Xbox One X (Scorpio) SoC Discussion

[Sweepr]

It’s amazing. It’s basically like Epic settings on PC, we’re targeting 60FPS. We recently introduced variable frame rate, but on Xbox One X with the extra horsepower, you’ll notice less variation in your frame rate even in busy situations.

The PS4 Pro also has improved frame rate when compared to PS4. Before the XB1X, it was the best console version of ARK, but it’s hard to argue with that 6 teraflops [laughs]. Having the same frame rate in our game isn’t really possible, there are a couple reasons for that: the XB1X not only has a faster CPU than PS4 Pro, it also has a lot more RAM. I’d say there’s a 50% performance difference.

The Xbox One X is great. Everything from the devkits is so much easier to develop for. It’s faster in all sorts of ways, especially for us developers it’s easier to iterate. In terms of horsepower, it’s just phenomenal, it is expensive but when you think about the price for a similarly specced PC, it doesn’t unreasonable at all to me.

Overall, the quality is going up a lot. It would have been easy to say, hey, let’s just take the Xbox One version and crank up the resolution, but actually we’ve brought over some enhanced effects from PC. We’ve actually got volumetric lighting and clouds on Xbox One X, higher draw distance that is equal to PC’s Epic settings, higher resolution textures…

Power supply rated at 245W, quite a bit less than PS4 Pro's 310W. Also smaller than Xbox One S - Microsoft/AMD did a really nice job here. Looking forward to seeing how native 4K games perform on this 360mm² SoC.

 

[CHADBOGA]

So this X-Box refresh is just a refresh(which may be a first for the X-Box/PlayStation generation of consoles) and does what exactly?

If you had an X-Box game that ran a bit jittery on your X-Box One, does that mean it will now run fine on this X-Box One X console?

I don't get how supposedly the economics behind consoles was for them to run without change for 6+ years, then a new generation/design would get released that was a massive upgrade over the previous model.

So what has changed to make Microsoft do this and will owners of the X-Box One be mad as hell that their console got superseded so quickly?

 

[NTMBK]

So this X-Box refresh is just a refresh(which may be a first for the X-Box/PlayStation generation of consoles) and does what exactly?

If you had an X-Box game that ran a bit jittery on your X-Box One, does that mean it will now run fine on this X-Box One X console?

I don't get how supposedly the economics behind consoles was for them to run without change for 6+ years, then a new generation/design would get released that was a massive upgrade over the previous model.

So what has changed to make Microsoft do this and will owners of the X-Box One be mad as hell that their console got superseded so quickly?

XBox One games will run more smoothly, and if they had a variable resolution then it will run at a higher resolution. There will also be games patched to run at higher resolutions, and new games which run at 4K on the new system (while running at lower res on older systems).

 

[Ferzerp]

So this X-Box refresh is just a refresh(which may be a first for the X-Box/PlayStation generation of consoles) and does what exactly?

Both PS4 and XB1 have already been updated with hardware refreshes once. How would this be any sort of first at all?

 

[jpiniero]

So what has changed to make Microsoft do this and will owners of the X-Box One be mad as hell that their console got superseded so quickly?

Keep in mind MS is forcing developers to make games for both consoles. It's more of a mid-cycle upgrade option.

As to say why, well MS found out that Sony was doing the Pro and didn't want to be left behind. Of course Sony did the Pro for the PSVR mostly, and well VR is mostly dead...

 

[Eric1987]

From what I am understanding this console isn't much more powerful than a PS4Pro. A 480 vs a 1070 and CPU is near useless at 4k. So what else?

 

[imported_bman]

From what I am understanding this console isn't much more powerful than a PS4Pro. A 480 vs a 1070 and CPU is near useless at 4k. So what else?

Nearly 43% more raw performance in terms of TFlops is nothing to sneeze at. It should perform better than a higher clocked RX580 due to the increased memory bandwidth (1.27x). CPU is still a dog, but it will be more of an issue with game physics/ai/ect than draw calls at 4k. MS is touting some customizations to further reduce draw calls, but I still don't think this will given enough headroom for 60fps in CPU bound games.

I know that the engineers were constrained by price and power draw, but I can't help to think they could have pushed the CPU clocks higher (2.625GHz to give 1.5x performance of Xbox One), slightly increased the GPU clock (1180MHz to give it 1.5x the TFlops of the PS4 Pro) and added more flash storage to allow the OS to permanently sit on (32GB from 8GB, also up to emmc 5.1 for increased IOPs).

 

[HurleyBird]

They also could have left all the CUs enabled.

 

[dogen1]

From what I am understanding this console isn't much more powerful than a PS4Pro. A 480 vs a 1070 and CPU is near useless at 4k. So what else?

