[Update: Processor and Internal Assembly] Xbox Project Scorpio Revealed - Mid cycle 4K console revolution?

[IAmAndre]

I'm a little confused now. Linus said a few times that any game could be run at 4K as long as the hardware supports it, no matter how old the game it is. So why do devs need to rework the games to make them run at 4K as it's mentioned in DF's video?

 

Other question ; why are they not using a Rysen GPU ?

[Taf the Ghost]

26 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

That just wouldnt happen: The entire point is that its running at a higher resolution, 4k, the mere fact that the older consoles can still run them at 900p means the experience for the older consoles is the same but the newer one just improves on it.

 

They went with PC hardware this time precisely to just do incremental upgrades, no more of this one console for 8 years nonsense games can progress faster and older consoles can still play newer games at the detail level they always could handle, user decides when to upgrade instead of being a huge effort and investment from companies to get you to throw away your huge collection for a new console that is not backwards compatible plus you can actually stop wasting so much money subsidizing the price of new consoles to convince you to upgrade: much like a PC I can still play any game on moderate settings on my 950 I choosen to upgrade to a 1070 but no game really demanded it.

 

What they're doing is actually a very good compromise between console simplicity and PC modularity.

I've been assuming they're going to put a Year tag on each Console.  With strict Backwards compatibility at least 2 cycles.

 

Thus Scorpio (2017) & Scorpio (2021) keeps Xbone One games.  Scorpio (2025) drops Xbone One games at upscale.

 

Considering it's Microsoft, this was *always* the logical move they should have done.  Put the games on x86 allows them to be playable at least 2 generations up.  It puts upwards of 15 years of games within reach of everyone.  Companies love to run out "game of the year" editions.  Now they can run out "game of the Era!" editions with little upgrades yet still keep an online playerbase, if it has one.

[Taf the Ghost]

Just now, IAmAndre said:

I'm a little confused now. Linus said a few times that any game could be run at 4K as long as the hardware supports it, no matter how old the game it is. So why do devs need to rework the games to make them run at 4K as it's mentioned in DF's video?

 

Other question ; why are they not using a Rysen GPU ?

Cat cores are, I believe, built by TSMC.  Zen cores (Ryzen) are built by Global Foundries. Which should mean that they're all designed for TSMC's processes.

[The Benjamins]

6 minutes ago, Tedny said:

So, How much Pc gaming overpaying for Hardware if that console is just 500$ ?

it is a slightly faster RX480, and Microsoft and sony take a lose on hardware and make money on game sales and accessory sales

[No Nrg]

I see how there is an emphasis on showing that this is more powerful than the PS4 Pro. But like all tech, there will always be something more powerful right after it. This just means Sony will most likely throw the next punch and one up this in the next year or so.

 

This could very well be the start of incremental updates on consoles. They need to just make them modular (PC) already so the important stuff can be swapped without buying a whole new box every friggin year.

 

Scorpio is not worth it to me as Microsoft already releases everything on PC anyways and my GTX 1080 is already more powerful than this

[79wjd]

11 minutes ago, Tedny said:

So, How much Pc gaming overpaying for Hardware if that console is just 500$ ?

G3560 - $70

Mobo - $50

Rx480 - $200

Ram - $40

HDD - $40

Case - $40

PSU - $40

Windows - $80

Total - $520

 

So not at all?

[YamiYukiSenpai]

Just now, No Nrg said:

I see how there is an emphasis on showing that this is more powerful than the PS4 Pro. But like all tech, there will always be something more powerful right after it. This just means Sony will most likely throw the next punch and one up this in the next year or so.

 

This could very well be the start of incremental updates on consoles. They need to just make them modular (PC) already so the important stuff can be swapped without buying a whole new box every friggin year.

It's hard to develop a game while considering different hardware configurations and variations.  The only reason why Scorpio can go native 4K with 60FPS is because developers don't have to consider so many different hardware.  Just like how iPhones perform better than Android on most apps.

[paddy-stone]

Looks good, was hoping for a more up to date CPU in it, like Ryzen, but I'll take the clock bump and other improvements for sure

 

Just have to wait and see if it really will be fully backwards compatible with xbone titles... if it isn't then I most likely won't bother this time.

[IAmAndre]

From what I can see on the Google, you have to spend around €1500 for the average 4K build. I'm not sure how much the Scorpio will cost but I doubt it'l sale at over €1000, which is an extremely good deal.

[79wjd]

28 minutes ago, Tedny said:

So how to made 36 compute units in rx 480 in 40 ? 

10% more CUs clocked 10%+ lower.

28 minutes ago, IAmAndre said:

From what I can see on the Google, you have to spend around €1500 for the average 4K build. I'm not sure how much the Scorpio will cost but I doubt it'l sale at over €1000, which is an extremely good deal.

There's no magic going on here. It's going to offer RX480~ performance, so it won't magicaly run 4k @ ultra settings. It will run 4k similarly to how an RX480 on a PC would run 4k -- i.e. it will likely run around medium settings @ 30fps or it will run at a lower resolution and just be fake 4k. 

[RagnarokDel]

3 hours ago, randomhkkid said:

Microsoft is aiming this console at 4K gaming, any 900p or better title on current Xbones can easy run at the same frame rate at 4K on Scorpio.

The Scorpio GPU is only 96mhz off the RX480 GPU whilst having 4 more more compute units. - Most likely Polaris based

4K60 demonstrated on Forza rock solid @60 - 70% GPU utilisation - 4K screenshots in the article

With Forza at PC ultra quality settings utilisation is at 88% - 4K60 GTX1070 level performance

 

To be fair, consoles dont run games at ultra, usually.

 

PS: This thing seems to have some Vega DNA if it reaches those kinds of framerate at 4k with those clockspeeds.

