PS4 memory and ALU are considerably faster than Xbox One, developers claim [UPDATE]

PlayStation 4's memory reading and ALU is noticeably faster than Xbox One, developer sources have claimed, prompting a response from Microsoft.

The claims come from this Edge article. The site claims that developers have painted the difference between both consoles as "significant” and “obvious.”

Edge's sources are reported to have said that the PS4 memory reads between 40-50% faster than Xbox One, and Sony's Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) is around 50% faster than Microsoft's. The example given by the site stated that a "platform-agnostic development build can run at around 30FPS in 1920×1080 on PS4, but it’ll run at “20-something” FPS in 1600×900 on Xbox One".

One source also said that, “Xbox One is weaker and it’s a pain to use its ESRAM." Microsoft recently said that it had upped the console's clock speed, but another developer told the site, “the clock speed update is not significant, it does not change things that much. Of course, something is better than nothing.”

Apparently, both Sony and Microsoft have not finalised each console's form, and that both companies are working on new graphics drivers for each respective system. Microsoft is being slow in the matter, one source suggested and added, “that has been hurting them." Another source called the Xbox One graphic drivers, "horrible." Drivers are said to improve right up to launch however.

It's not all doom and gloom in the Microsoft camp however, as one source stated, “Let’s say you are using procedural generation or raytracing via parametric surfaces – that is, using a lot of memory writes and not much texturing or ALU – Xbox One will be likely be faster."

Microsoft has since responded to the claims telling Kotaku that Xbox One's architecture "is much more complex than what any single figure can convey."

“Ten years ago, you could argue that a console’s power was summed up in terms of a few of its specs, but Xbox One is designed as a powerful machine to deliver the best blockbuster games today and for the next decade," said the spokesperson.

"Xbox One architecture is much more complex than what any single figure can convey. It was designed with balanced performance in mind, and we think the games we continue to show running on near-final hardware demonstrate that performance. In the end, we’ll let the consoles and their games speak for themselves.”

What do you make of the above? Let us know below.

Via CVG.