Xbox Series S [XBSS] (Lockhart) General Rumors and Speculation *spawn*

[cheapchips]

On form factor, I wonder if they'd go for a shrunk XSX instead of a cube. It would make it look more part of the family. A 12x12x24cm tower would have the same volume as a 15cm cube, give or take.

Maybe you could push it further? 10x10x20 is around a 3rd of the volume of the XSX. It wouldn't be much bigger than an Echo speaker. A split motherboard would have a bit more space than an ITX one, which is probably enough?

Edit: a 11cm fan on the 12cm version might be quiet enough, the 9cm the 10cm tower would need might be pushing it?

 

[Mskx]

If they were to make a handheld/portable of some kind i would not expect it to be super small, thin and and power efficient when Switch already has that kind of thing covered.

I would expect a bigger screen so of course bigger in those dimensions but also with thickness and power requirements i expect it to be more in line with a small gaming laptop or maybe something along the lines of the Alienware Project UFO.

Can the Xbox/Microsoft hardware team do that with Lockhart on current nodes? Hmm...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Is there any market for such a device that they'd want to? I think the more general expectation is a larger device to fit in enough power, and so to make it a Surface type device rather than a handheld. A Surface line with XBox games is likely to add notable value to that line of tablets for gamers.

 

[Mskx]

Is there any market for such a device that they'd want to?

Who knows? Was there a market for the Switch before they made it?
I think Xbox needs to be bold and take some chances.

I think the more general expectation is a larger device to fit in enough power, and so to make it a Surface type device rather than a handheld. A Surface line with XBox games is likely to add notable value to that line of tablets for gamers.

I don't see a price that would make it competitive in the gaming space if it was a Surface device, unfortunately...

Maybe they can have their cake and eat it too; wasn't some of the AMD APU code names, Van Gogh or Mero, said to be somewhat similar to the Lockhart in specs? Maybe "Xbox mode" is a cool extra feature in some future Surface devices.

 

[HBRU]

Confirmed by TSMC earlier this month, testing 3nm Q1 2021, mass production by H2 2022.

Will wait the ps5/xsx shrink or maybe half generation improvemnts.

 

[JPT]

Well MS ML solution is also supposed to be performing LOD management in the Velocity Architecture as well as any upres so whatever ML the Series X has it will be in constant use it would seem.

I’m excited for the potential; but I don’t know the costs or quality. So I’m just waiting to see something before making further statements.

This sounds very cool, but how does it work, yes i did not read the patent link or blog that was posted earlier?
If its a lower "quality" LOD, then the device will "upscale" it to "full/better" version of the LOD?

If I am guessing sort of in the ballpark, would i be something like this.

LOD on SSD is lower quality, it gets loaded intro ram where CPU (or GPU) runs it through a ML algorithm that creates a high quality LOD that gets used by the game?
Would this not need to store the high and lower quality LOD in RAM at the same time? Or is it done jit for when the better quality LOD is used? Is there a delay on that? I expect that running the lower quality LOD through the ML algorithm would take longer than just copying it from RAM?

Or am I way of here?

 

[cheapchips]

Can't make these white due to lack of skills , but these are shrunken XSX form factors for Lockhart. I'd almost want to keep the top holes unscaled, but cba. The 10 x 10 x 20cm = 2 litres version seems like scaling it too far. Having said that, it's still more volume than a mini gfx card + cooler takes up. Also, SFF cope well with more power hungry/hot parts in a GPU bay that's self cooled, rather than using case fans.

(was thinking that the PSU would be flattened along the side where the bluray sits on the X).

Ah, idle Sundays...

 

[orangpelupa]

I misunderstood. Nevwrmijd

 

[mpg1]

Kinda hope they just go with a shorter version that is just cube shaped so that they keep the same large fan in there as the XSX. Have to think that would lead to a super quiet console.

 

[cheapchips]

Kinda hope they just go with a shorter version that is just cube shaped so that they keep the same large fan in there as the XSX. Have to think that would lead to a super quiet console.

That was my initial thought, back at post # 60. You can get 92mm 1800 rpm PC fans that have fewer decibels than XoneX. * With a custom fan and shroud it doesn't seem like a given that they have to stick with 130mm to stay quite.

* But I would say I'm not clear if the quite 92mm fans I googled would actually displace enough air to cool a 100w-ish system.

 

[Ronaldo8]

Here's how Micrososft describes how BC works on Xbox Series X:

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/05/28/xbox-series-x-next-generation-backward-compatibility/

Not only should gamers be able to play all of these games from the past, but they should play better than ever before. Backwards compatible games run natively on the Xbox Series X hardware, running with the full power of the CPU, GPU and the SSD. No boost mode, no downclocking, the full power of the Xbox Series X for each and every backward compatible game. This means that all titles run at the peak performance that they were originally designed for, many times even higher performance than the games saw on their original launch platform, resulting in higher and more steady framerates and rendering at their maximum resolution and visual quality.


Interepeting that is kind of confusing but the debate over whether Lockhart has a X1X BC mode may not even be relevant to how BC even works. It sounds more generalized than that.

