PS5 graphics BEATEN by Xbox Series X in shocking left-field analysis

A new leak says the Xbox Series X graphics will be 30% more powerful than PS5

PS5 PlayStation 5 Xbox Series X
(Image credit: Microsoft | ConceptCreator)

The Xbox Series X and PS5 specs have both been revealed to the general public. Although there’s plenty to shout about on both consoles, including advanced next-generation ray tracing, spacial audio and solid-state drives. However, one noticeable difference was in the raw graphical power of each console: the “Teraflops”. 

While the Xbox Series X is known to put out over 12 Teraflops, the PS5 is only capable of putting out 10.3 Teraflops. While it doesn’t look like much of a difference, and power is only one aspect of overall graphics performance, one source states this will transfer into a huge gap between the two consoles. 

 Tech analyst and news outlet Notebookcheck reported that the gap between the Xbox Series X and PS5 graphical capabilities would likely result in Microsoft’s console being 30% more powerful than its Sony rival. The outlet published the following as part of a comparison between the two consoles;

“Sony’s claim that high clockspeeds offset its meagre shader allocation on the PlayStation 5 doesn’t hold water when Navi overclocking results are factored in. 

“Due to non-linear performance/clock scaling, the likely performance deficit between the two consoles is in the 25-30 percent range, which may have a major impact on 4K performance.

Halo: Infinite

Will games like Halo: Infinite's graphics top anything the PS5 has to offer?

(Image credit: 343 Industries)

 When scaling the graphics of consoles up to high resolutions like 4K, which is only possible with next-gen technology, the PS5 is said to lose out by up to 30% graphical performance. Despite the initial, much smaller-looking gap between the two consoles in terms of Teraflops, Notebookcheck claims PS5 will be on the back foot when it comes to high-resolution gaming.

There’s a lot of contention around this as the console world can become very tribal, almost like competitive sports. However, in the race to top each other with increasingly immersive gaming experiences, there’s only one winner in the console war: gamers, who get incredible next-generation experiences no matter which camp they choose. 

What the hell is a Teraflop?

Please forgive the Back To The Future reference. Much like Gigabytes and Terabytes in terms of data storage, a TeraFlop is a unit of performance measurement. It refers to one trillion (tera) floating-point operations per second (flop). 

Each floating-point operation is a calculation made by the console. So for example, the PS5 is capable of making 10.3 trillion calculations per second when a game is being played.  

Liked this?

Matt Evans

Matt Evans now works for T3.com sister brand TechRadar, covering all things relating to fitness and wellness. He came to T3.com as staff writer before moving on, and was previously on Men's Health, and slightly counterintuitively, a website devoted to the consumption of Scotch whiskey. In his free time, he could often be found with his nose in a book until he discovered the Kindle.