[Rumor] Upgrade PlayStation 4 Codenamed Neo

Published: April 19, 2016 9:44 AM /

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PS4 feature

Giant Bomb published a ton of details regarding the heavily rumored upgraded PlayStation 4. They say that they have confirmed details with multiple sources and NEO will have upgraded RAM, CPU and GPU capabilities. Digging into the technical specs the NEO's CPU will contain 8 Jaguar cores running at 2.1 GHz as opposed to the original PS4's 1.6 GHz. The GPU will be seeing an even more significant uptick in power going from an AMD GCN with 18 GCU's running at 800 MHz to an improved model with 36 GCU's running at 911 MHz. It will still contain 8GBs of DDR5 RAM but the RAM clocks in at 218 GB/s as opposed to the original PlayStation 4's 176 GB/s. 

One feature that will make many gamers breathe a sigh of relief is that starting in October all PS4 games will ship with a "Base" mode that will allow the game to be run on the original PlayStation 4 system. The reports emphasize that there will be Neo exclusive games. However, starting in October all games will also be required to include a NEO mode that will take advantage of the increased horsepower. No price has been officially declared but it was previously reported that it would be selling for $399, the same price as the PlayStation 4 was at launch. 

The NEO's increased power will be used not only to bump up visual fidelity but to maintain higher frame rates at a stable level while outputting gameplay at 1080p. The NEO will also be capable of outputting 4K resolutions but this is likely upscaling as even bleeding edge PC's struggle to maintain steady frame rates at 4K resolutions. The NEO documents also make very clear that developers are not allowed to make concessions to frame rate in order to push 4K resolutions stating that games running in NEO mode "must meet or exceed the frame rate of the game on the original PS4 system." Sony is very clearly taking steps to keep their NEO customers and gamers who already own a PlayStation 4 from becoming fractured but will it be enough? Let us know in the comments below. 

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Reagan Cox is a writer living in Kansas. If you can’t find him playing games or in the woods then he’s probably listening to records like the dirty hipster… More about Reagan