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Cyborg13B on 06 April 2013
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I'm somewhat pleased with the direction Playstation 4 has taken. Let's take it by subjects:

1. X86-based CPU processing
That was a very logical choice. What a bad move - giving the Playstation 3 a PowerPC-based architecture, given the fact that everyone uses X86. Everyone everywhere likes this, because it makes programming exponentially easier. Plus - the X86 is better at DirectX and OpenGL shader calls, at the same clock-rate. It is way better at operating system procedures at any clockrate. Thus - allowing for a 1.6 ghz clockrate - half the PowerPC. Virtually no heat distribution.

2. Useless hardware
The blu-ray drive is useless. Doesn't visibly impact the video game. Plus - 8.4 GB for a DVD is enough for most games - probably 95% of games. The 8 GB of RAM is useless - it would take 6 minutes to load a game with that much data. 2 GB makes more sense - 1.5 minutes, and is enough for 95% of games. 8 X86-based CPUs are useless. There's no way to use 8 CPUs efficiently in in-game conditions. 2 would serve for 95% of games. Playstation 4 could easily cost $275.00 if those features were deleted.

We're in the big leagues now! 1.84 TFLOPS performance. That's a lot. Playstation 3 had at best 300 GFLOPS. A TFLOP supercomputer basically - meaning in 2000 - that could've been a super-computer. 2-3 billion transistors.

Plus Playstation 4 is intelligently designed. The x86 processing is one component. Another component, is the asynchronous move engines. That certainly helps to move data far more efficiently - while the game is running. Another - the 32 MB SRAM on the GPU, which allows for unbelievably massive geometry rendering, and free 2x AA at 1920 x 1080p, even at 60 fps.

Plus - there's likely a vector co-processor in the CPU design we're not aware of - another massive improvement. All said and done - 100% utilization of the available hardware in the best way - that's unheard of. It's main weaknesses are:

1. The Blu-Ray drive. Not necessary. Especially a BD-XL one. A 8.5 GB DVD is enough, and far cheaper then a regular Blu-Ray drive. Games would look identical.

2. 8 CPUs. Hard to utilize 8 separate CPUs! Takes expert programming. 95% of games will use at most 2, and it would make no visual difference.

3. 8 GB RAM - hard to load 8 GB of data. Would take 6 minutes. 95% of games will only use 2 GB, and it would make no visual difference.