasonable frame rate for the first time.

Better shadow casts, incredibly sharp and realistic reflections in shiny surfaces and even more atmospheric lighting - we were all promised back then with ray tracing. The problem was that only a few games made use of the new technology. Somehow understandable, considering that only owners of a brand new Nvidia graphics card could use the function effectively.

In the video we explain to you how ray tracing affects games:

What is so great about ray tracing?

In addition to Battlefield 5, Metro Exodus, Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Control, there are few well-known titles that already use ray tracing.

But that's exactly what will change with the start of the new console generation. Both the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5 rely on a graphics processor with RDNA-2 architecture, which will also support ray tracing. Since it can be assumed that the new consoles will already sell millions of copies at the start, developers have a significantly greater incentive to implement ray tracing in their games. The user base is then significantly larger.

In other words, the new consoles ensure that we PC gamers can expect more games with ray tracing. And since AMD has already officially confirmed that their new RDNA-2 architecture supports ray tracing, it can be assumed that this will also apply to the next graphics card generation from the Nvidia rival.

Xbox Series X and PS5: expensive PC hardware at a moderate price?

Finally, Microsoft and Sony dropped the covers and gave us an insight into the technical data of the two consoles - and they are tough! Both models rely on potent hardware. The CPUs each offer 8 cores with a clock rate of up to 3.5 or 3.8 GHz, in addition there are a whopping 10.3 or 12 TFLOPS of GPU performance and 16 GB DDR6, which acts as working and graphics memory. The whole thing is rounded off by an 825 or 1 TB NVMe SSD.

Further information : PS5 vs. Xbox Series X in comparison - what are the differences?

At first glance, you might think that you simply have a brand new and extremely well-equipped gaming computer in front of you. But while you would have to spend more than 1,000 euros for a comparable PC system, the new consoles should only cost about half.

Can you assemble a gaming PC for 300 euros? We tried - this is our result:

Gaming PC for 300 euros?

Under certain circumstances, this also affects the prices for PC hardware. If a certain number of users refrain from putting together a gaming PC because "for half the money there is also the same performance in the form of a console", the demand and thus the prices decrease.

However, no one can predict how this market will develop in the future.

Consoles are holding back development? Soon no longer

One argument that many PC enthusiasts use to disparage the consoles is that the consoles with their weak hardware would slow down the technical progress of games.

With the new generation, this argument should also be void for the time being. Because while Xbox One and PS4 had already installed outdated hardware at the market launch, Microsoft and Sony rely on the latest models for the new models. The developers certainly don't have to "hold back" this time.

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It remains to be seen whether this will also be noticeable in a large graphic jump. However, one thing is certain: PC gamers can also look forward to the launch of the new console generation.

Note: The opinions expressed in this article represent the views of the author only and are not necessarily the position of the entire GIGA editorial team.