Hot Chips: Microsoft's Xbox One SoC has 47 MBytes Cache / 204 GB/s peak BW

Msoft XBox One SoC has 47 MBytes cache in 363mm2 die!

In the pic of the architectural design you'll see the "theoretical throughput" of 204 GB/s peak BW. Confirming Digital Foundry's inside claims.

[greenpowerz]

K

Buttery popcorn is needed

Convas

They were right in what context and the popcorn? Seems to be unexpectedly stronger than originally thought.

" Bandwidth is at a premium in the Xbox One owing to the slower DDR3 memory employed in the console, which does not compare favourably to the 8GB unified pool of GDDR5 in the PlayStation 4. The 32MB of "embedded static RAM" within the Xbox One processor aims to make up the difference, and was previously thought to sustain a peak theoretical throughput of 102GB/s - useful, but still some way behind the 176GB/s found in PlayStation 4's RAM set-up. Now that close-to-final silicon is available, Microsoft has revised its own figures upwards significantly, telling developers that 192GB/s is now theoretically possible."

http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...

[SuperLupe]

Can somebody please explain what the heck does all this mean ? Sorry Im no spec nut :)

[NewMonday]

it means only 32mb can go threw the fast ESRAM, witch means very limited application for it, the bulk of data will have to go threw the slow DDR3 ram, this mostly effects textures and loading time.

[HammadTheBeast]

Essentially, this: http://images.wikia.com/dra...

Basically this just confirms the rumors, the same things from a week ago are true.

[MysticStrummer]

It means nothing has changed, but some people forgot the definition of the word "theoretical".

[thechosenone]

Gaf breaks it down...nothing has changed it's still...

PS4 > Xbone :D xD :P :3 :O

http://www.neogaf.com/forum...

[black0o]

ESRAm helps nothing more .. and thanks to it we may see the same thing happened this's cur-gen where Xbox holds ps back just to let games being fit into HD-DVD instead of bluRay
MgS4 30+
GOW 40+
UC3 40+ GB ..etc mean while FF13-2 were 7 GB for the poor x360

now will have to deal with files been fit into 32mb or 47 mb so x1 can run it smother, while the ps4 is setting on 8 GB

I bet ps exclusive will shine more this up coming gen much more the cur-gen

[ThatCanadianGuy514]

PS4: 1152 Shaders
Xbone: 768 Shaders

PS4: 72 Texture units
Xbone: 48 Texture units

PS4: 32 ROPS
Xbone: 16 ROPS

Not even counting the the superior ram and ram setup, still just Means that PS4 is massively more powerful then xbox.

[tuglu_pati]

@tokugawa

agree

anyone can go and sign up in neogaf and comment, the info from there is as reliable as in here.

[Ritsujun]

GP and her nasty green mind.

[NewMonday]

people angry at facts

notice non of the XB1 fans try to give a credible explanation because the truth is hard to take.

[tuglu_pati]

The ESRAM is still essentially its own thing, memory read/writes to it can be 109 gbs right through to 204gb/s, but it's now a two way communication, not just a framebuffer cache like it was on the 360.

What that really means is post processing/defferred rendering is slick. Hellishly slick. Rendering is again, a one way traffic system, but any post processing can happen soon as the frame is created in the ESRAM. No GPU to DDR3 read/writes. All win win stuff (like last gen).

Clock speed increase means it has a throughput advantage (over PS4)in terms of the rate at which it process data, with almost zero stall pipeline in place. Very slick. OP/s still low compared to the opposition, but there is enough here to suggest that it will run efficiently enough.

Outside of the raw compute advantage on the GPU (for PS4), the Xbox one has a faster HSA bus, running at 30gb/s compared to "nearly 20gb/s).
It's all half a dozen of one and 6 of the other, someplace's XBO has advantages, others it doesn't.

Raw rendering, hell I wouldn't be at all concerned, it appears there's more than enough caches, and with the esram, and the dedicated swizzle hardware, this will hold it's own.

A good solid piece of kit that shows what a closed box customized system can do to beef up individual components.

Color me far more impressed with the dedicated silicon than I would have been if they had just taped the GPU and CPU together.
There is some smart stuff in here, wherever they know the CPU or GPU are gong to be bogged down doing mundane stuff, they have added silicon to alleviate it.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum...

that seems like a good summary.

[Bigpappy]

Nice to see N4G has so many engineers. Hope to get a chance to use their products in the near future.

As far as the spec's are concern, I am a Tech, not an engineer. I know what FSB, clock speed, Bandwidth... ) all that tech stuff means. I am no engineer though. I will look at the quality of the games an discuss those when released. The features, which make the console more of a pleasure to use, are also more important that over all power. But if the PS4 turns out to do way better graphic than Xbox 1, that could be a selling point for many gamers, if it turns out like this gen, People talked up Teraflop and cell to high heavens, then when the games came, most looked better on 360, could happen here.

release the games and let's see. That is all that really matters in the end. No?

[ChrisW]

@DayZ,

Yet... Even with Kinect, XboxOne should be cheaper because of its crappy low specs. Seriously! Isn't it odd that it's not?!?

[tuglu_pati]

Also, what the 8GB Flash memory are for? Really interesting...

[Tw1tch3D]

What needs to be taken into consideration, is that this is an SoC. A single chip system, everything is on a "silicon die".

So as a result if the ESRAM points directly at the GPU, that alleviates the CPU in it's own right committing to other tasks. Just because it's DDR3 don't mean it's slow, it's fast because of low latency, significant Data Flow.

The design was built from the ground up, no beefy components simply put together.

Don't want to ruffle any feathers, but that is a major leap in architectural design Microsoft brought it's A game here folks.

@ tuglu_pati

Yes very interesting. What's more, is that Microsoft had a tutorial yesterday at Hot Chips called "Flash Trends: Challenges and Future".

We'll find out more once the techies hop on this. But I'm on beyond 3d as we speak and it's as much buzz. Very interesting, scratches that exotic architecture itch i've been hoping for out of the new optimized hardware.

[rainslacker]

To expand on Dayz comment, since big numbers are nice, but not as nice as knowing what you're getting with those big numbers, I offer the following.

Shader: A program that is used to do shading. Basically, when you have a polygonal model, the models aren't always completely lifelike. For instance, a sphere can look blocky. A shader can help make it look smooth. In addition shaders can apply special effects to models, or even 2D images. Shaders handle how the final texture will look when on the screen. The more shaders, the more can be done at one time.

Texture units: These are used to map the actual textures onto a model. Textures are flat images that have to be drawn on the model's polygons. These textures can be used not only as the basic colors of the image, but also the light texture, bump textures(which give it more realistic looks), or any number of other special textures used to effect the way a model looks when it's finally rendered. Basically, the more you have, the more that can be done at one time.

ROPS: Short for "Raster Operation Unit". This is a bit more complex, but the basics of it is that before the image is displayed, each pixel is processed to give it it's depth information. This is where AA comes from, as well as many other nifty pixel and screen effects. Again, the more you have, the better the image can theoretically look.

Otherwise, I can offer this to those that don't care what all this means. All these specs discussed here means that the X1 will be able to play next gen games. It's not a bad set up. Has advantages and disadvantages, and like all consoles to date will require talented devs to make the most of what it offers.

[stuna1]

Microsoft is lying! Plain and simple, with those specs it just doesn't add up once you add in the fact that they said they up clocked the CPU.

[TheKayle1]

@black0o

do urself (and to us!!) a favour PLS before u start try talking technically again..go to study...

whta u said is a freaking big nonsense BS lol

[MagnusX]

Microsoft is revising there specs saying that "its much faster then we previously calculated" lol

[DonFreezer]

No we can't. Why haven't you asked the same when Sony pr chaps talked shit about teraflops , rops and shit?Why do you need explaining know when most of you played it computer engineers when Sony talked nonesense.Shut your mouth ps fanboys.Xbox One has won before the game even started.

[UltimateMaster]

Yeah, cuz you know if it comes from a website called semiaccurate.com then it must be true :D!

[Kryptix]

@DonFreezer

Pre-order numbers for PS4 games say otherwise.

http://www.vgchartz.com/pre...

Wait, you're denying the higher PS4 numbers? Damn, you're more blind than I actually thought.

[NextGen24Gamer]

This is something I knew a ways back and thought that Microsoft would explain that to the masses. They never did and it's obvious this is "HUGE" news to those who think that "RAW" power means anything.

Microsoft has been showing & talking about the next gen games, while Sony has been talking about the numbers.

Maybe now people can stop talking about numbers and let the "GAMES" do the talking.

I know this for a "FACT"...Developers have been pleasantly surprised once they got the final Xbox one specs & software tools.

It's actually BETTER than they initially thought.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

"It's all about the games"

My personal taste is I love xbox exclusives a little more and I love the xbox live community a lot more.

[No_Limit]

Agreed Elite,

Games as it should be. Specs is fine the way it is.

