Middle Generation Console Upgrade Discussion [Scorpio, 4Pro]

[Pixel]

Hey, I'm desperate for news here.

He mentioned they got the SoC back in October and devs are developing games already with it. What does that mean regarding likelyhood of a ryzen based cpu? Are they developing using engineering samples?

Regading improvements, look at his wording he mentions gpu, memory bandwidth but doesn't mention the cpu... hmmm

 

[Rangers]

It's a shame Ryzen is not going to happen because, holy smokes...if early benchmarks are to be believed

http://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-7-1700x-delivered-early-benchmarks/

This is the last result we have and it’s in line with all the previously leaked CPU-Z benchmarks. It scores 2159 points in the single-threaded test. Which puts it ahead of the i7 6900K’s 1901 score by 258 points. In the multi-threaded test the 1700X just runs away with it and manages to achieve an eye-watering 18298 points. Establishing a whopping 43% lead over the 6900K’s comparatively measly 13152 points.

That's a $399 CPU crushing Intel's $1000 CPU.

Well I guess it gives us something to do "next gen", because we aren't going to get an order of magnitude over Scorpio and Pro in GPU flops for many years.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Saying 'migrate' and more S will sell than Scorpio, MS can't be seeing it as a new gen. They are giving their core fans an upgrade path without disrupting the rest of the generation.

 

[Michellstar]

He mentioned they got the SoC back in October and devs are developing games already with it. What does that mean regarding likelyhood of a ryzen based cpu? Are they developing using engineering samples?

Regading improvements, look at his wording he mentions gpu, memory bandwidth but doesn't mention the cpu... hmmm

It means little, from tapeout samples to production it usually takes about a year (more or less), if nothing goes wrong or are delays.

To put things into perspective, Zen was taped out probably at the beginning of last year, and in July there were samples of Raven ridge (first apus with Zen). The time line could match October 16 to October 2017, but who knows

Why did Ms waited a whole year, that´s the key.
Will we ever know the real reason?

 

[Michellstar]

The naming of the machine it´s going be tricky no matter what.
The Xbox One brand it´s somewhat tainted after the reveal and associated now with poor performance and sub whatever res runs the PS4 counterparts games. On the other hand naming it Xbox One whatever consolidates the idea of not dropping support for the original console...

Scorpio at this point would be nice, like AMD which choose Vega instead of the Fury brand, people was used to Vega anyway

 

[iroboto]

It means little, from tapeout samples to production it usually takes about a year (more or less), if nothing goes wrong or are delays.

To put things into perspective, Zen was taped out probably at the beginning of last year, and in July there were samples of Raven ridge (first apus with Zen). The time line could match October 16 to October 2017, but who knows

Why did Ms waited a whole year, that´s the key.
Will we ever know the real reason?

Gpu

 

[Michellstar]

@iroboto Yes it could be, probably they couldn´t manufacture a larger APU back in 2016, and had to wait into 2017
Or they wanted the latest GPU ip, i hope we find out soon.

 

[mpg1]

Interview with AMD CEO:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11177/making-amd-tick-a-very-zen-interview-with-dr-lisa-su-ceo

Q13: AMD currently has a very active semi-custom business, particularly when it comes to silicon design partnerships and when it comes to millions of Consoles. Speaking of custom silicon in consoles, current generation platforms currently use AMD’s low power ‘cat’ cores. Now that AMD has a small x86 core in Zen, and I know you won’t tell me what exactly is coming in the future, but obviously future consoles will exist, so can we potentially see Zen in consoles?

LS: I think you know our console are always very secretive about what they are trying to do, but hypothetically yes I would expect Zen to show up in semi-custom opportunities including perhaps consoles at a certain point in time.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Doesn't really answer if it's in Scorpio. It's given that Zen might appear in a future console - we'd all expect it in next-gen machines.

 

[iroboto]

@iroboto Yes it could be, probably they couldn´t manufacture a larger APU back in 2016, and had to wait into 2017
Or they wanted the latest GPU ip, i hope we find out soon.

Hard to imagine a 6TF Polaris that could exist this year that couldn't be done last year. Nothing really has changed in terms of nodes. And Sony isn't the type to leave performance on the table.

 

[iroboto]

Interview with AMD CEO:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11177/making-amd-tick-a-very-zen-interview-with-dr-lisa-su-ceo

I think I would have quoted this part

Q4: With Bulldozer, AMD had to work with Microsoft due to the way threads were dispatched to cores to ensure proper performance. Even though Zen doesn't have that issue, was there any significant back-and-forth with Microsoft to enable performance in Windows (e.g. XFR?)

