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Sony PlayStation 4

Eight x86-64 cores and 18 compute units on one die, rated at 1.84 TFLOP/s and sharing 8 GiB of GDDR5 in one memory pool.

Manufacturer
Sony Computer Entertainment
Released
November 2013
Region
Worldwide
Record status
approved
A black Sony PlayStation 4 lying flat and photographed against white, its slanted body split between a gloss half and a matte half, with a controller standing in front of it.

A launch-model PlayStation 4 with its controller.

Evan-Amos · Public domain (released by its author) · Wikimedia Commons

About this machine

This record differs from the three earlier PlayStations in two ways.

The memory is one pool. The PlayStation kept 2 MiB for the processor and 1 MiB for the drawing chip; the PlayStation 2 kept 32 MiB and 4 MiB; the PlayStation 3 kept 256 MiB and 256 MiB. Each pair has to remain two numbers because neither half can be spent on the other's work. The PlayStation 4's 8 GiB is unified, so its memory capacity is one figure.

Sony never published either clock. The introduction gives a core count, a compute-unit count, a teraflops figure and bandwidth, but no frequency; the launch-day release repeats only the memory. Everything except the memory capacity is provisional pre-launch evidence, as with the PlayStation 3's announced figures.

Configuration

Launch console (CUH-1000 series)

Component Role Count Clock Capacity
PlayStation 4 custom processor (CPU section) Eight x86-64 cores. Sony states no clock. Main CPU 1 1.6 GHz Nominal clock —
PlayStation 4 custom processor (GPU section) 18 compute units on the same die as the cores. Sony states no clock. GPU 1 800 MHz Nominal clock —
PlayStation 4 unified system memory (GDDR5) Shared by the processor and the graphics units. Sony's own word for it is "unified". Unified memory 1 — 8 GiB shared

Figures for the whole machine

Sony PlayStation 4: system figures

provisional A figure marked provisional is recorded but not accepted: its evidence is unsettled. It may rely on one source, an unconfirmed announcement, or a digit read from a damaged scan. The reason appears under the figure. The catalog shows the figure but never uses it in a multiplier. How records are judged.

Metric Value Evidence Basis Method Source
Clock frequency cpu 1.6 GHz Confirmed Vendor-rated Nominal clock Published independently The eight Jaguar cores of the shipped console, as reported by two independent technical publications. Sony publishes no frequency for this machine, and this figure is not Sony's: two independent publications state it while describing the PlayStation 4 Pro, three years after the console shipped. It is recorded beside the vendor's silence rather than instead of it, and it sits in the same comparability group as every other nominal clock, because the group is set by method and not by who published the number.
Clock frequency gpu provisional 800 MHz Confirmed Vendor-rated Nominal clock Published independently The 18 compute units of the shipped console. Provisional on the sourcing, not on the number. One publication states 800 MHz outright, twice; the second states only that the Pro's graphics clock was raised by 111 MHz to 911 MHz, which leaves 800 by subtraction rather than by statement. The policy asks for two sources that state the figure, so this waits for a second one, and meanwhile feeds no multiplier.
Memory bandwidth whole-system provisional 176 GB/s Confirmed Derived Theoretical peak Computed here from figures the vendor stated, before the hardware shipped One bus for everything: the processor and the graphics units share this memory rather than owning separate pools. Adds 1 memory-bandwidth figure obtained by theoretical-peak. Nothing in the catalog is left out of it. A total is only as trustworthy as the decision about what belongs in it, so both the terms and the exclusions are named records.
Rated power consumption whole-system 250 W Confirmed Vendor-rated Rated power Stated by the vendor Launch chassis CUH-1001A, rated at 120 V AC, 60 Hz. A nameplate maximum, not a gameplay draw. The console does not approach it in normal use. It belongs to the CUH-1001A chassis; Sony rated later revisions lower, which is a hardware difference rather than a disagreement about this one.
Launch price whole-system 399 USD Confirmed Vendor-rated List price Stated by the vendor Suggested retail price in the United States on the day the console went on sale, 15 November 2013. Sony’s own word is "suggested": the figure is what Sony asked retailers to charge rather than what any buyer paid. The same release gives an identical numeral in Canadian dollars, which is a pricing decision and not a conversion, and is not recorded: the catalog holds one currency, and comparing across two would need a dated exchange rate that is a property of the date rather than of the console.

