Next Generation Hardware Speculation with a Technical Spin [pre E3 2019]

[ultragpu]

Someone asked if MS would talk specs. Matt said that’s asking too much.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/xb...plays-we-all-win.94058/page-250#post-19174046

OK maybe just like a Scorpio reveal then, a couple of raw numbers without too much details. After all we can sort of guess the ballpark figure once Navi goes public.

 

[Jay]

If they don't go into detail it won't be because of nda's between MS and AMD.

 

[borntosoul]

Here’s a question, do you guys think ssd drive prices will be low enough late next year to replace a 1tb Hdd ?

How close are we till lower power consumption, less heat and faster speeds outweigh cost per GB?

Cheers.

 

[anexanhume]

Here’s a question, do you guys think ssd drive prices will be low enough late next year to replace a 1tb Hdd ?

How close are we till lower power consumption, less heat and faster speeds outweigh cost per GB?

Cheers.

It’s in the realm of possibility. SSDs are rapidly approaching the $0.10/GB threshold and a perusal of pricing trends via a firm like DRAMeXchange will show consistent drops quarter over quarter. Wholesale, the drives may be in the $50-80 range by the time consoles hit.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Someone asked if MS would talk specs. Matt said that’s asking too much.

Who's Matt?

It's definitely not "asking too much", considering at E3 2016 they revealed that Scorpio would bring a 6 TFLOPs GPU, 320GB/s bandwidth and 8-core CPU, for a console that would only release a year and a half later (November 2017).
Of course, they did this when the PS4 Pro was already a known value (because by E3 2016 it was already so close to release), so they were confident they could boast about specs.

If they're not sure (or they know they'll be at a specs disadvantage), they'll probably keep their mouth shut about specs.

 

[iroboto]

Who's Matt?

It's definitely not "asking too much", considering at E3 2016 they revealed that Scorpio would bring a 6 TFLOPs GPU, 320GB/s bandwidth and 8-core CPU, for a console that would only release a year and a half later (November 2017).
Of course, they did this when the PS4 Pro was already a known value (because by E3 2016 it was already so close to release), so they were confident they could boast about specs.

If they're not sure (or they know they'll be at a specs disadvantage), they'll probably keep their mouth shut about specs.

It's unlikely you can change anything by that time. Just got to go out and do your thing and have confidence in the product you're putting out.
I suspect they will announce some specs, but not all.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Here’s a question, do you guys think ssd drive prices will be low enough late next year to replace a 1tb Hdd ?

I think it's low enough right now.
1TB SATA SSDs are starting to go into $100 for final consumer offers, meaning multi-million shipments from manufacturers should cost them less than $80 nowadays.

IMO the only reason they might want to go with HDD for next-gen is if they decide they need way more than 1TB for installing games. But for 1TB of storage there will be very little reason to go with HDDs next year.

How close are we till lower power consumption, less heat and faster speeds outweigh cost per GB?

Realistically, aside from maximum transfer speeds those points don't matter much.
Access times (latency) though, that's the biggest upgrade on SSDs by far, and it could save devs a bunch of time spent on juggling things through the RAM to hide the HDD's gigantic latency when streaming assets, and consequently the RAM amount itself.

It's unlikely you can change anything by that time. Just got to go out and do your thing and have confidence in the product you're putting out.

Of course they can't change, but if they don't know how they compare with the competition (or already know they don't have the upper hand in that field), they won't try to boast about specs and focus on showing pretty demo reels, new social features, etc.

 

[iroboto]

Of course they can't change, but if they don't know how they compare with the competition (or already know they don't have the upper hand in that field), they won't try to boast about specs and focus on showing pretty demos, new features, etc.

I think they'll have to announce specs if they have 2 consoles launching though. Buyers will want to know the specific differences before making purchasing decisions. They won't wait until 2020 E3 to do this, though they could, but I think they want to get all the right messaging up front now, and get buy in today while they own all the communications at E3. You don't want to get caught up in a comparison discussion with Sony's console.

They really need to double down on making sure it's clear and concise. This is going to be the only year Sony don't show up for E3. MS really have to take advantage here of the clear comms to rectify their mistakes from XBO announce and launch.

 

[anexanhume]

Who's Matt?

It's definitely not "asking too much", considering at E3 2016 they revealed that Scorpio would bring a 6 TFLOPs GPU, 320GB/s bandwidth and 8-core CPU, for a console that would only release a year and a half later (November 2017).
Of course, they did this when the PS4 Pro was already a known value (because by E3 2016 it was already so close to release), so they were confident they could boast about specs.

If they're not sure (or they know they'll be at a specs disadvantage), they'll probably keep their mouth shut about specs.

An insider who has had info proven before.

