Xbox and PS4 are both reportedly going to have half-generation upgrades in the next 18 months due to the rapid rise of 4K TVs and VR. Xbox's next console will be dubbed Xbox Scorpio while PS4's upgrade will be PS4 "Neo" (or PS4.5).
The two consoles will have disparities in power and performance, bringing a console battle between Sony and Microsoft. At this time, however, gamers can only base PS4 Neo's specs on leaked reports and Xbox Scorpio's on Microsoft's announcement video for a comparison.
To start with, PS4 Neo's processor is rumored to have a clock speed of 2.1GHZ, with 8 cores, and conceivably made by AMD. Xbox will also have an 8-core CPU although its speed and manufacturer is unknown at the moment. According to Trusted Reviews, an assessment by the recent form, and the reality of console makers relying on AMD and Intel only points at Microsoft's choice being AMD.
But the CPUs on Neo and Scorpio are not the real determinants of console performance. Rather, the GPU and graphics memory are the features that make a difference when it comes to 4K and VR performance.
For memory bandwidth, Xbox Scorpio and PS4 Neo will step up the game of the current standards to offer 6 TFLOPS, 320GBGB/s and 4.14 TFLOPS, 218GB/s GDDR5 respectively. Both will have 8GB of graphics memory although it is not clear in Scorpio's case.
According to Neuro Gadget, GPU floating point operations per second will see Xbox Scorpio overwhelm PS4 Neo by offering 6TFLOPS (6 trillion floating point operations per second) against 4.14TFLOPS. The difference between the two is parallel to the one between GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 970.
For memory bandwidth, another important factor when dealing with 4K and VR operations, Scorpio eclipses the Neo with 320GB/s compared to 218GB/s. The bandwidth in Xbox Scorpio is similar to the existing top-end GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card for PCs. It is, as such, possible that there will be a huge disparity between the two consoles in this department.
All the same, the big number in Xbox Scorpio does not necessarily mean that it will overpower PS4 Neo. This is because the current generation of PS4 is already handling VR with ease, even without any alterations of hardware.
Up to this point, Xbox Scorpio is the winner, but the credible comparison between the two will only become possible when all details are finally clear. Meanwhile, all gamers can do is wait for official information from Sony and Microsoft.
Here is the video comparison between Xbox Scorpio and PS4 Neo: