Story Highlights
  • Foreign Media outlet managed to run Cyberpunk 2077 PC Benchmark on Xbox Series S|X and PS5.
  • The analysis has shown that the PS5 leaps way ahead of the Xbox Series X in terms of performance.
  • Xbox runs at a higher resolution in a few scenes, but both consoles aim for 1440p at the upper end.

Cyberpunk 2077, the tragedy of 2020, has become famous as an iconic redemption story in the industry. Today, the game is praised for its open-world and visuals, with the latter coming in handy to stress test a variety of GPUs.

A recent comparison has imported preset benchmark runs from the game’s PC version to consoles using the cross-save feature, pitting the Xbox Series X and PS5 against each other in these scenarios.

Surprisingly, the PS5 leaves the Xbox Series X in the dust despite Series X being equipped with a stronger GPU than the PS5.

Why it matters: The Xbox Series X was designed to leave the competition behind, giving Microsoft the power narrative this generation. Despite this focus, many results come out in favour of the PS5.

YouTube video

Digital Foundry used PC benchmarks to compare the Xbox Series X and PS5 performance in Quality and Performance modes.

When using the former, both consoles ran fairly well. Small differences aside, the frame rate stayed consistent at 30FPS, with Cyberpunk 2077 targeting an internal resolution of 1440p.

However, the Performance mode showed a massive difference. During the Night section, the Xbox Series X often dropped as low as 45FPS while the PS5 ran at around 57FPS.

Out of 15500 frames, PS5 dropped only 32, but Xbox Series X dropped a whopping 1264 framer. Overall, this unexpected result left the analyst puzzled due to the massive performance delta.

It should be noted that the Xbox Series X runs Cyberpunk 2077 at a higher resolution than the PS5 in Performance mode. The former has a dynamic resolution range between 1152 and 1440p, while the PS5 can drop as low as 1008p.

While the lower performance could be credited to the higher resolution of the Xbox Series X, the difference being as large is a bit surprising though it should be noted that some games can take advantage of higher GPU clocks more efficiently than wider GPU design and if we look at the specs PS5 GPU runs at around 2.2Ghz vs 1.8GHz for Xbox Series X and it could be the reason for this performance difference.

Cyberpunk 2077

It appears Cyberpunk 2077 is just better optimized to utilize the PS5 hardware. Games like Alan Wake 2 have shown the opposite result, with the Xbox Series X performing better than the PS5 when given the chance.

Therefore, while the Xbox Series X has better hardware on paper, it ends up falling behind in many benchmarks for one reason or another.

Ultimately, both consoles provide a great experience playing Cyberpunk 2077, but this could be a concerning trend for Xbox.

PlayStation is rumoured to release the PS5 Pro soon, and with the Xbox Series X seemingly on its way to losing the title of the strongest console, such occurrences could become even more common once the Pro console drops in late 2024.

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Obaid Ur Rehman
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