from the release-date-between-October-23-and-November-21? dept.
Microsoft has detailed the system-on-a-chip powering its refresh of the Xbox One (the company's answer to the PS4 Pro, which was released in November 2016):
Today at the Hot Chips conference, the company released schematics and details about the internal workings of the SoC that is set to power the upcoming 4K-ready gaming console. We already knew much of what the company discussed at the Hot Chips presentation, including the core count; clock speed; and bandwidth specifications of the CPU, GPU, and memory used in the system, but now we know how the components interact with each other.
[...] The Scorpio Engine is a monster of an SoC developed by AMD, featuring a 359mm2 die with seven billion transistors built on TSMC's 16nm FinFETT+ technology. The GPU compute units (the yellow section of the layout) consume most of the large die's surface area. The Scorpio Engine's GPU components include four shader arrays that each offer 11 compute units. Microsoft said that one compute unit per shader array is left inactive to compensate for yield problems that may occur.
The right side of the SoC die features the two four-core 2.3GHz CPU clusters (represented in dark green on the diagram). A pair of cache controllers flanks each CPU cluster. Twelve GDDR5 memory controllers line the top, bottom, and right edges of the SoC. The retail Xbox One X features 12GB of memory. Developer kits offer 2GB per channel for a total of 24GB system memory.
[...] When Microsoft announced Project Scorpio, the company boasted that the new console would be the first to deliver 6Tflops of 32-bit floating point performance. During the Hot Chips presentation, the company said that it managed to squeeze out "just a hair more than 6Tflops." Each of the 40 compute units can perform 128 floating point operations second. Multiplied by the 1,172MHz core clock, that's a total of 6,000,640 Flops. [sic - see comment below -- Ed.(FP)]
[...] The new console features an eight-core Jaguar-derived CPU like the one found in the Xbox One S console, but it operates 31% faster than the previous version. Microsoft said that most of the CPU performance optimizations revolve around memory latency improvements of the main memory controllers (up to 20%). The company attributes the improvement to tripling the available memory channels and increasing the number of main memory banks by a multiple of six. It also credits the rearrangement and enlargement of the TLB cache, and the introduction of a redesigned and larger Page Descriptor Cache, which "caches information about nesting page translations" and improves performance by "up to 4.3%."
The image in question from the article.
Previously: PlayStation Neo and Xbox "Project Scorpio" to Bring 4K Resolution and VR to Console Gaming
The Race for 4K: How Project Scorpio Targets Ultra HD Gaming
More Details About the "Project Scorpio" Xbox One Successor
Xbox One X, Formerly Project Scorpio, to be Released November 7th for $499
Related Stories
Sony has announced the PlayStation Neo, formerly referred to as "PS4.5" or "PS4K", and Microsoft has announced the Xbox "Project Scorpio". Both will be "mid-cycle refreshes" of the preceding consoles that will significantly boost graphics power, supposedly allowing for existing games to be played at a minimum of 1080p/60FPS, using virtual reality headsets, or at 4K (2160p):
And so gamers have been promised a console for release in 2017 that packs a whopping 6 teraflops of processing power (compared to the current Xbox One's mere 1.31), along with a much improved 320GB/s of memory bandwidth. Even ignoring some of Microsoft's more questionable claims (uncompressed pixels anyone?), those are some impressive specs. Forget 1080p/60fps: Microsoft says that this system is more than enough hardware to push a VR headset (the company isn't saying which one yet, but I'd bet on Oculus), and run regular games at 4K resolution with support for High Dynamic Range (HDR).
[...] The PlayStation Neo has it even harder. Leaked specs put its performance at somewhere around 4.2 teraflops, while its 36 GCN compute units clocked at 911MHz strongly suggest it's using a form of AMD's upcoming Polaris architecture, most likely a down-clocked RX 480. Memory bandwidth is up compared to the PS4 at 218GB/s but far behind that of Scorpio. At this stage, those specs are unlikely to change, particularly as developer kits have already gone out to developers. A radical redesign to match Scorpio's GPU—which, given what we know about AMD's GPU lineup and the cooling setup in Project Scorpio, is likely to be a down-clocked version of Vega rather than an overlocked Polaris—is pretty much off the table.
The two consoles should be available sometime in 2017. Sony is also launching a PSVR head-mounted display on October 13th.
If nothing else, the enhanced capabilities of these new consoles will help relieve "consolitis" (PC games being held back by weak consoles). Both consoles are likely to feature another 8-core AMD CPU: either a higher-clocked Jaguar or possibly a Zen processor.
Previously: Sony Rumored to Be Developing PlayStation 4.5
Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
The race for 4K gaming has begun. PlayStation 4 Pro is in the marketplace, and while success in supporting ultra HD gaming varies dramatically between releases, an established series of techniques is in place that is already capable of effectively servicing a 4K resolution with a comparatively modest level of GPU power. In the wake of its E3 2016 reveal for the new Project Scorpio console, Microsoft began to share details with developers on how they expect to see 4K supported on its new hardware. A whitepaper was released on its development portal, entitled 'Reaching 4K and GPU Scaling Across Multiple Xbox Devices'. It's a fascinating outlook on Microsoft's ultra HD plans - and it also reveals more about the Scorpio hardware itself. For starters, Xbox One's contentious ESRAM is gone.
No link provided to the whitepaper referred to in the article.
There are some new details about Microsoft's mid-cycle refresh of the Xbox One gaming console. Sony's comparable console is the PlayStation 4 Pro.
