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Sony may consider 2x GPU power for PS4.5/PS4K, launch in Q1 2017

We have been hearing a lot about the existence of a PS4.5/PS4K hardware refresh from Sony this last week or two but we hadn't heard much about exact specifications until now. According to the latest rumours, Sony is currently considering building a new PS4 with a GPU that is two times as powerful as the one found in the current PS4, a higher tier CPU is also being considered though it could drive up the price a bit too high for Sony's liking.

This information comes from a post on NeoGAF from someone claiming to be present at meetings with Sony discussing plans. This person's identity has been ‘verified' by NeoGaf's moderator but obviously, they have remained anonymous to the rest of us.

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The post says that the GPU is twice as powerful as a standard PS4 and this would push the price of the PS4 to $399.99. However, a more powerful CPU is also being considered right now, which means the PS4K or PS4.5 could end up costing as much as $499.99. The launch is apparently scheduled for Q1 2017 following an announcement prior to the release of PlayStation VR. 

Other interesting bits of information include a 4K Blu-ray player and higher performance for PlayStation VR. There are also a few games already in development planned to take advantage of the new hardware including God of War 4, GT Sport, Deep Down, and Eve: Valkyrie. These games will have “significant” differences on the standard PS4 compared to the new one but the games will still run on both systems.

KitGuru Says: While this NeoGAF poster did have their identity verified as someone who could have access to this information, it all still seems a bit shaky at the moment so this should definitely be seen as a rumour. It will certainly be interesting to see if the PS4 continues to have such strong sales if this information catches on. 

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56 comments

  1. The beginning of 2017 will be awesome, i can’t wait to get a PS4k and a 4KTV.

  2. It seems this ps4k is how Sony wanted the ps4 to be begin with.

  3. Yep, definitely Zen or Excavator APU with Polaris.

  4. Excavator would be stupid shit.
    Maybe Sony really should just release the PS5 in two years as an APU with Nova and Zen+ and 64 Gbyte of Nextgen Ram.

    I think that’s possible.

  5. Eh? what? Were people only expecting a gpu only 1.25 times as powerful or something?

    Just busting yer chops =D

    Really though, it won’t be enough horsepower for the amazing 3d games coming. 2x the 260 is not enough power scotty, I need more!

    The best 3d cards on pc, already struggle in ultra hd. But who would buy a 1000$ console? So yeah… PC MASTER RACE FTW!

  6. 2X GPU = AMD R9 390

  7. lol… i’ll buy my second gtx980ti instead….

  8. You will hugely disappointed. Even with x3 the gpu power, PS4K won’t play 4k AAA games…

  9. Good luck Sony. Your PS4K would cause some pissed people big time and you are not going to achieve 4K, even barely in Super Mario and Pokemon. Interestingly I do 4K 30FPS with my GTX980 at most games i tested at high texture detail – that’s abot 5 TFLOPS (or about 3X the power of a burning PS4).

  10. I won’t be disappointed at all, $500 dollars for a mid range gaming system that has a 4k blue ray player. 3 year cycles are gonna be perfect going forward and won’t hold technology back.

  11. May be a good thing for us pc gamers, Less sh!tty console ports!
    Might annoy a lot of console owners though, I think it would certainly annoy me if I owned one of the new ones.
    The whole idea of a console is you buy it and are set for the life of it, Everything guaranteed to work on it.
    Now it’s turning into a pc with upgrade cycles, May as well just build a gaming pc that you can plug a new gpu into every year if you wanted to.

  12. 3 year cycles is about the time some people upgrade their PCs. By 2017 you will have AMD’s Polaris gpus, which would be considered a next gen mid range option for upgrade your pc at a lower price than buying a new console. You can find blu-ray players on amazon for cheap. However what’s the point? You can get games digitally…
    As you wish…you still pay way more in a long term than you would even with an additional upgrade on PC platform. It hurts to throw big pile of cash at one time but hey it’s very much rewarding after you have it all set up.

  13. It will be worse than Polaris if not then barely pushing a mid range version

  14. That is still there case. The PS4 you bought will continue to work as it always has done playing all the new games at the same quality for the rest of the gen. It makes no difference whether the PS4.5 releases or not if you stay put on the launch model.

    And no, it is not the same as building a gaming PC. It comes prebuilt and works with all new games within that gen. The reason why PC ports are not matching up to your expectations is because devs have to make the game compatible with multiple hardware specs and that dilutes the efficiency of the code, trying to please everyone all at once. The inefficient code is running your PC at it’s max.

    Sony only have two optimisations that the devs will have to make and those are tied together within a closed system. Big difference when it comes to code efficiency. Devs claim a PS4 is 60% more powerful than a PC with comparable hardware spec. PC also wastes power because it’s a general purpose machine with a heavy OS running multiple tasks in the background that have no relation to gaming.

