Hawk269
Member
From what I understand, the tech is not available for them to do a release this year. I think I remember reading that Phil said they could of easily released a updated system this year, but it would not be as advanced as they wanted.
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Xbox Project Scorpio Announced - 6TFlops, 320GB/s - Fall 2017
- Thread starter wachie
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From what I understand, the tech is not available for them to do a release this year. I think I remember reading that Phil said they could of easily released a updated system this year, but it would not be as advanced as they wanted.
Dee Dah Dave
Member
12GB GDDR5 on a 384bit bus is the most likely outcome. Zen / Vega would be nice and I think likely, at least in some variation. Otherwise there's no real need for the extra 12 months release time.
I guess one strat they could have is to always go one year later than Sony from now on. Ensuring they always have the best hardware for the most of the time.
I guess one strat they could have is to always go one year later than Sony from now on. Ensuring they always have the best hardware for the most of the time.
And to add to this, they mentioned what they want to do could be done this year but it would be stupidly expensive.
Hawk269
Member
I personally think a lot of people are downplaying or ignoring the potential of Scorpio having 12gb of RAM vs. NEO at 8gb of RAM. Yeah, it is not as sexy sounding as more Flops or CPU/Type of cores and speed etc, but an extra 4gb of RAM can be very impactful. We don't know enough if MS will be allocating a little more for OS functions, but if they are able to give a true 8gb of RAM for pure gaming purposes that can be really beneficial, especially as we go to higher resolutions.
Theonik
Member
The problem with offering significant memory boosts, is that the software will ultimately have to be developed for the lowest common denominator, while MS doesn't seem concerned to lock software to one system. But the one in the dominant market position gets to dictate a lot about how games are made.
Though more memory can help a fair bit for higher resolution games. At the expense of well. Expense.
JumPeRJumPzZ
Banned
Uhm PC games of today already sport even more higher resolution textures... So the assets etc are already there...
Why?
1. Cheapest 4K Blu-Ray Player
2. 40% Smaller Design
3. Build in AC Adapter
4. 2TB Harddisc instead of 1TB
5. HDR Support
6. Probably less heat and noises
All advantages over the old XBox One Design
SenjutsuSage
Banned
Exactly. I don't understand why that line of reasoning is still used.
MilkyJoe
Member
Why?
1. Cheapest 4K Blu-Ray Player
2. 40% Smaller Design
3. Build in AC Adapter
4. 2TB Harddisc instead of 1TB
5. HDR Support
6. Probably less heat and noises
All advantages over the old XBox One Design
Less noise than the original? I can hear my hair growing over my Xbox One ;oD
frogger
Member
Why?
1. Cheapest 4K Blu-Ray Player
2. 40% Smaller Design
3. Build in AC Adapter
4. 2TB Harddisc instead of 1TB
5. HDR Support
6. Probably less heat and noises
All advantages over the old XBox One Design
l still would just wait for Scorpio and my Xbone will be fine till then.
Movie standards vs. TV standards.
Melchiah
Member
I've missed that. Can you share the link?
When they have a history of adding bandwidth numbers together to one-up the competition, it's only natural to question the claims.
dragonelite
Member
To be fair, posting theoretical maximum numbers is also bullshit. But 320 isn't something that high that it would be immensely bad if this was only added up and seems to be s reasonable number. If it would be way higher, than doubt would be justified.
Anandtech looked at Carrizo today comparing it clock for clock to Kaveri, Richland and Trinity. While the comparisons are not like for like (because of different L caches), they did find some nice IPC improvements. Ignore the gaming comparison because as noted, the (half) cache size did make an impact there.
I'm not undermining Zen but the above leads me to think that the necessity of Zen cores may be too much. I still think Scorpio SoC is using Zen because of the launch period - Q4 2017.
Unless I'm misinterpreting that, Ian seems to think that the jump from Carrizo to Zen won't be huge, like the expectations in this thread.
I'm not undermining Zen but the above leads me to think that the necessity of Zen cores may be too much. I still think Scorpio SoC is using Zen because of the launch period - Q4 2017.
Why buy a yaris when you can get a Ferrari etc. etc.
Theonik
Member
It can be justified depending on the memory configuration. We have no idea what it is as of now so everything goes.
They can do higher resolution, maybe higher quality assets. But higher PC settings aren't meant to be optimised. The difference might be relatively small. The point I was making is that the practical difference might not be so great. The main advantage of more RAM is bigger levels, less loading etc etc, but games have to be compatible across systems so game design won't change. You might get some higher quality assets but that's it.
If they're using GDDR5/GDDR5X, its quite normal to achieve 80% of the the theoretical max or peak memory bandwidth.
80% of 320GB/s is 256GB/s.
Journey
Banned
But if the competition is using the same formula to get their 218GB/s figure, then you're still in the same boat. Neo's bandwidth would have to be considered only 174GB/s, still much lower.