 

[AlNom]

I think they'll have to announce specs if they have 2 consoles launching though. Buyers will want to know the specific differences before making purchasing decisions. They won't wait until 2020 E3 to do this, though they could, but I think they want to get all the right messaging up front now, and get buy in today while they own all the communications at E3.

I’m sure they have the hardware design effectively locked. There’s not much in talking final specs though, which are going to come down to clocks/yields closer to launch. It’s a bit different from the midgen launch since this is a whole new generation with great expectations to get everyone to jump, not just the enthusiasts who want a faster-than-base experience.

I think they should at least discuss the nature of the tiered SKUs early just to get the ball rolling for feedback and to give them more time to get the messaging clear and correct.

 

[iroboto]

I’m sure they have the hardware design effectively locked. There’s not much in talking final specs though, which are going to come down to clocks/yields.

I think they should at least discuss the nature of the tiered SKUs early just to get the ball rolling for feedback and to give them more time to get the messaging clear and correct.

They gotta talk ray tracing at this point in time. If i don't hear ray tracing at this E3, they certainly won't announce it next year, so it'll pretty much not have it then.

 

[ultragpu]

An insider who has had info proven before.

Doesn't Matt contradicts a bit to what Jason from Kotaku or was it Benji had to say? The latter was hinting something big is going down with MS this year and if Sony is keeping it low like State of the Play then people are gonna be very furious. I would assume the big thing would be a full blown reveal of Scarlett family at least with some sort of specs.

 

[anexanhume]

Doesn't Matt contradicts a bit to what Jason from Kotaku or was it Benji had to say? The latter was hinting something big is going down with MS this year and if Sony is keeping it low like State of the Play then people are gonna be very furious. I would assume the big thing would be a full blown reveal of Scarlett family at least with some sort of specs.

Benji largely agrees with Matt. He said there’s a lot of things coming this year that may force some hands.

Jason has said new consoles aren’t coming until 2020 and that dev kits as well as knowledge of specs aren’t widespread, but has commented less on when things will actually be talked about.

 

[McHuj]

It's unlikely you can change anything by that time. Just got to go out and do your thing and have confidence in the product you're putting out.
I suspect they will announce some specs, but not all.

The X1X motherboard was basically show a year before the console launched. At E3, they're going to be roughly in the same state for the next box (same for Sony) meaning that the design will be pretty final already.

With the X1X they did an early spec deep dive with Digital Foundry in the spring of 2017. I think that was smart to get a head of the leaks and control the message. The fact is that specs will leak so it's just a question of when and if MS wants to control the message.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

An insider who has had info proven before.

This guy?

 

[ultragpu]

That’s not that unbelievable for the devkit.

With half the RAM it would imply 24 GB on a 384-bit bus (12 2GB chips @14 Gbps)

I would still only expect around ~56 CUs so this would end up just north of 10 TF.

Compared to X1X, it’s only a 2X jump in ram and likely less then 2X for raw flop count.

So if it's a devkit with all 64 CUs enabled at that clock speed would be exactly 12 TF, a bit low for a Devkit don't you think? But if they give us 60 CUs with this clock speed for the retail unit then at least it can beat Stadia at 11.3 TF.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Devkits don't necessarily need more GPU power, as there isn't typically a massive overhead for GPU work. You want a faster CPU and more RAM for all the debugging work that runs in parallel alongside the game. Ideally you want a machine that gets close to the real world performance of the target hardware so you can run on the devkit without constantly having to build and deploy to test every single change.

 

[ultragpu]

Devkits don't necessarily need more GPU power, as there isn't typically a massive overhead for GPU work. You want a faster CPU and more RAM for all the debugging work that runs in parallel alongside the game. Ideally you want a machine that gets close to the real world performance of the target hardware so you can run on the devkit without constantly having to build and deploy to test every single change.

Oh I see, always got the impression that you needed a monster GPU in there for crazy overhead. It makes sense now that you put it this way. This leak might have some substance I sense.

 

[Prophecy2k]

Oh I see, always got the impression that you needed a monster GPU in there for crazy overhead. It makes sense now that you put it this way. This leak might have some substance I sense.

I don't particularly think it makes the leak more credible, rather makes it appear less obviously fake. There's very little there that can't be guessed by someone one here for example.

 

[Globalisateur]

Devkits don't necessarily need more GPU power, as there isn't typically a massive overhead for GPU work. You want a faster CPU and more RAM for all the debugging work that runs in parallel alongside the game. Ideally you want a machine that gets close to the real world performance of the target hardware so you can run on the devkit without constantly having to build and deploy to test every single change.

Well, XBX dev-kit has more GPU power and same CPU power as retail XBX (and obviously 2x more GDDR5).