Everyone already knew the X1 was the weakest, this isn't 2013 xD

The point was... That the amount of resources you spend in order to obtain better culling has diminishing returns, the low-hanging fruit in regards to culling was picked many years ago.

You are right, tiled based rendering line is starting to be blurred as GPU's which are designed around Immediate Mode Rendering, can still do Tiled Based Rendering.
But there are still some fundamental GPU architecture differences. (I suggest you read up on the Kyro/Kyro 2 GPU's at Anandtech.) that give a native approach it's advantage.

Last generation the consoles launched with high-end GPU's, relative to the PC.
This generation... The GPU's in the consoles were only mid-range relative to the PC.

There has always been a power difference between Console and PC, with the PC in favour, but I don't think the difference has *ever* been this catastrophically massive, which is extremely depressing as developers tend to build games for the lowest common denominator. (Consoles.)

Direct X 12 isn't a magic bullet.
The Xbox actually has another API which allows for closer-to-the-metal made games with even more performance than Direct X 12, which was available since the consoles launch, it's just more difficult to build stuff for.
The Playstation 4 offers something similar, it uses OpenGL (Or a variation-of) as it's high-level API and a lower-level API for maximum performance as it's closer to the metal.
The reason why Direct X 12 was championed was mostly because of the PC, the PC had no low-level API like consoles for software to be built close to the metal... Direct X 12 helps to allow the PC get some Console-like efficiency whilst still retaining a degree of abstraction.

The Xbox One wins because developers who don't have the time/resources to build their games close to the metal will see some performance advantages. (Think Indie/low budget and games relying on 3rd party engines like Unreal.)
It was never set-out to change the Xbox landscape which many people thought it would.

As for DDR3, it does have a latency edge over GDDR5, it's not stupidly massive... But it is there.
However, GPU's love bandwidth, they can hide latency really well... And Graphics is what people see instantly when they see a game running, it is what helps sell games and it is why console manufacturers tend to focus on GPU performance rather than the CPU.

The CPU will gain a small advantage from using DDR3, on top of it's already high-clock speed, the result is that tasks which rely on the CPU will have a small  advantage, think: RTS games with hundreds/thousands of units on screen, the PS4's performance will fold quicker than the Xbox One in those scenario's.
Plus the ESRAM can also give the Xbox One a farther latency edge when data needs to be retieved from RAM.

In the end though, the faster CPU isn't going to be noticed in your graphics trailers or posters at Gamestop/EB Games like a better GPU would, which ultimately helps shift more consoles/games.

Has it ? If we look in the case of tessellation they just lowered a rendering time of 19.3ms to 11.2ms! (That's almost a 2x difference in performance.)

Well I kept on hearing from the media and other people about how DirectX 12 was supposed to be some revolution and that the Xbox One was just being held back by inferior APIs. I mean even with these benchmark results some people on other forums are still chanting "just wait for the first full fledged DX12 game". Some people just ignore reality. I mean there is fans that will always support their favorite no matter what but there were also people in the gaming media actually encouraging this line of thought.

GTX 680 would have been a better comparison. It came out in 2012 but sold 10m units so it was very popular at the time and could be found relatively cheap as it was already a generation old. Still would have smoked both consoles, just not by as much.

Perfect example of people taking liberties with the facts.

Wow. You seriously believe that? I knew the demographic on this forum leaned in a particular direction... But heck. You are the perfect example.

When the Xbox 360 launched in late 2005, it featured a GPU which was related to the Radeon x1900 GPU released around the same time, granted it had lower clocks and it's ROP's were cut in half... But it did feature a few improvements which would be later released in the 2900 series such as unified shaders.

The Xbox 360 had a high-end GPU, there were only a couple of PC GPU's that would be able to beat it on release. (Ignoring Crossfire.) and even then it wasn't a significant difference of 50% or more.

The Playstation 3 had the RSX, the closest PC GPU was the Geforce 7800GTX, but with half the rops and differing clocks, again only a few PC GPU's could beat it, and even then not by much. (Ignoring Dual-GPU's like the GX2.)

The Xbox One has a Radeon 7750 derived GPU, the Playstation 4 uses a Radeon 7870 derived GPU but with performance inline of the Radeon 7850.

The consoles also launched in late 2013, the Radeons they are based upon were released in early 2012, 20 months prior to the consoles being launched.
However...  The Playstation 4 had a "mid range" GPU because SINGLE GPU's were twice as fast on the PC, aka the Radeon 7970 GHZ edition.

But... It doesn't end there.
A month or two BEFORE the Playstation 4 launched... AMD released the Radeon 290X, which increased the lead even more, for the first time ever in console history... A console launched and the PC had GPU's which were 3x faster. With theoretical performance of 12x or more if you count Crossfire. Ouch.

So am I wrong? Far from it.

The PC doesn't need APU's, it has them, but it doesn't need them, but if you want PS4 levels of GPU performance, you need to go Discreet.
APU's don't walk on water and cure cancer... It doesn't explain the answer of the universe either.

The PC has something better. - Discreet hardware.
At every feature size, say 28nm you have an "optimal" amount of transisters you can spend before things like yields and heat/power consumption start to get in the way, with an APU you are stressed for resources as the CPU and GPU need to share a fixed budget.

