Middle Generation Console Upgrade Discussion [Scorpio, 4Pro]

[Jay]

So, initially games that run on Scorpio has to run on the Xbox one but in the future that doesn't have to be true. Scorpio, if it manages an appreciable amount of market share may serve as the low end in terms of Xbox console support in the future. So ultimately what goes into Scorpio matters. The bigger the better because regardless of the shorter iteration times, console aren't built to just satisfy the needs of the present time frame.

I agree with all you said.
But I find my views on 4pro to be different than Scorpio.
I'm willing to buy 4pro at its spec knowing that when ps5 comes it's pretty much dead. I.e. a defined end of life I guess.

Scorpio that's not the case for me. If I don't believe the specs will allow it to go much further into the next gen I won't be as willing to buy it. For me it has to have a longer tail.

Maybe I'm being unfair, but it's based on how my views of how the respective companies are positioning themselves.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

na as we look beyond just means that your going to look at that time but it doesn't preclude anything before it.

Then you'd say, "in 2017 and beyond," or "in the future" without specifying dates. The phrase explicitly isolates the dates into what's happening 2017 and what's happening after that. It's also not ambiguous which is why we're all reading the same thing (those of us not trying to find evidence for Zen in Scorpio in 2017).

Again, I won't say this confirms no Zen in Scorpio. The take home point here is no evidence of Zen in Scorpio unless it's a 2018 console or they are being strangely quiet, and the wording of this singular passage would suggest not.

 

[Jubei]

It doesn't matter if Scorpio has two quad-core i7s, like Pro it'll be limited to running games that can be run on its 2013 sibling. When you buy Scorpio you won't be playing games not possible on One/PS4/Pro. If Pro and Scorpio ever decide to cut lose from the base hardware, it'll be years out. If Microsoft are sincere about their vision for Scorpio they only need a sufficient CPU enhancement to deal with shinier pixels and VR.

Thats true but i dont think a powerful CPU is just for VR. If we look at BF1 on PS4, the Pro has up to 47% advantage in frame rate on multiplayer.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

I think you guys are reading a bit too much into that single statement from Lisa Su, to be honest.

Yes, the exact "wording" of the statement suggests there's no semi-custom APU with Zen in 2017 when Scorpio launches.

But if during mid 2016 AMD gave Sony a semi-custom APU with Vega tech that wouldn't be in production for AMD themselves until after 6 months, why wouldn't AMD make Zen available to Microsoft to start a semi-custom design's production in Q1/Q2 2017, when their own version has been in production for a while now, or when Raven Ridge (Zen + Vega APU) should be in production at about the same time as Scorpio's APU?

 

[iroboto]

It doesn't matter if Scorpio has two quad-core i7s, like Pro it'll be limited to running games that can be run on its 2013 sibling. When you buy Scorpio you won't be playing games not possible on One/PS4/Pro. If Pro and Scorpio ever decide to cut lose from the base hardware, it'll be years out. If Microsoft are sincere about their vision for Scorpio they only need a sufficient CPU enhancement to deal with shinier pixels and VR.

Absolutely, but to be fair to @function a premium machine should do more than just run games better. I would expect it to do more across the board.

If the RyZen demonstrations were accurate (game + twitch streaming) where the game ran fine but the stream was choppy, is expect the console to be able to handle this flawlessly As a premium machine.

Though honestly, I'm not sure what settings would have caused the twitch stream to go choppy, first time I've seen something like that.

Across the board i would be looking for faster load times, much faster dashboard experience, faster install times, better twitch streaming, better app performance, better multitasking; list can go on. That's not even getting to the point where the difference between a laptop CPU (jaguar) and a PC CPU (Zen) would really change the type of apps that could be available for the console (at a later time).

I do get both points of view. Realistically due to time frame and costs, I don't see Zen. Switch failed to get pascal apparently, they would have had to wait too long. This seems the same type of case IMO. But I also see the need for something better than a jaguar, much better.

 

[function]

It doesn't matter if Scorpio has two quad-core i7s, like Pro it'll be limited to running games that can be run on its 2013 sibling. When you buy Scorpio you won't be playing games not possible on One/PS4/Pro. If Pro and Scorpio ever decide to cut lose from the base hardware, it'll be years out. If Microsoft are sincere about their vision for Scorpio they only need a sufficient CPU enhancement to deal with shinier pixels and VR.

Even if MS are sincere about running the same games, a faster CPU would make it easier to have 60 fps versions of 30 fps games, and make it more likely that games with a shaky frame rate stay solid. A solid 60 fps Forza Horizon would be a truly 'premium' product for example. That's actually the thing I'm most interested in. It's the thing I most like about the PC, and taking PC like advantage of the scalability of games is precisely what Spencer was using to justify Scorpio.

Beyond that, going from 60 fps to 90 fps for VR may very well benefit from a beefier CPU, and coming four years after the X1 there's a good chance Scorpio will need to handle PS5 games and PC games from the 2019 / 2020 / 2021 period. If MS were also sincere about rolling generations and continuing platform development, there will be a point where Scorpio has to exist beyond the X1 and in a climate of faster CPUs.

PS5 sure as hell aint going to be using Jaguar.

 

[fehu]

A gpu is composed of many ip that to some level you can mix, a cpu is more monolithic

 

[function]

Across the board i would be looking for faster load times, much faster dashboard experience, faster install times, better twitch streaming, better app performance, better multitasking; list can go on. That's not even getting to the point where the difference between a laptop CPU (jaguar) and a PC CPU (Zen) would really change the type of apps that could be available for the console (at a later time).

I do get both points of view. Realistically due to time frame and costs, I don't see Zen. Switch failed to get pascal apparently, they would have had to wait too long. This seems the same type of case IMO. But I also see the need for something better than a jaguar, much better.

Yeah, to reiterate I'm not expecting to see Zen, but as you point out it would improve the entire experience including at the dash, app, and multitasking level. Which is a good point, IMO.

And as you also point out, CPU can limit other areas of the game experience like loading and streaming performance. And with its additional memory Scorpio will be loading and unpacking and decompressing significantly more data, sometimes on the fly.

I suppose it would be possible to modify Jaguar that was no longer shackled to low power and low clock modes to clock significantly higher. Extra pipeline stages, larger caches, identifying critical paths that limit clock headroom etc. But that seems like an awful lot of work for both MS and AMD, especially since the Jaguar team got nuked.

 

[temesgen]

Even if MS are sincere about running the same games, a faster CPU would make it easier to have 60 fps versions of 30 fps games, and make it more likely that games with a shaky frame rate stay solid. A solid 60 fps Forza Horizon would be a truly 'premium' product for example. That's actually the thing I'm most interested in. It's the thing I most like about the PC, and taking PC like advantage of the scalability of games is precisely what Spencer was using to justify Scorpio.

Beyond that, going from 60 fps to 90 fps for VR may very well benefit from a beefier CPU, and coming four years after the X1 there's a good chance Scorpio will need to handle PS5 games and PC games from the 2019 / 2020 / 2021 period. If MS were also sincere about rolling generations and continuing platform development, there will be a point where Scorpio has to exist beyond the X1 and in a climate of faster CPUs.

PS5 sure as hell aint going to be using Jaguar.

If Scorpio is the XB1 replacement some think it will be it may simply be a way to stagger the releases so MS and Sony aren't directly competing on specs moving forward but rather library and cost verus specs. PS5 is certainly a few years a out which would give MS time to lower cost of hardware and have a decent library to cool some of the interest in PS5. If the argument is play your current games, old games for less money or invest in a new ecosystem that's realistically 12 to 18 months out to a decent selection of games that might combat the inherent commodification of hardware that simultaneous and near simultaneous releases risk.

 

[Jubei]

I think you guys are reading a bit too much into that single statement from Lisa Su, to be honest.

Yes, the exact "wording" of the statement suggests there's no semi-custom APU with Zen in 2017 when Scorpio launches.

But if during mid 2016 AMD gave Sony a semi-custom APU with Vega tech that wouldn't be in production for AMD themselves until after 6 months, why wouldn't AMD make Zen available to Microsoft to start a semi-custom design's production in Q1/Q2 2017, when their own version has been in production for a while now, or when Raven Ridge (Zen + Vega APU) should be in production at about the same time as Scorpio's APU?

I feel like its the opposite. You have to do a lot of mental gymnastics and essentially dive into conspiracy theories to make the argument for Zen at this point. You are comparing apples to oranges though, Sony did not get Vega the uarch 6 months earlier, it got some features from Vega. Just like the original PS4 GPU had features before its AMD dGPU counterpart.

To make this argument work, you would need Lisa Su to lie to her own investors or be under some sort of wierd NDA not used before in the industry. Everyone knows Apple is IMGs main customer, yet IMG still reveals roadmaps and timelines to their investors. Qualcomm just announced Snapdragon 835 in Q1 2017, everyone knows Samsung uses Qualcomm so now we know the S8 uses Snapdragon 835.