[LaChance]

This would explain why there is no gap whatsoever in graphics betwen Xbox One and PS4. On the contrary, Xbox One games are actually looking to be more impressive graphically.

Its just that MS shows the power rather than talking about it.

I have yet to see a game that looks as good as Ryse running on the PS4. And with all that incredible power Cerny is talking about I would have thought Driveclub could give Forza 5 a run for its money. On the contrary, Forza 5 is making DriveClub look last gen.

Its quite surprising to see that all these N4G engineers were completely wrong about the power of both consoles ... NOT !

[zebramocha]

@elite the reason Sony talked about numbers is they already have devs to really utilize the hardware,killzone 2 and halo 3 weren't launch games but there is a difference in the way the look and I'm not to talking about art direction differences,considering bungie had been with Ms longer than gg with Sony

[black0o]

there's gap between ps4 and x1 is the same gap between ddr3 and GDDr5

[UnHoly_One]

Most gamers won't choose their console because of a bunch of specs that they don't understand anyway.

They are going to choose it based on the games, and how they look. And right now, the PS4 can't touch Ryse, it's not even close.

[XabiDaChosenOne]

Am I missing something? What is being confirmed here that hasn't been in the rumored specs for months now? What's wrong with you people?

[UnHoly_One]

God of War 3 is a fantastic game, yes.

But I am strictly speaking graphics, which is what "Joe Average Gamer" will see in commercials and base his decision on.

And in that regard, yes, Ryse looks better than anything they have shown on the PS4 so far.

I'm not trying to start an argument here, I'm getting a PS4, too, it's all good. (I just wish inFAMOUS Second Son was a launch title, because I don't care about any of the other games announced for the PS4 so far.)

[bobshi]

Nothing says 'I admit the Xbox One is weak next to the PS4' like saying 'who cares, it is about the games'.

Dat Wii U defensive technique.

Did it ever cross your mind that those games would be even better if the console was not so weak compared to the competing console?

[Good_news_every1]

So now that devs have been saying the ps4 is more powerful and then we get this news confirming the ps4 is more powerful , we now are talking about games ? Lol you xboners are funny, if you haven't seen anything that looks better than ryse you aren't trying very hard , second son looks miles ahead and it's open world kill zone looks far better and it's 1080p 60fps and even forza looks better on the same system lol you guys are crazy or just blind.

Nfs has been said to look like a pc game on one console , which as we know now via specs is the ps4 and yoshi pretty much confirmed it days ago, the ps4 doesn't need pc gameplay to look good it runs on the actual hardware , most games still haven't even been seen running on the xbone.

Well at least now we can put the power argument to rest , we ALL know now that the ps4 is at least 40% better

[UnHoly_One]

"those games would be even better if the console was not so weak compared to the competing console"

And

"it would undoubtedly run just as pretty if it was on the PS4's more powerful hardware"

Ummmmmmm... Ok, so why isn't it? Not Ryse, obviously, it's an XB1 exclusive, but if games in general are going to look better on this "more powerful hardware", where are they? Why haven't we seen anything that looks better?

I have no doubt that the PS4 will produce some amazing looking titles, but as it stands RIGHT NOW leading up to launch, the XB1 is winning in the visual department.

[starchild]

@Bobshi

Why? That's what Sony gamers are always telling us PC gamers. "who cares if graphics are better on PC, it's all about the games", they tell us.

So why is it wrong for Xbox gamers to say the same thing?

Besides, that doesn't seem to be what most of them are saying. They are saying that they think Ryse looks better than anything on PS4.

[ZeroX9876]

can someone make it clear for me, what console got the most preorders? what's the most wanted console after seeing what we needed to see?

[shadow2797]

"Microsoft has been showing & talking about the next gen games, while Sony has been talking about the numbers."

Are we being serious right now? Microsoft unveiled their console and talked about TV. Sony unveiled their console and talked about games. And they've been talking about games ever since.

Sony also released the spec's of their console because some people are interested in that (me included). Microsoft refused to release the specs of their console until today.

Your interpretation of that history, is that Microsoft is all about the games, and Sony is all about the numbers? Even though Sony was first to allow self-publishing and has given the lime-light to small indie titles. Yep, all about numbers.

I'm getting both consoles. PS4 first, probably. But man, your perspective is off with that statement.

Oh and Killzone: Shadow Fall looks better than Ryse.

[MysticStrummer]

@Kobe - "Am I missing something? What is being confirmed here that hasn't been in the rumored specs for months now? What's wrong with you people?"

You're not missing anything. Just some grasping at straws.

It's really weird to me that people hold Ryse up as the visual pinnacle so far. There are better looking multi plats and exclusives on both consoles.

"PS4 can't touch Ryse"

Laughable. smh

But, that type of person shows that graphics discussions are indeed meaningless. If they think Ryse looks amazing compared to titles (on both consoles) that are demonstrably more impressive visually, then what's the point of arguing? They either have a different definition of what looks good, or their vision needs checking. Either way, changing their mind is out of the question.

[Mr1Y]

What if the devs for need for speed were actually talking about the Xbox one since they thought that the Xbox one would be weakier.... So the game would look better on the Xbox :0

[pivotplease]

I would be open to preferring Xbox exclusives if there were enough (not just timed). Have people already forgotten that the last 3 years of the 360's life have had a dismal lineup? Disagree with the truth if you want. It also doesn't help that 343 is on halo now and cliff has departed from epic. Fable has also been going down the crapper in a similar manner to insomniac if not worse.

[pivotplease]

Ugh the fanboys are blind. Ryse will get mediocre scores but if we're talking graphics it's hardly leaps and bounds ahead of what we saw with god of war this gen. Of course the people saying otherwise wouldn't know though since they didn't play any of the ps3 exclusives. Also have you see the HD footage of killzone multiplayer? The games not even done but it blows away every other fps graphically and even somewhat high end games like ryse (which is essentially scripted cutscenes that depend on qte).

Edit: your disagree makes you objectively right buddy.

[Dasteru]

UnHoly_One:

RYSE does look good but to say nothing on the PS4 is even close is a blatantly fanboy statement.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Maybe not quite as good but not so far behind as to be considered "not even close" It is also fully open world and has a very high level of environmental destructability which makes it much more impressive than it seems at first sight.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

KZSF is no slouch either, Again some very open environments.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Multi-Platform, Completely open world, and online multiplayer with real time dynamic events.

The PS4 isn't nearly as far behind as you make it out to be. Also it hasn't even launched yet. Give it a year or 2 after launch for some of the heavy hitter first party titles to launch and you will start to see what the PS4 can really do.

As far as people comparing Driveclub vs Forza 5, According to the developers of Driveclub, the most recently shown gameplay video is still Pre-Alpha footage, around 35% complete, Pre-Alpha means the completed textures aren't even in the game yet.
I'm not saying Forza 5 won't still look better, i don't know one way or the other, just saying wait til after launch to decide.

[neoMAXMLC]

lol @ Ryse being claimed as the best looking next gen game. That is just pure comedy.

[DoesUs]

It means as was "leaked" before really, only this goes into absolute detail(s). The peak bandwidth figure is the theoretical maximum. But remember, although the BW available on the ESRam is very high, only 32 meg can be utilised.

[Ju]

The 204GB/s is a best case if you can exactly issue one read and one write access @ 102GB/s which is very unlikely and a pure theoretical value.

[GraveLord]

It's isn't any more or less powerful than it was 1 month ago.

[DoesUs]

Correct answer.

[quenomamen]

Well in theory I could fart so loud that I could break the sound barrier, but pobably not gonna happen. This is just MS trying to make up for the hardware shortcummings. Yea, we know, if you use a bunch of technical mumbo jumbo then it makes it true.

[DoctorJones]

Well no, theoretically you couldn't fart so loud that you would break the sound barrier because you aren't capable of delivering a fart that could be faster than the speed of sound. It's about how fast something is, not how loud it is. Every time you fart and make a sound - it's not a sonic boom, it's just the sound of the gas exiting your body.

So in conclusion - The Xbox IS theoretically capable of what is being said, whereas your fart isn't theoretically capable of what you are saying it is theoretically capable of.

Yes.

[Evilsnuggle]

32 mb is to small for graphic or frame rate the PS4 has a large pool of unified memory that can be used for anything the developer want . The PS4 memory has no limitations the xbone does. Mark cerny look at eSRAM but did not use it becuase of its limitations . So the xbone is still 62GB/s for graphic and frame rate .difference, and was previously thought to sustain a peak theoretical throughput of 102GB/s - useful, but still some way behind the 176GB/s found in PlayStation 4's RAM set-up.

[imt558]

Did someone noticed that DDR3 bandwith is shrinked :

http://i.imgur.com/LkCN75O....

Oh, i forgot! eSRAM can't do read/write operations at the same time so it's not 204 GB/s it's 102 GB/s.

[Convas]

Sorry to burst your (enthusiastically INCORRECT) bubble, but ... http://i.imgur.com/gqyaZAM....

Yeah. DDR3 BW is still the same. :)

[awi5951]

PS fans all they can say DDR5 DDR5 DDR5 DDR5 lol.

