Speculation 101: PS4 Dev Kit - January

Details of PlayStation 4 development kit first appeared in March of 2012, there were little details about it we only know that it will use AMD x64 CPU and AMD(ATI) Southern Island GPU in the development kit...

This month more details surfaced/leaked about PS4 Dev Kit by SuperDae who got hands on the alleged Xbox 720/"Durango" Dev Kit and tried to sold it on ebay, he gave PS4 Dev Kit details to website Kotaku. Kotaku published specs and other info about PlayStation 4 development kit and other relevant things... Lets see...

PlayStation 4 Development Kit specifications(hardware):
CPU - 4x Dual-Core AMD64 "Bulldozer" (8 cores)
GPU - AMD R10XX
Video Memory - 2.2 Gb
System Memory - 8 Gb
HDD - 160 Gb
Ports - 4x USB 3.0, 2x Ethernet
Audio Output - HDMI & Optical, 2.0, 5.1, 7.1 channels
Drive - Blu Ray

CPU that is used in PS4 Dev Kit is surely the Jaguar, a low power version of Bulldozer that is designed to be effective with various switches and modes to lower power consumption. From what I remember Jaguar can turn on and off cores as needed and its 8 cores are clocked at 1.6Ghz with means all together 12.8Ghz.

GPU for the PS4 Dev Kit is the Southern Island GPU as its R1000 except it will be improved since from the information on Kotaku its R10XX, this could be the clue that there will be improved Southern Island.

Video Memory is important and it will be 2.2 Gb and more than enough to play at 1080p60fps if you expect for play Battlefield 4, Uncharted 4 or Singularity. Except this is the Dev Kit and not final PS4 hardware specs.

System Memory is about 8 Gb in the development kit and thats more than enough since its rumored that PS4 will use 0.5 to 1.5 Gb for its Operational System. Another rumor is that will have only 4 Gb, except it wont be DDR3 or DDR4 but rather a GDDR5 memory even thought this rumor is maybe true... Well I dont agree.

The size of HDD(Storage) of PS4 Dev Kit is 160 Gb and that does not represent storage capacity of PS4 since this is an development kit and not the official specs of PS4. The size of HDD is more than enough to store the game on it, this could also be the clue of some sort. 2 to 3 blu ray disc games since its actually normal to suggest when you see how much game graphics and the size of games have gone better and larger than previous console generations. From silly 100kb to huge 30 Gb games with superb graphics and sounds.

Audio Outputs support/in PlayStation 4 Dev Kit are 2.0, 5.1 and 7.1 speakers, HDMI and optical. Its a common standard and nothing special. If you got that and that, sure it will work on PlayStation 4, no problem.

Drive in PS4 Dev Kit is Blu Ray drive and its now almost a standard since Xbox 720 will also use Blu Ray drive, since Sony owns the patent if I remember correctly. Well Sony will earn a bit more cash now, its ironical that if Sony console does not sell well it still will get some money from Microsoft because of Xbox 720.

Since development kits does not really represent hardware of final PlayStation 4 you cant really expect a beast since it would cost too much and that is not good since the world is in recession because of banks...

If you want to know specs of previous PlayStation 4 Development Kit then please read this article:
http://psgobb.blogspot.com/2013/01/speculation-101-playstation-4-aka-orbis.html

PlayStation 4 Development Kit will support DualShock 3, Sixaxis and Move controller. There is a new controller in development for PlayStation 4. It will have similarities with current pads/controller.

Please leave a comment if you want to discuss or share your opinions about this article...