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

[PSman1700]

How many gamers know how much ram there is? If you ask they'll probably say 500GB.
And that's probably the knowledge ones, not the ones who just want to play a few games.

This is true for many that buy those things. Not many care about specs, they might read 'fastest console' or '8k capable'.

 

[goonergaz]

Did I hear that they are working with them to get it working via USB?
If that's the case maybe some sort of USB to optical adapter may be on the horizon. Otherwise what is there to work with them on?

It probably won’t be good enough to the people who care. They are probably rocking £50 HDMI cables too

 

[eastmen]

The problem with Lockhart is the same problem that the PS5 has. And that is, if you're targeting a system that can fundamentally play the same titles, there's just not much savings you can get.

Let's take the APU. AMD, as tradition, charges per mm despite this not really being the primary cost driver, but it's how it works in principle. You can cut down the GPU portion to half, less than, and you'd still only cut the total APU size to 80% or so, maybe, of the Xsx one. From $122 to... $99, 23 savings, not much. Then there's storage. You can't go small, that ruins attach rate. Half the cost then for half the performance? From $100, to $50. Then there's ram, I don't even know how how well cutting it down to 8gb would go over with devs, "wtf do you mean we don't get almost anymore ram than last gen, I thought this was an UPGRADE". But, maybe another $25 saved.

In total you've gone from $500 to... $400, for a significantly less powerful machine. Maybe you save a few extra bucks here or there, but the Xsx might cost a little over $500 to make anyway so it could easily be moot. Let's face it, 20% lower cost for "half the machine" as the public would perceive doesn't have the feel of a big seller.

Only way I can see Lockhart working well is if it ditches the "plays the exact same title as Xsx" requirement AND it's a mobile device/Switch competitor.

Smaller APU that is capable of less than half the tflop is going to off course cost a lot less , esp at the start since your going to get better yields. Your also affecting every part of the console.

Obviously that APU is going to require alot less power so then you need a smaller / cheaper power supply. Its going to also produce alot less heat so you don't need a large bulky and expensive cooling solution. your going to need less circuitry to route power and manage power. Your going to be able to create a smaller console which saves on the cost to produce it , packaging and shipping costs. It affects everything at every step of the chain.

Look at the 4000 series apu from amd in laptops. That thing is based on vega and zen 2 and its a power house that sips power. I think a 4-5Tflop lock heart could surprise a lot of people when it comes to form factor and power usage and thus cost. MS can further reduce cost by removing the UHD drive and making it a DD/Cloud system and bundle it with Game pass ultimate.

But hey time will tell

 

[Michellstar]

About XSX and the possible XSS, how the thing it´s going to cost reduce in the future.

360 mm^2 with a 320 bit memory interface
What can they do? Use faster memory in the future with a narrower interface??
Well the case will be smaller, and they could skimp in cooling.

But, Do you see this thing retailing at 250$ like the X today in some places?
I mean i have seen the One SAD at 99, the One at 199 and the X at 250.

 

[fehu]

What can they do? Use faster memory in the future with a narrower interface??

After moving from esram + ddr3 to wide gddr5, I think that they can do a lot of things.

 

[AzBat]

But, Do you see this thing retailing at 250$ like the X today in some places?
I mean i have seen the One SAD at 99, the One at 199 and the X at 250.

If there really is a XBSS then it might be only available via Xbox All Access.

Tommy McClain

 

[McHuj]

In total you've gone from $500 to... $400, for a significantly less powerful machine. Maybe you save a few extra bucks here or there, but the Xsx might cost a little over $500 to make anyway so it could easily be moot. Let's face it, 20% lower cost for "half the machine" as the public would perceive doesn't have the feel of a big seller.

I think you are severely underestimating the cost savings. Lockhart is supposed to be a ~4TF machine with less RAM maybe even as low as 12 GB. This probably translates to a 250mm SOC (18-20CU with a similar clock to XSX) with only 6 2GB GDDR6 chips. It's probably a 40% cost savings on the two of the priciest components of the box. On top of that they can cut down the cooling system, maybe even remove the disc drive, and drop down the SSD to something like 750 GB (500 would be too small).

I think they can hit a $300-$350 price point (assuming XSX is $499). In the Coronavirus economy, I think Lockhart would be really well positioned to be a big seller.

 

[Nisaaru]

It probably won’t be good enough to the people who care. They are probably rocking £50 HDMI cables too

Optical Out is more about flexibility imho even if it can't handle certain formats. Not everybody has a HDMI2.1 AV and then TVs might have buggy HDMI-ARC(audio backchannel)/Optical-Out down mix implementations.

I'm not sure at the moment how I will handle the XSX in my setup. My AV is only 1.4 so I would have to go directly to the TV(I thought getting a LG Oled by then). Then I depend on the TV's Optical-Out to the AV to give me audio.

 

[Rangers]

I think you are severely underestimating the cost savings. Lockhart is supposed to be a ~4TF machine with less RAM maybe even as low as 12 GB. This probably translates to a 250mm SOC (18-20CU with a similar clock to XSX) with only 6 2GB GDDR6 chips. It's probably a 40% cost savings on the two of the priciest components of the box. On top of that they can cut down the cooling system, maybe even remove the disc drive, and drop down the SSD to something like 750 GB (500 would be too small).

I think they can hit a $300-$350 price point (assuming XSX is $499). In the Coronavirus economy, I think Lockhart would be really well positioned to be a big seller.

That's why I'm against lockhart. 299 vs 499 is A) extremely aggressive price projection for lockhart and B) not really compelling. You might as well spend a bit more to get a lot more.