DDR5 wont mean crap at all to games. AMD used DDR5 for years before nividia made the switch and AMD cards still lost out in performance and FPS in games on max settings. The AMD cards that gen were cheaper and thats why people bought them but DDR5 didnt help one bit they still got their asses kicked in-game FPS performance by the so called slow nividia cards with DDR3.

[andrewsqual]

It was pretty much proof when Microsoft were terrified to just tell us the specs back on 21st May. And even these documents are STILL not directly from the source.

[MazzingerZ]

Que? Games won't look better than PS4 first party titles even if you could control a satellite with the x1 so...

[FrigidDARKNESS]

In all honest the xb1 clearly will out prtform the ps4 . 47mb cpu vs a 20gb cpu. Still waiting for ijnfo on how many threads coan be done on the cpu. The gpu hasnt been revealed yet.

[pyramidshead]

How's that HSA Kaveri working out for the XB1 there frigy? ;)

[Metfanant]

WTF!?....

i mean you've got to just be joking right now right??...or you just have no clue...

wtf does 47mb cpu vs 20gb cpu even mean!?

[MysticStrummer]

In all honest you're wrong. You keep saying "X hasn't been revealed yet", even though every time we get rumors confirmed it's the same hardware we've all been talking about for months. Nothing has changed, and PS4 is still more powerful.

[marison]

He's a boy that don't know anything!

[M-M]

"47mb cpu vs a 20gb cpu"

I think you need to do some research on CPUs before you say anything lol.

[rainslacker]

Perhaps you can explain the difference between a 47mb cpu and a 20gb cpu to those that don't understand tech that well.

[deadie]

@FrigidDARKNESS:

wow - in all honesty you should stop making xbox one look like the perfect hang-around for people with mental problems.

[ThanatosDMC]

Never go full retard.... even on N4G that's just embarrassing.

[imt558]

About XO presentation and about bandwith. Microsoft's bullshiting again!

Ars Technica

Similarly, the company claimed that there was more than 200GB of bandwidth within the system. Again, the number had no context or clarification and if rumors are to be believed, it suggests some rather creative accounting: 68 GB main memory bandwidth, 102GB bandwidth to an embedded SRAM buffer for the GPU, and 30GB bandwidth between the CPU and GPU. While that does add up to 200GB, there are no two parts of the SoC that can communicate with each other at 200 GB/s.

AnandTech

According to their data, there’s roughly 50GB/s of bandwidth in each direction to the SoC’s embedded SRAM (102GB/s total bandwidth). The combination of the two plus the CPU-GPU connection at 30GB/s is how Microsoft arrives at its 200GB/s bandwidth figure, although in reality that’s not how any of this works.

TechPowerup

Xbox One chip is a slightly different beast. It uses the same eight "Jaguar" 1.60 GHz cores, but a slightly smaller Radeon GPU that packs 768 stream processors, and a quad-channel DDR3-2133 MHz memory interface, which offers a memory bandwidth of 68.3 GB/s, and holding 8 GB of memory. Memory between the two subsystems are shared in a similar way to PlayStation 4, with one small difference. Xbox One chip uses a large 32 MB SRAM cache, which operates at 102 GB/s, but at infinitesimally lower latency than GDDR5. This cache cushions data-transfers for the GPU. Microsoft engineers are spinning this off as "200 GB/s of memory bandwidth," by somehow clubbing bandwidths of the various memory types in the system.

[Cryptcuzz]

There is no way to look at it otherwise. The facts are as clear as day that believing otherwise is just delusional. Thanks for gathering all the relevant information in one concise comment. Cheers.

[humbleopinion]

Yep. Exactly like the PS3 "512 MB or RAM" last gen where in fact it was two different pools.

[Pillsbury1]

You are back? -_-

[kryteris]

I first heard that 192ish G/Bs was possible, but then it switched to 102. But I really dont care, this is just more trouble for devs to use esram, and it is still limited vs having the full pool of ram.

[Gameratheart]

Yeah, so much trouble, because they haven't gotten used to using that type of ram set up for the last 8 years, you know, the one that was so much easier and better than the ps3 ram set up.... Ok, you fanboys keep telling yourselves that developers don't know how to use it. Sure.

[B-radical]

Why did you get disagreed for your telling the truth

[nosferatuzodd]

wow microsoft is trying very hard give em props

[theWB27]

I was reading that AnandTech article PSboys like to throw out there about how much better the PS4 is and a few things jumped out...especially with the confirmation today that , indeed, the X1 has 47mb of cache.

Memory Subsystem
"To make up for the gap, Microsoft added embedded SRAM on die (not eDRAM, less area efficient but lower latency and doesn't need refreshing). All information points to 32MB of 6T-SRAM, or roughly 1.6 billion transistors for this memory. It’s not immediately clear whether or not this is a true cache or software managed memory. I’d hope for the former but it’s quite possible that it isn’t. At 32MB the ESRAM is more than enough for frame buffer storage, indicating that Microsoft expects developers to use it to offload requests from the system memory bus. Game console makers (Microsoft included) have often used large high speed memories to get around memory bandwidth limitations, so this is no different. Although 32MB doesn’t sound like much, if it is indeed used as a cache (with the frame buffer kept in main memory) it’s actually enough to have a substantial hit rate in current workloads (although there’s not much room for growth)."

"Vgleaks has a wealth of info, likely supplied from game developers with direct access to Xbox One specs, that looks to be very accurate at this point. According to their data, there’s roughly 50GB/s of bandwidth in each direction to the SoC’s embedded SRAM (102GB/s total bandwidth). The combination of the two plus the CPU-GPU connection at 30GB/s is how Microsoft arrives at its 200GB/s bandwidth figure, although in reality that’s not how any of this works. If it’s used as a cache, the embedded SRAM should significantly cut down on GPU memory bandwidth requests which will give the GPU much more bandwidth than the 256-bit DDR3-2133 memory interface would otherwise imply. Depending on how the eSRAM is managed, it’s very possible that the Xbox One could have comparable effective memory bandwidth to the PlayStation 4. If the eSRAM isn’t managed as a cache however, this all gets much more complicated."

"There are merits to both approaches. Sony has the most present-day-GPU-centric approach to its memory subsystem: give the GPU a wide and fast GDDR5 interface and call it a day. It’s well understood and simple to manage. The downsides? High speed GDDR5 isn’t the most power efficient, and Sony is now married to a more costly memory technology for the life of the PlayStation 4."

"Microsoft’s approach leaves some questions about implementation, and is potentially more complex to deal with depending on that implementation. Microsoft specifically called out its 8GB of memory as being “power friendly”, a nod to the lower power operation of DDR3-2133 compared to 5.5GHz GDDR5 used in the PS4. There are also cost benefits. DDR3 is presently cheaper than GDDR5 and that gap should remain over time (although 2133MHz DDR3 is by no means the cheapest available). The 32MB of embedded SRAM is costly, but SRAM scales well with smaller processes. Microsoft probably figures it can significantly cut down the die area of the eSRAM at 20nm and by 14/16nm it shouldn’t be a problem at all.

"Even if Microsoft can’t deliver the same effective memory bandwidth as Sony, it also has fewer GPU execution resources - it’s entirely possible that the Xbox One’s memory bandwidth demands will be inherently lower to begin with."

An answer to the people complaining about the X1 and it's power brick.

"Compared to the PlayStation 4, Microsoft should have the cooler running console under load. Fewer GPU ALUs and lower power memory don’t help with performance but do at least offer one side benefit."

[Ju]

I think one line is enough:

"Microsoft should have the cooler running console under load"

That's why they have the bigger box and an external power supply. This must be it then.

[moparful99]

Really? Last I checked the 360 has always had an external power brick but had an abysmal failure rate compared to the more complex and powerful PS3.. Just because the brick is external doesn't mean it will run cooler..

[ThanatosDMC]

PS4 = more powerful, cost less, no power brick

Xbone = less powerful, cost more, big ass power brick

[ALLWRONG]

All the talk about specs and yet X1 games look better.

[MagnusX]

It is true Ryse is the best looking game on any next gen console period. 1080 60fps if PS is such a power house And easier to develop for where are the yields!?

truth is the consoles are close in specs...Again! Just like last gen it will be up to developers to max out console potential.

[cesuf]

For all these number crunching console fanboys arguing over table scraps and such petty numbers and "facts" and I could give my gaming pc specs and put your numbers to complete shame.

But it would be pointless to such brain washed fans because then the fall back excuse I would get would be 1 of 3: we have exclusives 2.) sony loves us and baptized our children. Hopeless bunch. 3.) consoles are better because they are cheaper

[Gamer1982]

That ESRAM will help the dashboard NOT the games as theres just not enough of it to make a big enough impact.

[BallsEye]

Clearly have no idea what you're talking about.

