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Best answer: The PlayStation 5 will pack a custom Radeon Navi GPU that can support 8K resolution and ray tracing. It is unknown how many teraflops of computing power it will have.
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PlayStation 3 vs PlayStation 4 graphics
It was notoriously difficult to develop for the PlayStation 3 because of its CPU, and though this was apparently the case on purpose so developers would be challenged to push its limits, that didn't make it a good thing. Sony used the RSX 'Reality Synthesizer' capable of 400 gigaflops (0.4 teraflops) for the PlayStation 3's GPU and a custom eight-core Cell Broadband Engine for the CPU, which also carried some of the graphics-related work that the console performed. This architecture was completely different from the PS2 and required a significantly greater amount of effort to develop for.
Sony opted for a CPU and GPU that was much easier for developers to work with in the PlayStation 4 — a custom AMD Jaguar CPU and an AMD-based graphics card used in Radeon processors. The same strategy looks to be in place for the PlayStation 5.
What graphics card does the PlayStation 4 Pro use in comparison?
The PlayStation 4 Pro currently uses an AMD Radeon GPU with 4.2 terflops of computing power. Games can render at 4K resolution and 60 frames per second (FPS), though not usually at the same time. More commonly you'll see a game support 4K 30FPS or 1080p 60FPS. 4K resolution is also commonly checkerboarded, meaning it's not native 4K but it gives the illusion of it.
What's a teraflop?
To make a complicated question and answer simple, a teraflop dictates how fast a graphics processor is. The more teraflops a console's GPU has, the quicker it can perform operations and translate that to the graphics you see on your screen.
The PlayStation 4 Pro boasts 4.2 teraflops of computing power while the Xbox One X has 6 teraflops. These are both the most powerful consoles on the market for their respective companies. A standard PS4 has 1.8 teraflops and a standard Xbox One has 1.3 teraflops. Rumors place the PlayStation 5's GPU power at anywhere between 8 and 12 teraflops, though these numbers are not confirmed.
What is 8K resolution and ray tracing?
PlayStation's Mark Cerny, the architect of the PlayStation 4 and upcoming PlayStation 5, said that the PS5 would support 8K resolution and ray tracing in an interview that gave us our first details on the mysterious machine, but that may not mean much of anything if you don't already know what those are.
8K resolution refers to a game's visual details and sharpness of an image. It is four times the resolution of a 4K image, and 16 times that of a 1080p image. 8K images are capable of showing detail that otherwise would not be possible on a lower resolution.
Ray tracing is a rendering technique that improves visual fidelity by modeling how light interacts with and travels through virtual objects in a 3D environment to make it look as realistic as possible. Currently, the technique is almost exclusively used in blockbuster Hollywood movies.
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Games already look phenomenal
PlayStation 5 games will look better than ever thanks to an updated GPU, but PlayStation 4 games are nothing to sneeze at. PS4 has some of the best looking games on console already.
