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Inside the next Xbox: Project Scorpio tech revealed

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Re: Inside the next Xbox: Project Scorpio tech revealed

#21

Maybe I am completely off the marks here, and I'm sorry if this is off topic, but as someone who follows very closely what Apple is (or isn't?) doing in their Pro machines I am very curious how those specs compare to what everyone is asking for from Apple. The RAM is obviously low, fine, but it sounds like the CPU and GPU are significantly more capable than anything that Apple is shipping right now, and Microsoft wil…

They're really just too very different things, on many, many levels.

For general computing purposes, an Intel i5 based system would be significantly more performant than this, but the Scoprio is highly, highly optimized for its specific task.

Re: Inside the next Xbox: Project Scorpio tech revealed

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This 4k screenshot is really impressive, and as the benchmarks at the top show, there's lots of headroom: https://cdn.gamer-network.net/2017/screenshots/Forza-Tech-Sc... Takes a minute to load, I think their cdn is a little overloaded currently.

Great shot, 17 years ago I predicted that within 10 years you would not be able to tell the real from the computer generated. This is the first screen shot that qualifies IMHO, because this comes damn close to looking real.

Unfortunately they didn't have a screenshot of Forza running at Ultra level settings, which is mentioned in the article as being achievable, because I think the line would be blurred even further.

Re: Inside the next Xbox: Project Scorpio tech revealed

#23

Maybe I am completely off the marks here, and I'm sorry if this is off topic, but as someone who follows very closely what Apple is (or isn't?) doing in their Pro machines I am very curious how those specs compare to what everyone is asking for from Apple. The RAM is obviously low, fine, but it sounds like the CPU and GPU are significantly more capable than anything that Apple is shipping right now, and Microsoft wil…

A big part of it is the type of graphics card. FirePro (the kind in workstations) are much more expensive than normal general purpose graphics cards, which are again more expensive than custom SoCs which can be developed barebones for a specific use. Reason being that a calculation error that results in a dead pixel is fine when you are playing a video game. It'll be there for 1/60s and then be gone, never seen again. The same error in a disney film or a 3d scene rendered for a poster needs to be pixel perfect, so workstation class cards have a much lower threshhold for error, and cost accordingly.

(Also, and this is just conjecture: its possible that Apple intentionally overprices their pros as a sort of "look this is premium" cost, while the goal of an xbox is mass market sale).

Re: Inside the next Xbox: Project Scorpio tech revealed

#24

Maybe I am completely off the marks here, and I'm sorry if this is off topic, but as someone who follows very closely what Apple is (or isn't?) doing in their Pro machines I am very curious how those specs compare to what everyone is asking for from Apple. The RAM is obviously low, fine, but it sounds like the CPU and GPU are significantly more capable than anything that Apple is shipping right now, and Microsoft wil…

Don't know if it's still the case for new consoles, but the ps3 was highly subsidised when it came out. Something like that would account partially for the price difference.

Re: Inside the next Xbox: Project Scorpio tech revealed

#25

Maybe I am completely off the marks here, and I'm sorry if this is off topic, but as someone who follows very closely what Apple is (or isn't?) doing in their Pro machines I am very curious how those specs compare to what everyone is asking for from Apple. The RAM is obviously low, fine, but it sounds like the CPU and GPU are significantly more capable than anything that Apple is shipping right now, and Microsoft wil…

Microsoft is running a custom SoC that is tailor-made to their platform, with shared memory, power delivery and internal communication channels for the CPU and GPU. This right away reduces a lot of costs you see in a traditional professional desktop, where you have a GPU with separate power requirements, dedicated VRAM, and all the hardware needed to communicate over PCIe on both sides. Not to mention the Xbox One uses really weak (in comparison) Jaguar cores, instead of something much more expensive like Ryzen or Kaby Lake.

The CPU+GPU alone can add up to over $1000 retail on a workstation, and that's a consumer CPU and GPU - once you start adding "workstation" graphics like AMD FirePro or NVidia Quadro territory the GPU can cost over $1000 retail alone for validated drivers to support CAD applications, etc.

Factor in all the extra components that go in to support upgrades (memory sockets, PCIe slots, external connectivity like Thunderbolt) and the fact that these components use much more power than the Xbox One SoC and as such require more cooling and you can see how costs quickly add up.

Now, with all that said - the Mac Pro is pure price gouging. You can get an equivalent workstation from HP for a fraction of the price, but then it doesn't run macOS.

Personally, I find it rather amusing. I remember when the Intel cheese grater Mac Pro was first introduced and Apple was showing off an equivalently specced Dell workstation was more expensive than the Mac Pro. Apple has really lost their way in the professional space (see everything they've done with the MacBook Pro since 2012 as well).

Re: Inside the next Xbox: Project Scorpio tech revealed

#26

Maybe I am completely off the marks here, and I'm sorry if this is off topic, but as someone who follows very closely what Apple is (or isn't?) doing in their Pro machines I am very curious how those specs compare to what everyone is asking for from Apple. The RAM is obviously low, fine, but it sounds like the CPU and GPU are significantly more capable than anything that Apple is shipping right now, and Microsoft wil…

A big part of it is the type of graphics card. FirePro (the kind in workstations) are much more expensive than normal general purpose graphics cards, which are again more expensive than custom SoCs which can be developed barebones for a specific use. Reason being that a calculation error that results in a dead pixel is fine when you are playing a video game. It'll be there for 1/60s and then be gone, never seen again…

That's not true. Loads of stuff is offloaded to GPU, which would cause a complete crash if it didn't work. GPUs aren't just layering rasters on top of each other.

Re: Inside the next Xbox: Project Scorpio tech revealed

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On paper it's incrementally better--significantly higher clocks, more RAM and much more memory bandwidth. But the bigger news is that all existing Xbox One games get 16x anisotropic filtering, framerate boosts, v-sync, and resolution bumps (if the game supports dynamic resolution). Not to mention system-wide downsampling for 1080p TV's. Should be a pretty big bump in image quality for Xbox One games. They demoed Forz…

Not sure why but some of your previous comments are showing up [dead] in the threads.

Replying to the dead comment below, his post history looks great to me, which is why I felt compelled to point out the dead flag.

Re: Inside the next Xbox: Project Scorpio tech revealed

#29

Does anyone know anything about the "Hovis method" they reference for fine tuning the power profile for each chip? I'm having a tough time understanding how tweaking the voltage rails from board to board can improve power consumption/heat dissipation without impacting CPU performance.

Normally, yes. Due to process variations each chip has a slightly different maximum frequency for a given voltage. Usually chip makers test each chip, sort them by how fast they can go at a standardized voltage, and sell the faster ones for more money under a different model number - sometimes also fusing off features like multi threading. It sounds like what Microsoft is doing is standardizing on frequency and givin…

Or same heatsink, different fan speed. Some people get a quieter one, and others sound like a jet engine.

Re: Inside the next Xbox: Project Scorpio tech revealed

#30

I suspect this is using the new Ryzen cores from AMD? If so then that by itself is a big performance boost.

They specifically state it is not.

> "To be clear, then: Project Scorpio doesn't feature Ryzen cores, but the Xbox team are not so concerned about this. "On the CPU side of things, we could still meet our design goals with the custom changes we made," Kevin Gammill points out. "At the end of the day we are still a consumer product. We want to hit the price-points where consumers want to purchase this. It's about balancing the two.""

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