Computer Hardware Progress in Video Game Consoles Over The Years

The following list shows the incredible improvement in video game consoles over the last 40 years. This steady improvement was driven by the same technological factors that drive Moore’s law. You can see the CPU, RAM, hard drive, and resolution specifications for over 30 game machines.

The first item on our list, the Magnavox Odyssey from 1972, can barely be considered a computer. It didn’t have a CPU, RAM, or a hard drive, and its video output was just a few pixels. But all of the other consoles can be compared to each other in a pretty straightforward way. As you can see CPU speed increased over one thousandfold, and RAM memory increased over a millionfold in the same span of time.

There may be some errors in this list, and I had to fudge a few of the numbers in order to create an apples to apples comparison. But I checked the numbers with multiple sources, so overall the list should be pretty reliable.

Video Game Console Specification Comparison

Year	Console Computer System	CPU Speed Hz	RAM Memory Bytes	Hard Drive Capacity Bytes	Screen Resolution Pixels
1972	Magnavox Odyssey	0	0	0	n/a
1977	Atari 2600	1,190,000	128	0	160 x 192
1979	Magnavox Odyssey 2	1,790,000	192	0	160 x 200
1980	Intellivision	2,000,000	524	0	159 x 96
1982	Atari 5200	1,790,000	16,000	0	320 x 200
1982	Colecovision	3,580,000	2,000	0	256 x 192
1985	Nintendo Ent. Sys.	1,800,000	2,000	0	256 x 240
1986	Sega Master Sys.	4,000,000	8,000	0	256 x 192
1986	Atari 7800	1,790,000	4,000	0	320 x 240
1989	Gameboy	4,190,000	8,000	0	160 x 144
1989	Turbo Grafx 16	7,160,000	256,000	0	256 x 239
1989	Sega Genesis	8,000,000	72,000	0	320 x 224
1991	Super Nintendo	3,600,000	128,000	0	160 x 144
1991	Neo Geo	12,000,000	64,000	0	320 x 224
1991	Game Gear	3,500,000	8,000	0	160 x 144
1992	Sega CD	12,500,000	8,000	0	320 x 224
1993	Atari Jaguar	26,600,000	2,000,000	0	320 x 224
1994	Sega Saturn	58,000,000	2,000,000	4,000,000	704 x 224
1995	Playstation	33,000,000	2,000,000	1,000,000	640 x 480
1996	Nintendo 64	93,000,000	4,000,000	32,000	720 x 576
1998	Gameboy Color	8,380,000	32,000	0	160 x 144
1999	Sega Dreamcast	200,000,000	24,000,000	128,000	640 x 480
2000	Playstation 2	300,000,000	36,000,000	128,000	640 x 480
2001	Gamecube	486,000,000	43,000,000	16,000,000	640 x 480
2001	Gameboy Advance	16,780,000	256,000	0	240 x 160
2005	Xbox 360	3.200,000,000	512,000,000	20,000,000,000	1920 x 1080
2006	Playstation 3	3,200,000,000	512,000,000	12,000,000,000	1280 x 720
2006	Nintendo Wii	729,000,000	88,000,000	512,000,000	640 x 480
2012	Nintendo Wii U	1,240,000,000	2,000,000,000	8,000,000,000	1920 x 1080
2013	Playstation 4	12,800,000,000	8,000,000,000	500,000,000,000	1920 x 1080
2013	Xbox One	14,000,000,000	8,000,000,000	500,000,000,000	1920 x 1080
2016	Playstation 4 Pro	16,800,000,000	8,000,000,000	1,000,000,000,000	3840 x 2160
2017	Xbox One X	18,400,000,000	12,000,000,000	1,000,000,000,000	3840 x 2160
2017	Nintendo Switch	8,000,000,000	4,000,000,000	32,000,000,000	1920 x 1080
2020	Playstation 5	28,000,000,000	16,000,000,000	825,000,000,000	3840 x 2160
2020	Xbox Series X	30,400,000,000	16,000,000,000	1,000,000,000,000	3840 x 2160

Note that to obtain the newer, multicore systems’ CPU processing speed, the clock cycle was multiplied by the number of cores in the CPU. Of course this exaggerates speedup by failing to recognize Amdahl's law. Secondly, in a few early cases I combined VRAM with RAM where I thought is was appropriate, but in most I did not. Thirdly, note that hertz and bytes are expressed in a way that is not abbreviated. This allows a direct comparison and avoids using prefixes like kilo, mega, and giga.

This list makes me think back to fond memories of playing early video games in my childhood. I remember the day I first saw Super Mario Bros at age five on the Nintendo Entertainment System. The sights and sounds were dreamlike and hypnotic. It was a colorful cartoon with immersive music and sound effects that I could control myself (if I could just get the kid next to me to share the controller). Six years later at a different friend’s house I was introduced to the world of Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Genesis. It was a beautiful, fast-moving landscape filled with dynamic and interactive objects, that by comparison was much more impressive.

The list above really sparks my imagination because I can look at the console specs of the first Nintendo, at just 2 kilobytes of RAM and compare it to that of the Sega Genesis at 72 kilobytes of RAM. These numbers illustrate the difference in constraints on those systems, and in turn, the difference in constraints on the programmers that created those worlds. I think it is fun to ask myself: “what does it mean that Sonic’s world was powered by over 30 times as much computer short-term memory?” Similarly: “what aspects of the graphical presentation are affected by the fact that the Genesis had more than four times the CPU clock speed?” I think the data in the columns and rows above give us an interesting basis to compare one gaming experience with another. Because we were immersed in these experiences from a young age I think that studying these comparisons can provide us with a better intuitive understanding of computer hardware.

Added 5/21/21

I recently realized that it might be fun to make a direct comparison between the different iterations of the Playstation based on CPU processing power. If you look at the numbers in the CPU column above and perform simple division (28 billion / 33 million) you can see that the PS5 is around 1000 times more powerful (faster at math) than the PS1. In a sense this means that you would need to somehow connect 1000 individual PS1s to perform the number of operations per second that a single PS5 can do alone. I think that is fun to think about, 1000 of those grey boxes. If you look at RAM that number multiplier turns into 8000x. Of course there are thousands of new technological innovations crammed into a PS5 aside from increased clock cycle and RAM so even these numbers are lowballing the difference. Here are the numerical comparisons by CPU alone:

PS2 = PS1 x 10

PS3 = PS1 x 100

PS3 = PS 2 x 10

 

PS4 = PS1 x 400

PS4 = PS2 x 40

PS4 = PS3 x 4

 

PS5 = PS1 x 1000

PS5 = PS2 x 100

PS5 = PS3 x 10

PS5 = PS4 x 3