Figures for its components

PlayStation 4 custom processor (GPU section)

provisional A figure marked provisional is recorded but not accepted: its evidence is unsettled. It may rely on one source, an unconfirmed announcement, or a digit read from a damaged scan. The reason appears under the figure. The catalog shows the figure but never uses it in a multiplier. How records are judged.

Metric Value Evidence Basis Method Source
Peak FP32 rate gpu provisional 1.84 TFLOP/s Confirmed Vendor-rated Theoretical peak Stated by the vendor, before the hardware shipped 18 compute units "collectively generating 1.84 Teraflops of processing power", per the introduction of February 2013. Recorded as single precision, which the source does not state: the same editorial reading the PlayStation 3's figures carry, and the same reason for holding it provisional. Sony also gives no clock, so the figure cannot be checked against the 18 compute units it is attributed to.
PlayStation 4 unified system memory (GDDR5)

provisional A figure marked provisional is recorded but not accepted: its evidence is unsettled. It may rely on one source, an unconfirmed announcement, or a digit read from a damaged scan. The reason appears under the figure. The catalog shows the figure but never uses it in a multiplier. How records are judged.

Metric Value Evidence Basis Method Source
Memory bandwidth memory provisional 176 GB/s Confirmed Vendor-rated Theoretical peak Stated by the vendor, before the hardware shipped Bandwidth of the unified GDDR5 memory, per the introduction of February 2013. Stated nine months before the console shipped and not repeated by the launch release. It is also one figure where two earlier records would have needed two: processor and graphics traffic share this bus rather than owning separate ones.
Memory capacity whole-system 8 GiB Confirmed Vendor-rated Design capacity Stated by the vendor Unified system memory, shared by the eight processor cores and the 18 compute units. Both releases write "8GB", meaning 8 GiB. Recorded at whole-system scope rather than memory scope because it is the machine's memory: unlike the earlier PlayStations, there is no second pool this figure excludes.

Derived figures and comparisons

Computed by this project rather than read from a source, and recomputed from their inputs on every build.

799 000 000 Hz

Formula
peak FP32 ÷ (lanes × FLOP per lane per clock) clock-from-peak-fp32 v1
Inputs
  • ps4-gpu Peak FP32 rate: 1.84 TFLOP/s
Constants
  • lanes: 1152 Eighteen compute units, which Sony states, at sixty-four lanes each. The lane count per unit is not Sony's: ComputerBase gives the PlayStation 4 Pro's thirty-six compute units as 2,304 ALUs while naming the base console's eighteen in the same sentence, which is sixty-four per unit either way.
  • floating-point operations per lane per clock: 2 The universal convention for a single-precision peak: one fused multiply-add per lane per clock, counted as two operations. It is the same convention NVIDIA states in the GeForce whitepapers this catalog already cites, and every vendor rate here assumes it.
Rounding
half-up , 3 significant digits

Divides a published single-precision peak by lanes × floating-point operations per lane per clock, so it is what the vendor’s own figure implies rather than a frequency anybody stated. Reported to 3 significant digits — the precision of the published rate. Both constants are assumptions about the architecture, cited on this claim: get either wrong and the answer scales with it.

572 USD

Formula
nominal price × target CPI-U ÷ launch CPI-U price-adjusted-by-cpi v1
Inputs
  • sony-playstation-4 Launch price: 399 USD
Constants
  • CPI-U for July 2026: 333.918 The target month in the frozen CPI-U snapshot.
  • CPI-U for November 2013: 233.069 The month the PlayStation 4 went on sale in the United States.
Rounding
half-up , 3 significant digits

Multiplies the nominal U.S. list price by CPI-U for July 2026 and divides by CPI-U for November 2013. The original price remains the cited launch figure. CPI-U adjusts for U.S. consumer prices; it does not convert currencies or markets. Reported to 3 significant digits, the precision of the nominal price.

176 000 000 000 B/s

Formula
a + b + … sum v1
Inputs
  • ps4-gddr5 Memory bandwidth: 176 GB/s
Rounding
none , 12 significant digits

Adds 1 memory-bandwidth figure obtained by theoretical-peak. Nothing in the catalog is left out of it. A total is only as trustworthy as the decision about what belongs in it, so both the terms and the exclusions are named records.

Editorial notes

The release date is well attested here: the cited launch release is dated the day the console went on sale in North America. The configuration is labeled for the CUH-1000 series on editorial grounds. Neither cited release names a model number.

Sources