Friday, January 13, 2006

Xbox 360 vs PS3

Hey everybody, as I stated before in a previous post, I am a huge fan of videogaming and the console wars are heating up again for the "next-gen". Unless you've been living under a rock for the last few months, you already know that Microsoft has already released its next-gen console known as the Xbox 360. If you know this then you probably know how hard it was to find this past holiday season. I wasn't lucky enough to find one before Christmas but my luck changed on New year's day when I finally got one of my own. The games I've played look incredible running on the system and they should considering the technology under the hood.
The Xbox360 is running a triple core CPU, each core running at 3.2 Ghz. This is significantly faster and more powerful than even some of the fastest gaming PC's on the market today as the fastest CPU available for PC's is a Dual-Core setup. Microsoft partnered with ATI to create the systems GPU or Graphics Processing Unit. This chip operates at 500 Mhz and is even more powerful than ATI's most powerful chip the Radeon X1800 XT.




To the right is Sony's upcoming contender in the console wars, the Playstation 3. Sony seems to think that the key to winning the console wars is power and the PS3 is no slouch in that department. Sony has even gone on record saying that their console is twice as powerful as the Xbox 360. These claims are supported by the fact that the PS3 has a seven(!) core CPU with each core running at 3.2 Ghz dubbed the "cell" by Sony. It is also powered by a 550 Mhz GPU, created by Nvidia and dubbes the RSX. The two of them claim that the chip is more powerful than Nvidia's current powerhouse, the 78oo GTX.

I will leave it up to you to decide which one is better, but personally, I give the edge to Microsoft in this console war. At the moment, the PS3 is scheduled for a Spring 2006 debut, but I don't believe this date will be met. At the moment, besides Metal Gear Solid 4, none of the PS3's big "games" have been shown running in real time on the PS3's hardware. They have all been shown as "visual target" demos.
The Xbox 360 is in my opinion the better system and I strongly believe that it has the best chance of winning the console wars. The games I've played have all been great, and have some of the best graphics I've ever seen on a console (just look up the game Project Gotham Racing 3 and take a look at some screen shots). Another advantage is Microsoft's unified online service called Xbox Live. This gives gamers a universal nickname friends list and more features than you'd find in Sony's online services.
I'll be back to add more on this later on so stay tuned.

No comments: