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[GTR R35_Supra RZ]

Puffs or spicy?

Puffs damnit. Spicey will be for the E3 Scorpio thread.

 

[Metalingus5150]

Are 32 ROPS confirmed?

 

[Space_nut]

This enforces my thoughts on the scorpio - it being just a 4k native capable xbox one. I don't think we'll see any differences other than res on consoles. That trend appears to continue with this.

Res only? Lol

 

[SRTtoZ]

It's no surprise that even the far back leaks always lead to an overclocked RX 480 and it still holds true today. I don't know why people expected Sony and MS to bump up specs to godly levels last minute. These consoles need to be cost efficient.

 

[belvedere]

Yes, correct.

I dont think AMD didnt offer that .. it's more of what Microsoft wanted. AMD makes their feature sets, designs, architectures available to both and each pick what they think is best for their console.

For example, for PS4 Cerny went with a lot more ACE engines than what was standard at that time in the GCN architecture. Microsoft went with the standard for Xbox One. So it wasnt like AMD cut a special deal to Sony.

I'm not being a smart ass, I'm seriously not sure what the context is here. Are they describing the Scorpio configuration in that sentence or talking about the AMD platform in general?

 

[Ploid 3.0]

True. That's why I'm still waiting for the power of the cloud.

E3 Crackdown is going to be the cloud's last stand I think. It kind of disappointing it's only been used for a few games that I can think of (Forza AI thing, and Titan Fall bots). Though Scorpio could still use help from the cloud for processor heavy stuff since it's still bound by it's CPU.

 

[jaypah]

I dont understand?

GAF told me the scorpio was more powerful than a gtx 1070?

Nah, GAF isn't a single entity. But if you mean you heard it on GAF so GAF told you then, ok. But GAF also said devs won't do anything above PS4Pro with Scorpion and PS4Pro owners have been using Scorpio level power so...suck it, basically. Then GAF got banned for it.

Anyway, interested to see how this bandwidth thing plays out. If it's a repeat of the XB1 bandwidth-gate then they only have themselves to blame.

 

[GTR R35_Supra RZ]

I thought your NPD prediction was a joke. But seeing some of these recent posts... seems you were serious?

Wow.

Sir, do you have a major problem with Xbox/Scorpio..let us know how you feel.

 

[sangreal]

It's great. No PR spin!

replaced with assumptions and speculation, which they admit off the bat

 

[Proelite]

Doesn't seem like Scorpio will have rapid packed math because they didn't mention it and it wouldn't benefit xb1 titles so no reason for them to add it. Double packed math gives 30% advantage according to Dice, so when games start to be coded that way Scorpios advantage over Pro will only 9% instead of 43%. In addition, since 218gb/s seems like the peak figures for the GPU, compared to around 180GB/s for the pros GPu. It's more like 10% advantage for Scorpio in year 2018 and beyond.

Unless Scorpio is priced similarly, I don't see the business being turned around. Scorpio was a mistake.

Oh and I want my post linked as source when it posted in other forums. Youre welcome lurkers.

 

[platina]

Are 32 ROPS confirmed?

How many ROPS does the PS4 pro have?

 

[Waaghals]

Well, the bandwidth is shared between both the GPU and CPU, right?

The rest could be used by the CPU?

 

[wachie]

I'm not being a smart ass, I'm seriously not sure what the context is here. Are they describing the Scorpio configuration in that sentence or talking about the AMD platform in general?

They're talking about how AMD makes their SoC designs available to vendors like Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo ... the vendors can literally pick and choose blocks, features, specs for their design targets.

replaced with assumptions and speculation, which they admit off the bat

And no PR buzzwords.

 

[Wishmaster92]

Doesn't seem like Scorpio will have rapid packed math because they didn't mention it and it wouldn't benefit xb1 titles so no reason for them to add it. Double packed math gives 30% advantage according to Dice, so when games start to be coded that way Scorpios advantage over Pro will only 9% instead of 43%. In addition, since 218gb/s seems like the peak figures for the GPU, compared to around 180GB/s for the pros GPu. It's more like 10% advantage for Scorpio in year 2018 and beyond.

Unless Scorpio is priced similarly, I don't see the business being turned around. Scorpio was a mistake.

