PlayStation 4 Announced: PC-based AMD Hardware Inside
06:20 - Thursday 21 February 2013 by Jane McEntegart, Marcus Yam - source: Tom's Hardware US
Sony takes a page from the PC for its next-gen gaming system.
As expected, Sony used its PlayStation 'See the Future' event to show off the next generation of PlayStation, also known as the PlayStation 4. In a radical departure from the rather "unique" system designs that Sony's employed in the past, PS4 seems to be largely designed around existing PC technology.
Sony says that the PS4 has been in development for five years, which is a bit surprising as the PS4 is based on x86 architecture with 8 cores, an integrated GPU, and 8GB of shared GDDR5 RAM. Sony used the word APU, which gives us pretty good confirmation that it's AMD inside. The graphical portion of the APU is said to deliver almost 2 TFLOPS of performance. The 8GB of unified memory is shared between the CPU and GPU and supplies over 170GB/s of bandwidth.
For storage, Sony is relying on a "large" local HDD, so it seems that capacity is preferred over an SSD's speed. There's also a brand new DualShock 4 controller with a curvier shape, enhanced rumble capabilities, a touchpad, a share button, and a headphone jack.
UPDATE: More hardware specs:
Main Processor
Single-chip custom processor
CPU : x86-64 AMD "Jaguar", 8 cores
GPU : 1.84 TFLOPS, AMD next-generation Radeon™ based graphics engine
Memory GDDR5 8GB
Hard Disk Drive Built-in
Optical Drive (read only) BD 6xCAV DVD 8xCAV
I/O Super-Speed USB (USB 3.0) 、AUX
Communication: Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T) IEEE 802.11 b/g/n Bluetooth® 2.1 (EDR)
AV output HDMI Analog-AV out Digital Output (optical)
Wireless Controller for PlayStation®4 (DUALSHOCK®4)
External Dimensions Approx. 162mm x 52mm x 98mm (width x height x depth) (tentative, excludes largest projection)
Weight Approx. 210g (tentative)
Keys / Switches PS button, SHARE button, OPTIONS button, Directional buttons (Up/Down/Left/Right),
Action buttons (Triangle, Circle, Cross, Square), R1/L1/R2/L2 button, Left stick / L3 button, Right stick / R3 button, Pad Button
Touch Pad 2 Point Touch Pad, Click Mechanism, Capacitive Type
Motion Sensor Six-axis motion sensing system (three-axis gyroscope, three-axis accelerometer)
Other antiestéticatures Light Bar, Vibration, Built-in Mono Speaker
Ports USB (Micro B), Extension Port, Stereo Headset Jack
Wireless Communication Bluetooth® Ver2.1+EDR Battery
Type Built-in Lithium-ion Rechargeable Battery
Voltage DC3.7V (tentative)
Capacity 1000mAh (tentative)
PlayStation®4 Eye
External Dimension Approx. 186mm x 27mm x 27mm (width x height x depth) (tentative)
Weight Approx. 183g (tentative)
Video Pixel (Maximum) 1280 x 800 pixel x 2
Video Frame Rate 1280x800 pixel @ 60fps 640x400 pixel @ 120fps 320x192 pixel @ 240fps
Video Format RAW, YUV (uncompressed)
Lens Dual Lenses, F value/F2.0 fixed focus
Capture Range 30cm~∞
Field-of-View 85°
Microphone 4 Channel Microphone Array
Connection Type PS4 dedicated connector (AUX connector)
Cable Length Approx. 2m (tentative)