  15. I’d be happy if performance in previous games increases, I sold my PS4 to my sister because of the abysmal amount of FPS spikes in most games, ah well, it’s her problem now lol

  16. It won’t be 4K gaming, just 4K multimedia with a 4K optical drive and upscaling games to 4K. Console gamers don’t need 4K. We have 1080p TV’s so we need 1080p solid 60fps with all the eye candy turned on. A lot of PC gamers have spent a lot of money achieving that. PS5 will be 4K gaming when we have replaced all our worn out 1080p TV’s with 4K TV’s.

  17. You PC gamers make me laugh. The master race just doesn’t get it. PC’s don’t have a gen. All PC gamers update at different rates. You keep jumping on the console gen bandwagon and start overlaying PC power like some sort of measuring stick.

    It doesn’t work like that. Consoles are measured in generations with each generation improving on the previous. Each gen brings a huge upgrade that we appreciate. We don’t look at the PC to make a judgement whether it’s good enough, we look back at what we had and enjoy the fact that games are now full 1080p detail with zero screen tear and no blurred AA.

    Same happen when websites are comparing PS4 and XB1 like two street cars and a PC smart ass buts in and says “My F1 race can beat your two cars in a race.” Durrr I think that’s obvious and it’s not the point of the comparison. We are comparing like for like within the same market and you guys are just posing with superior hardware. Gloating serves no purpose. Many of us are on console by choice.

  18. It won’t be, full Excavator core is faster than the Jaguar in PS4’s APU. I said Excavator because the article says release for Q1 2017 and I’m not sure if AMD can produce enough APUs with Zen by then.

  19. bad news for ps4 owners who might have considered psvr but now wont as it will be a second class experience if the GPU is indeed 2x the power. boo sony.

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  21. Me too buddy! This is really exciting stuff! 🙂

  22. I have a feeling this is going to be a game changer for Sony VR? I think PS4.5 will help with up scaling the images we see? Now imagine driving a car in Gran Turismo Sport with that VR headset on and 3D sound. I can only imagine it is going to be absolutely epic; I haven’t tried it myself but I imagine us gamers are going to shelve our TVs for gaming?

  23. It will as Sony will be up scaling. They have found a way round this problem as they did with the Sony VRs “120 FPS”. People would have said no way to that too once upon a time.

  24. Well put buddy!!!!

  25. And it is your choice entirely. Also it is not all about the hardware, but also about features. It’s good for you to just plug it and play, but gamers also love to tinker around with graphics, textures, mods and build up on the fun of the games. You probably have never done this since you dont want to bother dealing with all kinds of errors, glitches and breaking the game’s engine completely, like i did in skyrim, that now even cows fly around.
    Anyways, what id tell you – If i have to pick a side between friendly use and features, i guess id choose to have all the features humanly possible and all the friendly use out of the window…and so it is another reason why im sticking with Linux. Games sure work great, some have problems, but im used to all this.
    I know some of it sounds ridiculus, and the only thing you would probably want is to go home, press the button, put the disk in and play, if that’s the case great for you, stick to it.

  26. Probably won’t be needed, but will be a better experience. Probably will make the difference between supersampling and not supersampling.

  27. valgarlienheart .

    As a primarily PC gamer this is very exciting, a lot of naysayers will say ‘it won’t be able to play AAA games’ but I can’t see why not.

    If a 270X can run GTA 5 in 4K on PC then an optimised console game with an APU of near or similar power could do it. We know the XB1 isn’t very powerful on paper but it still managed great visuals for Rise Of The Tomb Raider because of great optimisation whilst needing a GTX 960 to match on PC.

  28. Sony is making a pc with fixed specs, upgrading every three to four years for a console.

  29. “2x the 260 is not enough power scotty, I need more!”

  30. i prefer consoles games cause i want to turn on and play not have to update this and that and go through obstacles just to play a game

  31. i got a 50″ 4k samsung tv from walmart for $698. i would like my games upscaled to 4k with more effects and better lighting.

  32. Lol yea ok

  33. I’m picking up both so problem solved

  34. Just because there’s 2 versions of PS4’s doesn’t changed that, my PS4 i have now will still work fine.

  35. PC FTW LMAO!! keep dreaming buddy.

  36. I cant wait to demand a free upgrade from my ps4 to the 4.5 or its xbox one time. I don’t buy consoles to upgrade every couple of years. If I wanted to upgrade ever couple of years id stay with my pc.

  37. yeh a large portion of the 41 million people that bought a ps4.1 will stay well clear.

  38. lol a 270x plays 4k gta 5. must be low fps game you play lol. My gtx970 g1 gigabyte card only just playes gta v with everything on ultra if I over clock it and that’s a 300 pond card nmot a budget 270x. I certainly cant play 4k gta without turning down a lot of settings and even then gurr.

