Microsoft boosts Xbox One GPU clock speed

The latest in the series of many changes to the Xbox One since its announcement is an increase in its GPU performance. Although the hardware in the Xbox One is more or less identical to the one in the PS4, due to differences in tuning it is theoretically slower compared to its Japanese rival.

With the update, however, Microsoft has reduced the gap, albeit by a small amount. The GPU in the Xbox One was originally clocked at 800MHz but Microsoft has now confirmed that it has now been increased to 853MHz. This makes it 6.5 percent faster than before in theory but it is still slower than the PS4.

Even though the PS4 is still more powerful than the Xbox One, it is best not to read too much into the numbers. Technically, the PS3 is also more powerful than the Xbox 360 but that difference never actually showed up in the games. The PS3′s convoluted development process coupled with developers choosing to optimize their cross platform games for the lowest common denominator (which was the 360 in that case) meant that the Xbox 360 was not just on par with the PS3 in terms of real world performance but often bit better.

The same could be true for the Xbox One and the PS4. Although the PS4 no longer has the same complex development process thanks to the use of mainstream x86-64 architecture, developers are still likely to optimize for the Xbox One since it is the weaker of the two and few will take the time to tweak their games to take advantage of the PS4′s more powerful hardware.

As such, Microsoft choosing to increase the hardware performance of the Xbox One is not just good news for Xbox One owners but PS4 owners as well.

Source