Yesterday was PlayStation’s 25th anniversary in the United States and there were rumors that players were in for a surprise announcement. They did get that surprise announcement…from Microsoft. Following a leak, the company decided to officially unveil the prices and release dates for the Xbox Series S as well as the Xbox Series X.
Priced at $299.99, the Xbox Series S is admittedly a great entry point for the average gamer. The digital console comes with lower specs than the Series X but still offers a next-gen experience with 4x the processing power of the Xbox One and the ability to support up to 120 frames-per-second, among other features. Add to that Microsoft’s Game Pass with the added free EA Play subscription, and it’s hard to ignore the value proposition here. However, it’s the console’s CPU that has our attention.
As pointed out by The Verge’s senior editor, Tom Warren, the Series S’ CPU is apparently on par with the PlayStation 5‘s CPU.
Microsoft has confirmed the Xbox Series S uses the same CPU as the Xbox Series X running at 3.6GHz. Yes, the Xbox Series S CPU is faster than the PS5
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) September 9, 2020
Xbox Series X runs at 3.8GHz (3.6 GHz w/ SMT). Xbox Series S runs at 3.6GHz (3.4GHz w/ SMT) so it’s .1Ghz faster or slower than PS5. It’s pretty incredible that the same CPU is inside a $299 machine. Interested to see how well this performs @ 1440p.
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) September 9, 2020
The PS5 houses an AMD Zen 2 CPU with 8 cores at 3.5GHz (variable frequency). How all of this translates into gameplay experience on each console remains to be seen.
Sony has yet to announce the price and release date for the PS5 but now that Microsoft has shown its cards, here’s hoping that we hear something soon.