LS: Zen is a pretty traditional x86 architecture as an overall machine, but there is optimization work to do. What makes this a bit different is that most of our optimization work is more on the developer side – we work with them to really understanding the bottlenecks in their code on our microarchitecture. I see many apps being tuned and getting better going on as we work forward on this.

Q5: How vital was it to support Simultaneous Multi Threading?

LS: I think it was very important. I think it was very complicated! Our goal was to have a very balanced architecture. We wanted high single threaded performance, and SMT was important given where the competition is. We didn’t want to apologize for anything with Zen – we wanted high single thread, we wanted many cores, but sorry we don’t have SMT? We didn’t want to say that, we wanted to be ambitious and give ourselves the time to get it done.

In the context of games, where developers are just optimizing for that one chip, they can achieve good performance from it. These extra features (SMT etc) are there are larger operating systems, running multiple applications doing a lot of different things. But game developers optimize _everything_ and can dramatically achieve throughput from this chip that very few other developers would be capable of.

It really comes down to that, and I don't see the optimization game changing, and thus, I'm unsure if Zen is needed.

 

[zupallinere]

The naming of the machine it´s going be tricky no matter what.
The Xbox One brand it´s somewhat tainted after the reveal and associated now with poor performance and sub whatever res runs the PS4 counterparts games. On the other hand naming it Xbox One whatever consolidates the idea of not dropping support for the original console...

Scorpio at this point would be nice, like AMD which choose Vega instead of the Fury brand, people was used to Vega anyway

Xbox One Scorpio

Problem Solved ....

 

[mpg1]

I'm expecting something like Xbox One Plus or Xbox One Elite.

 

[zupallinere]

I'm expecting something like Xbox One Plus or Xbox One Elite.

I could buy Elite since they used that for their controller and the Xbox 360 Elite

 

[mpg1]

I could buy Elite since they used that for their controller and the Xbox 360 Elite

Yeah that's what I'm thinking. They haven't bothered to put a Xbox One S Elite model/bundle yet either

 

[MrFox]

All three consoles are xbox one, just different speed between XB1 Fat, Slim, and Scorpio, so they should brand them clearly:

Xbox One FullSpeed
Xbox One HiSpeed
Xbox One SuperSpeed



XB1 FullUHD
XB1 Super Veloce
XB1 Casuals Left Behind
XB1 Just Big Boned
XB1 Desperation Edition
XB1 Hail Mary Pass
XB1 Please Clap

 

[function]

MS should call it "Playstation 5" so they can get the jump on Sony, and make PS4Pro seem obsolete.

 

[Karamazov]

The XBeast.

 

[iroboto]

MS should call it "Playstation 5" so they can get the jump on Sony, and make PS4Pro seem obsolete.

litigation seems highly likely.
Lay Station5 might be safer.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The naming of the machine it´s going be tricky no matter what.
The Xbox One brand it´s somewhat tainted after the reveal and associated now with poor performance and sub whatever res runs the PS4 counterparts games. On the other hand naming it Xbox One whatever consolidates the idea of not dropping support for the original console...

Scorpio at this point would be nice, like AMD which choose Vega instead of the Fury brand, people was used to Vega anyway

They are doubling down on the Xbox One brand.

Their recent announcement from GDC of giving developers VR development kits specifically mentioned Windows 10 devices and Xbox One Family of devices which includes the upcoming Project Scorpio (VR support coming in 2018).

That could be interpreted in many ways, to me it sounds like Project Scorpio won't be alone in joining Xbox One as an Xbox One family of devices. I speculate that this means that Xbox One will be the basis for compatibility of all Xbox devices going forwards.

One could argue both:

1. This means there's still defined generations that break from past generations.
2. This means that going forwards from Xbox One, all Xbox's will share the ability to run all apps/games released in the future as long as the hardware remains powerful enough.

I'm going with the second one. While at some point X app or game may no longer be certified to run on Xbox One, there is no definitive generational cut-off. Some games may start dropping official support with Project Scorpio. Some games/apps released for an Xbox console 20 years from now may still run on Xbox One.

I also speculate that it might hint at some form of Xbox TV (Xbox One TV?) might still be in the works. Also possibility in the future of a gaming oriented portable able to run Xbox games (Xbox One Family of devices).

All speculation, of course. Perhaps the Xbox One Family of devices will end with just one follow up, but that would seem weird to use Family in that case.

Regards,
SB