Are you talking 16FP? Shouldn't the Scorpio have this if it is also Polaris?

 

[Space_nut]

Doesn't seem like Scorpio will have rapid packed math because they didn't mention it and it wouldn't benefit xb1 titles so no reason for them to add it. Double packed math gives 30% advantage according to Dice, so when games start to be coded that way Scorpios advantage over Pro will only 9% instead of 43%. In addition, since 218gb/s seems like the peak figures for the GPU, compared to around 180GB/s for the pros GPu. It's more like 10% advantage for Scorpio in year 2018 and beyond.

Unless Scorpio is priced similarly, I don't see the business being turned around. Scorpio was a mistake.

Oh no not the fp16 doubling power theory

 

[wachie]

Are you talking 16FP? Shouldn't the Scorpio have this if it is also Polaris?

It's (integral) part of Vega feature set - https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Radeon_Vega_GPU_Architecture/3.html

 

[MisterXDTV]

They're speculating but in no sense saying the Vega blocks in Pro and Scorpio are similar.


Unless I'm missing something the Pro use the shader cores and other Vega features such as RPM. I dont think you can call it an underclocked Polaris, for Scorpio for sure it's a Polaris.

Yeah, but it's still a RX 480 with Vega enhancements: 36 CU at 911 mhz

Desktop RX 480: 36 CU at 1200/1300 mhz

Scorpio: 40 CU at 1172 mhz (= 36 CU at 1302 mhz)

 

[terrier]

Res only? Lol

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=233577007&postcount=6326

lol depending on which console i guess

Pro is mainly a base ps4 game running in higher res

 

[rpg_fan]

Good article, and pretty much what was expected by reasonable people. As a plus, this tech should be doable at the 400$ price range that has been so important.

 

[Space_nut]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=233577007&postcount=6326

lol depending on which console i guess

Pro's hardware is built for running PS4/XB1 games in higher res with some better AF and such but nothing else. It doesn't have the ram or bandwidth to provide considerably better textures, meshes, etc that Scorpio will and shown in the ForzaTech demo. Would you like to bet Scorpio will only allow res increase and nothing else?

 

[dragonelite]

Are you talking 16FP? Shouldn't the Scorpio have this

What packed math does is allow two 16 bit operations be calculated instead of one 32 bit operation. FP16 is a floating point datatype that has 16 bit worth of precision. They might be useful for things that are calculated in normalized space values between 0.0~1.0 till a certain level of precision. If 16 bits of precision is enough then you could do two operations with the packed math block, instead of only one 16 bit operation.
Hence speeding up parts of the calculation.

At least that is how i was told it works.

 

[Guerrillas in the Mist]

Doesn't seem like Scorpio will have rapid packed math because they didn't mention it and it wouldn't benefit xb1 titles so no reason for them to add it. Double packed math gives 30% advantage according to Dice, so when games start to be coded that way Scorpios advantage over Pro will only 9% instead of 43%. In addition, since 218gb/s seems like the peak figures for the GPU, compared to around 180GB/s for the pros GPu. It's more like 10% advantage for Scorpio in year 2018 and beyond.

Unless Scorpio is priced similarly, I don't see the business being turned around. Scorpio was a mistake.

Oh and I want my post linked as source when it posted in other forums. Youre welcome lurkers.

I think my satire detection is broken now: is this the new "secret sauce"?

 

[wachie]

Yeah, but it's still a RX 480 with Vega enhancements: 36 CU at 911 mhz

Desktop RX 480: 36 CU at 1200/1300 mhz

Scorpio: 40 CU at 1172 mhz (= 36 CU at 1302 mhz)

Unless we're saying two diffferent things, the Scorpio GPU has more in common with Polaris than the Pro GPU. They're both based on Polaris.

 

[Shpeshal Nick]

But why state 326 if it can't be used?

That's a big gap.

 

[Ploid 3.0]

Good article, and pretty much what was expected by reasonable people. As a plus, this tech should be doable at the 400$ price range that has been so important.

Yeah I'm thinking it's going to be $400, and Microsoft should put it there. They need a good E3, $500 will be a bit too similar to Xbox One reveal E3 without a Kinect packed in. Maybe Xbox Scorpio + elite controller for $500.