The bonus of an APU though is cost, perfect for a cheap cost sensitive device as you don't need to buy and package a heap of different chips and you can have minimal PCB layers due to less traces.

But hey, if you think the PS4 could beat a high-end PC in 2013... I want what you are having.

Whatever. lol
http://venturebeat.com/2015/04/22/video-games-will-make-91-5b-this-year/
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-01-26-pc-trumps-mobile-console-in-booming-usd61bn-digital-games-market
https://opengamingalliance.org/press/details/global-game-software-market-forecasted-to-reach-100-billion-in-2019

They all say otherwise.

What? You make no sense.

The Playstation 4 does not have the Direct X API. No playstation console has and no playstation console ever will.
It's hardware is compatible with the Direct X 11+ feature set, but it doesn't have the software side of the equation and not even the drivers in the console would have Direct X calls anyway.

Game engines also tend to support a myriad of API's.
For example... Unreal Engine 4 supports Direct X 10, 11, 12, Vulkan, Open GL 3.3+ and above all at the same time and can switch between them all. But on the PS4 it will never be able to use Direct X for obvious reasons.

If you can find proof that the Playstation 4 uses the Direct X API... I will eat my hat, otherwise... It's rubbish.

You obviously have no idea how memory latency is calculated. - I did the math on this for everyone a few years ago, which is 100% accurate, here it is again.

Latency for RAM is calculated in terms of clockrate, so with that in mind... Here is some examples.
DDR3 1600mhz memory, that's 800mhz IO, which has a typical CAS latency of 8, that means it has a latency of 10ns.
DDR2 800mhz memory, that's 400mhz IO, which has a typical CAS latency of 4, this is also 10ns.

Now with GDDR5 the data rates are 4x faster than the IO clock instead of 2x, For example: 5ghz GDDR5 is 1.25ghz x4 and would have a CAS Latency of 15.
15/(1.25 GHz) = 12 ns

Yes. The Xbox One has less bandwidth, that isn't up for debate, why bring it up when I reinforced that point beats me... But one thing is for sure, the Xbox One does have a 20% advantage in RAM latency alone, with that said... If you were to peruse the likes of Anandtech or Toms Hardware or any other PC tech website and look at RAM benchmarks... You will see that Latency usually has a very minimal effect on gaming as Intel have a myriad of technologies to hide latency. - I suggest you do some reading up on Intel's tech they used in the Core 2 processors to hide latency.

I have lumped it all together because you are just picking at it and it's all essentially the same anyway.

Now. ESRAM is not a "seperate memory module" it's essentially a cache.

Now... Hang on a moment whilst I educate you on caches..
The main reason for the existence of caches is so that the CPU/GPU are not tasked to wander all the way down to RAM to fetch Data, why?
Because RAM has less bandwidth and higher latency than L1/L2/L3/L4-ESRAM/EDRAM.
When a CPU/GPU cannot find the data they want in the L1, they go to the slower and higher latency L2 and so on.
If the data the CPU or GPU wants is in the ESRAM, it will access it there over system RAM because it's a faster, lower latency cache, otherwise what would be the point in having ESRAM? If it was just as fast and had the same latency as regular RAM, they wouldn't bother including it.

As you know, developers actually do have a surprising amount of control over what and when data goes into the ESRAM/EDRAM if they so desire, does it mean everything the CPU/GPU want's will be ESRAM? Well. There are no guarentees, not every game is the same.

Here is some information on how ESRAM/EDRAM can be used: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6993/intel-iris-pro-5200-graphics-review-core-i74950hq-tested/3


You are right that CPU performance has "peaked" all the largest gains to increase performance have already been taken... But. That's for Intel.

AMD CPU's however are pathetic in terms of performance.
All 8 Jaguar cores in the Playstation 4 would be roughly equivalent to a Dual-Core Core i3 Haswell at about 3ghz, remember that AMD's fastest struggle against even Intels' low-end and mid-range parts, AMD's lowest-end parts are even more laughable.

I would like for all console manufacturers to take CPU performance seriously for once, but graphics is what sells, people like their shiny things.

Need more data than that to see how much they actually managed to cull though.

Well Xbox 360 and PS3 were really powerfull when they released thanks to pc devs like epic games pushing companies like MS to make the console strong. Even pc magazines were impressed and the first year(s) their was hardly any talk about those consoles performances untill crysis but that was a beast of machine to play it.    With PS4/Xbox one it feels different you don't need a beast of a machine like you did back in time for crysis and the tagline 1080p 60fps is for the gamers was comical because that's what pc gamers considered as the bare minimum, we are only a few years in this generation and their have a bunch of games released on both consoles that don't do that bare minimum while playing those games on 1080 60fps don't need a beast of a machine they only one if they want to play thos 4k games.   Just ask somebody who got Rise of the Tomb Raider on pc. personaly I don't care so much about graphics and power but their are other limitations that consoles 'still' have that bother me so much...

In ALL cases of of their testing, DICE was able to get speed up on EVERYTHING! In the base case without tessellation they were able to get a speed up of 20% while culling 78% of the triangles of what looks to be a modified scene from the Winter Palace in Dragon Age: Inquisition ...

Even more so for the Fury X since it's heavily skewed in it's compute/fixed function ratio ... 

I don't understand people, sometimes lol :)