PS3 VS HIGH END PC

[JAG1977]

GT5 (GT Vision) indeed looks awsome, and it's a first generation game.

Likewise GTR2 also looks amazing.

The problem is I, and the vast majority of PC gamers , will not have a PC capable of running this game at max resolution/quality, but I will be able to experience 90%+ of that quality when it is released on the PS3, as it is slated to do so.

It's clear these days that the majority of PC owners also own a console, and as they increase there versatility, i.e. Xbox Live and Sonys 'HUB', plus an increasing number of features such as Blu-Ray, storing video, music, pictures etc. consoles will become more of an all round entertainment system, rather than simply a games machine.

 

[Facey]

😱 Look at this:
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/02/21/sony_playstation_3_faces_delays/

More detail:
http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/NewsSearch.asp?DocID=00000000000000000000000000004760&query=PS3

Can't be good. Looks like q3/4 before it will turn up in America, even later in Europe.

But look at the materials cost! 😱 $900 not including the HDD.

Add in other stuff that is in the box, like controller and other stuff, it could cost sony $1000 per ps3, which they will sell for $400. It will be interesting to see what price it sells for when it hits the shops.

 

[bourgeoisdude]

Let me admit outright I am completely 100% bias about this. Having said that--I hate Sony with a passion. I want to buy as many 360s as I can just out of spite. I will bribe government officials so that Sony will be boycotted by US officials.

Of course I am only kidding. However, I will not be buying a PS3. I haven't bought one sony product since the rootkit fiasco. I miss the old sony. My $100 Sony 1994 CD Boombox works flawlessly, and sound quality surpasses all others I have ever heard. My sister got a CD player for $200 it lasted two years. One example isn't enough to measure a whole company, but there are dozens of others I know who have had the same experiences. Don't even mention the word VAIO!

 

[Finneus]

PCs and consoles are two different beasts. The console games are created to work at one level of operation ( that of the console). Whereas PC games have to be programmed with much more scalability because not everyone has the same level of machine.
To say that a console is far superior is getting a little ridiculous and really depends on the type of games you play. I personally don't believe there is any game created that couldn't be run just as good or better on a PC (its all in the programming and hardware).
I have yet to find a good roleplaying or strategy game in a console that can outdo its pc offering or match the AI complexity that seems to get dropped when things are translated to a console. (CoD I think is a good example for a FPS).
here is an interview with John Carmack regarding PCs and Consoles and the whole performance issue in PC Gamer.

" The difference between theoretical performance and real-world performance on the CPU level is growing fast. On,say, a regular Xbox,you can get very large fractions of theoretical performance with not a whole lot of effort. The playstation 2 was always a mess with the multiple processors on there, but the new generations, with Cell or the Xbox360, make it much much worse. They can quote these incredibly high numbers of giga-flops or tera-flops or whatever,but in reality when you do straightforward development process on them, they're significantly slower than a modern high-end pc.
It's only by doing significant architectural work that you even have a chance of finding speed-ups to what a PC can do, let alone its theoretical performance. It's only only through trivial, toy, or contrived applications that you can deliver the performance numbers they claim.
The graphics systems are much better than that, though. Graphics have an inherent natural parallelism. The capabilities of the Xbox 360 and PS3 are really good on the graphics side- although, not head or shoulders above any PC stuff you can buy at a higher price point."

Now the higher price point does support some of your argument but it does seem to me like maybe a console is not as amazing as you think it may be. Just some food for thought.

I think Dastral made the best point regarding the whole debate anyway....lol, good one.

 

[Heyyou27]

ie R500>R520/580>RSX/G7x graphics wise (not talking speed).

That makes absolutely no sense; essentially the faster a GPU is, the better graphics it is capable of producing.

 

[Fantastic1]

Guys i write this article in order to hear everyone's opinion about this.Gaming and pc i think is a very expensive sport.I have spent many money till now for my pc just to play games and i still can't have the results i am looking for.The ps3 will be much more powerful than any pc that exists today and it will cost only the fraction of the cost of a pc.I personally think that PCs will need at least two years of development for their hardware to be comparable of that to ps3.And i personally think that PCs are not for gaming purposes any more we pay too much to get too little.I personally will use my pc only for internet and office and head for ps3.What do you all think about it?

I think you're stupid.

 

[corvetteguy]

you're perfect for this forum cause people only want to hear the main point, and i agree with you.

 

[rHy0]

Well at the moment im for PC cause of cool upcoming games like Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars 😀

 

[corvetteguy]

those do sound cool, especially the chernobyl one, its like: You have 2 hours to live and no way out, and only one goal, fill a giant burning nuclear pitt with concrete :!:

 

[pjbliverpool]

For this forum the answer is simple, XBOX beats current PC beats PS3.

ie R500>R520/580>RSX/G7x graphics wise (not talking speed).