[marcofdeath]

ps4- 1.6 billion triangles/s, 1.6 billion vertices/s

XB1- 1.71billion triangles/s, 1.71 billion vertices/s

[imt558]

I was thinking in my head for some stuff. So, MS showed bandwith on XO presentation yesterday. 204 GB/s, right. So, GPU uplock happened. Before uplock eSRAM bandwith was 102 GB/s ( it's not 204 because eSRAM can not do read/write operation at the same time ). Now, after uplock, bandwith increased to 109 GB/s, or math like Microsoft - 218 GB/s.

I have a question. Did anyone noticed on presentation why MS didn't showed 109 GB/s for eSRAM or 218 GB/s on some slides?

What Beyond3D said :

Q:

I'll start: where does "204MB/s" come from? we know It is assumed that bus from eSRAM to GPU is not dual so how can it be possible to read and write simultaneously? even if it's possible why is it not 109*2 =218 GB/s?

A:

It based on during only alpha transparency blending. So it just created math.

Its like saying my car can do 250 MPH*

*When drop off a cliff.

It doesnt have real world performance like that.

So, Microsoft has no idea how RAM works and how many bandwith's has in XO. BRAVO Microsoft!

[ALLWRONG]

"Microsoft has no idea how RAM works"

One of the pioneer's of PC doesn't know how RAM works? You should have thought about that before typing.

[Convas]

The machine is even stronger than Digital Foundry reported then?

ROFL

Where's my popcorn!?

GAF Thread for those interested: http://www.neogaf.com/forum...

Interesting tidbit, GPU is 1.31 Tflops, Direct X 11.1+

[Metfanant]

actually its just about the same...remember that peak b/w is only available to the embedded RAM...not the 8GB of DDR3...that is still significantly slower...

[PFFT]

Isnt the Xbox One a DX11.2 machine??? I thought MS already confirmed this.....?

[FrigidDARKNESS]

It is will be done thru software whereas next gen gpu g cards it will be embedded.

[BallsEye]

It is and they did confirm it. DX 11.2 is yet to be released so they write about dx11.1+ (plus as works with future version)

[kewlkat007]

3:60 to hUMA (2014)

[OC_MurphysLaw]

this is gonna get interesting.

edit: I should say it will be ugly here, but could be an interesting debate on NeoGaf. Sorry N4G but I am not holding out hopes of a civil conversation here.

[majiebeast]

True neogaf has dbz comparisions.

[iamnsuperman]

I am on NeoGaf right now. They make it easier to understand

[STANK08]

S#%T is bout to hit the fan.

[Whitey2k]

what difference does it make?? its still be slower prepared to ps4 cos it runs at 176GB/s no matter what and still x1 still has 1.3T due to the gpu being weak

[hennessey86]

"Due to the GPU being weak" we all no the PS4 has a better GPU, but the 360 has a better GPU than the PS3 and which has the better looks games...........I'm not saying in the long run the Xbox one will continue to have better or equal graphics to the PS4, but to call a GPU weak that has produced visuals on the scale of forza 5 and ryse Is ridiculers. You can't think of these GPUs in the same way as you do with PC GPUs, these will be highly modified to make maximum use of the other console hardware.

[Whitey2k]

no cos its more like an all in ine die GPCPU and yes ps3 had a weaker GPU but u have 4gotten that cell can be played in the gpu aswell if it didnt the ps3 would be very weak.. and yes x1 and ps4 can do much more then current gen but with them they can can only go so far and with ps4 being better on the sheets it would have abit more life then the x1

[M-M]

I'm serious, are Sony fanboys really disagreeing with "the 360 has a better GPU than the PS3"? The reason why PS3 exclusives looked amazing was because of the Cell processor.

[joefrost00]

This is going to get good

[Izzy408]

Well i'll be damned.

[DoesUs]

As predicted.

[thrust]

Is this good or bad?

[GraveLord]

Neither.

Nothing has changed. PS4s memory system is still the most developer friendly and the most efficient and capable.

Just because Xbox One can "theoretically" reach 204, it doesn't mean its better than the PS4s which can reach 176Gb/s. PS4 has consistency and efficieny. That's something that the Xbox One can't match. It's all "theoretical".

[thrust]

So when then ps4 had a higher number it was better?

Cool, the Xbox one is better now.

204gb/s is bigger than 176gb/s!

[Xsilvermist]

Lol u know ur on a xbot article u think they will listen to you even tho everything ur saying is correct, let the delusional parade have fun they need some good news in their life.

[ziggurcat]

@ thrust:

the·o·ret·i
83;cal
/THēəˈretikəl/
Adjective
Concerned with or involving the theory of a subject or area of study rather than its practical application: "a theoretical physicist".
Based on or calculated through theory rather than experience or practice: "a theoretical reformer of opinions".

[Ju]

Those 204GB/s are just there for marketing. This system - all components considered - has no sub system which can communicate faster than 102GB/s. The 204GB/s are a theoretical value in an absolute perfect world where you could read and write to and from ESRAM at the same time.

But in no moment in time could you read a pixel faster than 102GB/s.

GDDR5 can "fill" the PS4's GPU with a max bandwidth 176GB/s.

Nothing has changed. More information has been detailed. Some details are quite interesting. The 68GB r/w into DDR3 are impressive.

It does not appear to have a hUMA configuration. The GPU-CPU synchronized MMU tables are interesting and warrant cache coherency between the two - but it also almost means this is no hUMA configuration. Addresses are not shared, but the MMU is used to flush caches on either "processor" when they access the same page table. hUMA would require a shared memory controller and shared MMU (IMO).

Edit: I have to correct this. Nothing points at having cache coherency for GPU caches; only CPU caches are cache coherent.

The audio processor is interesting, too. This is a DSP, basically. Nothing too fancy. Nice to have a custom signal processor.

The PS4 has a HW audio processor as well. It has encode/decode engines (and my best guess is what ever Gaikai contributed - it can encode live video streams) plus an additional (ARM based?) network processor.

Nothing really changed. Same as before. The leaks where accurate.

BTW: Can anyone explain where the additional 15MB come from? 32MB are eSRAM, what's the rest?

[badkolo]

204 over 176, dont spin it. theoretical my butt, just like the 40% extra power, all theoretical cause games looking better on x1 so far

[ziggurcat]

@ badkolo:

yes, theoretical:

"In the pic of the architectural design you'll see the "theoretical throughput" of 204 GB/s peak BW."

and everything looks better when you're wearing rose-coloured glasses. games looking better on xbone is a biased opinion. the fact of the matter is, they don't.

[MagnusX]

whats not theoretical is the fact although PS4 specs are "better" and "easier to use" games look better on the the X1...Ryse

[KwietStorm_BLM]

LOL if that's your reply, why did you ask in the first place?

[No_Limit]

Some noteworthy stuff:
Msoft XBox One supports shared coherent memory between 8 AMD Jaguar cores and DX 11.1+ GPU like @hsafoundation

XBox One SOC has a CPU, GPU, and 15 special-purpose processors. Total of 47MB of storage on-chip. #HC25

Hot Chips: At 363mm2 with over 5b transistors the Xbox One SoC designed by Microsoft and AMD is a very complex SoC.

Audio offload processor in XBox One SoC are "completely designed by Microsoft" and have "more than a CPU core worth of processing" #HC25

XBox One CPU has eight "modified" AMD Jaguar x86-64 cores, in two clusters of four cores. Modifiations to memory sharing & bandwidth. #HC25

I have no idea what this all mean but sounds impressive, I guess. LOL

[vigilante_man]

It is mighty impressive. Way better than we all expected from our next gen consoles at the turn of the year!

[badkolo]

it means its a customized beast thanks to ms and not off the shelf parts, everyone get the napkins ready, tears are droppin

[ziggurcat]

are you enrolled in the frigiddarkness school of delusional ramblings?

post proof that PS4 uses off-the-shelf parts.

[Gameratheart]

Ziggercat, post proof it doesn't use off the shelf parts. And, what happened to the "extra" cpu that was supposed to handle all background tasks and the os? Because suddenly you fanboys and Sony stopped talking about it, and about how that chip was going to make all 8 cores of the cpu for games..... Why is it that now the ps4 dedicates 2 cores for all that? Hmmm? Because they are taking things out of it, just like the extra USB, hdmi, etc.. That they pulled out of the ps3 before launch too... Well, now what?

[ziggurcat]

@ gameratheart:

That's not how arguments work, you don't prove a negative. The onus is on the person making the claim (i.e. that the Ps4 uses off-the-shelf parts) by providing evidence, otherwise it's pure conjecture.

And since you also seem to like making unsubstantiated claims, prove that the PS4 only uses 2 cores for games, and that they're removing features.

I also didn't realize that not talking about a chip = it no longer exists. There's nothing from the initial PS4 reveal that has changed, which is more than I can say about the xbone.

[BOLO]

All dem chips...Starting to look like a Sega Saturn from an engineering standpoint...Or a bag of Xbox branded Doritos.