I fully expect Lockhart, if it actually exists, to be backward compatible with any X1 games. Significant groundwork was done by Heutchy et al of the BC team to ensure that differences in GPU instruction set architectures can be overcome. This effort is described in the patent "Just in time GPU executed program cross-compilation" (https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/07/6d/85/99b3ff8f10b535/US10102015.pdf). Games have been thoroughly decoupled from processor architecture (hence why MS states that BC games run "natively" on the XSX).
With 4tf (?) worth of RDNA 2 power under the hood, X1X optimised games should be backward compatible, with a large boost for the many CPU-bound games due to the upgrade from the crappy Jaguars core of the X1X to more powerful Zen 2 cores.

 

[Ronaldo8]

Can't make these white due to lack of skills , but these are shrunken XSX form factors for Lockhart. I'd almost want to keep the top holes unscaled, but cba. The 10 x 10 x 20cm = 2 litres version seems like scaling it too far. Having said that, it's still more volume than a mini gfx card + cooler takes up. Also, SFF cope well with more power hungry/hot parts in a GPU bay that's self cooled, rather than using case fans.

(was thinking that the PSU would be flattened along the side where the bluray sits on the X).

Ah, idle Sundays...

View attachment 4173

Like a barchart of power. Nice.

 

[Bickle2]

I don’t think Lockheart is a separate SOC. I think it’s the exact same chip


Look at GPUs. The 2060/70/80 are exactly the same chip, just with more active cores. When these chips are produced, they don’t often come out at 100%. Additional sacrificial cores are built in for exactly this reason, so that a certain number can be bad, but it’s still a 2080. Then X number of bad cores is a 70 and Y is a 60. Chips are extremely expensive to produce, so I feel it’s more likely that they’re not testing the SOC for Lockheart, but the new microcode/configuration.


The idea that 70-80% of these consoles are interchangeable is HUGE cost savings. The less lines you need, and the fewer times you need to change them the better, it can literally save millions. Just the mold to pop a plastic piece can run as much as $100,000, and they wear out fast

 

[iroboto]

I don’t think Lockheart is a separate SOC. I think it’s the exact same chip


Look at GPUs. The 2060/70/80 are exactly the same chip, just with more active cores. When these chips are produced, they don’t often come out at 100%. Additional sacrificial cores are built in for exactly this reason, so that a certain number can be bad, but it’s still a 2080. Then X number of bad cores is a 70 and Y is a 60. Chips are extremely expensive to produce, so I feel it’s more likely that they’re not testing the SOC for Lockheart, but the new microcode/configuration.


The idea that 70-80% of these consoles are interchangeable is HUGE cost savings. The less lines you need, and the fewer times you need to change them the better, it can literally save millions. Just the mold to pop a plastic piece can run as much as $100,000, and they wear out fast

No savings. probably costs more. Defective chips aren’t so large that you can create an entirely smaller and different product segment.

 

[BRiT]

They're having higher than expected yields for SeriesX as it is. Chances of Lockhart being the same SOC as SeriesX is slim and none. No, I am not saying there's a chance!

There was a separate 200 soc reported. That's what we assume is Lockhart.

 

[Bickle2]

No savings. probably costs more. Defective chips aren’t so large that you can create an entirely smaller and different product segment.

Less cores use less power, smaller supply, less cooling. It’s not the size but how you drive it. Like I said, it’s already commonplace in CPU/GPU. If you drive this chip at half the watts it needs half the cooling. Chips are hugely expensive, at the time of the Xbox One launch, it was asked why they didn’t do Ps3 Style BC with 360. The answer was simple. It would have cost over $70 a unit to have that chip in there. Sony pulled the Emotion Engine out of PS3, and those only cost $27 each.

I’ll put money down these chips are currently running over $100 each. So that’s why you reconfigure and reuse them. Saves millions and millions of dollars. While Microsoft is still almost certainly working on a streaming box more in line with a Roku, that’s not robust enough to replace the Xbox One S role in the marketplace.

This is actually what Sony had planned for the CELL, which is why Toshiba partnered up. They saw a future where bad chips would go in everything from smart TV to elevators to microwaves. One chip they could easily reconfigure across all their product lines. Didn’t work out, but that was the goal (and why Toshiba had Sony buy them out)

 

[BRiT]

I’ll put money down these chips are currently running over $100 each. So that’s why you reconfigure and reuse them. Saves millions and millions of dollars.

That's already handled with the Azure/xCloud service devices. Your plan actually wastes millions and millions. It's not how you target mass market consumer devices, which Lockhart would likely be.

 

[Jay]

I’ll put money down these chips are currently running over $100 each. So that’s why you reconfigure and reuse them. Saves millions and millions of dollars. While Microsoft is still almost certainly working on a streaming box more in line with a Roku, that’s not robust enough to replace the Xbox One S role in the marketplace.

The problem in this situation is that you would be taking functional dies and disabling them for Lockhart, as xsx has already been confirmed as having disabled CU's for yields already.

You would be disabling 50% of the die, would be a huge waste in waffer and cost.

 

[Bickle2]

The problem in this situation is that you would be taking functional dies and disabling them for Lockhart, as xsx has already been confirmed as having disabled CU's for yields already.

You would be disabling 50% of the die, would be a huge waste in waffer and cost.

Every processor includes “sacrificial cores” for precisely that reason

Why is it a waste over chucking it in the trash? These are not runs, this is useful things to do with chips thst don’t pass QC

 

[BRiT]

It's a waste because making 1 chip size of 380 when you can make so many more the size of 200. Basic mathematics where you minimize the size to maximize the products made.