Xbox One Slim

[Deleted member 13524]

So in a year, the XBox will have not one, not two but three different performance targets?
I recon that if the One S brings a shrinked chip, the performance bump could be basically free just through clocks alone, but AFAIK they didn't do that with the X360 with its several iterations between two 90nm chips and one 45nm SoC.

I think AMD has said cards from 300 series onward will suport HDR. So wouldn't that not include Xbox One?

IIRC, Robert Hallock stated it would be available in all 300 series and those include R9 370 with a GCN 1.0 Pitcairn.

 

[AlNom]

@davygee You think removing a 4k bluray drive is going to drop the price by $100?

It'd only increase the margins whatever they may be. Nothing says MS is obligated to reduce the market price just because BOM goes down.

 

[Michellstar]

So in a year, the XBox will have not one, not two but three different performance targets?
I recon that if the One S brings a shrinked chip, the performance bump could be basically free just through clocks alone, but AFAIK they didn't do that with the X360 with its several iterations between two 90nm chips and one 45nm SoC.

The more i think about it, going forward dynamic scaling, be it resolution, frame-rate, even like Forza Apex is doing it now on pc, adjusting parameters depending on load, will be a requisite of all Ms published games.

 

[trainplane]

MS should really be playing up the 4K Blu-Ray more, but maybe not at E3 understandably. Just having this at $299 could get a lot of people who are not core gamers to buy the system. It appears to support "Ultra HD Premium" requirements, is small, and has an IR receiver which is really compelling as an HTPC.

Just have a black option please.

 

[ramr]

It's sounds like it could be quite marginal. But Rod Ferguson does mention that's it's both the CPU and GPU that have increased.

I'm guessing it could be something like extra 100MHz on CPU and extra 50MHz on GPU...

@davygee You think removing a 4k bluray drive is going to drop the price by $100?

Probably not, but completely eliminating the optical and hard drives certainly would!

 

[trainplane]

The more i think about it, going forward dynamic scaling, be it resolution, frame-rate, even like Forza Apex is doing it now on pc, adjusting parameters depending on load, will be a requisite of all Ms published games.

Yes, this allows games to take advantage of hardware without any re-coding necessary. With the extra power of S and Scorpio, it might be worth a quick look for Digital Foundry or similar sites to revisit some games that struggled with framerate or have dynamic resolution (Doom) to see if it has improved tangibly.

 

[Michellstar]

MS should really be playing up the 4K Blu-Ray more, but maybe not at E3 understandably. Just having this at $299 could get a lot of people who are not core gamers to buy the system. It appears to support "Ultra HD Premium" requirements, is small, and has an IR receiver which is really compelling as an HTPC.

Just have a black option please.

Strange times we´re living, Ms coming to market with a new revision of video play-back (UHD 4k HDR, whatever) before Sony, which sells tellys, video players, and produces movies.

 

[liolio]

It seems msft is not uncomfortable with the idea of multiple SKUs, I suspect that under the hood what costumers will get is the same UWP, DirectX 12 games as PC with three fixed settings.

In that context, and with the release date in mind I more seriously consider now the possibility of a new 28nm Soc using late Puma+ Cpu cores along with most recent version of GCN availble @28nm. For memory Gddr5 should do (bye bye esram).
All in all with turbo clock, and newer RBE the new model shoukd pull ahead of the older one pretty much all the time.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

I don't think enough is being made out of the new controllers being bluetooth. This also implies the new controllers will only work with the XB1S?

http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/14/1...etooth-controllers-ios-android-game-streaming

So folks wanting to use design studio won't be able to do so unless they have an XB1S? I can't imagine the new, streamlined controllers support both bluetooth and MS's proprietary wireless tech.

 

[AzBat]

New controllers support both wireless stacks. CONFIRMED

Tommy McClain

EDIT: added link to Larry confirming it

 

[Dave Baumann]

Yes, they repeatedly pointed this out. BlueTooth is there for connection to non-XBOX platforms.

Interesting thing is, I've seen a report that points out that the Windows Phone stack will operate with this controller (logical from a device connectivity perspective), but there is also talk of streaming support coming to the Windows Phone XBOX app, so we'll get full control with streaming and the native controller

 

[Scott_Arm]

It'd only increase the margins whatever they may be. Nothing says MS is obligated to reduce the market price just because BOM goes down.

There's no way a UHD bluray drive costs them $100 more than a standard bluray drive. I'd be surprised if the difference was more than $10.

 

[Jay]

So in a year, the XBox will have not one, not two but three different performance targets?

it really depends how much more powerful the slim is.

it may only be worth it being another target for exclusives if at all.

everyone else target xo and get smoother or slightly higher res for no extra work on the slim.