The market here is the very people who care about teraflops. So you're aiming a product at the masses in a segment by definition devoted to the core. Who's going to be like "man, I want those 8 Zen 2 cores" who wont want a much better GPU as well.

90% of the people who would buy lockhart will buy a Switch instead.

The bad part is it has the potential to sink MS entire next gen efforts. We see from One+One X and Ps4+PS4 Pro that what matters is the base console. Although they would be going about it in reverse, you still end up with a base console holding back the big daddy here, and that's just shitty. I dont feel like I got my 6TF worth from my One X, and I know why.

Hell for that matter what would a Xbox mid gen refresh even mean in such a scenario? Lockhart starts getting 540P ports?

 

[Proelite]

So the slow portion of the ram on Xsx reserved for CPU and audio is 6GB at 336GB/s.

Lockhart at 192bits guarantees 6GB at 336GB/s provided 14gbps chips. I expect these 6GB on Lockhart will be used 1:1 with the Xsx 6GB, so they will hold the OS, audio etc. This 6GB portion on both consoles will be used the same way since they're non-graphics devoted, thus not easily scalable.

I predict the graphics reserved memory will be 4GB at 224GB/s (which is more than enough for a 4-5tf part).

So in summary 10GB total, 6GB at 336GB/s reserved for OS, audio, etc. 4GB at 224GB/s reserved for GPU. Plenty enough for a 4-4TF 1080p-1440p GPU.

Developing is simplified as the devs only need to adjust the GPU memory requirements from 4GB 224GB/s to 10GB 560GB/s.

 

[mrcorbo]

So the slow portion of the ram on Xsx reserved for CPU and audio is 6GB at 336GB/s.

Lockhart at 192bits guarantees 6GB at 336GB/s. I expect these 6GB on Lockhart will be used 1:1 with the Xsx 6GB, so they will hold the OS, CPU task etc. This 6GB portion on both consoles will be used the same way since they're non-graphics devoted.

I predict the graphics reserved memory will be 4GB at 224GB/s (which is more than enough for a 4-5tf part).

So in summary 10GB total, 6GB at 336GB/s reserved for CPU, audio, etc. 4GB at 224GB/s reserved for GPU. Plenty enough for a 4-4TF 1080p-1440p GPU.

Developing is simplified as the devs only need to adjust the GPU memory requirements from 4GB 224GB/s to 10GB 560GB/s.

I think they would just do 12GB (6*2GB) and call it a day.

 

[Proelite]

I think they would just do 12GB (6*2GB) and call it a day.

That works too! Especially for a 6TF part.

 

[Scott_Arm]

So the slow portion of the ram on Xsx reserved for CPU and audio is 6GB at 336GB/s.

Lockhart at 192bits guarantees 6GB at 336GB/s provided 14gbps chips. I expect these 6GB on Lockhart will be used 1:1 with the Xsx 6GB, so they will hold the OS, CPU task etc. This 6GB portion on both consoles will be used the same way since they're non-graphics devoted.

I predict the graphics reserved memory will be 4GB at 224GB/s (which is more than enough for a 4-5tf part).

So in summary 10GB total, 6GB at 336GB/s reserved for CPU, audio, etc. 4GB at 224GB/s reserved for GPU. Plenty enough for a 4-4TF 1080p-1440p GPU.

Developing is simplified as the devs only need to adjust the GPU memory requirements from 4GB 224GB/s to 10GB 560GB/s.

Nothing is reserved for the cpu. Both the gpu and cpu can access the full memory. There is just 10GB that has more bandwidth to the gpu.

 

[Proelite]

Nothing is reserved for the cpu. Both the gpu and cpu can access the full memory. There is just 10GB that has more bandwidth to the gpu.

I meant OS.

Memory performance is asymmetrical - it's not something we could have done with the PC," explains Andrew Goossen "10 gigabytes of physical memory [runs at] 560GB/s. We call this GPU optimal memory. Six gigabytes [runs at] 336GB/s. We call this standard memory. GPU optimal and standard offer identical performance for CPU audio and file IO. The only hardware component that sees a difference in the GPU."

 

[cheapchips]

I can't help wondering how small you could go with the box on Lockhart. I'd assume they'd want to maintain the fridge shape and ratio of width & height.

The main board is the limiting factor. The smaller SOC doesn't save that much space. They still need to fit the SSD and SSD slot on it. Dropping four RAM chips and power gubbins could probably shave a couple of cm off with width and height?

13x13x26cm would be a nice shrink over the XSX?

 

[Proelite]

I can't help wondering how small you could go with the box on Lockhart. I'd assume they'd want to maintain the fridge shape and ratio of width & height.

The main board is the limiting factor. The smaller SOC doesn't save that much space. They still need to fit the SSD and SSD slot on it. Dropping four RAM chips and power gubbins could probably shave a couple of cm off with width and height?

13x13x26cm would be a nice shrink over the XSX?

Let's see you can use smaller heatsink/no vapor chamber cooler, smaller PSU, smaller sized fan, mono mobo. I expect a traditional form-factor console the size of the Xbox One S.

 

[cheapchips]

Let's see you can use smaller heatsink/no vapor chamber cooler, smaller PSU, smaller sized fan, mono mobo. I expect a traditional form-factor console the size of the Xbox One S.

I'd constrained my thinking to a fridge form factor. It wouldn't look part of the Series family if they just stuck with the One shape.

 

[Xbat]

Well there's been hinted at some Xbox news on Monday, maybe Lockhart.

 

[fehu]

It's expected to be about games's announcements.

 

[cheapchips]

I'd really like it if they went for something around half XSX height but same width. Probably too much of a squeeze even with reduced everything.

Behold my amazing photo editing skills!