It’s been almost two weeks now since the Xbox Series X and PS5 launched, and while so far there have been very few indications that there’s a significant difference in performance between both consoles, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War might just be the first title pointing its finger at clear winners.

When it comes to Ray Tracing running in 4K resolution at 60fps, Black Ops Cold War looks fantastic in the two systems, targeting a 4K dynamic resolution that only occasionally shrinks to about 1800p - something that’s been seen before in Treyarch’s game engines. However, Digital Foundry’s tests found the Series X has a slight advantage over the PS5, noting that even though both consoles sustain a constant 60fps experience most of the time, there are significant dips in frame rate on the PS5 version on parts of the game, something that is simply “not there on Series X”.

As the video makes clear, these differences don’t arise too often, only noting a couple of sequences where the PS5 frame rate drops to the low 50s and 40s, which can be seen by jumping forward to 10:50 on the video below.

Despite that, the PS5 manages to beat the Series X when it comes to performance running at 120fps without Ray tracing enabled. In that category, both consoles again offer an almost perfect 120fps experience, suffering even fewer frame rate dips, yet for some reason, these are more noticeable on the Series X.

Whatever the case, the experiment serves to highlight how difficult it can be to find differences between the PS5 and Series X, when even the latter’s slight technical advantage fails to secure a clear win in the two measurable performance benchmarks. Of course, things are different in the Series S’ camp where Black Ops Cold War offers no Ray Tracing feature nor a 120fps option for budget-minded gamers, only a smooth 60fps performance.

Considering 4K 120Hz displays are not yet a commonplace piece of hardware, the Series X’s advantage in Ray Tracing probably means more to console gamers, whereas the PS5’s edge in 120fps performance mode is more likely to be appreciated by hardcore first-person shooter fans.

Source: Digital Foundry|YouTube

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