Yet for some reason Microsoft does not want gamers on gaf or reddit to speculate about Zen in Scorpio by connecting the dots if Lisa Su had said "semi-custom Zen designs will be available in 2017". This is the same Microsoft that revealed most of the specs 2 years before launch?

And this is still not even factoring cost. Jaguar was a low budget CPU, Zen is going up against 1200 dollar Intel designs. Even if we scale it down for low power, its not going to be in the Jaguar market segment, its going to be competing against Core M in 800 dollar laptops.

I dont even think the 2018-2019 design win is a console, Apple has been rumoured to switch to AMD. A custom Zen APU would make sense because of the high margin segment of their laptops, not for a low margin console, Sony and MS barely make money using their current potato CPUs in the console

I would love Zen in Scorpio, but i have yet to see any evidence or logical argument made for it

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I feel like its the opposite. You have to do a lot of mental gymnastics and essentially dive into conspiracy theories to make the argument for Zen at this point. You are comparing apples to oranges though, Sony did not get Vega the uarch 6 months earlier, it got some features from Vega. Just like the original PS4 GPU had features before its AMD dGPU counterpart.

Apparently it also influenced future AMD designs, so maybe not even 'getting some features early' as 'adding features to an old arch that were later included in the new one'.

Yet for some reason Microsoft does not want gamers on gaf or reddit to speculate about Zen in Scorpio by connecting the dots if Lisa Su had said "semi-custom Zen designs will be available in 2017". This is the same Microsoft that revealed most of the specs 2 years before launch?

Only justification for such behaviour IMO is if MS are considering two options. If 'it's Zen!' comes out with confidence, gamers will be disappointed if MS eventually pick the lower spec choice. So keep it quiet until you're absolutely sure.

And this is still not even factoring cost. Jaguar was a low budget CPU, Zen is going up against 1200 dollar Intel designs. Even if we scale it down for low power, its not going to be in the Jaguar market segment, its going to be competing against Core M in 800 dollar laptops.

PC pricing doesn't matter. The cost to MS would be cost to manufacture plus markup, independent of what AMD can charge PC manufacturers and end consumers.

I dont even think the 2018-2019 design win is a console, Apple has been rumoured to switch to AMD. A custom Zen APU would make sense because of the high margin segment of their laptops, not for a low margin console, Sony and MS barely make money using their current potato CPUs in the console

What Sony and MS make on the consoles is irrelevant to AMD. If AMD can make money from selling MS Zen, and MS are willing to pay, it can happen. You'd need an argument that the minimum price to manufacture Zen is $xxx and so its prohibitively expensive. These other financial reasonings don't really count.

I would love Zen in Scorpio, but i have yet to see any evidence or logical argument made for it

That's unfair. There's plenty of logic in expecting a better CPU in a new console 4 years after the last. Compare XB360 to XBox - would it have made sense to have an upclocked four year old Pentium 3 in 360? (Maybe the console devs here will reveal that would have been better than the IO PPC! ). The arguments against are a matter of what's available. If Zen was out now, it'd be a shoe-in. So the question is will Zen be ready in time and affordable, and not 'is it logical to have a faster, better CPU in a new, premium console four years later than its predecessor.'

 

[Jubei]

Of course there is plenty of logic to expect a better CPU. But how does one jump from that position into Zen in Scorpio? Especially when the CEO has shot down Zen in a semi-custom design next year? Thats what i mean by having to do mental gymnastics to make that argument fit

AMD announced Stoney Ridge a few months ago. It was designed to replace Jaguar in the low power market and to fill the lineup until Raven Ridge is available. Its Excavator+ CPU offers a fairly decent IPC boost over Jaguar and clocks higher even at 28nm. Again, it makes no matter to me as Zen would be awesome but maybe not realistic at this point

 

[Deleted member 13524]

You have to do a lot of mental gymnastics and essentially dive into conspiracy theories to make the argument for Zen at this point.

Wow, this is probably the biggest hyperbole I've seen in this forum in a while.

The first Jaguar APUs were introduced in May 2013, and the consoles were being sold 6 months later.
Zen is on production right now and Zen APUs will be available mid-2017. If Scorpio follows the traditional November release, the timing between producing a PC Zen APU and producing Scorpio's APU will actually be very close to what happened in 2013 with Jaguar going into Liverpool and Durango.