Wanna debate that? Go ahead

Incorrect, a current single GPU top end PC has quite a bit more power that X360. The R580 is superior to Xenos in many ways - even ATI have admitted this. Spec wise, Xenos is around 7800GTX 512MB level which just happened to be the best PC GPU available at the time of its launch. Of cour if you consider dual GPU's, multiple Gigs of RAM and dual core CPU's, the 360 istn't remotely close.

Ps3, launching later against better hardware will fare even worse. Its clearly going to be inferior to a single 7900GTX system. but will we have G80/R600 by then? And what about dual cards? Or Quad? and the PPU? And the Skt AM2 X2's with DDR2 800?

Put it all together and PS3 won't even have 1/4 the power of the best PC you can build at the time of its launch. Of course it won't have 1/4 the cost either but then you get what you pay for.

 

[pjbliverpool]

It looks like the PS3 will indeed have to cope with G80's and R600's on the PC.

When you consider dual and now quad GPU setups aswell, that makes it quite comfortably the weakest console of the last 2 generations to launch in comparison to PC's of the time. Not that im saying PS3 will have bad hardware, its good enough to compete with the X360 well.

Of course by the time it launches there should be $250-$300 GPU's available for the PC with superior performance and features.

 

[cleeve]

MY MONITOR IS BETTER THAN YOUR CELL PHONE!

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

For this forum the answer is simple, XBOX beats current PC beats PS3.

ie R500>R520/580>RSX/G7x graphics wise (not talking speed).

Wanna debate that? Go ahead

Incorrect, a current single GPU top end PC has quite a bit more power that X360.

Nope, you're overlooking what I wrote and replying to what you perceive to be written. List the features/specs compare and rethink. Remember I specifically pointed out, NOT SPEED! Xenos>R580 for graphics, R580>Xenos for speed (except for perhaps the nice no penalty 4XAA [when possible, which is itself limited]).

The R580 is superior to Xenos in many ways - even ATI have admitted this.

Link, please?

Spec wise, Xenos is around 7800GTX 512MB level which just happened to be the best PC GPU available at the time of its launch.

Spec wise it's nothing like a GF7800GTX, that's the RSX in the PS3. No the best VPU/GPU is still the Xenos, has many feature the R580 still doesn't which is the best Desktop VPU. Here's some light reading for you from B3D about the Xenos, old news but should help you understand.

Of cour if you consider dual GPU's, multiple Gigs of RAM and dual core CPU's, the 360 istn't remotely close.

Multiplying cores increases speed, not feature sets (beyond AA), you obviously missed my stressing, NOT SPEED!

Ps3, launching later against better hardware will fare even worse. Its clearly going to be inferior to a single 7900GTX system. but will we have G80/R600 by then? And what about dual cards? Or Quad? and the PPU? And the Skt AM2 X2's with DDR2 800?

And what about all that, are you ignorant, did you miss my mention of this being about GRAPHICS noit X2 and DDR2-800 (PS there's faster already!)?

So once again, as it stands for simply processing the best graphics, regardless of resolution constraints or speed (to help those of you who didn't get that drift the first time)..... For this forum the answer is simple, XBOX beats current PC beats PS3.

ie R500>R520/580>RSX/G7x graphics wise (not talking speed or resolution).

The only thing the desktop VPUs have image wise is additional levels of AA to compensate for it not being done in software by the host system, and considering the power behind the console and new PCs that may be an overlooked benifit for multi-threading. If the game is laboriously coded even then the AA difference could be negated, but it's usually not worth it for developers.

EDIT: BTW, I prefer PC gaming, but I know what's out there. No doubt the Xenos will be bypassed by future technology, but right now it does have the feature advantage. But still the debate is pretty silly since it's debate 2 items that were purpose built for different things. They both just need to do that well, not compete head to head. If the Xbox360 had as many display options as a desktop VPU maybe it'd be built differently, but since it's primarily targeted ad SDTV/HDTV it has the benifit of focusing design on that, thus the eDRAM makes alot of sense.

 

[MarkG]

I think it's safe to say that overall the Xbox-360 and PS3 will be of similar graphics power to a decent PC, just as the Xbox was when it was released: from what I remember, the Xbox GPU wasn't put onto an AGP card for months after that release, so on paper it was probably faster than any available PC game card. CPU wasn't great but still decent, so it was really only lacking in RAM.

The problem is that today's decent PC is next year's low-end PC. And five years from now the Xbox-360 and PS3 hardware will be a joke, as the Xbox is today.

As others have said, the real issue is games availability. And, personally, I can only think of a couple of console games I'd like to play which aren't also available on the PC. So why would I want one?

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

MY MONITOR IS BETTER THAN YOUR CELL PHONE!

I don't know, rememebr THIS is my Cellphone (beside the old hunka junk Hell... err, Dell);

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

ie R500>R520/580>RSX/G7x graphics wise (not talking speed).

That makes absolutely no sense; essentially the faster a GPU is, the better graphics it is capable of producing.

