Uh... it specifically says Zen will be available for semi-custom beyond 2017 and into 2018/2019. What do you think semi-custom means? You can google "Lisa Su credite suisse transcript" to find the entire conference call
Middle Generation Console Upgrade Discussion [Scorpio, 4Pro]
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Uh... it specifically says Zen will be available for semi-custom beyond 2017 and into 2018/2019. What do you think semi-custom means? You can google "Lisa Su credite suisse transcript" to find the entire conference call
No - that is not what it says. Parse it carefully.
Does the fact that a statement made by the CEO of a company to it's investors, who would expect to be communicated to with clarity, has to be "parsed carefully" to get the meaning you want out of it not seem problematic?
You'll have to walk us through that because we're all parsing it the same way.
Zen processor line roadmap.
In these devices.
Also appearing in semi-custom (console) devices to feature Zen.
Past 2017 and into 2018 and 2019.
Zen will be everywhere come 2020.
How can it be read that there's an SOC present in 2017 given we're 'looking beyond 2017' for a semi-custom device?
eh as we look beyond . So one can take it to mean as we get close to 2018 . But like I said any confidentiality agreement could make the comment mean nothing and your assuming semi custom is what MS would buy. They may just take a zen chip and put it in with a bus to vega and have its own DDR 4 ram or just use ram through vega . It wouldn't be the first time for that
Only if not a native English speaker.
'Beyond' cannot mean anything other than after. "Just beyond that mountain" isn't going to mean "somewhere on the mountain". And why use such an obtuse phrasing if one's trying to tell investors that there'll be products this side of 2017/12/31.Possibly. I was only analysing the quote and ramr's point that it could (and should) be interpreted to mean Zen is probable for Scorpio. Zen can only happen in Scorpio if AMD left that deal out of that call...
Would be a slightly weird NDA though, as companies have been allowed to talk about console contracts before - AMD told us they had 3 console contracts. I suppose MS could be considering Zen or something else, and don't want people to hear it's Zen in case the design changes.
No it doesn't. And stop saying, 'read it carefully' as if everyone's just being sloppy/lazy, especially when someone's gone to the effort of breaking it down. If you want to present an alternative reading that no-one else is getting, you'll have to spell it out.
"I talked about our Zen roadmap for our products, in terms of desktops, servers and notebooks, but one should expect Zen in our semi-custom roadmap as well as we look beyond 2017 into the 18/19 timeframe, and so we really do view this as developing foundational IP that can go into a number of different markets and we have good prospects in those areas."
Clause 1, recapping what's already been said.
Clause 2, these products are not the only products Zen will appear in
Clause 3, subordinate clause. "We look beyond 2017 into the 18/19 timeframe" means nothing without hanging off the previous clause.
If clause 3 didn't exist, you'd have a point - expect Zen in out roadmap - but clause 3 exists to clarify the timelines for the investors. That's the only purpose to clause 3 and the only interpretation that makes any logical or grammatical sense. That's the interpretation that everyone else is getting.
So again, if you disagree you'll have to break down what you're reading to spell it out for us thickies.
Dayymmmmm, I haven't seen BBS colours in a long time.
I still don't see the reason why Zen must be in Scorpio, removing all wishful thinking, under what requirements would Scorpio have that would require a Zen processor, that couldn't already be fulfilled by an existing CPU of today (for likely significantly cheaper). If you wanted Scorpio to be this all in one console, then sure, I'd agree. As long as there was some proof that MS Office, and other CPU extensive apps, full desktop/mouse/keyboard support was coming -- I'd say you're onto something.
But if it's just for games, I'm pretty sure developers can get away with things.
Consoles can always get away with having less of everything - it just shows in the scale and the frame rates .. which are often a dirty 30 fps. And even if the scale stays the same for now for development reasons, the dirty 30 fps is an unfortunate holdover. PS4Pro games have already shown significant FPS increases in CPU limited situations over PS4Bone.
Zen should be able to easily deliver twice the performance of a ~ 2gHz Jaguar at conservative clocks (it's already 40+ % faster in terms of IPC than the final earth-mover cores, which themselves had significantly higher IPC than early dozer and Jag cores).