How is the CPU useless at 4k? Resolution by itself has little if any effect on cpu load.

 

[Tuna-Fish]

They also could have left all the CUs enabled.

That would probably double the manufacturing cost of the chip, because it would mean they have to trash half their product.

 

[nathanddrews]

While I was way off with my vote (Zen + Vega), it seems like performance is about as expected: some 4K 60fps games, more 4K 30fps games, and then a lot more games with dynamic resolutions and frame rate drops. Looks like medium-to-high settings used in most of the trailers (if trailers can be believed). The Ark developer stated that when playing online and other CPU-heavy operations, it isn't possible to lock the frame rate.

Gotta say, despite the price, this seems like the best console release in a while that literally ticks all the boxes:

1. HDMI 2.1 with FreeSync 2 support
2. Mostly 4K gaming
3. UHD-Blu-ray player (no Kaby Lake required, eh?)
4. 4K streaming video service support (no Kaby Lake required, eh?)
5. Lots of great backward compatibility options
6. Smaller, faster, better, stronger, quieter, cooler...

 

[Eric1987]

How is the CPU useless at 4k? Resolution by itself has little if any effect on cpu load.

It has a huge effect on CPU load. Try running a 4k game and 1080p and see how much CPU usage there is.

 

[imported_bman]

It has a huge effect on CPU load. Try running a 4k game and 1080p and see how much CPU usage there is.

Not really, DX12/Vulkan are made to significantly reduce draw load on the CPU and generally the max FPS determines the CPU load. Which is why CPUs are often benched using games set with low resolutions.

Benches done on 4970k with 2x R9 295
4k:

1080p:

 

[dogen1]

It has a huge effect on CPU load. Try running a 4k game and 1080p and see how much CPU usage there is.

Why would shading more pixels, by itself, increase CPU load?

 

[Topweasel]

Keep in mind MS is forcing developers to make games for both consoles. It's more of a mid-cycle upgrade option.

As to say why, well MS found out that Sony was doing the Pro and didn't want to be left behind. Of course Sony did the Pro for the PSVR mostly, and well VR is mostly dead...

Project Scorpio rumors existed before any Sony rumors. More to the point MS even admitted that for awhile they were doing projections and prototype mockups with AMD one for 2016 and one (which became Scorpio) for 2017. MS could have had a console out to go against the Pro, but specifically held off because the 2017 checked all their boxes for improvement (effortless step up to 4k).

 

[Eric1987]

Why would shading more pixels, by itself, increase CPU load?

Dunno how you guys assumed I said more CPU load. I never once said that... I just said it has a huge effect on how much load there is on the CPU. Not that the load increases.

 

[jpiniero]

but specifically held off because the 2017 checked all their boxes for improvement (effortless step up to 4k).

Not buying it, but that would be a mistake if true. Last year would have been the time to release a mid-cycle console because Year 3 is typically the peak of console sales for a gen. A mid-cycle console has never worked, but at least you would have gotten people who were buying in for the first time for this gen. People are going to sit on what they have, or buy a Switch.

 

[Topweasel]

Not buying it, but that would be a mistake if true. Last year would have been the time to release a mid-cycle console because Year 3 is typically the peak of console sales for a gen. A mid-cycle console has never worked, but at least you would have gotten people who were buying in for the first time for this gen. People are going to sit on what they have, or buy a Switch.

Mistake or not it's true I mean look at the Pro vs Scorpio. AMD and MS and Sony all had access to what AMD had in the pipe and could include in their next SoC. MS was very focused on making Scorpio true one up. UHD, 4k gaming, seemless gaming upgrades. They don't want to supplant the Xbox One they just wanted a Premium console with a premium experience.

Pulling off what they are targeting wouldn't have been possible on the PS4. Hell for a while Sony was really pushing a "developed for PS4 Pro" type platform for it. The reason was they weren't going to have the extra resources to really make sure games not developed for it were going to hit those benchmarks. Even now a lot of what is going to happen is upscaling, upscaling from res's much better than 1080P but up rezzed regardless. This was what everyone made a big point about at launch how the PS4 was able to run so and so at 1080 and only 900 on the Xbox (and upscaled). I think they had sleepless nights over holding off for a year for "true" 4k gaming. I don't know if it will work for them (I plan on getting one, but I am not planning on updating my PS4). But I don't think it will matter as much as it did in 2013.

 

[dogen1]

Dunno how you guys assumed I said more CPU load. I never once said that... I just said it has a huge effect on how much load there is on the CPU. Not that the load increases.

Then I'm not really sure what you meant the first place. Resolution by itself is mostly CPU agnostic. Some engines do adjust LOD based on resolution, but that would be adjusted for performance as necessary.