Edit: Looked it up, that controller is $150, ok that probably won't work.

 

[Proelite]

But why state 326 if it can't be used?

That's a big gap.

PR win.

 

[MisterXDTV]

Unless we're saying two diffferent things, the Scorpio GPU has more in common with Polaris than the Pro GPU. They're both based on Polaris.

Do we know enough about Scorpio's GPU to be sure about this? Do you think it hasn't got any Vega enhancements?

I mean, that would be terrible for MS as they are coming out a year later....

 

[Syrus]

Doesn't seem like Scorpio will have rapid packed math because they didn't mention it and it wouldn't benefit xb1 titles so no reason for them to add it. Double packed math gives 30% advantage according to Dice, so when games start to be coded that way Scorpios advantage over Pro will only 9% instead of 43%. In addition, since 218gb/s seems like the peak figures for the GPU, compared to around 180GB/s for the pros GPu. It's more like 10% advantage for Scorpio in year 2018 and beyond.

Unless Scorpio is priced similarly, I don't see the business being turned around. Scorpio was a mistake.

Oh and I want my post linked as source when it posted in other forums. Youre welcome lurkers.

U serious??

 

[Sword Of Doom]

But why state 326 if it can't be used?

That's a big gap.

Because it's a bigger number

 

[jroc74]

Good article, and pretty much what was expected by reasonable people. As a plus, this tech should be doable at the 400$ price range that has been so important.

Hadn't thought about this.

 

[Wishmaster92]

Oh no not the fp16 doubling power theory

Well it's not really blowing smoke, it gave DICE a 30% performance improvement. Of course that's just DICE, maybe 1st party titles can squeeze even more. It's very important.

What packed math does is allow two 16 bit operations be calculated instead of one 32 bit operation. FP16 is a floating point datatype that has 16 bit worth of precision. They might be useful for things that are calculated in normalized space values between 0.0~1.0 till a certain level of precision. If 16 bits of precision is enough then you could do two operations with the packed math block, instead of only one 16 bit operation.
Hence speeding up parts of the calculation.

At least that is how i was told it works.

It's (integral) part of Vega feature set - https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Radeon_Vega_GPU_Architecture/3.html

Thanks for the explanation.

 

[Shpeshal Nick]

PR win.

Because it's a bigger number

Yeah, but that's a pretty big gap to fudge though.

 

[terrier]

Pro's hardware is built for running PS4/XB1 games in higher res with some better AF and such but nothing else. It doesn't have the ram or bandwidth to provide considerably better textures, meshes, etc that Scorpio will and shown in the ForzaTech demo. Would you like to bet Scorpio will only allow res increase and nothing else?

it has more ram and bandwith plus other customizations to allow better quality and not just resolution.

read
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=233588636&postcount=6592

scorpio too... and compared to ps4pro .....well unless this part is true..

What makes things especially interesting though is that Microsoft didn't just switch out DDR3 for GDDR5, but they're using a wider memory bus as well; expanding it by 50% to 384-bits wide. Not only does this even further expand the console's memory bandwidth – now to a total of 326GB/sec, or 4.8x the XB1's DDR3 – but it means we have an odd mismatch between the ROP backends and the memory bus. Briefly, the ROP backends and memory bus are typically balanced 1-to-1 in a GPU, so a single memory controller will feed 1 or two ROP partitions. However in this case, we have a 384-bit bus feeding 32 ROPs, which is not a compatible mapping.

What this means is that at some level, Microsoft is running an additional memory crossbar in the SoC, which would be very similar to what AMD did back in 2012 with the Radeon HD 7970. Because the console SoC needs to split its memory bandwidth between the CPU and the GPU, things aren't as cut and dry here as they are with discrete GPUs. But, at a high level, what we saw from the 7970 is that the extra bandwidth + crossbar setup did not offer much of a benefit over a straight-connected, lower bandwidth configuration. Accordingly, AMD has never done it again in their dGPUs. So I think it will be very interesting to see if developers can consistently consume more than 218GB/sec or so of bandwidth using the GPU.

 

[Syrus]

But why state 326 if it can't be used?