 

[mpg1]

A little more info:

http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/14/11934898/microsoft-xbox-one-s-additional-processing-power

[Microsoft has confirmed the "additional processing power" in a statement to The Verge. "We have the same SOC architecture as Xbox One today," explains a Microsoft spokesperson. "For games that want to take advantage of HDR, we gave developers access to a small amount of additional processing power." The additional processing power won't be significant, and it appears it's limited to HDR titles. Microsoft isn't detailing exactly what chipsets have changed inside the new Xbox One S, but it's reasonable to assume that the Xbox One AMD APU chip has been downsized somewhat for the smaller console, which will help with processing power and thermal thresholds.]

So basically it sounds like it won't be much extra power and will be limited to HDR titles.

 

[eastmen]

A little more info:

http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/14/11934898/microsoft-xbox-one-s-additional-processing-power

[Microsoft has confirmed the "additional processing power" in a statement to The Verge. "We have the same SOC architecture as Xbox One today," explains a Microsoft spokesperson. "For games that want to take advantage of HDR, we gave developers access to a small amount of additional processing power." The additional processing power won't be significant, and it appears it's limited to HDR titles. Microsoft isn't detailing exactly what chipsets have changed inside the new Xbox One S, but it's reasonable to assume that the Xbox One AMD APU chip has been downsized somewhat for the smaller console, which will help with processing power and thermal thresholds.]

So basically it sounds like it won't be much extra power and will be limited to HDR titles.

I'd guess its simply free upclocks due to the process drop. They hit the clock speeds at x wattage and then found that they could clock another 50 or a 100 or 200mhz more without changing the wattage used or to a tiny degree that didn't matter to the foot print and cooling of the system

 

[Kaotik]

A little more info:

http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/14/11934898/microsoft-xbox-one-s-additional-processing-power

[Microsoft has confirmed the "additional processing power" in a statement to The Verge. "We have the same SOC architecture as Xbox One today," explains a Microsoft spokesperson. "For games that want to take advantage of HDR, we gave developers access to a small amount of additional processing power." The additional processing power won't be significant, and it appears it's limited to HDR titles. Microsoft isn't detailing exactly what chipsets have changed inside the new Xbox One S, but it's reasonable to assume that the Xbox One AMD APU chip has been downsized somewhat for the smaller console, which will help with processing power and thermal thresholds.]

So basically it sounds like it won't be much extra power and will be limited to HDR titles.

I'd guess its simply free upclocks due to the process drop. They hit the clock speeds at x wattage and then found that they could clock another 50 or a 100 or 200mhz more without changing the wattage used or to a tiny degree that didn't matter to the foot print and cooling of the system

That has to be inaccurate, AMD's UVD and/or DisplayControllers back in the 2nd gen GCN (including XB1 & PS4 APUs) couldn't do HDR movies

 

[turkey]

They also confirm the same architecture so ESRAM at 32mb, if a game targets a lower resolution it would be madness to not max out the ram usage so its not like they can just increase the buffer sizes on a whim. Games targeting a dynamic 1080 which may be more given how the console land is leveling may benefit slightly which seems to be Gears4.

How might this slightly higher performance SOC handle backwards compatibility performance.?

 

[Scott_Arm]

increased clock speed should increase ESRAM bandwidth as well. Not sure how UE4 uses ESRAM.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

300 and onwards supports HDR on "Gaming and photos", Polaris and onwards supports HDR on "Gaming, photos and videos". Xbox One S has to use at least DisplayController (and UVD?) from Polaris, even if the new GCN architecture wouldn't be included

AMD's GPUs are somewhat modular to facilitate semi-custom designs. Hence it's entirely possible that the HEVC block from Polaris as well as whatever else is needed to facility communication with HDR displays was added to the existing configuration of the SOC. Assuming other aspects of the SOC hasn't changed due to the move from 28 nm to 14/16 nm which is also assuming that the SOC is now on 14/16 nm (probably likely) and not still on 28 nm.

Regards,
SB

 

[Kaotik]

AMD's GPUs are somewhat modular to facilitate semi-custom designs. Hence it's entirely possible that the HEVC block from Polaris as well as whatever else is needed to facility communication with HDR displays was added to the existing configuration of the SOC. Assuming other aspects of the SOC hasn't changed due to the move from 28 nm to 14/16 nm which is also assuming that the SOC is now on 14/16 nm (probably likely) and not still on 28 nm.

Regards,
SB

This is curious though, if AMD went with the trouble to port Jaguars to 14nm, why wouldn't they use those themselves on any product?