And even if you only wanted to target the same performance level as a 2.1 gHz Jag (which Cerny described as running hot) you could do it with lower power consumption using Zen meaning there was more juice for the GPU. Assuming you were prepared to pay for the increased die area and could have it ready in time, of course.
Jaguar was a good choice in 2013 - probably the best choice available - but I don't want a 2017 console to just be an upresed 30 fps (or less) 2013 console. Scorpio is supposed to be a premium product ... so make it one. :/
[And as I type this I already know in my heart that Scorpio is going to have a CPU the same or marginally (insignificantly) stronger than the PS4Pro.]
Zen should be able to easily deliver twice the performance of a ~ 2gHz Jaguar at conservative clocks (it's already 40+ % faster in terms of IPC than the final earth-mover cores, which themselves had significantly higher IPC than early dozer and Jag cores).
And even if you only wanted to target the same performance level as a 2.1 gHz Jag (which Cerny described as running hot) you could do it with lower power consumption using Zen meaning there was more juice for the GPU. Assuming you were prepared to pay for the increased die area and could have it ready in time, of course.
Jaguar was a good choice in 2013 - probably the best choice available - but I don't want a 2017 console to just be an upresed 30 fps (or less) 2013 console. Scorpio is supposed to be a premium product ... so make it one. :/
[And as I type this I already know in my heart that Scorpio is going to have a CPU the same or marginally (insignificantly) stronger than the PS4Pro.]
lol me tooFor select titles we're unsure of what causes frame rate dipping as a whole, (if we are comparing it to 4Pro, since it's beefier right across the board)
If CPU is a bottleneck for better performance, we should see the move to execute indirect to alleviate those issues.
It can still be a premium product without Zen, It just won't be the latest and greatest technology
A move to Zen though, would get me to buy in earlier than later I think. It would spell a different direction for Xbox for sure.
Is there the drab possibility that Scorpio has a jaguar based cpu as well?
http://digiworthy.com/2016/10/10/phil-spencer-xbox-scorpio-not-use-amd-jaguar/
This article makes a wobbly inference from 3 quotes that there is no chance, zero/nada the scorpio will use Jaguar.
Here are the 3 quotes if u dont want to click:
"About two and a half years ago we started to look at a hardware refresh that we might want to do, which in the end led to the Xbox One S and Scorpio in terms of designs. We’d looked at doing something that was higher performance this year, and I’d say the [PS4] Pro is about what we thought–with the GPU, CPU, memory that was here this year–that you could go do, and we decided that we wanted to do something different.
So we looked at Scorpio and 4K and what I thought was a bigger step in terms of performance. It was something that we wanted to focus on."
"Since we’re focusing on a box that can support true 4K and a 4K frame buffer and a lot of PC games already support that; it’s not a new language or asset base for them in terms of things that we’re asking them to go do. I’m also pretty confident in the content line-up that we’ll see."
"But I also want people to understand that Scorpio is going to be a premium console. Like, I’m not trying to sell you a high-end gaming PC rig for a couple of thousand dollars or something. We look at consumer price points of consoles and definitely our target is to hit that. But it will be a premium version of an Xbox One and we’ll talk more about pricing as we’re cutting it closer to the launch and everything else."
http://digiworthy.com/2016/09/11/amd-zen-custom-socs-project-scorpio/
Here is another article that makes an inference based on very little concrete evidence that jaguar will not be used
http://digiworthy.com/2016/10/10/phil-spencer-xbox-scorpio-not-use-amd-jaguar/
This article makes a wobbly inference from 3 quotes that there is no chance, zero/nada the scorpio will use Jaguar.
Here are the 3 quotes if u dont want to click:
"About two and a half years ago we started to look at a hardware refresh that we might want to do, which in the end led to the Xbox One S and Scorpio in terms of designs. We’d looked at doing something that was higher performance this year, and I’d say the [PS4] Pro is about what we thought–with the GPU, CPU, memory that was here this year–that you could go do, and we decided that we wanted to do something different.
So we looked at Scorpio and 4K and what I thought was a bigger step in terms of performance. It was something that we wanted to focus on."