Btw, is GDDRX more efficient, or the same as regular GDDR5?
Also, if AMD feels they need 320GB/s bandwidth, then they must be packing quite a bit of compute units. You don't plan for all the bandwidth if you're not going to use it.
Absolutely.
I'm just saying that Microsoft is more likely to hit that theoretical peak with GDDR5 than with the band-aid solution they were using in the Durango.
EDIT
Gamezone
Gold Member
They should have gone for some alternative tech. I think far into 2017 is a bit late. Late 2016 is probably a good sweet spot.
dr_rus
Member
Bristol Ridge isn't based on Zen, it's using the old Excavator cores, and that's what Ian is writing: "AMDs future will be with A) Bristol Ridge, using an updated Excavator microarchitecture, and B) the new line of high-end processors using Zen cores."
Completely forgot about HDMI limitations.
Gamezone
Gold Member
Late date? Maybe the Neo date is too early?
Not at all. The Neo release date is fine. With the Scorpio I have to consider if I should get that or wait for the next generation.
I think that after we got real numbers of what the PS4 can achieve in terms of bandwidth, theoretical maximums don't tell shit.
Scorpio is the next generation. Along with the NX.
Theonik
Member
What is next generation? If the Scorpio is next-gen why wouldn't the neo be. The gap between the systems is 50% or so. Or do you think that the PS4 is a generation ahead the Xbox One?
Aceofspades
Banned
They are tied to AMD production line times, even Sony could have produced a 6TF system if they waited till late 2017.
SenjutsuSage
Banned
Yea, was just about to point this out. Zen will be in Raven Ridge, not Bristol Ridge.
Some sure talked like it was... but in reality it wasn't. But if the specs as laid out are true, and Scorpio ends up as powerful as all the most hopeful speculation implies, then that honestly represents a bigger, perhaps not entirely generational, difference between scorpio and neo than was the case for ps4 and xbox one. We'd basically be talking jaguar to zen, a notable memory bandwidth advantage (I know people pretend that the Xbox One's ESRAM didn't help bandwidth matters in a pretty major way, but it did so the PS4 edge there wasn't as big as people liked to say it was -- it's easy to say you can't combine them, but if it ends up working out to the same thing - two different pools of memory bandwidth - does it really matter how its described?) And there's a potential of the Scorpio GPU being a Vega chip instead of a Polaris chip. Generational difference somewhat, but obviously perhaps not anywhere to the same magnitude as we're use to seeing between two vastly different generations in terms of capability. Will we actually see this huge difference visually? Honestly? I don't think so. We may see advantages here and there, but it won't somehow make Neo games look like they're running on a Sega Genesis. The developers are still very much the most important piece no matter what goes into these boxes. A talented developer with a great vision and the ability to execute on that vision at a high level can make even a system with the worse specs come out looking more impressive than the more powerful system that doesn't have the same showcase title to show it off.
Neo isn't that so much powerful against Xbone and PS4 as Scorpio to be considered as next-gen console.
SenjutsuSage
Banned
We are underestimating Neo. It's still a huge jump over the capabilities of a PS4 or Xbox One. Don't let the Scorpio specs fool us. Can you imagine what devs could have been able to do on PS4 with just half of the performance benefits that are coming with Neo? Trust me it's going to be extremely capable. Might be harder to see initially due to the similarity in releases, but it's going to show once devs get more comfortable at exploiting Neo's enhanced hardware capability.
MilkyJoe
Member
I expect to see little difference between Neo and Scorpio on multiplats. Both are much bigger numbers than X1 and PS4
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
The Neo is much more powerful compared to the PS4/Xbox One than the Scorpio is to the Neo however. If we go by the numbers we currently know. So it is always about perspective.
Journey
Banned
Next generation means a generational leap in power, but how much is a generational leap? a 1.24x increase in bandwidth certainly isn't, using the same CPU with a mere clock boost isn't, using the same on board 8GB GDDR5 isn't, so the only thing the Neo has going for it to make it remotely close to a generational leap is the boost in GPU power, but even that is lacking with a mere 2.3x more power than the PS4 GPU. When combined CPU + Total Ram + Bandwidth + GPU power, Neo is not even close to a generational leap.
Note, I'm not dissing the Neo at all, just explaining why it cannot be a generational leap, and that's ok because it's not supposed to be, that isn't what Sony is intending.
Now let's examine Scorpio as an upgrade to Xbox One.
GPU = 4.6x more powerful
Bandwidth = 4.7x more
CPU = A true generation leap if they use Zen, more than 10x
Total on board ram = 12GB
If the above rumored is true, then Scorpio will be more of a generational leap than the Dreamcast was over PSX/N64.
You're only looking at the GPU though, what about total system ram, bandwidth, CPU power? If Scorpio goes with Zen, we're looking at more than 10x the CPU power, if 12GB of ram, that's a big boost compared to the same pool, and 320GB/s bandwidth is 72% over the PS4 and 47% over Neo. Neo is a mere 17% increase in bandwidth over PS4.
