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Platform Hardware Overview

Date     : 2024-12-27
Entry ID : 16581

Overview of CPUs, GPUs and memory from game platforms, covering consoles, home computers, and a few select arcade games.

Contents:

CPU Overview

This table lists CPUs, number of cores, and clock frequency for well-known game platforms. Platforms are grouped by Instruction Set Architecture (e.g. Intel 8086 or Z80).

A few individual arcade games are listed as well, as they will at times exhibit early adoption of CPUs, such as Sprint 2 using the MOS 6502 in 1976, before any home consoles.

Platform Rel. CPU Core # CPU Freq.
 
Intel 8080
Gun Fight (arcade) 1 1974 1
 
Intel 8086
DOS 1981 Intel 8086 1 Varying
Irem M72 1987 NEC V30 1 8 MHz
Irem M92 1991 NEC V33 + V30 1 9 MHz
Xbox 2001 (Pentium III) 1 733 MHz
 
MOS 6502
Sprint 2 1976 MOS Technology 6507 1
Atari 2600 1977 MOS Technology 6507 1 1.19 MHz
Apple II 1977 MOS Technology 6502 1 1.02 MHz
Atari 8-bit 1979 MOS Technology 6502C 1 1.79 MHz
Commodore VIC-20 1980 MOS Technology 6502 1 1.02 MHz
BBC Micro 1981 MOS Technology 6502 1 2.00 MHz
Atari 5200 1982 Atari SALLY 1 1.79 MHz
Commodore 64 1982 MOS Technology 6510 1 1.02 MHz
NES 1983 Ricoh 2A03 1 1.79 MHz
Atari 7800 1986 Atari SALLY 1 1.79 MHz
PC Engine 1987 HuC6280 1 7.16 MHz
SNES 1990 Ricoh 5A22 2 1 1.79 MHz
 
Various
IntelliVision 1979 Gen. Instr. CP1600 1 3.56 MHz
Game Boy 1989 Sharp SM83 3 1 4.2 MHz
 
Zilog Z80
Scramble 1981 Zilog Z80 1 3.01 MHz
ZX Spectrum 1982 Zilog Z80 1 3.50 MHz
Colecovision 1982 Zilog Z80 1 3.58 MHz
Sega System 1 1983 Zilog Z80 1 4 MHz
SG-1000 1983 Zilog Z80 1 3.58 MHz
MSX 1983 Zilog Z80 1 3.58 MHz
Sega Master System 1985 Zilog Z80 1 3.58 MHz
 
Motorola 68000
System 16 1985 Motorola 68000 1 10 MHz
Atari ST 1985 Motorola 68000 1 8 MHz
Amiga 500 1987 Motorola 68000 1 7.16 MHz
Sharp X68000 1987 Motorola 68000 1 10 MHz
Sega Genesis 1988 Motorola 68000 1 7.67 MHz
Neo Geo 1990 Motorola 68000 1 12.00 MHz
Sega CD 1991 Motorola 68000 x 2 1 12.5 & 7.67 MHz
Atari Jaguar 1993 Motorola 68000 1 13.30 MHz
 
Hitachi SuperH
Genesis 32X 1994 Hitachi SH-2 x 2 23 MHz
Sega Saturn 1994 Hitachi SH-2 x 2 1 28.6 MHz
CP System III 1994 Hitachi SH-2 1 25 MHz
Dreamcast 1998 Hitachi SH-4 1 200 MHz
 
MIPS
PlayStation 1994 R3000 1 33.87 MHz
Nintendo 64 1996 NEC VR4300 (MIPS III) 1 93.75 MHz
PlayStation 2 2000 Emotion Engine (MIPS III) 1 294 MHz
PSP 2004 R4000 (MIPS III) 1 333 MHz
 
PowerPC
GameCube 2001 Gekko 1 486 MHz
Xbox 360 2005 MS/IBM Xenon 3 3.2 GHz
PlayStation 3 2006 Cell 9 3.2 GHz
Wii 2006 IBM Broadway 1 729 MHz
Wii U 2012 IBM Espresso 3 1.24 GHz
 
ARM7, ARM8, ARM9
Game Boy Advance 2001 ARM7TDMI (ARM7) 16.8 MHz
Nintendo DS 2004 ARM946E-S (ARM9) 67 MHz
Nintendo Switch 2017 ARM Cortex-A57 (ARM8) 4 1.79 GHz
 