"Since we’re focusing on a box that can support true 4K and a 4K frame buffer and a lot of PC games already support that; it’s not a new language or asset base for them in terms of things that we’re asking them to go do. I’m also pretty confident in the content line-up that we’ll see."
"But I also want people to understand that Scorpio is going to be a premium console. Like, I’m not trying to sell you a high-end gaming PC rig for a couple of thousand dollars or something. We look at consumer price points of consoles and definitely our target is to hit that. But it will be a premium version of an Xbox One and we’ll talk more about pricing as we’re cutting it closer to the launch and everything else."
http://digiworthy.com/2016/09/11/amd-zen-custom-socs-project-scorpio/
Here is another article that makes an inference based on very little concrete evidence that jaguar will not be used
Only if not a native English speaker.
Possibly. I was only analysing the quote and ramr's point that it could (and should) be interpreted to mean Zen is probable for Scorpio. Zen can only happen in Scorpio if AMD left that deal out of that call...
Would be a slightly weird NDA though, as companies have been allowed to talk about console contracts before - AMD told us they had 3 console contracts. I suppose MS could be considering Zen or something else, and don't want people to hear it's Zen in case the design changes.
na as we look beyond just means that your going to look at that time but it doesn't preclude anything before it. As for the weird phrasing its perhaps best when you can't announced any semi custom soc wins yet .
Anyway we don't know what MS wants to say or not , look at how vague some parts of the scorpio announcement was but how specific other parts were ..
Also perhaps MS doesn't want people to know they are going to put zen in because if everyone knows the reveal doesn't garner press
didn't read articles, just the parts you highlighted.
that really doesn't say that it's not jaguar at all.
could easily mean they couldn't get it to 2.25ghz this year, but could next year when process is bit more mature.
doesn't even need to mean bump in cpu at all. Although that is pretty much a given.
@eastmen I didn't see anything in there that had weird phrasing? Was only weird if trying to make it fit zen in Scorpio.
they also wouldn't be breaking nda's etc if people made leaps to believe it was Scorpio if they did say 2017 not 18.
same way people assumed they were talking about switch when they said they had 3 design wins etc. People just assumed, in that case wrongly.
not 100% ruling zen out, but that's due to personal preference more than anything else. For same reasons as @function gave
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Thats what I'm wondering as well. Perhaps there is the danger they might stick with jaguar to ensure complete compatibility with the entire library of XO games.
But if this is the case at some point with this new iterative business model Sony/Xbox are going to have to break away from the jaguar architecture at some point or they'll hit a performance ceiling. Once a new architecture is introduced even if they continue iterative consoles they may have to do software emulation for games that do not play nicely with a different cpu.
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doubt they'd be sticking with jaguar for compatibility reasons to be honest, same moving forward, wouldn't see that as an issue.
maybe Phil meant had to wait on the qualcomm 835 arm processor coming in 2017 with the x86 emu they've developed
D
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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.
When you buy the latest PC game, you are not buying a game that won't run on a low to midrange rig. Ultimately, what the game offers a high end rig is dependent on what the dev does. Furthermore, it's expected that in the future, high end rigs of today will play games of tomorrow that mid and low end rigs won't have the performance to play at a suitable level.
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.
In terms of Zen, its a CPU that may not end up being the best choice for Scorpio. If its performance gains mostly come from upping the transistor count per core than downclocking to enable it to fit Scorpio's thermals is not ideal. Especially, if smaller excavator+ cores are available at higher clocks in the same configuration. Smaller cores at higher clocks equal less transistors so if the performance delta isn't huge, BOM wise excavator cores make better sense. You don't go for Zen just to say you have Zen inside as that's just marketing in its purest and cruelest form.
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.
In terms of Zen, its a CPU that may not end up being the best choice for Scorpio. If its performance gains mostly come from upping the transistor count per core than downclocking to enable it to fit Scorpio's thermals is not ideal. Especially, if smaller excavator+ cores are available at higher clocks in the same configuration. Smaller cores at higher clocks equal less transistors so if the performance delta isn't huge, BOM wise excavator cores make better sense. You don't go for Zen just to say you have Zen inside as that's just marketing in its purest and cruelest form.
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