More details on PS4.5 revealed

Last month, we got leaked info on a mysterious new console called the PlayStation 4.5, which would be just like a normal PS4, except immensely more powerful and, presumably, much more expensive. Well, that's all swell and good, but it didn't really give us much in the way of information. Fortunately, the folks over at Giantbomb have managed to dig up some more info, and it's all very... revealing.

first of all, the PS4.5--called "Neo" internally, will boast a “higher clock speed than the original PS4, an improved GPU, and higher bandwidth on the memory.” Specifically, it’ll have Jaguar Cores at 21 GHz, a AMD GCN, 36 CUs at 911 MHz for GPU, and for memory it’s sitting at 8 GB GDDR5, 218 GB/s

And that's swell. But perhaps cooler--or at least, more interesting--is that the release of Neo will not act as a new console for a new era. Giantbomb's sources suggest that from here on out, most games for the PS4 will have two modes: a "Neo" mode, which takes advantage of the new hardware, and a "base" mode for us common PS4 plebeians. How different these two modes are is still unknown, of course, but still, that appears to be the state of things.

From my perspective, this is both good and bad. Players stuck on the base console won't be left behind, which is good, but it also means no game will be able to truly capitalize on the power of the Neo, which is bad. Still, if someone is looking for an enhanced console gaming experience and don't want to gamble on a Steam Machine... this would be a pretty safe purchase!