drkohler said:
So many questions, so few answers (from MS).
1. Games that are made for the Scorpio. There are two things to remember. Firstly, those games are much,much easier to program than games for the X1. Secondly, those games will NOT run (or run piss-poor) on an X1, contrary to what MS wants you to believe. The reason is very simple. Games for the X1 are designed around the on-die 32MB esram to achieve any meaningful results. The Scorpio will not have esram (it would be stupid to add 110GB/S expensive esram when you have over 320GB/s ram bandwidth. So Scorpio games run right out of the gddr ram, and if you simply run those games on a X1, you don't have any (or only the most rudimentary) esram benefits.
2. What you get out of a 6TF Scorpio you can roughly see by comparing it to a PC equipped with a GPU of the same power (also note these PCs typically run with higher power discrete Intel processors so the comparison is somewhat flawed right out of the gate). You'll note that the Scorpio likely ends in the 30fps ballpark (with reduced graphics settings).
3. I think it will be easy to transfer PC code to Scorpio code, as the hardware differences will be practically zero for the reasons stated above. The target people basically stay the same, people who do not want to hassle around PC architecture. Maybe even "low budget PC buyers" will start looking into a Scorpio (being identical to a good entry-level PC).
4. The cost basically depends on the type of cpu in the SoC. Neglecting for the moment that AMD cannot deliver a 6TF gpu at this time (an overclocked RX480 might do but these PC graphic cards draw 200W...). Everybody talks about Zen, of course. The problem is that Zen is the thing that is intended save AMD from bankrupcy (the only thing that kept AMD afloat in the past years are the console contracts). So this new cpu technology will not be offered for cheap, at least initially, because it absolutely has to "make hay" for AMD. Certainly a "Zen light" (no L3 cache, 6 cores only but higher clock than an 8 core unit) is imaginable, and so is a cpu construct with improved Jaguar design. I have no problem seeing a Scorpio at a $499 price point.
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Wow, will the Scorpion really use the Zen?
But Neo is only using the same CPU as the PS4, only a bit higher overclock.
But on the other hand, CPU is not so important.
Btw, I thought the RX480 was 6TF, and he draws "only" 150W. Maybe they can get 6TFLOP out of an underclocked AMD Vega, using only 110W.
How much power do you think the GPU can draw at maximum to be able to be used in a console, in the Scorpion? What's reasonable before they think the console becomes too hot and loud? 100W? 120W?
