By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
EricHiggin on 25 January 2017
Edit Thread
Pemalite said:
EricHiggin said:

If Scorpio is just a Pro with a slightly better GPU then its not going to sell very well.
If this has been XB's plan the whole time, then they should have just launched Scorpio at the same time as Pro and used the RX480 GPU at 5.5Tflops. Put it in an X1S sized box with external power brick, or X1 sized box with internal power supply. That would have gotten better sales as it would have gone head to head with Pro and would have had a clear hardware advantage. Launching a year later than Pro for 0.5 more Tflops (6) is just a really dumb idea.
This makes me think whether or not the GPU is Polaris with more CU's or a gimped version of Vega, odds are Scorpio is using a Ryzen CPU in some shape or form. This is probably the main reason for XB to wait an entire year to compete with Pro.

It could also be neither Polaris or Vega, but a semi-custom design like what Sony opted for.
We know it has adopted a couple of technologies that debuted in Tonga and thus is in Vega and Polaris.
Had my doubts about Zen since Scorpio was announced.
With that said, if it's using a semi-custom Vega, then it should be able to do more work than the raw flop numbers imply.

Pro doubled the PS4 Pitcairn CU's from 18 to 36, so could Scorpio quadruple or more the XB1 Bonaire CU's from 12 to 48 or even 60 maybe?

I dunno. I guess anything is possible, but I dont see why just using Polaris wouldn't make more sense. Its still GCN, its cheap, its in production, its 14nm, and already has 36 CU's which brings it to a max stock 5.8Tflops. With semi custom they wouldn't have to add all that many more CU's to reach the target 6Tflops at an acceptable clock rate.

They have to be waiting for Ryzen or Vega or both. There is no reason for XB to hold back Scorpio an entire year if they were just going to take the XB1 and beef it up just like how PS4 was beefed up to become Pro. Maybe it's a higher clocked Jag or Puma but I would hope not, and with Phil mentioning balance multiple times they would need very high clocks on those CPU's. Could be the newer low power Carrizo Excavator CPU's, slap 2X 4 core together like XB1 Jag and theres your 8 cores.

I still think XB knows they screwed up big time with XB1, and they know their exclusive line up can't match PS or NIN, so the only thing to do is offer a really powerful console at an acceptable price. Something like what PS4 was at launch, but even more powerful for its time, like the 360. Something that would cast a dark shadow on PS4 and Pro in terms of hardware. Ryzen would most certainly do that whether Scorpio uses Bonaire, Polaris, or Vega.