As for Lisa Su's statement, it's not the first time a person says something they don't mean by misusing one or two words. Even more if they're trying to be as vague as possible in order to avoid unnecessary bean spilling. One thing I'm sure is that AMD does not want to say if Zen will or will not be in Scorpio, probably because Microsoft wants to be the one publicly talking about the CPU somewhere in E3.

 

[iroboto]

Of course there is plenty of logic to expect a better CPU. But how does one jump from that position into Zen in Scorpio? Especially when the CEO has shot down Zen in a semi-custom design next year? Thats what i mean by having to do mental gymnastics to make that argument fit

AMD announced Stoney Ridge a few months ago. It was designed to replace Jaguar in the low power market and to fill the lineup until Raven Ridge is available. Its Excavator+ CPU offers a fairly decent IPC boost over Jaguar and clocks higher even at 28nm. Again, it makes no matter to me as Zen would be awesome but maybe not realistic at this point

Yea. But the wording isn't exact which is why the hope is alive.

The wording is, "Zen will be in our Desktops, Servers and Notebooks, one should expect it to be in our semi-custom designs after 2017"
The unfortunate part of this wording is that both Sony and Xbox use FULLY custom APUs for their own needs. There is no APU on the market today that mimics their performance. Leaving semi-custom designs more in line with "tablets, mobile and other derivatives" that AMD would be normally responsible for sourcing to OEM vendors.

If you think about how large "Surface" could be as a potential market, it's a space you definitely want to enter and take away from Intel. Its most certainly a semi-custom design.

Last but not least, having RyZen in Scorpio would definitely be in AMD's favour, much like sourcing their GPUS to both Sony and Xbox. Margins might be slim, yes, but the long term strategy will pay off huge dividends for them i the long run.

 

[Jubei]

Wow, this is probably the biggest hyperbole I've seen in this forum in a while.

The first Jaguar APUs were introduced in May 2013, and the consoles were being sold 6 months later.
Zen is on production right now and Zen APUs will be available mid-2017. If Scorpio follows the traditional November release, the timing between producing a PC Zen APU and producing Scorpio's APU will actually be very close to what happened in 2013 with Jaguar going into Liverpool and Durango.

You call it hyperbole and then proceed to use that very same mental gymnastics to make this argument. How do you jump from desktop Zen being in production (without an official date still btw) to Raven Ridge being available in mid-2017? We dont even know wich quarter Raven Ridge will be released, only that its the last in the product lineup

And this in addition to saying Lisa Su is under NDA or she was lying, or they have a secret project with MS that is not disclosed as "semi-custom"

All mental gymnastics to explain the fact that she said "semi-custom Zen AFTER 2017"

 

[iroboto]

Wow, this is probably the biggest hyperbole I've seen in this forum in a while.

The first Jaguar APUs were introduced in May 2013, and the consoles were being sold 6 months later.
Zen is on production right now and Zen APUs will be available mid-2017. If Scorpio follows the traditional November release, the timing between producing a PC Zen APU and producing Scorpio's APU will actually be very close to what happened in 2013 with Jaguar going into Liverpool and Durango.


As for Lisa Su's statement, it's not the first time a person says something they don't mean by misusing one or two words. Even more if they're trying to be as vague as possible in order to avoid unnecessary bean spilling. One thing I'm sure is that AMD does not want to say if Zen will or will not be in Scorpio, probably because Microsoft wants to be the one publicly talking about the CPU somewhere in E3.

Ideally before I think.

The more we talk about it, the more i'm starting to lean towards Zen. Unless they are following Sony's lead here with 4Pro dying with PS4, I don't think choosing Jaguar would line up with MS strategy. You've got too much to lose rushing this product out the door.

 

[Transponster]

Zen ultimately changes nothing, with PS5 Sony is going to have 7nm Zen+, that would be on another lvl performance-wise, that is along with HBM(low-cost), more (V)RAM, not to mention up to 14TF GPU and other stuff, providing actual generational difference over Scorpio(and PS4/Pro) just 2 years after its release(yeah, i believe 2019 is more likely now, as 2020 probably won't offer anything arch-wise(or such is the current outlook, anyway) and it would be worse timing).

Scorpio is caught between a rock and a hard place, there isn't much to do, besides "outside of the box" stuff, whatever that may be. It's not going to turn the industry upside down launching with a price of $499(12GB of GDDR5X(something they might rethink?) and a BD 4K drive), having no(?) top-end exclusives(Scorpio only).

