Middle Generation Console Upgrade Discussion [Scorpio, 4Pro]

This is something I'm a bit confused on, how does it actually work? I know that for example 5Gbps GDDR5 does work at 1250 MHz on some level, but it would then need QDR for 5Gbps, no?

 

For anyone wondering they are definitely going to support higher framerates in games.

"the best framerate". - brunette woman
"We can render at 60hz, we can render fully uncompressed pixels" - bald dude
"We are moving Fallout 4 to VR, and to have a console that can support that at the resolution and speed we really want, think its going to be magical " - Game Director at Bethesda Todd Howard

 

Scroll down to page 3 of the linked pdf.

 

I meant GDDR5, not GDDR5X, or does GDDR5 have similar QDR mode?

 

Because the margins on new consoles are certainly going to be much, much smaller. This is the nature of new technology, you want to sell it as low as possible without incurring a loss. The margins on older consoles are going to be fatter unless there is some weird legacy technology that doesn't scale well with time but neither current console have anything like this.

Publishers will continue to focus their effort on the platform with the largest install base. If there are five times as many people who One/PS4 consoles as Scorpio/Neo consoles then they need to get the games working well on the bigger install base becuae they stand to lose more sales through shoddy code putting people off buying the game.

Repeating what I said in the PS Neo thread, Microsoft face the same risk as Sony with Neo that it could be a damp squib if third party developers really don't make much of an effort to utilise the extra power except in ways which require very little effort. I'm sure Tod Howard at Bethesda is super excited at more teraflops but until 6Tf is the baseline for consoles and PC, they can't really target games to rely on that.

 

According to the info available Scorpio DOES seem to be more powerful than Neo.

Probably this is why Sony decided to not announce anything this E3
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-xbox-one-project-scorpio-spec-analysis

 

Current consoles have consistently received price cuts. I doubt the margins are much better at all esp in the case of something like the slim

Developers have supported new hardware in the past which is why we aren't all still on Atari systems. Developers are also targeting video cards of higher power already. So the dev support is there.

Your going to see current systems start to get shoddy ports by 2018 . Just wait till you see the neo versions of the ps vr games.

 

I want to add that we are reaching the limit for games budgets and the amount of man hours that can be sunk in games at their current retail price. There is also the matter of maximizing the addressable market. I think that there won't be massive improvements in the upcoming years and pretty much evey bits of extra power are going tonbe spent on resolution or improved framerate.

 

mmhhh... I think many people in here would find it a suitable update even if it only ran all games 1080@60Hz...

 

Humm... did Microsoft decide to announce the 6TFLOPs + 320GB/s soon enough for Sony to be in time to change the Neo's specs?
I imagine that if the Neo had rather conservative GPU and memory clocks (especially for FinFet on the GPU side), maybe they can still change the specs. For example, they could change the GPU clocks from 910MHz to Polaris 10's ~1200MHz and GDDR5 clocks to 8GT/s, effectively boosting its specs to 5.5 TFLOPs and 256GB/s.
Despite possibly creating a console with a substantially higher power consumption, the practical difference to Scorpio would be marginal. Remains to be seen if either of them is changing the CPU cores from Jaguar/Puma to Zen (I don't think they would, though).

 

But then again, so could MS if they are launching Scorpio in Fall/Holiday 2017. If we believe the rumours Neo will be out later this year (before October?) so it should be in production by now.

 

and by then how long would the xo had been out for?

I think if Sony was in the habit of using the same cooler as xo, then maybe so, but I think it will be harder to just ramp it up so much without acoustic issues, and maybe cost of having to use less chips rated for it?

 

Seems unlikely to do a launch this fall without an announcement at e3. I don't know. Are there any other major gaming events this summer, or some kind of special playstation event?

 

Probably why Sony essentially went to radio silence after MS leaked the specs of the scorpio.

From your article:

 

If DF is right in their speculation, I'd be disappointed. It looks like the resolution warriors won after all their complaining. A netbook CPU from 2013 paired with Vega technology releasing in 2017. Lovely.

 

They could, but whereas 4 TFLOPs seems rather conservative for a 14FF GPU, 6TFLOPs does not. That would make me think Sony has a bit more headroom than Microsoft.

If we believe the rumours Neo will be out later this year (before October?) so it should be in production by now.[/QUOTE]

They wouldn't show the new console 3 months before its release? Maybe the fact that they haven't shown it means it's not coming in October after all?

If I was Sony, I'd probably prefer to launch my mid-gen console one or two quarters later to get time to change enclosure+cooling+power regulation+whatever than to live the whole mid-gen mid-cycle with a competitor that is ~50% faster, where the IQ difference in all multiplatform games are clearly visible (as proven by the recent generation).
Sony is already winning the hardware race by a lot. They are in a lesser rush to release their mid-gen, much less than Microsoft.




As for this statement:

Well not if all they're doing is upgrading the clocks. If Microsoft could change the Xbone clocks within weeks of launching the console, Sony would probably be good to do it half a year (or more?) before.[/QUOTE]

 

That was specifically addressed in the article. Essentially, MS had the legroom to increase their clocks because of their cooling solution and their external PSU. In short, the very things that PS4 consumers hate would need to be implemented (larger console, external power brick), and even then, the article states the boosts wouldn't make any more of a difference in the end comparison as they did when MS did it for the XB1.

 

Unless MS is going with a bigger GPU, cut down Vega at very modest 800-850 MHz like DF suggested.

Either way, it looks like they best can do right now is increase clockspeeds, something not out of reach for MS as well (even if they have a little less headroom). They could completely scrap it, but I don't see it happening. A $50-100 cheaper Neo will sell better than Scorpio regardless of tech specs, and launching almost a year before helps as well.

 

The wording yesterday in the Scorpio reveal was carefully chosen to address all the concerns of Xbox supporters, power, compatibility, etc and also to emphasise the leaked weak points of the NEO.

All the games will be compatible, 4k and VR without compromises, and DEVS could take advantage of the extra power.

Will it force the hand of Sony?? to loosen its requisites??

 

This is quite the assumption.