That's a big gap.

Noone has stated it cant be used. All conjecture right now

 

[Liabe Brave]

Pro's hardware is built for running PS4/XB1 games in higher res with some better AF and such but nothing else. It doesn't have the ram or bandwidth to provide considerably better textures, meshes, etc that Scorpio will and shown in the ForzaTech demo.

Multiple Pro games have improved textures, effects, and meshes. Scorpio will probably have more and larger improvements, but it's just not accurate to paint it as a qualitatively different approach. It's a better version of what Sony did.

 

[Electret]

But why state 326 if it can't be used?

That's a big gap.

Theoretical maximum bandwidth != real-world runtime bandwidth. That was the case for PS4 and XB1, and I'm sure you can find developer posts saying as much if you search hard enough for it. Heck, this inequality is probably true for most modern computing hardware in general.

Pro's hardware is built for running PS4/XB1 games in higher res with some better AF and such but nothing else. It doesn't have the ram or bandwidth to provide considerably better textures, meshes, etc that Scorpio will and shown in the ForzaTech demo. Would you like to bet Scorpio will only allow res increase and nothing else?

Pro's hardware isn't 'built' for two specific graphical parameters. It affords a certain increase in general graphics processing that can be used in a litany of ways as devs see fit, and we have indeed seen a number of Pro patches that sport upgrades beyond resolution and AF.

 

[Klocker]

Yeah, but that's a pretty big gap to fudge though.

Yea this is all speculation as the engineers certainly came across this in design and there must be a reason for it and a way that it works. Would be Too sily to post such a false number that would be proven wrong.

Even anand tech says it is "interesting to se what they can do", he never says it's a lie.

 

[michaelius]

Interesting about that memory bus on 7970 I always attributed Nvidia outperforming it with 256bit bus gpus to delta compression.

 

[Shpeshal Nick]

Yea this is all speculation as the engineers certainly came across this in design and there must be a reason for it and a way that it works. Would be Too sily to post such a false number that would be proven wrong.

Even anand tech says it is "interesting to se what they can do", he never says it's a lie.

Certainly insinuates it.

Man, if Microsoft really are silly enough to fudge tech numbers again...

 

[JamesHolden]

Article seemed like a lot of guessing and extrapolation. We don't know what Vega features are in the GPU. I don't think "they would have told us" is a good argument. We don't know the memory subsystem setup. The fact the APU has to reserve memory bandwidth for the CPU makes the crossbar analogy on a straight GPU less relevant. Will be curious to learn more, which I'm sure we will, prior to launch.

 

[Primethius]

Sir, do you have a major problem with Xbox/Scorpio..let us know how you feel.

I got no issues with Scorpio. Xbox? Maybe. But that's cause I'm a long time Xbox fan from the OG days so I'm bound to have issues.

Here though, I was just making an observation on the prediction/posts.

 

[MisterXDTV]

It's no surprise that even the far back leaks always lead to an overclocked RX 480 and it still holds true today. I don't know why people expected Sony and MS to bump up specs to godly levels last minute. These consoles need to be cost efficient.

Actually in June last year DF was expecting an underclocked Vega , not an overcloked Polaris:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-xbox-one-project-scorpio-spec-analysis

They didn't expect they could run the clocks so high in a console.

But they got all the other specs right from a rendering picture: amazing

 

[Erebus]

Great analysis from Anandtech. Kinda what I was expecting from DF instead of praising the hardware (they had the exclusive scoop though, so can't blame them).

What I can't quite grasp is how Scorpio will render games at native 4k with this hardware. I mean the same DF has said in the past that a GTX 1080 is the absolute minimum for native 4k gaming and I quote:

The bottom line is that the arrival of GTX 1080 and Titan X Pascal are significant in that for the first time, 4K gaming is something I actually want, where the experience comes across as a substantial upgrade over 1080p. There are two reasons for this - first of all, both GPUs are capable of providing a worthwhile experience at UHD, where I don't feel that the experience has to be unduly compromised to the point where the experience actually suffers - either in terms of frame-rate or quality settings. Titan X irons out performance issues and allows more titles to hit higher frame-rates, but GTX 1080 is still in the game.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-4k-gaming-is-finally-viable-and-its-stunning

But somehow, they didn't even argue about Scorpio's 4k capabilities.