[M-M]

Those are some very good specifications, I don't know why people were running around saying that the next generation consoles were "off the shelf" parts. Pretty much, the next generation console's CPU and GPU is being created by AMD, but each company specifies how their individual parts want to function to suit their needs. Then AMD makes customized APUs with a very easy to use architecture. That's the reason why developers praise next generation consoles, but both APUs have hidden secrets for exclusive developers to dive into.

[buynit]

Ok... Can someone give the laymans term on this?

[KingKelloggTheWH]

X1's memory is slightly better than many expected, but not as good as others are making it out to be.

[buynit]

Got it... Its good news and not many like it, thanks.

[Metfanant]

im confused by all the "this is going to be good" or "shit will hit the fan" comments...is there a reason for these?...the HotChips presentation really confirmed almost everything we have known or speculated on for some time...

1. the Xbone is 1.31Tflops on the GPU side (1.84 PS4)
2. the Xbone uses an 8core CPU w/jaguar cores (same as PS4)
3. it uses some sort of similar memory architecture to AMD's upcoming APU's (not hUMA, but hUMA like...just like PS4)
4. We got some good details on the Xbone's audio proccessing unit...which apparently has ~1cpu core worth of processing power...which should help out a bit
5. very radically designed (more so than PS4 which is much more straight forward)

oh and at least we dont have to listen to Fridgid tell us that the Xbone is going to have a Kaveri based APU anymore...as he is officially proven wrong lol

[DoesUs]

To be fair, he alone was the sole supporter of said APU.

[Izzy408]

Do you even know what you're saying?

[OC_MurphysLaw]

1) this is N4G so conversation will never stay above water for long.

2) Seems many are trying to understand where the 8GB of Flash Memory came from / what its purpose is.

[badkolo]

thats right , i forgot, the x1 also has 8 gig of flash

[XboxFun]

I think its because the majority on here were saying how much of a huge leap the PS4 is compared to the Xbox One. But in reality (from what I am gathering here) the difference isn't that wide at all.

People like to play numbers on this site instead of actual games. So that is why some here are grabbing their popcorn and waiting for the spin to commence.

[MRMagoo123]

In reality what you are gathering here is Xboners trying to play down the gap, the gap is the same as it was before around 40% thats all this articles has proven anyone saying otherwise is lying or delusional.

[awi5951]

@MRMagoo123

Like how PS4 fans deny that the PS4 and xbox 1 are already outdated by low end PC Graphics cards. Those 7870's and 7950's are really cheap now at 150 to 220 dollars lol.

[pyramidshead]

He's not going to be very happy hahaha.
Finally the BS can stop!

Even frigid's source has kinda admitted his failings. However near the end the insider still claims the Xb1 is more powerful yaddayaddayadday
http://misterxmedia.livejou...

"Misterx: So, MS gave AMD billions and not allowed to talk about what they spend thouse billions for? That also means PS4 will have similar hardware I.e >1.8TF...and how could MS be not the first served with AMD?

Or is it all because of Intel-AMD x86 agreements? So who blocked MS
from speak? That is only related to APU or it is x86 inside dGPU too?
Insider: Sorry but ms did not give AMD billions.. You are miss informed."

[moparful99]

So can someone help me understand the differences between Xbox One's unified architecture and PS4's huMA architecture? From what I've read GDDR5 has latency issues but using the heterogeneous unified memory architecture is supposed to somehow offset or solve the latency issues of GDDR5. All of this technical jargon gets confusing fast..

[JunioRS101]

Haha I think it's safe to say that none of us really knows much about what this means, myself especially.

So... in layman's terms please?

[iamnsuperman]

We just see numbers and go mental at each other. I am following this thread on Neogaf. http://www.neogaf.com/forum...

They really put it into perspective for people like us

[sincitysir1]

Haha neogaf people are so much nicer and funnier

[SmokingMonkey]

LOL at all the DBZ power comparison's on that thread.

[yewles1]

Wait a minute... *looks at bandwidth* 109GB/s MINIMAL??? WHAT KIND OF FLUCTUATION IS 'THAT'???

[dark_101]

Can anyone explain (in English plz ^^)
Thanks you

[aquamala]

hmmm 8GB of flash memory? first time I've heard of it

wonder what it's used for ? cache? video recording? suspend/resume?

[Convas]

Probably for OS and game/app suspension or snap feature?

[DoesUs]

Recording.

[aquamala]

5 minutes of 720p video doesn't even take up 1GB

[sincitysir1]

Damn straight it don't. I download whole movies at 720 at about 800 mb

[Metfanant]

they have talked about flash memory being used in conjunction with the HDD...its probably the reason we cant upgrade the Xbone's HDD

[vigilante_man]

Sounds about right. Like having one of those Hybrid XT drives that have small SSD and large HDD. I was hoping that next gen would have Hybrid drives. Their cache sizes are much larger than normal HDD and thus improve performance.

Can't wait until they ship and then labs get their hands on these beasts and strip them down to their bare bones.

[imt558]

Probably for 5 minutes recording, downloading updates and other minor stuff.

[pyramidshead]

:)

[Coach_McGuirk]

if you have to ask for a translation then i think it's safe to say you don't need to know.

[sincitysir1]

Sorry oh superior one

[Coach_McGuirk]

Well, it's obvious the people asking are asking for a watered-down, simple answer on how it compares to ps4, so they can then start spitting off numbers they know nothing about as proof that their console of choice is better.

[buynit]

I take it you are just as clueless?

[joefrost00]

ITS OVER 9000

[JunioRS101]

It's pretty amazing how little I deduce from both the NEOGAF threads and pictures.

I wish educated people would step forward and help us little guys out lmao

PS4 OR XBOX ONE AGHHH JUST TELL ME WHAT THIS MEANS

[OC_MurphysLaw]

Yeah one thing about NeoGaf is threads can get derailed quickly by all the .gif postings. DBZ references always get made it tech threads... today is no different. If you filter out that crap you can actually get some good insight on GAF regarding this stuff.

[Death]

It pretty much means the hardware on both sides is similar enough that the devs are the ones that will determine which ocnsole is better for you.

[XabiDaChosenOne]

Stop lying, the specs confirms the PS4 is superior.....by a large margin. These are just consoles bro no need to lie on their behalf.

[Popoffboy187718]

It means bots are still grasping for straws!!!!

[Belking]

A sumary.
+ Xbone SoC is Designed by MS and AMD
+ Over 5 billion transaistors
+ 363mm²
+ Modified Jaguar x86-64 cores, two clusters of 4 cores (two CPU tapped together)
+ 47MB or cache (32MB eSRAM + 15MB CPU L1 & L2 & L3 I guess)
+ HSA HUMMA Coherent Shared Memory
+ Modifications for memory sharing & bandwidth
+ Audio offload processor
+ DX11.1+ GPU
+ 264GB/s total mem bandwidth
+ 15 co processors

It also has 8Gb of Flash memory. The os probably uses that. This would mean the xbox-one will have even more RAM available for games. It looks like the console is even more capable than we thought before. They customized the heck out of this thing.

[ma1asiah]

I agree with the 8 GB of Flash RAM,

On every X360 that was has been mas produced since the X360 Elite onwards, well this is exactly what they used to handle the OS.

Given all this new information it puts ID studio's John Cormacks perception that there is barely any difference in performance between the X1 and the PS4 in a better perspective.

Still at the end of the day it will be more about the Dev's ability to translate every ounce of raw power to give us out of this world gaming experiences.

Like I continue to say regardless of what console anyone chooses to get us GAMERS are the winners

[Belking]

It's actually a bit of reversal to this gen where MS has the edge in GPU and sony had the CPU edge. Now it's seem to be the other way around and MS has a very customized build. You are right about Carmack and this is what he meant when he said he needs to know more. Their is a spec gap but not so much a performance gap. MS has made up for it by a significant amount of customization.

Now all we need is a similar breakdown from sony

[imt558]

HSA HUMMA Coherent Shared Memory

hUMA and Coherent Shared Memory are not the SAME!

CSM is useful for multicore systems whereby they can all share the same location at once, so for example if 1 of the 8 cores changes the information in the memory location the other 7 cores are working using out of date information stored in their cache.

hUMA is basically so the CPU and GPU can share data between each other so the cpu doesnt have to copy the information to memory and the gpu copy it out, then copy it back to memory then the cpu can copy it out. While the PS4 may not use hUMA, Sony have integrated their own version of it using the "Garlic" Bus I think.

So, XO does not have hUMA, PS4 does. Sorry. Or if you wanna know, go here : http://www.neogaf.com/forum...

[Ju]

Afaik, PS4 has no cache coherency between CPU caches and GPU (or did I miss this). But it has the said Garlic bus and some proper cache control registers in the GPU. With that it requires "SW managed coherency", basically, memory regions can be declared non cacheable. Should basically have the same effect as cache coherency but must be designed properly to begin with - but also has the advantage of not to worry about cache flushes for cacheable areas. In the simplest form some shared memory between the two can be used. The hUMA question isn't clear, IMO, but it appears that way. One can't share addresses, the other can.