The new console seems to be using eight of the same AMD Jaguar cores as the original Xbox One, but the clock speed has been increased by about 31%, from 1.75 GHz to 2.3 GHz. Microsoft has passed on the chance to use AMD's new Zen cores, which were only recently released for desktop users.
The big gains are in the new GPU, which may be AMD Polaris or Vega-based. Peak shader throughput increases from 1.23 teraflops to over 6 teraflops, allowing for 4K (and VR?) gaming. Scorpio will have 40 "compute units" (AMD terminology), compared to the 16 of its predecessor. The GPU seems to be more powerful than an AMD RX 480. In comparison, the PS4 Pro's GPU performance is rated at 4.2 teraflops.
Scorpio will include 12 GB of GDDR5 memory, 8 GB of which will be usable by games. The Xbox One came with 8 GB of DDR3 memory, with only 5 GB usable by games. System memory bandwidth has been more than quadrupled to 326 GB/s from 68.3 GB/s, and the memory bus width has increased to 384-bit from 256-bit. The small amount of embedded memory found in the Xbox 360 and Xbox One has been cut in this new design, due to the massive increase in overall memory bandwidth.
One odd detail: both the Xbox One S (for "slim") and Project Scorpio will come with 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray optical drives, while Sony, the Blu-ray champion, did not include support for the format in the PS4 Pro. UHD Blu-ray defines optical discs with capacities of 50, 66, and 100 GB. For storage, Scorpio will come with a 1 TB hard drive (at least initially).
Will the 8-core design (with at least 7 usable by games, and likely still one thread per core) result in more multi-threading and utilization of more cores in PC games? Both the Xbox One and PS4 were released in November 2013 with 8-core x86 CPUs.
Microsoft's mid-cycle refresh for the Xbox One, the Xbox One X, has been announced. Graphics performance is quadrupled (and then some) to allow for 2160p gaming:
As far as the hardware itself goes, thanks to Microsoft's ongoing campaign, we already know the bulk of the details of the console. The 16nm SoC at the heart of the new Xbox One design is meant to be significantly more powerful than the original and S versions of the Xbox One, vaulting MS from having the least powerful console to the most powerful console. All told, the Xbox One X will offer almost 4.3x the GPU compute throughput of the Xbox One S, while the CPU cores have received a healthy 31% clockspeed boost (Interesting aside: Microsoft is still not calling it Jaguar, unlike the XB1/XB1S). The memory feeding the beast has also gotten a great deal faster as well, with Microsoft switching out their 8GB of DDR3 for a large and very fast 12GB of GDDR5, which has a combined memory bandwidth of 326GB/sec.
AKA the X-OX. Can it run NetHack in 4K?
Previously: PlayStation Neo and Xbox "Project Scorpio" to Bring 4K Resolution and VR to Console Gaming
The Race for 4K: How Project Scorpio Targets Ultra HD Gaming
More Details About the "Project Scorpio" Xbox One Successor
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @05:28AM (1 child)
The interesting things are missing from the summery:
They have removed the 32MB eSRAM cache found in the older Xbox One models, and have nearly 5x more bandwidth to main memory. This basically removes the special feature I bet no one used and makes it much more like a regular old desktop computer. Its just a really freaking high memory bandwidth desktop (326GB/s). This means games should be easier to port to and optimize for the new xbox.
If you port a PS4 game to it, it will run much better than on the PS4. It should also be able to render 4k games at around the same frame rate the old one could at 1080p (due to the more than 4x memory bandwidth for the textures).
It is now simpler than ever to do side by side comparisons as all the consoles are pretty much the same now other than scalar specs: exaple compraison: https://www.polygon.com/2017/4/6/14486760/xbox-scorpio-vs-ps4-pro [polygon.com]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday August 23 2017, @01:23PM
Already mentioned in https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=17/04/06/1928257 [soylentnews.org]
I wonder how long the Intel Iris Pro eDRAM [wikipedia.org] will stick around.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 23 2017, @09:12AM (6 children)
This is beautiful, in the same way that the final monster scene of Cronenberg's /The Fly/ is:
> "just a hair more than 6Tflops." Each of the 40 compute units can perform 128 floating point operations second. Multiplied by the 1,172MHz core clock, that's a total of 6,000,640 Flops.
OK, that's probably Tom's Hardware editors being crap, rather than Microsoft, and perhaps we should have added a "[sic]" (or two) to the summary to stave off criticism of our editing.
No wonder so many Americans are scared of metric - it looks like powers of 10 are still too hard.
It should read:
> Each of the 40 compute units can perform 128 floating point operations per clock tick. Multiplied by the 1,172 MHz core clock, that's a total of 6,000,640 MFlops.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @11:10AM (5 children)
"No wonder so many Americans are scared of metric - it looks like powers of 10 are still too hard."
Tell me, how many Europeans have walked on the moon?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 23 2017, @11:28AM (3 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday August 23 2017, @01:25PM (2 children)
Metres didn't help le ESA:
https://spaceflightnow.com/2016/11/25/esa-says-doomed-mars-lander-succumbed-to-bad-altitude-reading/ [spaceflightnow.com]
LOL
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 23 2017, @01:37PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday August 23 2017, @01:49PM
If they can't land, then superior units are of no help to them.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday August 23 2017, @05:09PM
> Tell me, how many Europeans have walked on the moon?
If 12 inches makes a foot, do 12 astronauts make a smug, or do imperial units decay after 45 years?