According to an article posted this morning by Edge-Online, certain developers in the industry are claiming the PS4 is up to 50% faster than Xbox One, using adjectives such as “significant” and “obvious.”
Edge-Online claims their sources provided them with a basic example, one in which no system specific optimization was used. Strictly based on default settings, their source claims such a development build would run at 30FPS in 1920×1080 on PS4, but it’ll run at “20-something” FPS in 1600×900 on Xbox One. As one developer concluded, “Xbox One is weaker and it’s a pain to use its ESRAM.”
However, the same sources continued by saying the Xbox One is stronger in other areas than the PS4. Said one developer:
Let’s say you are using procedural generation or raytracing via parametric surfaces – that is, using a lot of memory writes and not much texturing or ALU – Xbox One will be likely be faster.
With how aggressive “fan boys” have become, expect these claims to start heated discussions – at best.
Before jumping on this train, remember these are anonymous sources. Also, determining console power and speed relative to another is very difficult, if not impossible.
Most developers would agree that the PS3 was the superior console last generation in terms of overall technology and graphical capabilities. However, nearly all 3rd party games looked and ran better on the 360 because the architecture of the PS3 was a nightmare to navigate. Ultimately it comes down to developers.
Don’t expect “power” and “speed” claims to slow down (pun intended) until post-launch of both consoles.