Microsoft boasts 50% faster Hard Drive in Xbox One X versus Standard Xbox One

[AlTech]

Microsoft is boasting a 50% faster Hard Drive in Xbox One X versus the Standard Xbox One.

 

And they're not entirely wong either.

 

Quote

Xbox One X, Microsoft's latest video games console, has been seemingly off to a strong start across the globe. Promising the hardware to drive a premium gaming experience, 4K resolution, High Dynamic Range (HDR) and improved framerates are all among the console's capabilities, entering the market as the most powerful console to date.

While the Xbox One X's advances are almost exclusively visual, the console has also been marketed to deliver shorter loading times. Microsoft attributes these gains to an improved storage setup under the hood, boasting an "up to 50 percent" increase in hard disk drive (HDD) bandwidth over the standard Xbox One X. While the 1TB drive at 5,400 revolutions-per-minute (RPM) isn't dissimilar from those in previous Xbox One consoles, various enhancements ensure the device fully leverages the drive's speed. Combined with significant leaps in CPU and GPU capabilities, improved loading times are a welcome by-product of this hardware leap

 

 

 

 

So yeah, the biggest gains were in GTA V which has not been optimized for Xbox One X at all from my understanding.

 

However, it's not all good news. Backwards compatibility titles take longer to load apparently although this likely isn't the fault of the HDD but rather the emulation magic the CPU is using.

 

 

So yeah, cool stuff. One of the most important changes between the Standard One and the X is the move to Sata 6Gbit/s  cos some people swap out the HDD for SSDs.

 

Source:

https://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-one-x-loading-times

 

Notice: if you're reading this 2 weeks in the future, the images might appear broken.

[Indus Monk]

Now that's good news for console people. Still wouldn't buy a console, unless they add keyboard and mouse support

[S w a t s o n]

Really sad they couldn't spring for a 7200RPM drive in the X model for speeds probably 100% faster but oh well I wasn't planning on buying one anyways.

 

37 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

So yeah, cool stuff. One of the most important changes between the Standard One and the X is the move to Sata 6Gbit/s  cos some people swap out the HDD for SSDs.

Jesus, they were using SATA 2? I know the drives didn't need the throughput but how was SATA3 not just cheaper by the time the original XBONE came out...

[Hiya!]

Does it still run Destiny 2 at 30fps with them power on the x?

[Princess Luna]

29 minutes ago, AmbarChakrabarti said:

Now that's good news for console people. Still wouldn't buy a console, unless they add keyboard and mouse support

More like Microsoft was nerfing the original Xbox One on purpose so they had what to improve on all these newer revisions.

[asus killer]

3 minutes ago, Hiya! said:

Does it still run Destiny 2 at 30fps with them power on the x?

 

[asus killer]

16 minutes ago, Swatson said:

Jesus, they were using SATA 2? I know the drives didn't need the throughput but how was SATA3 not just cheaper by the time the original XBONE came out...

they were just probably engineered a long time ago, before the release date for the console

[Hiya!]

2 minutes ago, asus killer said:

 

On phone with data plan cant really buffer that video.

[Sauron]

sluggish spinning rust against slightly less sluggish spinning rust? what a treat!

[Trixanity]

They really should implement a flash-based cache system. I'm guessing the HDD has 64-256 MB cache but some gigabytes of cache would really help overall performance. Just 8 or 16 GB would do wonders.

[asus killer]

3 minutes ago, Hiya! said:

On phone with data plan cant really buffer that video.

short answer, 30fps. Look at it later for more information 

[Trixanity]

3 minutes ago, asus killer said:

they were just probably engineered a long time ago, before the release date for the console

SATA 3 was finalized (officially that is) in early 2009. I refuse to believe it wasn't anything but a cost-cutting measure. Arguably it doesn't make a difference for anyone but those who replace the drive. I'm not sure the included drive can saturate SATA 2 even.

[Dabombinable]

That's called using a 7200RPM HDD as opposed to a slow 5400RPM HDD.

FFS, missed the part where its still a slow 5400RPM HDD. Still haven't seen a 5400RPM 2.5" HDD that matches the speed of the 2010 7200RPM 500GB SATA II HDD from my old laptop.

[asus killer]

13 minutes ago, Trixanity said:

SATA 3 was finalized (officially that is) in early 2009. I refuse to believe it wasn't anything but a cost-cutting measure. Arguably it doesn't make a difference for anyone but those who replace the drive. I'm not sure the included drive can saturate SATA 2 even.

my 2011 laptop has a sata 3 port. I'm not defending MS, just saying maybe they already had it planned before 2009, i have no idea.

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, asus killer said:

my 2011 laptop has a sata 3 port. I'm not defending MS, just saying maybe they already had it planned before 2009, i have no idea.

The chipset though is based around a Bulldozer derived APU, and those came out with SATA3 in 2011/2012.

[Trixanity]

16 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

The chipset though is based around a Bulldozer derived APU, and those came out with SATA3 in 2011/2012.

Oh no it isn't. It's a cat-core or more specifically Jaguar. It's nothing like Bulldozer.

[Trixanity]

Double post.

[Coaxialgamer]

5 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

The chipset though is based around a Bulldozer derived APU, and those came out with SATA3 in 2011/2012.

The xbox SoC isn't based on bulldozer in any way . It's based on jaguar , which was derived for the bobcat core. It's a completely different core , meant to compete with atom in the low power sector. It doesn't share bulldozer's CMT , and was actually develloped in tandem parralel to the BD core , becasue that core wouldn't be able to run at a low power.

[dizmo]

Nice. Even more reason to step up to an Xbox One X. 

[Matu20]

Wasn't it basic knowledge that faster CPU will increase storage IO speeds?

[Coaxialgamer]

12 minutes ago, Matu20 said:

Wasn't it basic knowledge that faster CPU will increase storage IO speeds?

only if there isn't any other bottleneck in the I/O subsystem . In this case ,  it's the drive . No matter how fast a cpu you have , nothing can make a hard drive perform like an SSD.

[Matu20]

1 hour ago, Coaxialgamer said:

only if there isn't any other bottleneck in the I/O subsystem . In this case ,  it's the drive . No matter how fast a cpu you have , nothing can make a hard drive perform like an SSD.

No, and it still doesn't. But even HDDs can be bottlenecked by current gen CPUs.

[Dabombinable]

7 hours ago, Coaxialgamer said:

The xbox SoC isn't based on bulldozer in any way . It's based on jaguar , which was derived for the bobcat core. It's a completely different core , meant to compete with atom in the low power sector. It doesn't share bulldozer's CMT , and was actually develloped in tandem parralel to the BD core , becasue that core wouldn't be able to run at a low power.

Its still similar to CMT (2x ALU, 1x FPU per module for a total of 4 modules) but actually a bit worse. Bobcat itself was still produced since 2011 (Jaguar is from 2013). And its still shit.

 

Edit: BTW explain how Trinity and Richland manages to run at low power in thin laptops.

[AlTech]

6 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Its still similar to CMT (2x ALU, 1x FPU per module for a total of 4 modules) but actually a bit worse. Bobcat itself was still produced since 2011 (Jaguar is from 2013). And its still shit.

Jaguar core doesn't use anything similar to CMT.

[Dabombinable]

Just now, AluminiumTech said:

Jaguar core doesn't use anything similar to CMT.

2x ALU. 1x FPU (the part that is used most in games)-the difference is the lack of resource sharing.