PS2 is better than Xbox.

[ Note ] = Information provided below collected from various places on the web, and is the property of its respectful owners.

[ CPU ]
"Of course, the Central Processing Unit, the heart of every computer or console. Most of the calculations take place here. The XBox has a Intel Pentium(3?) processor which runs at a clockspeed of 733MHz. That's alot higher than the 300MHz at which the PS2 CPU is running. But does that make the CPU better? Nope. Here's why the PS2 CPU (Emotion Engine) is a lot more powerful"

[ Spec Data ] = 1
"Data bus, cache memory as well as all registers are 128 bits on the PS2 CPU while the XBox CPU is 32 bits. The 32MB of Direct Rambus DRAM are implemented on the CPU itself."

[ Spec Data ] = 2
"It has a max. performance of 6.2 GFLOPS while the XBox CPU can only do a bit over 3 GFLOPS."

[ Spec Data ] = 3
"It incorporates two 64-bit integer units (IU) with a 128-bit SIMD multi-media command unit, two independent floating point vector calculation units (VU0, VU1), an MPEG 2 decoder circuit (Image Processing Unit/IPU) and high performance DMA controllers."

"Okay now what does this mean? It means that the PS2 can handle heavier physics and 3D engines (and can do more accurate realistic visual effects like splashing water and explosions). It also means that the PS2 can handle alot more sophisticated Artificial Intelligence programming so that you have intelligent human-like opponents. The CPU also has direct access to the main memory which speed everything up quite a bit. And with a floating point calculation performance of 6.2GFLOPS/second, the overall calculation performance of this new CPU matches that of a super computer. This is a completely new CPU architecture especially designed for sophisticated graphics and physics while the architecture of the XBox CPU is pretty old and simple."

[ Graphics Chip And VRAM ]
"This is where the images are rendered. The XBox uses an Nvidia Graphics Processing Unit running at 250MHz and the PS2 uses the Graphics Synthesizer running at 150MHz. Again, judging by these specs the XBox looks better. The XBox GPU has a few advantages over the PS2 GS, for example:"

[ Spec Data ] = 1
"The XBox GPU can do 125 million polygons while the PS2 GS can only do 75 million polygons."

[ Spec Data ] = 2
"The XBox GPU has a max resolution of 1920x1080 and the PS2 GS can do 1280x1024 The rest of the graphics chip will be comparable to NV-20 chip."

"But the catch is that these advantages don't make a lot of difference on a TV screen, even on an HDTV screen the difference would be barely noticeable (when the console's hardware is used properly). So, is the XBox Graphics Processing Unit better than the PS2 GS? It doesn't look like it; the architecture of the PS2 GS looks far more advanced. For example, PS2 has a parallel rendering engine that contains a 2,560 bit wide data bus that is 20 times the size of leading PC-based graphics accelerators. The Graphics Synthesizer architecture can execute recursive multi-pass rendering processing and filter operations at a very fast speed without the assistance of the main CPU or main bus access. In the past, this level of real-time performance was only achieved when using very expensive, high performance, dedicated graphics workstations. There is a 48-Gigabyte memory access bandwidth achieved via the integration of the pixel logic and the video memory on a single high performance chip.The quality of the resulting screen image is comparable to high quality pre-rendered 3D graphics. (that is, once the game developers have learned how to use it properly)"

"There has also been a misunderstanding about the VideoRAM on the PS2. The VRAM is included in the 32MB of main RAM on the CPU (the developer chooses how much of it he wants to dedicate to VRAM). Everyone thought the 4MB of memory on the GS was the VRAM while that is just a buffer in which all the rendering is done so no external bandwidth is needed (only for texture streaming). Another rumour that's been spread by several gaming sites is that the XBox is capable of texture compression and full scene anti-aliasing while the PS2 isn't. This is simply not true. The PS2 can compress/ decompress textures and do full scene anti-aliasing without causing as much slow-down as on the XBox. And although the XBox GPU can do alot of effects that are not 'built-in' in the PS2 GS, the PS2 can do all these effects and more in software mode (but at least at the same quality) through the Emotion Engine."

"I can understand that this is all a bit confusing if you're not a real tech-freak. It comes down to this: when developers have learned how to use the power of the PS2 GS properly they'll get alot more out of it than XBox developers will get out of the XBox GPU. The PS2 GS can't do as much polygons as the XBox but this difference won't be noticeable on a TV screen. The PS2 GS can do alot more advanced visual effects than the XBox GPU."

[ RAM ]
"This is the main memory of a console or computer system. There isn't much to say about the RAM. XBox has twice as much RAM as the PS2. Will this give the XBox a huge advantage? Not at all, let's take a look at how the PS2 accesses the RAM:"

[ Spec Data ] = 1
"32MB Direct RDRAM 2 channels at 800MHz implemented on the CPU itself."

"This means that the PS2's powerful Emotion Engine can manipulate the data stored in the RAM atleast twice as fast as the XBox can access its memory. This is very important cause all data is stored there (even the graphics because the VRAM is included in those 32MB of RAM). Judging by the information that Microsoft has released it looks like the PS2 can also compress and decompress images faster than the XBox because of the implementation of the MPEG2 decoder on the CPU. Even if they increase the RAM on the XBox to 128MB, PS2 still has the advantage here."

[ Sound Chip ]
"This is where the XBox does beat the PS2. The XBox has 64 sound channels while the PS2 has 48. This won't make the noticeable difference though. What will is that the XBox sound chip is designed for interactive and variable CD quality music which means that the music in games can (if the developers use the feature) change and adapt itself to the gameplay. The PS2 sound chip is simply designed for 'precalculated' CD music. It's possible to do interactive music on the PS2, it's just a bit harder to program (but certainly not impossible, just listen carefully to SSX) than on the XBox which is why you'll probably see more XBox games with interactive music."