You're missing my underlying point. What do graphics involve?
For producing the most life like image, is a 30frames per second (60 fields) TV broadcast of HockeyNightInCanada not better than a 1920x1440 100fps copy of NHL2006?

Speed alone doesn't make a better image, however I do agree that it is involved.
Is fast motion blur better than raw fps? Is a longer more complex shader better than simply increasing AA/Rez?

It's a tough debate if we get beyond defending examples, but when it comes down to it, the graphics (static image or motion) are better on the Xenos, however the speed of the R580 and it's AA levels may help make a more realistic feel depending on how well the game's coded, and what's missing to someone in their overall perception of 'realistic' or 'better (not necessarily the same time).

 

[Heyyou27]

I agree that the Xenos has some interesting features that are in a sense better than current desktop offerings, but if you actually see how these new features are being used, you'll realize they're simply are not. Quake4 for the Xbox360 is plagued with slowdown. Rumors had it that even games such as Elder's scroll 4 were having a hard time running on the 360. Wouldn't you think Xenos' shader architecture would finally be in use for later titles like Oblivion?

 

[hergieburbur]

Well, From what I hear, PS3 is looking more lke 2007 now anyway, which may render this whole discussion pointless.

 

[captaincharisma]

Why do you people always make topics like these when one side is nothing but specs yet. Stop these PS3 vs. whatever topics till you actually get to see it in action instead of speculating if it is better or not because these topics can just go on forever till there is any proof.

 

[Heyyou27]

Now that's probably the most truthful post in this thread.

 

[cleeve]

Damn.

YOUR CELL PHONE IS BETTER THAN MY MONITOR!

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

I agree that the Xenos has some interesting features that are in a sense better than current desktop offerings, but if you actually see how these new features are being used, you'll realize they're simply are not.

Agree 100%. for this sily debate, I've always said, When code for Consoles Cnsole SHOULD outperform a PC simply because it has non of the extre OS/Driver/Etc overhead, only exactly what it needs. However it's rare that we would ever get to that level, and even more so at the launch of alll this new (even to developers) hardware. Also half the time launch titles are PC ports anyways so even worse. If some way you could get 100% efficiency from day one for all the components of the Xbox, it would theoretically kick but of any PC for quite some time, but the reality is far from that point, heck I'd be surprised if we're getting 20-30% efficientcy from the CPU and 50% efficiency from the VPU.

Quake4 for the Xbox360 is plagued with slowdown. Rumors had it that even games such as Elder's scroll 4 were having a hard time running on the 360.

Funny thing is originally Oblivion was to have a few Xbox 360-only features based on the advantages of the Xnos, alot were dropped IIRC. Also I've seen previews about both versions saying Xbox>PC anthen the very next review PC>Xbox. So eventhey can't stop arguing.

Wouldn't you think Xenos' shader architecture would finally be in use for later titles like Oblivion?

Unfortunately no. Oblivion was too late to truely be fully optimized IMO, heck it was built on PC for PC and then adapted (probably very well though) for Xbox. It will add features unlike others, but developement time is so SO long I think you won't see a truely optimized for Xenos title 'til at least next year. Best if it's built from the groud up for the X360, maybe Halo3 or some similar "Xbox-centric PC as an afterthought" title will do just that.

 

[Acert93]

Great comments Grape, you very eloquently capsolize my thoughts from a broad range of console/PC comparisons and why they are weak/irrelevant, and the issue of launch software, and porting across the industry.

In a lot of ways we are in the golden age of PC and Console hardware. GPUs are well designed for their PC limitations (and DX10 solves a couple more problems) and we are seeing a 2x increase in power every couple years with increased complexity/features.

We have never had it this good 😀

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

I want it Better! 8)

 

[johncastle]

This is rather a pointless discussion but here are my thoughts.

Consoles are designed purely for gaming hence you can expect to have better performance in games then pcs. But there is one thing that is very important in performance comparision. That is the release date of the hardware!...

The GPU structure of the consoles are most of the time 1-2 years ahead of the current PC technology. Because the firms simply don't want the consoles to be outdated easily. So if you compare a PS3 and a high performance PC at the time of the release you will probably see that PS3 simply outperforms in games.

Some may say that this is stupid since the cost of the console and the fastest card on the market are nearly the same. But the point is the main profit in console gaming comes from the game sales instead of the machine that's why the profit on the machines is kept minimum.

Someone said GTA san Andreas is not as good as the pc version. Well the PS2 you are talking about is 5-6 years old if I am not mistaken. Can you show me any PC giving that quality 5-6 years ago(the best you got was gforce2 or maybe Gforce3 TI)?


But if you ask me what do you prefer? I definitely answer PC. First of all I don't paly games only . PCs are flexible, upgradable, customizable. Even if you are talking about only gaming mouse, keyboard and modding make me to choose pc.

Again it is pointless to compare the two other then gaming. At least that is what I think .