Microsoft’s Project Scorpio will sport 12GB of GDDR5 RAM and a 6 teraflop GPU to deliver games in native 4K, it was today revealed.
A Digital Foundry exclusive today confirmed these details and more, with many comparisons made to Sony’s recent PS4 Pro.
“We predicted a slower but wider GPU to get to six teraflops. Instead, Microsoft has defied current-gen constraints and redefined the way consoles are built in order to push clock-speeds up closer to desktop GPU counterparts – a brilliant achievement,” Digital Foundry’s Rich Leadbetter wrote.
“As a result, at a base level, we anticipate third party releases where Scorpio enjoys higher resolutions and more detailed art, but the scale of the difference is something we can’t draw definitive conclusions on until we start to see games. The best case scenario for Microsoft is that its CPU and GPU hardware customisation – derived directly from granular analysis of existing game engines – will produce a gulf in results even wider than those seen frequently seen in Xbox One/PS4 cross-platform releases.
“If we take Microsoft’s statements at face value, there’s no reason why all titles that run at 1080p on Xbox One shouldn’t run at native 4K – and the Forza Motorsport demo I saw presents some compelling evidence to support this. But it’s perhaps the 900p third-party games (where base PS4 typically hits full 1080p) that will be more illuminating. Microsoft says that while the porting work will be more involved, these too should hit native 4K.”
The Forza Leadbetter refers to is Forza Motorsport 6, not the rumoured Forza Motorsport 7 rumoured to headline the Scorpio’s launch.
For those that don’t understand all the jargon used in Digital Foundry’s reveal article or video, Eurogamer happily broke it down.
“The CPU is about 30 per cent faster than the Xbox One’s. The GPU is 4.6 times more powerful than Xbox One’s. What matters just as much, though, is the huge amount of very fast memory available. Even with 4GB reserved for the system, games have a whole 8GB to play with, up from 5GB of much slower memory on Xbox One. That means fast streaming of very high-quality art assets, which will really help at the 4K ultra HD resolutions that Microsoft is gunning for,” they wrote.
While it shouldn’t be taken as gospel, Leadbetter has guessed that the console will have a pricepoint of $499 USD.
Microsoft’s Major Nelson also took to Twitter to give us a better look at some of the internal workings that Leadbetter scrutinised.
https://twitter.com/majornelson/status/849977991677460484/
Xbox UK also posted up a shiny picture that does the same.
We’ll keep you posted as we learn more about Project Scorpio.
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