    Go wathc these
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ3GcmtkvAo
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdrORYLuypg
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAahjdwfbRw
    Now tell me with a straight face that you can play gtav nicely on a 270x

  39. I cant and don’t wana ber spending 500 dollars every 3 years on a ps not when my desktop already does the same thing lol. Itll be one or the other and not both, why on earth would you think its acceptable? I’m guessing your young and you love freemium games, you probably payed for the full ultra battlefront and you probably have no idea what games used to be like before the mobile world screwed it up and screwed everyone out of their money for basicly what used to be free flash games lol.

  40. the master race is I suppose someone that uses a pc and a ps4 and a xbone, I only have 2, most of my friends only have two. Or you say master race cause you think itll improve how you look to the forum, instead of a dick telling people with pcs they suck.
    Consoles are popular cause you don’t need to upgrade them, you start putting in a upgrade like the 4.5 ps then I guarantee you numbers will drop big time in future console sales not just ps either, this has the potential to harm the console market.
    The biger issue is if sony do this and they get the reaction I think they’ll get then they’ll love significant profits, something sony cant afford to take a change on this time round.

  41. haha me too.

  42. ouly problem with pc gaming is gona be microsoft, they already screwed us over with games for windows, they also forced pc desktop games to go exclusive on the xbox, so that’s a big finger from microsoft and now they want to come back to the pc gameing world and try games for windows all over again. No wonder valve has started trying to support Linux with steam gaming. Hell I get it microsoft cant be trusted. When you think that both xbox and pc use direct x and gaming code is reliably the same baring controls and extra graphic stuff, its obvious they don’t have our best gaming needs at heart.

  43. if the game son ps4.5 have a faster fps or better graphics then I’m angry cause I would not have bought a ps4 knowing that, id have not bought a console at all.

  44. Wow that would be a lot of heat and noise, your better with some 980s or titams, a lot quieter and youll save a lot of money on electricity all while getting better fps.

  45. Ya u should definitely stick to ur pc, better yet go munch on ur xbone lol.

  46. valgarlienheart .

    http://www.tweaktown.com/tweakipedia/83/grand-theft-auto-benchmarked-1080p-1440p-4k/index.html

    I’m not saying you’ll get a locked 30fps but it can average over 30, especially with the console settings. Naturally 60fps is a wild dream. As I said before we all know that consoles have amazing optimisation, look at rise of the tomb raider, you need something like a 960 and i5 to match the xb1 visuals which should blow the xb1 away on raw performance.

  47. Demand? Who the f### do you think you are? If I was to guess you are single, and go through life moaning about everything. Funny thing here, you are going to be buying one of these upgraded consoles “full price” as much as you are going to try and say it won’t happen. Why would you be here otherwise; it is because you are interested in this new hardware. And as for your previous comments; do adults really use “lol”?

  48. “Freemium games” sound like they are errrrrm free and of top quality; are these new? 😉

  49. at 16nm. so it can reduce wattage 2x than current 390.

  50. ps4 using cat core. cat core using in ps4 were use 1st before amd selling cat core to pc. so we can expect APU zen

  51. I think PS4K is for people who don’t have a PS4. For example, if I am buying a PS4 mid-cycle, I’d like the option of a more powerful version. Also, it means the original can drop in price to $249-299.

    As far as 980Ti SLI goes, sell the 980Ti now because GP104 is launching soon and like $330 970 did to $700 780Ti, it will crater the resale value of the 980Ti. Also, like 980Ti OC > 780Ti SLI, same will happen with Pascal GP100 > 980Ti SLI.

  52. Polaris will have performance of a 390/390X with 2.5X less power usage.

  53. 14nm of R9 390 version

  54. Nice advice… but nah, rocking my second 980ti now… for 30%off, GP104 or whatever it will be called will be expensive at launch and the drivers may not be good on the first few months.. 980ti is not maxed even out on its potential, driver wise… I only upgrade my PC every 4-5 years.. the last system I got was an i7-950 and a GTX670 in SLI.. so I squeeze every blood out of my system before ditching it out. I think i’ll be sticking with my i7-6700k and dual 980ti’s for now… at least for the next 4-5years again…

  55. Yeah when Raja declared to Ryan Shrout we’d be surprised and then later on getting pretty firm confirmation Polaris is not going to have HBM (1 or 2) for that matter, we can be pretty sure they are about to wipe out the entire 300 series with Polaris line ups that give the same or little bit more performance at cheaper launch prices and much much lower TDPs. That’s where the main sales are going to be and AMD is just following that money.

  56. aquaticApe aquascape

    No 4k blu ray drive piece of shot