[badkolo]

yup, its a custom beast for what it is, meaning in the end its on par with the ps4 .

[PrimeGrime]

You are just misleading others about the entire flash memory part. I can already see this is going to be the next big failed discussion here on N4G. Those not knowledgeable enough are just going to believe it which isn't right.

You are right it will be used for the OS obviously but you thinking it will free up RAM usage is the wrong part.

That is not what it means. You have to keep in mind this system has a really big OS this time around. Obviously way larger than what the PS4's UI will probably be.

How big is a Windows 8 installation? On a 64bit system the total installation is a little over 8GB. So it makes sense that internal memory is there just to store the OS/firmware. It will still use the RAM pool though, internal flash memory doesn't work in the same way RAM does. The OS isn't going to be able to just use flash memory to do everything. It is there to free up more HHD space as the Xbox One we all know its not removable, the flash and HDD are used in conjunction. Which validates it even further.

To prove what I am saying even more the Xbox 360 already did this, the Xbox 360 has internal memory for the OS also and it still uses a fraction of its RAM. Of course it isn't nearly as large as on the Xbox One because the XBox 360 wasn't running windows 8 basically.

It won't change anything. Both the PS4 and Xbox One are still going to be using an amount of RAM to run the OS.

No one knows how much either plan on reserving for the OS. So you guys can dream up and speculate whatever you want to until they both confirm how much RAM the OS uses. Or until someone just breaks them down when they are released and figures it out themselves.

[MarkusMcNugen]

While I agree with just about everything you have said. I feel like I have to point out that when they said Windows 8, they didnt mean the whole OS. You cant judge the OSes size based on the retail PC version of Windows 8 since they were referring to the kernel, not the whole OS.

[PrimeGrime]

@MarkusMcNugen

I know that. I made it clear on the 2nd page here when I posed all this if you happened to read my other comments on this matter. I was using the full blown Windows 8 as an example, just an example.

I know it won't be that big exactly.

Given it is 8GB flash though one can assume a good chunk of it will probably be used for the OS and I can assume the rest will be for firmware updates.

I was making the point in that it is a very robust OS this time around being put on the system that will require that internal flash memory and that it is very similar to Windows 8. Which in that aspect it will require more space than we have previously seen with the Xbox 360.

[MarkusMcNugen]

Fair enough ;)

[CuddlyREDRUM]

Looks like a Microsoft press release.

[REDAVUTSTUVADER]

Oh, not in the position to the proceedings. DDR3 has 4 channels, GPU, GPU memory 264GB/s, 4 x 256 r/w bit high speed CPU, GPU and memory connection.
https://twitter.com/Prof_hr...

A SUMMARY
+ Xbox One SoC is Designed by MS and AMD
+ Over 5 billion transaistors on 363mm² MAIN SOC
https://semiaccurate.com/as...
+ Modified Jaguar x86-64 cores, two clusters of 4 cores
+ 47MB of cache
+ 8G DDR3 and 8G FLASH
+ Coherent Shared Memory
+ Modifications for memory sharing & bandwidth (HSA HUMMA)
+ Audio offload processor 15 GFLOPS
+ DX11.1+ GPU
+ 264GB/s total mem bandwidth
+ GPU CONTAINS 15 co processors
+ 500 GB HARD DRIVE
this is not everything either
"Microsoft disclosed some details, but left many important pieces out. Evidently, Microsoft doesn’t want to tell all of its competitors about how well designed its system is."

http://venturebeat.com/2013...

dGPU not mentioned, but may exist
Vinber Lei
GPU Design Verification Engineer at AMD
Graphics Core IP Design Verification,APU/DGPU
Xbox One,Playstation 4
http://www.linkedin.com/in/...
----------------------------- -------
link to original related images
http://gamrconnect.vgchartz...

[jjb1981]

I hope so, the more the better. I'm getting both systems so its all good news to me.

[hollabox]

I see MS has been making some hardware improvements since XB1 was announced.

[MarkusMcNugen]

Probably not. Trying to change hardware specs this late in the game would be nearly impossible since production is so close, if not already started. This was all planned before the first Xbox One announcement. The only feasible thing they can do at this point is software upgrades, which includes firmware. Just like the OC for the GPU.

[hollabox]

They did improve the clock speeds after E3 to their GPU. As long as MS is not changing chips, developers shouldn't be affected by spec changes since games are developed on PC first before porting. But like U said this could have been planned for awhile now.

[vigilante_man]

Basically the jist seems to be:

* PS4 has more powerful GPU
* PS4 has more powerful Ram
* XBox One has higher theoretical speeds for data
* XBox One has slower normal speeds for Data
* PS4 has fast, consistent speed for data
* Both have same CPU
* XBox One seems to have a great audio chip

If it was purely a race then PS4 would win 8 races out of ten and would perform better on PC-type benchmarks for graphics.

So Microsoft know this and have conceded the power argument by saying specs are not important. But as we keep telling our PC gaming friends it only matters how we put all those things together for a dedicated system. The games and apps and other functions like TV will determine how good each machine is built for its purpose.

Please people, no more numbers...

[Alvidta]

Although it seems, MS Chip is more customized and they're trying to run off that instead.

[illtownNJONE]

forget all these numbers...at the end of the day xboxone games look and run better

[TKCMuzzer]

Really? How are you making that judgement? From watching video footage?
Until you have both consoles wired up to your own TV I don't think you or anyone else on here is in a position to make such a comment.

[truegame]

Both system have custom chips/jobs with AMD. I love the reading and learning about the internals of both console.

The PS4 also has a custom audio chip

http://www.gamechup.com/mar...

http://www.vgleaks.com/wp-c...

[darkequitus]

Cerny: "The principal thing that it does is that it compresses and decompresses audio streams, various formats"

Not quite the same league as X1 SHAPE by all accounts.

[NextGen24Gamer]

"He also added that the GPU can be useful to do different types of audio processing"

Not the same as the xbox one. The ps4 still needs to use a core or two for hd audio...The xbox one has 2 cores outside of the 8 cores specifically for the hd audio.

[PrimeGrime]

Another big misconception a lot of Xbox fans will be making now.

I already know that those 2 cores are mainly for Kinect and its audio processes. So it really has no advantage over the PS4's way of going about it.

If the Xbox One didn't require Kinect or needed it forced in it. It would not need those 2 extra cores for audio.

[Nekroo91]

The combination of the two plus the CPU-GPU connection at 30GB/s is how Microsoft arrives at its 200GB/s bandwidth figure, although in reality that’s not how any of this works. (AnandTech)

Oh microsoft you and you BS, we all know that the SoC cant comunicate at 200gb/s

[Loki86]

It definitely can if you look at the diagram you can clearly see where it sending the signal to the GPU to read the data, while at the same time feeding the language to the SoC to write the data. Therefore, depending on how the eSRAM is used can reach max throughput.

[KingKelloggTheWH]

Look at all the fanboy wars....Really this whole thing isnt much of anything, I dont get why people are making such a big deal out of it.

[cunnilumpkin]

I'll let the games speak for themselves

and I will be waiting until I play actual demo systems in target or best buy since both and ms and sony are not above using high end pc's with NVidia gpus to show off games....lol, and then packing their systems with crappy amd

who knows what they will really look like

I'm taking the wait and see approach

[Mister_G]

But surely what's most important is.... what are the games like?

[okmrman]

oh yeah :)
lets see these systems run battlefield 4 as close to the pc version then ill understand those jargons lol

[Metfanant]

well in fairness...they will run BF4 better than any $400-$500 PC you can build...and will run BF4 better than probably 95% of the PC's out there....

[PtRoLLFacE]

hahahahahahaha that was a good laugh

[MarkusMcNugen]

To be completely fair, most PCs nowadays have 8GB of DDR3 standard, as well as a Intel Corei3-i7. The memory may not be up to par, but games these days are not nearly as CPU dependent as they once were.

So if you already have a mid-level PC bought in the last 2 years, you wouldnt need to build a 500-600 PC. You could just spend that money on a GPU and better/more RAM. Now your decent PC is a beastly gaming PC. Granted its no custom "top the charts in benchmarks" PC, but it should be able to run BF4 extremely well.

Ive seen a lot of people make that $500-600 PC argument before without thinking about just upgrades to what most people currently have.

Obviously this wouldnt work for laptops, but desktops should be able to do this perfectly fine.

[mmj]

If you look above the 8GB of DDR3 it says 60GB/s peak or something like that, the 109GB/s min. - 204GB/s peak is for the 32MB ESRAM.

[iistuii]

Looking a everything I've seen so far on either side there seems to be nothin in it. I've not seen anything fom Sony that makes the X1 look inferior in any way. Whether that changes in the future, who knows. But on selling a new console you'd think that they'd release killer games to blow the X1 away, but like I say, they all look on par to me.

[pandehz]

ALL THIS TALK OF GDDR5 MEMORY ETC GOT ME GOING.

HERE GOES.

http://vr-zone.com/articles...

