Report: Improved PS4 Called NEO, Upgrades Include CPU, GPU, RAM

For a while now, the rumor mill has been pumping out news about a new PS4. The upgraded console, dubbed the PS4.5 or the PS4K, would be a more powerful version of the console currently available, capable of running games at 4K resolution. Even with everything being said about the new system, we haven’t gotten much info on what these improvements may be. But, if this new report is to be believed, we may know now.

According to Giant Bomb, multiple sources have confirmed to them a few things about the system, internally referred to as the NEO. However, Sony has neither confirmed nor denied this information, and have not returned Giant Bomb’s requests for comment, so this could all be false information. We will update this story when we get more info.

So, the main thing learned about the NEO are the hardware upgrades. The new system will be getting upgrades to the CPU, GPU, and RAM. The CPU will still be a dual 4 core Jaguar processor, but running at increased clock speed of 2.1 GHz, as opposed to the current 1.6 GHz. The GPU will be an improved AMD GCN with twice the compute units, 36 CUs compared to 18, running at higher clock speeds, 911 MHz compared to 800 MHz. The RAM will still be 8GB of GDDR5, but with a bandwidth of 218GB/s, increased from the original 176GB/s.

The documents Giant Bomb received also say that, starting this October, every PS4 game will have to with two different modes: “Base mode,” which runs on the current PS4 hardware, and “NEO mode,” which makes use of the new NEO hardware. Games running in NEO mode will use the hardware improvements, as well as an additional 512MiB in the memory budget, to offer increased and more stable frame rates, and higher visual quality on games running at 1080p. The NEO will support 4K output, but it won’t require games to run at a native 4K resolution.

Sony offered suggestions on how developers can get their games to 4K, while still giving the devs some freedom on how they actually approach the problem. Sony also said throughout the documents the frame rate of games running in NEO mode should exceed, or at the very least meet, the frame rate of the game running in Base mode.

The NEO is not being designed as a replacement for the current PS4. The new console is designed to exist alongside the PS4, so both consoles will connect to the same store and online communities. Sony is also going out of its way to not split the user base of either console. There will be no NEO exclusive games, and developers are not allowed to separate NEO and non-NEO users on the PSN, nor are they allowed to offer NEO exclusive bonuses in their games. The only benefits the NEO will offer are the hardware improvements.

While every game shipping as of October will require both Base and NEO modes, games releasing in late September will require a day one patch to add NEO mode. The documents received note that devs are allowed to launch NEO ready games before the NEO is actually available. Any games that were released before late September can still take advantage of the NEO’s upgraded hardware, so long as the developer releases a patch.

So yeah, as of right now that’s all we think we know about the upgraded PS4. Again, some or all of this information may not be accurate, but we’ll see as we get closer to the release of the system and more info is released.

Source: Giant Bomb