Theonik
Member
If your point of comparison is a PS4 and not the Xbox One, the Scorpio GPU is only 3.06x If you compare to Xbox One that's 4.6x. These increases compound.
Putting aside that a lot of that information is as of right now completely speculative. (hell even if it uses Zen we have no idea what Zen will perform like in the real world and also no idea what Zen customised for Scorpio would look like. Desktop Zen is too power hungry for console use so shouldn't be used to compare to Jaguar, you'd probably get a lower power Zen core that will also be slower.)
There is simply too many variables and no useful information to actually say how Scorpio will compare to current gen. Calling it next-gen when Microsoft seems to have abandoned the concept of generations also seems pretty arbitrary. These boosts you cite, even against the Xbox One are also not big enough for a generation. You cite the Dreamcast for instance.
PS1 -> DC is a 10x boost in CPU performance, 8x the amount of RAM, 30x GPU etc etc
Though comparing specs there is pretty dumb. The reality was that these were fundamentally different systems and in reality, there were also massive leaps in the underlying technology involved between those generations.
THE:MILKMAN
Member
I think generational leaps (of 8-10X) are just not feasible with current tech. I'd imagine Sony, Microsoft and AMD could all foresee this even before PS4/X1 launched hence why we now see them trying the iterative model or more accurately; Technological inflection point bumps.
I'm not sure how fair or relevant this comparison is but the 270X (a Pitcairn tweak dating back to 2011/12) vs RX480 comes out to a net ~2-2.5X in most metrics in favour of the latter except RAM which is 4X. It isn't a massive jump given the 3/4 years, new process node and new GPU architecture all combined.
There was no way we were going to get almost 15TF for PS5 or 10.5TF for Xbox One (8X jumps) in 2018/19 IMO.
thelastword
Banned
Unless we get real specs from MS, everyone should take this 6TF most powerful console talk that's a year and a half away with a grain of salt. Currently with leaked specs we can calculate what NEO is, but not so much with MS. The talk of XB1 and how powerful it was was also a thing before official specs got released, then we were treading down the "power of the cloud" road soon after reveal. I don't deny that they can offer a 6TF machine easily in late 2017, but history has shown that MS likes to overpromise a bit when it comes to recent hardware.
anothertech
Member
Correct. The article and diagram say 'speculation' which means even they have no idea. Their analysis of the CPU also says nothing about zen.
"When they have a history of adding bandwidth numbers together to one-up the competition, it's only natural to question the claims."
Is definitely still valid at this point.
Because of one console out of three? You are a funny guy. I hope you are still around when there will be df threads with all four consoles.
I feel the Neo is just like what everyone coined it. The PS4.5. I almost feel like it's going Nintendo style with a little extra power like when the big N had the RAM expansion pack.
Scorpio is a completely different beast than the X1. Not just a half step up. At least that's how it seems to me. I'm going to stick with thinking Scorpio and the NX are the start of the next gen new consoles. Just happens next gen is coming a bit sooner than usual.
Alpha Phoenix
Member
Scorpio is well beyond even Neo in terms of raw specs. You could indeed argue that Scorpio is a generation ahead of Neo.
Regardless, the word 'generation' no longer seems to have any meaning in this regard. Both Neo and Scorpio are attempts at moving away from the whole generation thing.
Proelite
Member
Bitch Pudding
Member
I agree, while the market focus of PS4 Neo is crystal clear, Scorpio seems to be some kind of hybrid between an upgrade and a completely new generation. Power-wise it has enough beef to count as a new generation. But for that it lacks exclusive games. As long as it has to share the content with its predecessor XBOX One, MS will have a hard time to sell this one for a price anything above $400.
If I had to gamble, I'd suggest that Scorpio will sell a shitload of consoles during holiday 2017, even more than PS4 Neo, but once that happened sales are going to tank rather soon. MS is really going to need to offer some exclusive content for this SKU, and a VR solution alone does not have the mass market appeal for that.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
If Neo is not a generation beyond XboxOne/PS4, then Scorpio surely is not a generation beyond Neo from what we know so far.
Theonik
Member
From what we know so far it's only 50% more powerful. Anything else is speculation. If MS for instance was sure it was doing 12GB of RAM they'd be practically shouting it from the rooftops, same if Zen was assured. Instead they said 8 cores which is the current configuration.
We simply don't know enough to make that assertion but from what we know both devices should be in a similar ballpark. There's no 4x gap between those systems. If Neo isn't next gen, neither is Scorpio. If the PS4 isn't a gen ahead of the Xbox One, neither is Scorpio. If the gap between the PS4 and Neo isn't enough to make it a next gen, neither is the gap between Neo and Scorpio. I feel people have a fair bit of confirmation bias here.
"With this talk about the most powerful console ever I thought that the graphics would be a lot better than that. The gap between Neo and Scorpio is not that huge."
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