It appears that Sony’s current-gen console, the PS4 is about to get a considerable performance boost. Sony has announced that it will unlock the previously locked 7th CPU core on the PS4, a move that gives additional freedom to developers to make great games. Game developers can now use the power of the seventh core to make games far more optimized than before, bringing higher visual fidelity and framerates among other things.
Details about the PS4’s Processing architecture
Sony’s PS4 has eight processing cores, with six of them available to developers previously. The remaining two cores were reserved in order to run the operating system much more smoothly, but it looks like, with the unlocking of the seventh core, developers will be able to stretch their hands and feet much more comfortably.
How Exactly Was The Seventh Core Unlocked?
A ‘stealth update’ has allowed the opening of the seventh core, which will allow Sony’s PS4 to deliver even more performance in graphically intensive gaming titles. Analysts predict that in terms of processing power, the PS4 will now be more in line with the Xbox One. Developers had to make a lot of tradeoffs to have their games work at 60FPS or boast a higher resolution. With the latest update, game developers are sure to rejoice at the power at their disposal now.
It remains to be seen how much will future games development benefit by this move. Processing power won’t be increased by a sixth, since the 7th core will pull double duty on two fronts – for the OS as well as the games processing. Is it perhaps when another stealth update is released in the future for the eight core, will we see even more performance from the console.
So are we going to see more games that will look better than previous titles and run at a higher frame rate? Only time will tell.
How will it come more in line with xbox one when ps4 was already ahead of xbox one in terms of power ….and this opening of seventh core will just widen the already existing performance gap between XB1 &PS4.
If I’m not mistaken, the performance gap mainly exists due to the GPU and GDDR5 memory where the PS4 has an edge. If you’re talking about the processor itself then the Xbox One already has an upper hand against PS4.
Yes the clock speed of XB1’s processor is higher than that of ps4’s but I think 1 year before this, xbox also did something similar to this at the expense of some voice control features to come on par with ps4’s performance …. and now ps did it … so point is valid in terms of performance
Xbone had previously reserved memory and a dedicated 7 or 10% of it’s GPU power for the kinect which was previously bundled with all of its consoles. So it allowed that memory to be accessible by developers to get an extra boost as later on the dropped the idea.. In Short what they did was to minimize the graphical advantage PS4 has and due to the same reason xbox one had reduced the gap in 2015 games onwards..
Dear brother Omer – I appreciate your article and I hope you post more about the 8th generation gaming consoles but I would suggest the following:
1. The article headline is totally misleading. There are no stats or figures yet that would suggest how much improvements are observed.
2. “Sony has announced that it will unlock the previously locked 7th CPU core” – THIS NEVER HAPPENED. Please check again. It’s been revealed by a middleware the same way Xbone 7th core unlock was revealed.
Hope you write more articles in future! If you need help I’d be glad to assist.
A ‘stealth update’ has allowed the opening of the seventh core, which will allow Sony’s PS4 to deliver even more performance in graphically intensive gaming titles. Analysts predict that in terms of processing power, the PS4 will now be more in line with the Xbox One. Developers had to make a lot of tradeoffs to have their games work at 60FPS or boast a higher resolution. With the latest update, game developers are sure to rejoice at the power at their disposal now. Its been written accordingly.
I doubt you even read what I was talking about.. anyway never mind.
I did each read. Each reader is entitled to his own opinion and you have given your opinion.
You’re stupid. Sony never officially announced about their cores being unlocked.
Nothing to see here for the glorious PC gaming master race :v