 

[quest]

Certainly insinuates it.

Man, if Microsoft really are silly enough to fudge tech numbers again...

I don't think they are fudging but I think Scorpio like the OG one will have a unusual memory configuration. Love to hear from those more knowledgeable. This is way above my pay grade. I will assume Anand is correct till a 3rd party who worked on a development kit chimes in. This article wow if Scorpio has less Vega than the pro.

 

[wachie]

Do we know enough about Scorpio's GPU to be sure about this? Do you think it hasn't got any Vega enhancements?

I mean, that would be terrible for MS as they are coming out a year later....

The spec reveal with DF was a good time to talk about those enhancements and they didnt.

Yea this is all speculation as the engineers certainly came across this in design and there must be a reason for it and a way that it works. Would be Too sily to post such a false number that would be proven wrong.

Even anand tech says it is "interesting to se what they can do", he never says it's a lie.

Peak memory bandwidth - 326Gbps - FACT
Real world usage - ???

Their is no lying or fudging. Even the PS4 Pro will struggle to hit it's peak bandwidth. The only thing is we dont know what sort of optimization is required to reach 80-90% utilization.

Great analysis from Anandtech. Kinda what I was expecting from DF instead of praising the hardware (they had the exclusive scoop though, so can't blame them).

What I can't quite grasp is how Scorpio will render games at native 4k with this hardware. I mean the same DF has said in the past that a GTX 1080 is the absolute minimum for native 4k gaming and I quote:


http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-4k-gaming-is-finally-viable-and-its-stunning

But somehow, they didn't even argue about Scorpio's 4k capabilities.

Because as per DF, it will "punch above it's weight" and "metal".

 

[Sword Of Doom]

Yeah, but that's a pretty big gap to fudge though.

It's technically true though

Great analysis from Anandtech. Kinda what I was expecting from DF instead of praising the hardware (they had the exclusive scoop though, so can't blame them).

What I can't quite grasp is how Scorpio will render games at native 4k with this hardware. I mean the same DF has said in the past that a GTX 1080 is the absolute minimum for native 4k gaming and I quote:


http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-4k-gaming-is-finally-viable-and-its-stunning

But somehow, they didn't even argue about Scorpio's 4k capabilities.

Console settings and 30fps. We always assume 4K is super difficult on pc because of ultra settings and a minimum 60fps. It's why I don't get the comparisons to GTX 1070. Even if it was on par, you have no choice in how that power is utilized. It's up to the Devs

 

[quest]

The spec reveal with DF was a good time to talk about those enhancements and they didnt.

Peak memory bandwidth - 326Gbps - FACT
Real world usage - ???

Their is no lying or fudging. Even the PS4 Pro will struggle to hit it's peak bandwidth. The only thing is we dont know what sort of optimization is required to reach 80-90% utilization.

Huge difference hitting 80-90% vs 60%. Hopefully a 3rd party developer will shed light on this. God I wish Anand would went to Redmond I think he would got us more answers.

 

[Leyasu]

PR win.

But once it's out in the wild, it will be known and confirmed by devs before launch. It is not something that can be hidden

 

[Klocker]

This isn't just a matter of DF vs Anand and what MS told them but they actually are publishing these specs on their page so I doubt they would be so confident if it were some bullshit

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/project-scorpio

 

[dragonelite]

Great analysis from Anandtech. Kinda what I was expecting from DF instead of praising the hardware (they had the exclusive scoop though, so can't blame them).

What I can't quite grasp is how Scorpio will render games at native 4k with this hardware. I mean the same DF has said in the past that a GTX 1080 is the absolute minimum for native 4k gaming and I quote:


http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-4k-gaming-is-finally-viable-and-its-stunning

But somehow, they didn't even argue about Scorpio's 4k capabilities.

Native 4k rendering on pc is different then what the pro and Scorpio will render at. 4k on pc I expect at least high to ultra settings while consoles usually run at medium to high settings. Don't forget the aspect of fixed hardware or architecture. This gives devs extra options to fine tune algorithms for that specific architecture.