Eight CPU cores, over 320GB/s of memory bandwidth, six teraflops of GPU power - how did they do that?

Actual performance figures and hard specs are thin on the ground, but there's enough information here for us to put together a picture on what Scorpio offers and whether it can indeed deliver on the claims made for it.

GPU: Much faster than PlayStation Neo

First up, let's discuss the GPU - the area of the spec that Microsoft is clearly most proud of. The rumoured six TFLOPs of processing power is confirmed, out-stripping the 4.2TF found in PlayStation Neo by quite some margin. It's around 40 per cent faster, calling to mind the advantage PS4 had over Xbox One.

Memory: 12GB of GDDR5?

Microsoft also dropped some hard figures in terms of memory bandwidth too, telling us that Scorpio has over 320GB/s of throughput. This gives us a couple of useful data points. Firstly, it's almost certainly the case that the ESRAM experiment on Xbox One is now a thing of the past - Microsoft will be following the approach pioneered by Sony in using a single, unified pool of memory based on PC graphics RAM technology. Which technology that is remains to be seen - will it be GDDR5 or the faster G5X found in Nvidia's GTX 1080?

CPU: Eight cores, but what are they?

Microsoft didn't spend much time talking about the CPU technology found in Scorpio and if we were to be cynical about it, we'd suggest that it's because it's not going to show that much improvement over Xbox One. Just one specification was revealed - that Scorpio would have eight CPU cores, which brings it into line with the existing Xbox One, PS4 and indeed PS4K Neo.

Can Project Scorpio deliver the VR and 4K promises?

Based on existing AMD Radeon technology, the bottom line is that 6TF of GPU power isn't enough to power a convincing 4K experience. AMD's R9 390X offers around 5.9TF and struggles to push 4K resolution at anything like 30fps on modern PC titles. Now, we can assume that the move to the next-gen GCN architecture will give us some efficiency improvements, but it's hard to believe that this is enough to turn a 390X-level GPU into a top-tier Radeon R9 Fury X equivalent (8.4TF).

But it has to be said that we have seen developers start to extract more from Xbox One and PS4 than we see on equivalent PC parts - something borne out from the E3 demos of Gears of War 4 and Forza Horizon 3, which are - remarkably - running on hardware equivalent to AMD's £80 R7 360 graphics card. So maybe - maybe we will indeed see 4K native titles.

Where does this leave PlayStation 4K Neo?

It's a remarkable turnabout. A good portion of PlayStation 4's success has been down to its spec advantage over Xbox One, combined with a focus on the hardcore player. Sony's technological advantage will be gone with the next wave of hardware - we already know that it cannot support true 4K resolution on cutting-edge games, because we've seen the internal documents that outline Sony's upscaling strategies for 4K display support (more on that soon). It's also unfeasible for Sony to produce a radically revised Neo - the silicon has been designed, developer kits have gone out. Matching Scorpio would require scrapping Neo's existing processor completely.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-xbox-one-project-scorpio-spec-analysis

Native vs. upscaling?.... Hmm... here is to hoping the PlayStation Experience will give us information as I do not believe that Sony is quite ready to unveil the "Neo" at either Gamescom nor the Toyko Game Show.

"AMD's R9 390X offers around 5.9TF and struggles to push 4K resolution at anything like 30fps on modern PC titles. Now, we can assume that the move to the next-gen GCN architecture will give us some efficiency improvements, but it's hard to believe that this is enough to turn a 390X-level GPU into a top-tier Radeon R9 Fury X equivalent (8.4TF)."

Hmm. Seems some titles may require up-scaling like the Neo, some may not.

WE NEED MORE INFO DAMMIT!

It is. We really don't have much to go on atm though. Native 4k games seem to be a realistic target for some games. Probably most, in truth. We just need more info. 

And a witcher 3 update to support it... Please cd project red. Please. 

Don't care abour 4k just bought a new big expensive 1080p tv..

Just makes sure games can run at 1080p at solid 60 fps and make good bug free games instead of "sorta 4k. At" sorta 30fps"

Here is the deal,,, oculus vr is crud, as is vive, and surely psvr... we need 4k-6k vr displays to get rid of the screen door effect which basically makes current vr look like a pre-retina iPhone 3g screen...

Atleast with psvr, neo can take full advantage of it being 1080p while costing $800- $900 (400 neo, 500psvr with controller) for the full experience. Scorpio + oculus would cost around $1100- $1200 (500 scorpio, 700 oculus with controllers) for the full experience. But $ wise Playstation would still offer a better balance in experience. That and their 1st party behemoths which are ps exclusive.

PS is also the better choice for pc gamers as most Xbox games are going to be on the pc... most pc gamers can upgrade to a gtx1070 and match scorpio costing $370 instead of $600...

Trading in ps4-neo will also be cheaper than trading in xb1-scorpio due to the questionable future of xb1... similar to xb-360 generation switch.

Very exciting times in the console hardware space. I am really pleased with what Micosoft has laid out. It will be interesting to see what Sony decides to do.

The initial rumors had said each company was working on multiple hardware configurations, so we may see Sony audible to something slightly more advanced to match or surpass what MS showed.

At any rate, both companies are making good moves, and the industry is going to expand well beyond anything we have seen in the past. I have been saying both PS4 and XBO would pass and leave 100M in the dust, and PS4 will be the first system to pass 200M units. Now that is inevitable.

My main wish for the Scoprio is that it can also run Windows 10 Desktop and basically do everything a PC can do. I would get a Scorpio if that was the case. The problem I have is that I require a high powered PC for my work and I'm not about to buy a Scorpio when I can play those games on my PC.

If I can do my work and everything else on a Scoprio as well as game then I'll be sure to pick one up.

Since me and the wife are looking at buying a new house in about 20 months, I'm not going to buying either until we have moved into the house. Hopefully there will be better deals on 4K TVs and consoles by then.

Too much still unknown and the analyst seems to know less than a lot of our PC guys in the forum.

Will we see another reversal of the "power matter, don't matter" crowd this time around?