*Grabs Popcorn* while *waiting on next year for next pc purchase after 4 years*

I smell OBSOLETE

[kewlkat007]

I didn't think the Xbox Ons's chip was so customized..

WTF is the 8 GB flash for? So much numbers and h jargon I'm not sue what to make of it.

what is this hHMA stuff? I heard Sony *only boys hollering about it...

At the end of the day..MS has been keeping this hardware under wraps and I doubt Major Nelson can explain these numbers. Who is the Mark Cerny of Microsoft?

This chip looks Beast all around..

[OC_MurphysLaw]

I think Mark Whitten is the current closest proximity to Mark Cerny, he is the Chief Product Officer. Dueling Marks!

[PrimeGrime]

The flash is just used to store the OS. I explained this on the first page because many people are already creating a huge misconception that this will free up all the Xbox One's RAM which isn't what it is used for.

You know the OS is big as hell this time around. They need that extra storage space, the 360 had the same thing but clearly the OS used on the 360 is not nearly as big or as functional as Microsoft's Windows 8. People wouldn't be too happy seeing that taken up in the HDD which is not removable.

That is why they added so much internal memory for the OS to be in. It does not mean it won't use RAM.

Windows 8 alone on a 64bit system is a little over 8GB. What do you know since Xbox One is running some version of Windows 8 now.

RAM and internal flash memory in no way work the same and flash memory can't be used to run an OS, it can only store one in that instance.

It is already a proven fact with a PC and Windows. That you cannot run the OS off of a flash drive. You can try all day yourself if you don't want to take my word for it.

I think what I have said is pretty self explanatory.

P.S. Lol I explain in great detail why it won't free up ram but when someone doesn't know anything about it and are clearly asking questions proving they don't know much about it.

They get more agrees lol just for saying "The chip looks beast all around.."

Well since you don't understand what hUMA is or what even the internal flash would be used for. Could you explain why the "This chip looks beast all around.." to you? Other than just it being customized.

Both the APU's are customized for both the PS4 and Xbox One. So could you elaborate.

[Loki86]

Sir, you clearly have misinterpreted what you are looking at, Window 8 64bit using 768MB RAM, it using 8 GB of HDD space. This is pretty simple to understand, what this flash memory will be used for is to offload things like the audio decoder, SHAPE decoder, and micro-marginal processes that would otherwise bog down the SoC under heavy load. Where the customization comes in is the flexibility it gives the developer, so they can worry less about allocation and more about where their throughput of data is being sent to/from.

[joefrost00]

They have not said his name but back during there reveal they said they brought in the guy that has been with the since 1985 and he is only 1 of 22 people ever to be given the name tech guy at MS suppose to be super smart tech guy or something

[christocolus]

Lmao....why do ps fans always feel the need to rush to xbox one articles..go to similar ps articles you can count very few xbx fans there...its becoming really troubling. Now you guys are even analysing the xbox one hardware..smh.I've never been the type of gamer to hype numbers and silicon and specs..I always look at the games and how they suit my tastes and so far ms has that covered. Coming out of gamescom we can all see the positive previews titanfall has been getting.it will undoubtedly be a blast and a mega hit but yet its not even very heavy on graphics so in the end graphics isn't what matters and some sony fans keep pushing specs but I'm actually still waiting to see sony release something better looking than ryse and forza or a game that makes me wanna ditch the xbox one cause of its revolutionary use of the Dualshock 4..even project spark and plants vs zombies on xbox one seem better looking than knack imo....and for all the comments like “let's wait and see what santa m, sucker punch, quantic dream,naugty dog, sony japan&media molecule will do with the hardware” you got to remeber also that xbox fans have 343, Rare ,Good Science,Epic, Remedy, Black Tusk,lift studio, Twisted pixel&MS osaka to see what they do with the hardware too....so let's all be patient

[FrigidDARKNESS]

The ESRAM is still essentially its own thing, memory read/writes to it can be 109 gbs right through to 204gb/s, but it's now a two way communication, not just a framebuffer cache like it was on the 360.

What that really means is post processing/defferred rendering is slick. Hellishly slick. Rendering is again, a one way traffic system, but any post processing can happen soon as the frame is created in the ESRAM. No GPU to DDR3 read/writes. All win win stuff (like last gen).

Clock speed increase means it has a throughput advantage (over PS4)in terms of the rate at which it process data, with almost zero stall pipeline in place. Very slick. OP/s still low compared to the opposition, but there is enough here to suggest that it will run efficiently enough.

[pandehz]

COME ON PEEPS WHY ARE YOU FEEDING THE GREATEST TROLLS IN THE WORLD (SONY AND MS)

Work together to make sure you get the most out of your money.

That's the most important thing.

[90Supra]

to hell with all this BS already...

just show me the games already...

TGS can't come soon enough...

[Foxgod]

TGS is for japan gaming.
Japan isnt really known for graphics anymore.
The times of Namco, Square and Capcom creating the best looking titles inhouse, is long over.

They even outsource many of their projects.
Kojima and is team are standing mighty and lonely on the top of Japan video gaming, as the last of the titans.

I do still hope for Suikoden on TGS, one of my favs when it comes to story and gameplay.

[Foxgod]

In other words, this is why the X1 games look so damn good already.
Because this system packs some serious hardware features that give it a welcome boost.

[kingPoS]

It's Sega Genesis vs Super Nintendo all over again.
.
.
.
Popcorn?

[Dirkster_Dude]

The memory in both consoles is extremely fast. I doubt it will make any difference to games whether exclusive or not. A developer will most likely never say that only because of the memory in this console were we able to make the game. Since that is the case it only matters to people who have to be right or simply justify buying there expensive console fun.

[jay2]

Do they really need millions? Not if Pre-orderd have anything to say.

[Prime157]

I still really feel that the arguments of Speed and Power are meaningless, especially within the first few years of the console.
It really comes down to the ease of developing for it. The unified memory, in my opinion, is going to be more helpful than all these numbers being thrown around.

[lifeisgamesok]

I love my playstation exclusives and the playstation 3 dominated the 360 hands down but something tells me Microsoft is engineering something that will outperform Sony's machine.

Well I'm buying both anyways :-D

[PrimeGrime]

Sigh... Here we go again with all the misleading information people will spread.

I just want to clear the internal memory thing up because so many of you are going around saying that the OS can use the internal memory to run instead of using any of the Xbox One's RAM. Which is impossible.

Flash memory cannot run an OS. I don't even need to go into detail because you should be able to easily figure this out on your own.

Xbox One is clearly using a much larger OS parition than ever seen before probably on any console. They need that internal memory simply to store the OS and nothing more. It using Windows 8 so that is enough to know that their OS is going to take up quite a bit of space.

The OS will still use RAM. As pointed out by those who know about this, the Xbox 360 was already doing this but its internal memory of course was not needed to be so large. Still even the Xbox 360 with internal memory to store the OS, it still uses RAM to function.

It is also pretty easy to put two and two together when you know the HDD on the Xbox One is not removable. Therefore that gives them even more reason to need larger internal memory to free up as much space on that HDD as possible.

The Xbox One and PS4 for that matter are still going to use a certain amount of RAM reserved for the OS, what the size is exactly that will be reserved none of us know. We can't use dev kit specifications as an example because what could be used when they are released could be way less than said to be worked with on dev kits.

[PrimeGrime]

Ugh sorry for the bad typos. I deserve to be called out on some of those..

[joefrost00]

Not once did you mention hypervisor

[IMightBeRetarded]

Damn, I'm all out of popcorn. Time to move to the next article.

[slivery]

Oh lord a bunch of information nearly over 80% of PS4 buyers or even Xbox One buyers will never understand. Yet they will all try so hard to act as if they know exactly what they are talking about.

Can already see this is going to go on forever.. Just when I thought the whole power differential debate was finally coming to halt.

Now its just been re spawned into a hellish fury of utter nonsense. Yay... /s

[LiQuiZoN]

There is nothing new here. Its the same specs we have had leaked for the last 6months. I love how Microsoft tries to "Spin" this. lol.

[acdata]

so XBOXONE seems has 2 GPU main APU+dGPU interesting .

[OldGirl]

Some coherency please.

[wishingW3L]

no point in having higher bandwidth when you still have a weaker GPU anyway.

[alexkoepp]

PS2: 150M
Xbox: 25M

PS3: 75M
360: 75M

predicting the trend (Microsoft 3x sales, Sony x.5

PS4: 37M
XB1: 225M

Sounds about right.

[Ulf]

The above post seems like intentional sarcasm -- I'm not really addressing it, but it pokes fun at a humorous concept.

People love to look at the past, and pretend the future will derive directly from it.

The end of the semiconductor era is upon us, and people believe this industry will continue on as normal. LoL.

In all likelyhood, the PS4 will beat the XB1 in year, thanks to early adopters being the same people who care about minor hardware differences, and then the XB1 will start to take off. How it will end, I'm not foolish enough to try and predict.

