Redmond, US, April 6 — While the design, and any new games that take full advantage of its new power remain under the table until later in the year, Microsoft has revealed the power of its new super-console.
The technical facts finally revealed
The basic specs of the Scorpio Engine system-on-a-chip with 7 billion transistors are eight custom cores (2 quad-core blocks, upgraded Jaguar hardware) in the CPU clocked at 2.3GHz (compared to the PS4 Pro’s 2.1GHz). That is supported 40 GPU units running at 1,172MHz compared to 36 running at 911 MHz and 12GB RAM compared to 8GB on the PS4 Pro.
There’s also vastly improved bandwidth at 326Gb/s and 6-teraflops performance, with DirectX on the chip plus a 4K UHD Blu-ray drive for the ultimate in entertainment. All cooled by a vapor-chamber that should keep the noise down.
1. Scorpio Engine, 2.Vapor Chamber, 3. Centrifugal Fan, 4. Hovis Method
How about game compatibility?
In gaming terms, as said, anything that runs on this spec is still hiding. However, both Xbox One games and Xbox 360 titles will both run in improved states on the new machine, with no screen tearing. The upshot is that Xbox Scorpio will be hugely impressive and the go-to machine for 4K, 60fps gaming.
But, this hardware spec is nothing without games, and Microsoft has to go a long way to catch up with the lead of the PS4 in this (somewhat bifurcated) “generation” of gaming. Sure, Forza is coming and many more, but what new worlds are Microsoft or third-party developers coming up with that will entice players in as Sony managed with Persona 5 and Horizon Zero Dawn currently selling systems right now.
Price still unknown
Hopefully, we’ll get some pricing information soon, but it will have to be very comparable to PS4 Pro to tempt gamers to upgrade. And there’s plenty of time for Sony to respond in some way, either by software tweaking or a new revision. The results of Project Scorpio are said to hit the market during the coming holidays 2017.
This article is a follow-up on our announcement here.
YouTube: Xbox – Project Scorpio
Photo credit: Microsoft
Source: Richard Leadbetter (Eurogamer) / Microsoft