AMD64
PlayStation 4 2013 AMD Jaguar 1.6 GHz
Xbox One 2013 AMD Jaguar 8 1.75 GHz
Xbox One X 2017 AMD Jaguar 8 2.3 GHz
PlayStation 5 2020 AMD Zen 2 8 3.5 GHz
Xbox Series S 2020 AMD Zen 2 8 3.6 GHz
Xbox Series X 2020 AMD Zen 2 8 3.8 GHz
Steam Deck 2022 ARM Zen 2 4 3.5 GHz

CPU Details

Hitachi SuperH

The SuperH CPUs implement a Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) instruction set architecture. The SH-2, used in the Genesis 32X, Sega Saturn, and Capcom's CP System III (Street Fighter III) had only 62 instructions. The SH-4 used in the Dreamcast runs at 7 times the clock speed of the dual SH-2s used in the Saturn.

Memory Overview

Platform Rel. Main Memory Video Memory Other Memory
 
ARCADE HARDWARE
Gun Fight (arcade) 1974
Scramble 1981
Sega System 1 1983 4 KB 13 KB 2 KB audio RAM
System 16 1985 48 KB 97 KB
R-Type (Irem M72) 4 1987 256 KB 28 KB 64 KB audio RAM
Irem M92 1991
CP System II 1993
CP System III 1994 512 KB 8.75 MB
 
HOME COMPUTERS
SDS Sigma 1966
Apple II 1977 4 KB
Atari 8-bit 1979 8 KB
Commodore VIC-20 1980 5 KB
BBC Micro 1981 16 KB
Commodore 64 1982 64 KB 20 KB ROM
ZX Spectrum 1982 16 KB
MSX 1983 8 KB
Atari ST 1985 128 KB
Amiga 500 1987 512 KB shared shared
Sharp X68000 1987 1 MB
 
CONSOLES
Atari 2600 1977 128 B
IntelliVision 1979 1 KB
Colecovision 1982 1 KB 16 KB
Atari 5200 1982 16 KB
NES 1983 2 KB 2 KB
SG-1000 1983 1 KB
Sega Master System 1985 8 KB 16 KB
Atari 7800 1986 4 KB 4 KB BIOS ROM
PC Engine 1987 8 KB 64 KB
Sega Genesis 1988 64 KB 64 KB
SNES 5 1990 128 KB 64 KB 64 KB audio RAM
Neo Geo 1990 64 KB 84 KB 2 KB audio RAM
Sega CD 1991 512 KB 256 KB
Atari Jaguar 1993 2 MB
Genesis 32X 1994 256 KB 256 KB
Sega Saturn 1994 2 MB 1.5 MB 512 KB audio RAM
PlayStation 6 1994 2 MB 1 MB 512 KB audio RAM
Nintendo 64 1996 4 MB
Dreamcast 1998 16 MB 8 MB 2 MB audio RAM
PlayStation 2 2000 32 MB 4 MB
GameCube 2001 24 MB 3 MB 16 MB I/O buffer
Xbox 2001 64 MB
Xbox 360 2005 512 MB shared
PlayStation 3 2006 256 MB 256 MB
Wii 2006 64 MB 27 MB
Wii U 2012 2 GB
PlayStation 4 2013 8 GB shared
Xbox One 2013 8 GB 7
Xbox One X 2017 12 GB 8
Nintendo Switch 2017 4 GB
PlayStation 5 2020 16 GB shared
Xbox Series S 2020 10 GB
Xbox Series X 2020 16 GB
 
HANDHELDS
Game Boy 1989 8 KB 8 KB
Game Boy Advance 2001 288 KB 98 KB
Nintendo DS 2004 4 MB
PSP 2004 32 MB 2 MB
Steam Deck 2022 16 GB 6 GB

GPU Overview

Sprite-based console/home computer GPUs:

Platform Rel. GPU Resolution Colors Sprite # Sprite dim.
Colecovision 1982 TMS9918 256x192 15 (fixed) 32 8x8 mono
SG-1000 1983 TMS9918 256x192 15 (fixed) 32 8x8 mono
MSX 1983 TMS9918 256x192 15 (fixed) 32 8x8 mono
NES 1983 Ricoh 2C02 256x240 24 of 64 64 8x8 3 cols
Amiga 500 1987 320x256-640x512 32 of 4096 8 8x_ 4 cols9
Sega Genesis 1988 VDP 320x224 64 of 512 80 8x8
SNES 1990 256x224 ? from 32K 128 8x8 16 cols