 

Just did some testing. As far as I can tell with my RX 480 at 1350/2100, I can get 4k30-45fps at a mix of high and medium settings and 60FPS at low.

[Deletist_Jerk]

I can only imagine Sony announcing PS4 Ultimate or something like that at E3. 

[Mr.Meerkat]

17 minutes ago, Tedny said:

So I can take P4 and overclock it to 6Ghz and it will be like i7 with 2cores ? 

Yes and no

[marldorthegreat]

2 hours ago, MEC-777 said:

All sounds great... Except those CPU cores.  

It would be fine, since games on box will always be gpu optimized, so cpu power is seldom important/

[WMGroomAK]

50 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

10% more CUs clocked 10%+ lower.

There's no magic going on here. It's going to offer RX480~ performance, so it won't magicaly run 4k @ ultra settings. It will run 4k similarly to how an RX480 on a PC would run 4k -- i.e. it will likely run around medium settings @ 30fps or it will run at a lower resolution and just be fake 4k. 

This has been the thing that has been bugging me about the whole spec release.  Sure it looks like a modified RX480, however even the 480 struggles on a lot of titles to reach 30 FPS average on 4K resolution.  Makes me think that Microsoft is going to have Game Devs drop some of the graphic setting options down in order to achieve the 4K 60FPS.  

[Bleedingyamato]

3 hours ago, Vode said:

Hmm looks pretty sweet! I will buy this 100%. Forza, Halo and Doom are all instantly going to get better resolution scaling and probably an additional 4k patch later on.

 

Although that blower style cooler doesn't look too good. Guess I'm not replacing my fan on the new Xbox with an aftermarket 120mm.

 

Will replace the internal HDD with an SSD though just like with my Xbox One S.

 

HYPE!

You opened your S to replace a fan and the HDD?  

 

That doesn't sound wise since it would void the warranty...  Though I blame MS for being stupid and not allowing users to replace at least the HDD like Sony does.  

[marldorthegreat]

2 minutes ago, WMGroomAK said:

This has been the thing that has been bugging me about the whole spec release.  Sure it looks like a modified RX480, however even the 480 struggles on a lot of titles to reach 30 FPS average on 4K resolution.  Makes me think that Microsoft is going to have Game Devs drop some of the graphic setting options down in order to achieve the 4K 60FPS.  

But consoles will always get a boost in performance because of just how games can be optimized. 30 fps on pc would probably translate to 45 ish fps on console, which is probably fine for the console players. 

[Bleedingyamato]

2 hours ago, MEC-777 said:

All sounds great... Except those CPU cores.  

Are they better or worse than a PS4 Pro?

 

OP just mentions a GHz comparison to the PS4 Pro but that doesn't answer this question.  

[The Benjamins]

1 minute ago, Bleedingyamato said:

Are they better or worse than a PS4 Pro?

 

OP just mentions a GHz comparison to the PS4 Pro but that doesn't answer this question.  

they are the same arch so if the Ghz are higher then its faster. in every way the scorpio is faster then the PS4 Pro

[linustouchtips]

things are moving at a rapid pace i cant keep up with these consoles anymore. 

[MEC-777]

Just now, Bleedingyamato said:

Are they better or worse than a PS4 Pro?

 

OP just mentions a GHz comparison to the PS4 Pro but that doesn't answer this question.  

They are based on the same [fairly old] AMD Jaguar cores which are of low-power, mobile-based CPU design. They basically use two Athlon 5350's (making a custom 8-core chip) in the Xbox One and PS4, just clocked differently (and the Xbox One has some eDRAM added).  Still, they are very "weak" cores with relatively low IPC per core/thread. 

 

TL:DR; They are still very weak, even with the clock boost. 

[Bleedingyamato]

1 minute ago, The Benjamins said:

they are the same arch so if the Ghz are higher then its faster. in every way the scorpio is faster then the PS4 Pro

At least with the CPU then if it's the same CPU just a slightly higher speed it's not that significantly faster I assume.  

 

Even the other specs don't seem dramatically higher than a PS4 Pro.  Just a bit higher in what I can only assume is an attempt to claim victory over PS4 by being slightly better.  lol 

 

Not that it matters much to me which is more powerful.  I have both Xbox One S and PS4 and enjoy games on both consoles.  Having good specs is nice but it doesn't change what games are made for either console so while I'll probably get a Scorpio it likely won't affect which console I'd buy a game for assuming it was on both.  

[Guest]

1 hour ago, IAmAndre said:

From what I can see on the Google, you have to spend around €1500 for the average 4K build. I'm not sure how much the Scorpio will cost but I doubt it'l sale at over €1000, which is an extremely good deal.

it will certainly run at 30fps in most titles and will hardly be at ultra settings. A rx 470 is capable of 4k 30fps high settings in most reasonably optimised AAA titles, and is cheap enough to be in a $450-500 PC. hardly a great deal if you ask me, what with no upgrade path, and no option to get 1080 60fps ultra etc

[Bleedingyamato]

6 minutes ago, MEC-777 said:

They are based on the same [fairly old] AMD Jaguar cores which are of low-power, mobile-based CPU design. They basically use two Athlon 5350's (making a custom 8-core chip) in the Xbox One and PS4, just clocked differently (and the Xbox One has some eDRAM added).  Still, they are very "weak" cores with relatively low IPC per core/thread. 

 

TL:DR; They are still very weak, even with the clock boost. 

Odd that MS and Sony would use iffy CPUs on what are supposed to be fairly powerful current gen consoles.  More so when you consider these revision consoles are aimed at 4K.  

[Techicolors]

Apparently there is freesync/variable sync technology implemented 

 

 

sadly the source of the tweet is gone 

@randomhkkid