They likely "lost" already by not releasing their "Pro" in 2016(MS probably didn't think Sony would, since releasing PS4 Pro this year is like releasing PS4 in 2012(node-wise)), that's the №1 thing that matters this *mid*-gen, *next*-gen logic does not apply.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

You call it hyperbole and then proceed to use that very same mental gymnastics to make this argument. How do you jump from desktop Zen being in production (without an official date still btw) to Raven Ridge being available in mid-2017? We dont even know wich quarter Raven Ridge will be released, only that its the last in the product lineup

And this in addition to saying Lisa Su is under NDA or she was lying, or they have a secret project with MS that is not disclosed as "semi-custom"

All mental gymnastics to explain the fact that she said "semi-custom Zen AFTER 2017"

1 - Even if Raven Ridge is released on December 31st 2017, when Scorpio starts production Zen will have been available for longer than Jaguar was when Durango started production.

2 - Lisa Su is definitely under NDA regarding Scorpio. To even think she isn't is pure naiveness.

3 - Mental gymnastics is a term used when someone tries to construct evidence out of facts that don't actually connect, which is not what's happening here as some others have pointed out to you in this thread.
Yes, that statement from Lisa Su seems to be pointing to Zen not being in Scorpio and if you want to stick your whole opinion to a single sentence then great for you.
It's less okay to claim to try to shoot down all other people's arguments by accusing them of doing "mental gymnastics", IMO.

Scorpio is caught between a rock and a hard place, there isn't much to do, besides "outside of the box" stuff, whatever that may be. It's not going to turn the industry upside down launching with a price of $499(12GB of GDDR5X(something they might rethink?) and a BD 4K drive), having no(?) top-end exclusives(Scorpio only).

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Microsoft has been doing some very over-the-top software breakthroughs within the last couple of years, like backward-compatibility with X360, Hololens and now functional x86 emulation on ultra-low-voltage ARM CPUs.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if Scorpio could end up being able render every existing XBone title at e.g. 4x their original resolution, without any additional effort from the developer. That would make it a substantially smarter upgrade than the PS4 Pro could ever be and really inspire a large portion of the Xbone's userbase to simply upgrade.
Combine that with being able to use the console with decent $300 VR headsets and there could be margin for a very successful product.

As for a PS5 coming in 2019, then the XBTwo would come about one year later, which isn't all that critical IMO.

 

[Jubei]

Yea. But the wording isn't exact which is why the hope is alive.

The wording is, "Zen will be in our Desktops, Servers and Notebooks, one should expect it to be in our semi-custom designs after 2017"
The unfortunate part of this wording is that both Sony and Xbox use FULLY custom APUs for their own needs. There is no APU on the market today that mimics their performance. Leaving semi-custom designs more in line with "tablets, mobile and other derivatives" that AMD would be normally responsible for sourcing to OEM vendors.

If you think about how large "Surface" could be as a potential market, it's a space you definitely want to enter and take away from Intel. Its most certainly a semi-custom design.

Last but not least, having RyZen in Scorpio would definitely be in AMD's favour, much like sourcing their GPUS to both Sony and Xbox. Margins might be slim, yes, but the long term strategy will pay off huge dividends for them i the long run.

The wording is exact mate. She has always referred to the game consoles as "semi-custom" design wins

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...gn-wins-point-to-new-console-hardware-in-2016

This is from a conference call she had in April 2016. Playstation 4 Pro was a semi-custom design for 2016

 

[Jubei]

2 - Lisa Su is definitely under NDA regarding Scorpio. To even think she isn't is pure naiveness.

There is a massive difference between her saying "Semi-custom Zen designs will be available in 2017" compared to saying "Our first Zen semi-custom design will be available in 2017 with the Microsoft Scorpio"

The first one is typical NDA, she reveals the product roadmap to her companies investors without revealing the design win or specific information. The 2nd however? Can you give any examples of this in the tech industry?

I gave you plenty of similar examples from the first. Qualcomm announced Snapdragon 835 and when it will be available, its not Qualcomms fault if people connect that to the Samsung Galaxy S8 launch Q1 next year, IMG reveals their roadmaps and availability, people will connect that to Apples iPhone and iPad launch dates. You dont see them being vague about dates to their own investors, that would be crazy

Regardless, some people, me or you will be eating crow next year. Also lol @ if you want to stick your whole opinion based on a single sentence. Yes a single sentence from the CEO of AMD during an investors call, not some PR person on their Facebook page