PlayStation console GPUs:

Platform Rel. GPU Resolution Colors Instructions/s10
PlayStation 1 1994 GTE11 256x224 - 600x480i 66 MIPS
PlayStation 2 2000 Graphics Synthesizer 256x224 - 1080p 8 bit/ch. 6.2 GFLOPS
PlayStation 3 2006 Graphics Synthesizer 1280x720 8 bit/ch. 251.2 GFLOPS
PlayStation 4 2013 AMD GCN 1080p 1.84 TFLOPS
PlayStation 5 2020 AMD RDNA 2 4K 10 bit/ch. 10.28 TFLOPS
PlayStation 5 Pro 2024 AMD RDNA 2 4K - 8K 10 bit/ch. 16.7 TFLOPS

PlayStation Pixel Performance

It might be revealing to analyze how many instructions can be performed by a GPU per pixel, to gain understanding of the possible rendering complexity.
For this purpose, we can take a given resolution on a platform, compute the pixel count, and divide the GPU instructions per second with 60 frames/s and the pixel count 12:

pixel_count = width * height
pixel_perf  = instructions_per_second / 60 / pixel_count

GPU Instructions/frame/pixel (60Hz)
The PS1 GPU uses fixed point operations, the newer platforms uses floating point operations:

Platform Example Resolution Pixel count Instructions/pixel/frame
PS1 256x224 57 K 19
PS2 640x240 154 K 673
PS3 (720p) 1280x720 1 M 4539
PS4 (1080p) 1920x1080 2 M 14468
PS4 Pro (1080p) 1920x1080 2 M 33758
PS4 Pro (4K) 3840x2160 8 M 8439
PS5 (4K) 3840x2160 8 M 20697
PS5 Pro (4K) 3840x2160 8 M 33557
PS5 Pro (8K) 7680x4320 33 M 8389

Changelog

References


  1. Gun Fight is the earliest game I found to use a microprocessor. 

  2. Ricoh 5A22 is based on WDC 65C816, enhanced version of WDC 65C02, which was based on the 6502. 

  3. Sharp SM83 is a hybrid of the Intel 8080 and the Zilog Z80. 

  4. IREM M72 information
    'Patent Pending' - All Things Video Games
    Irem M72 memory map and info 

  5. Super Nintendo Architecture - A practical analysis
    Rodrigo Copetti (2024)
    Detailed Super Nintendo hardware info 

  6. PlayStation Architecture - A practical analysis
    Rodrigo Copetti (2021)
    Detailed PlayStation hardware info 

  7. 5 GB available to games 

  8. 9 GB available to games 

  9. Amiga sprites are 8 pixels wide and can be any(!) height. 

  10. We use the units millions of operations per second (MIPS) and floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) and: 

        MIPS   = 10^6 instructions per second
        FLOPS  = 1 floating-point operation per second
        MFLOPS = 10^6 FLOPS
        GFLOPS = 10^9 FLOPS
        TFLOPS = 10^12 FLOPS
    
  11. Geometry Transformation Engine 

  12. This table was generated by the following Ruby script: 

    platforms = { :PS1      => {:spd =>    66e6, :pix =>  256*224},
                  :PS2      => {:spd =>   6.2e9, :pix =>  640*240},
                  :PS3      => {:spd =>   251e9, :pix => 1280*720},
                  :PS4      => {:spd =>  1.8e12, :pix => 1920*1080},
                  :PS4Pro   => {:spd =>  4.2e12, :pix => 1920*1080},
                  :PS4Pro4k => {:spd =>  4.2e12, :pix => 3840*2160},
                  :PS5      => {:spd => 10.3e12, :pix => 3840*2160},
                  :PS5Pro   => {:spd => 16.7e12, :pix => 3840*2160},
                  :PS5Pro8k => {:spd => 16.7e12, :pix => 7680*4320}}
    platforms.each{ |key,value|
      pixelperf = value[:spd] / 60.0 / value[:pix]
      pixcount = value[:pix]
      puts "%8s: %d %5.0f instr/fr/pix" % [key,pixcount,pixelperf] }
    
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