WOW the Eurogamer remember the "mythical Gran Turismo 2000" presentation for PS2.

So with the extra 4GB available to devs now, what graphical/performance improvements would that bring? Or will will we have to wait until the second wave for it to really be utilized?

Without changing nothing in the code they can use better quality textures... so the overall lock of the game is better. Now changing the code/engine they can do everything they wants with these extra RAM.

In the first wave of PS4 titles, nothing. Most PC games now don't even use 2GB of VRAM at 2560x1600, even less so at 1920x1080 - the target resolution for PS4. The 8GB of GDDR5 is such massive overkill because most PC games don't need more than 4GB of memory to run in the OS and 2GB for the game. But the actual game on a PC often uses just 1-2GB of total system memory, not 4GB.

PCs just have a lot more tasks running in the background an the OS / API overhead is very large. By the time games need 4-5GB of Video memory for texture data, the amount of GPU processing power in the 18 CU graphics card of PS4 would start to be pushed to its limit I think. I think 5 years into PS4's life, the console will start running into a CPU/GPU power bottleneck before it runs out of video memory. 

Even Crysis 3 justs uses 2GB of video memory and textures are the best out of any native (non-modded) PC game ever at 2560x1600. PS4's 8GB of GDDR5 memory is so future-proof now, it's no longer a worry for developers. Their job now should be tapping those 8 CPU cores effectively and learning how to utilize the compute features of GCN GPU for games. I would worry more about PS4's CPU long-term than any other component since it's still a tablet/low-end laptop CPU. PS4 has 16x the amount of memory but neither the CPU nore the GPU are 16x more powerful than PS3's.

With 8GB of GDDR5 over 176GB/sec bandwidth and 50% more powerful GPU, I just can't fathom how Xbox 720 will ever be able to match the graphics of PS4 when comparing exclusives. I think Sony hit a homerun on the hardware allocation side, stressing the GPU/memory bandwidth which are the most important components for high resolution graphics/textures and effects. Now all they have to do is deliver a great variety of 1st party games and have strong 3rd party support and this next generation might be theirs. Unlike PS3 vs. 360, it's becoming very evident that PS4 will be both the more powerful console and one easy to code/optimize for. Now all Sony needs to do is execute with the games and Xbox 720 seems redundant imo unless you really love Halo, Gears and Forza, in which case you can pick it up for $200 in 6 years :)

Do you, any chance, have data for Skyrim with those 8k texture mods?

@bluefalcon... which is why I think PS4 has always been 8GB.... 4GB for OS and background stuff (its pretty intensive) and 4GB for games. (see my other thread on that theory)

4GB is a lot just for OS and background stuffs... you can run Windows 8 plus zillion of apps with 4GB memory.

I think it's more like 2GB OS + 6GB Game.

Try playing a game while recording live video in HD and running skype in Windows with 2GB OS.

I thought game recording was CPU intensive? Or is that just a Fraps thing?

IIRC, Win8 takes around 800MB on configurations with 8GB of RAM.