Honestly, the XB1 has a lot of advantages that people continue to ignore. Like the 10x memory latency advantage of DDR3 over GDDR5, and the audio chip... Skyrim is CPU/memory latency bound at 1080p (and lower resolutions). I wonder how many people realize that?

Wow will people complain (and blame "the devs") when certain games perform better on the XB1 in those stupid comparisons, though, when it comes to CPU-bound, and in some cases 720p-native (where 32MB of eSRAM is really large), games.

[DOOMZ]

Its going to be good times indeed!

[Loki86]

Alright, finally some numbers that the techies can talk about. What they are saying is basically what I have already confirmed about the theoretical throughput of eSRAM have the capability to read/write simultaneously. Also, alot more impressed with the fact this uses an audio decoder and SHAPE decoder all offloading onto the 8GB of flash memory, which will essentially allow for alot more graphical power of the SoC. since that are using a SaaS this makes perfect sense that they would essentially be using the flash memory as an SSD of sorts, which means next to zero load times since everything is a direct transfer instead of another process bogging down the SoC.

I can really get behind these design choices for what MS is trying to do this will allow devs so much more freedom and basically allow for max load to be achieved without having to worry about bogging the GPU down. Can't wait to see the final design in action when devs have the potential unlocked here.

[cabbitwithscissors]

what ?

[DJ]

You can tell PS4 was pretty much designed by one guy, Cerny, and Xbox One was designed by many competing departments.

[marloc_x]

Will PS4 come in brown too?

[NextGen24Gamer]

DUE DUE

[kewlkat007]

Now I know why Microsoft made the comment about Sony using off the shelf components while MS had their hands in every component that went into the XOne.

[NextGen24Gamer]

Exactly right. The amount of money and next gen tech that went into the xbox one is incredible. Sony doesn't have the deep pockets that Microsoft has. Sony went with off the shelf parts and Microsoft customized everything, essentially making it one heck of a gaming console. Kinnect alone as a stand alone would retail for 250 and the xbox one without kinnect would easily be 400 if not more.

That's why MS just coupled it together saying the xbox one is kinnect and kinnect is the xbox one....The amount of money that went into the customized console that is xbox one is insane and they went everyone to get the FULL experience.

I've been saying this for a while and it's not a knock on sony. But the ps4 is a clean cut graphics upgrade over the ps3. Sony played it super safe this time, and financially they had to. The cell was a disaster that they couldn't financially recover from. They said the heck with all that, we are putting known and proven PC parts in our box. And for Sony fans you get rewarded with a inexpensive console that will give you hours of gaming fun if Sony exclusives is your cup of tea.

On the flip side, Microsoft went ALL OUT wit their custom tech and the inclusion of Kinnect 2.0. It indeed is rocket science stuff in their box, giving us more than just xbox 360 with better graphics...they are giving xbox fans their moneys worth at 500 and then some!!!!!

November can't come fast enough!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[GodGinrai]

Still..would be niced if they carried over their GPU advantage from the X360. Ilooking at on paper specs, it seems like they ceded too much. Given the funding and resources MS have I dont see why they never built the most powerful console. Its well within their meansto do so.

[MasterCornholio]

Sometimes a highly custom architecture can be an extremely bad thing especially if said architecture is difficult to develop for. This remind me of the PS4 using "alien hardware" versus the XBOX 360 using off the self parts.

[spoonard]

A little last minute media push for the Xbox...lol too bad everyone already knows this doesn't actually mean anything.

[C-Thunder]

The desperation in this thread is thick. It's like some people have read an entirely different article.

[Haki1112]

Doesn't matter Xbox 1 has a waay better lineup for games than ps4 right now SO Xbox1/pc till ps4 get some games for it I wanna play

[THE_SALT]

I have a personal opinion that it all depends on where you are at with your gaming?

For those excited about iNfamous Second Son my guess is you are casual or relatively new to gaming/still get excited about Single player games?

Why say this?

A) Well..TBH...there is nothing new or fresh about that game that hasn't been done since PS1 in some form or another. Its yet another Darkness, Prototype run of the mill game and hardly next gen.

B) For those excited about Rise on XB1 again, really? its a hack n slash with polished graphics. The AI itself looks as dull as most hack n slash games have been for years. Far better getting stuck into the frustration that is Ninja Gaiden on the OGxbox, unless mindless, repetitive button mashing is your forte.

Would I rush out and grab a next gen console based on either? Hell no! Thats all im saying. So when I see this I understand its personal preference. I'd recommend grabbing GTA 5 and playing the 700 odd missions, and get the benefit of a 4yr development over some of these lame titles that have been rushed just to make next gen Launch.

The only truly next gen games that I have seen are:

- BF4
- TC The District
- TitanFall (XB1 exclusive)

Therefore my decision to purchase "next gen" at launch is based on those 3 games, otherwise I may as well wait for more titles or a price drop.

This is how I see it (currently)

1. Sony has the better pure specs
2. XB1 has shown the better games line up.
3. XB1 has the better controller
4. XBL has the superior online. More advanced eSports and hardcore gaming communities.
5. The debate about "cloud computing" and 300,000 dedicated servers again gives MS the nod, but will hope to see more compelling information on all this. I dont see Sony competing on this level until they recoop some revenue from their online service to offset the costs of delivery, maintenence, upkeep.
6. MS Circle of 10 online sharing - brilliant and about time!
7. The final selling point for me is how you interact with your system. Again MS leading this as seen at E3.

Just on that last point. The gaming experience to me clearly looks in MS favour, it seems to be a more all encompassing vision of next gen direction that Sony clearly lacked, or felt not their space to compete in?

The marriage of technologies by MS in its development of XB1 should be congratulated, and encouraged.

Voice (another input device over KBM, Controller) requires a mic and software.

Kinnect (mic) - not just cutting edge camera technology, but also leading omnidirectional field array microphone technology. Shipping this with every console means developers can now build around this input with real dedication instead and should push this in exciting new directions. As seen with Dead Rising 3 (background noise picked up by Kinnect will attact zombies to your location).

Windows 8 OS - has inbuilt Voice Recognition software to handle Voice Input and Commands to Command and Control of your XB1 system and OS.

BENEFIT: XB1 Allows for immediate switching between apps, windows and tasks with minimal impact to your gaming. This will be more relevant the longer this the life of this gen, that previous systems without these technologies will seem dated and laborious.

SUMMARY:
Its not just about the numbers folks...until we can see how those numbers will actually push Sony ahead and provide the superior "complete" user experience over and above what Ive just outlined then why stand behind them based on potential that may never be reached?

[Theendgame]

2 things :
1.Titanfall looks boring. (Opinion)

2.You just called everyone who enjoys single player games a casual. Excuse me if I dislike lobbies full of squeaker assholes. Some of us just like to play offline.

I love single player games like Skyrim, Infamous, and Final Fantsay.Maybe I haven't been gaming as long as you (since 2003), but I'm no noob/casual. If you could retract that statement, that'd be nice. Have a nice day/night.

[H0RSE]

It's humorous watching all these console players compare system specs, as if the "superior hardware" console is going to make the competition look like Atari...

System specs on console aren't nearly as important as many here are claiming, due to system parity and their closed-system nature. If there is any worthy differences, it will be with exclusives, which make up a very small portion of overall games released.

On PC, where players are responsible for the quality they derive from their games, system specs are much more prevalent, and serve as a deciding factor when purchasing pre-built systems. How many consumers resort to system specs as their deciding factor when purchasing a console?...

Question PS4 guys. If X1 had double the power of the PS4, but PS4 still had exclusives like GOW4, I:SS, KZ and new Naught Dog titles, in addition to current features like PS+, would you really care that PS4 was the less powerful console? Probably not, and many of the people who are getting X1's have the same mindset for their console.

[worldwidegaming]

Fanboys= wanna be babe ruth calling a shot before the swing!

[EXVirtual]

Oi yoi yoi. Am I glad I was late to this party. This thread makes my head hurt.

[GodGinrai]

for once I agree with you.

[2v1]

Just give it to me straight. How many Gamecubes taped together are we talking here?

[worldwidegaming]

Cant wait until they are all busted open like the wii u and someone manages to benchmark them,lol.thats when the bs starts to fly.
When the money comes out, thats when the real complaints start.

[Harmonizer]

Funny how fanboys argue which game looks better when nothing has been released yet.

Hardware-wise PS4 should be far better than Xbone, while the MS cloud still is a bit of a question mark in terms of how much it really adds to the console.

Also you gotta consider the software running these things. Something MS has been historically more experienced in.

Wait for some proper comparisons of 3rd party games running on next-gen systems like Battlefield 4.

[GodGinrai]

"Wait for some proper comparisons of 3rd party games running on next-gen systems like Battlefield 4."

i agree.the ports of BF4,watchdogs etc. will be very telling but as it stands forza, ryse , infamous:ss and KZ are the most impressive games I seen visually by either platform. Titanfall looks like the most promising game shown from a gameplay and COD-killing perspective.

Everything else is just fanboy conjecture. the way I see it,outside of on paper specs, I cant honestly say I seen anything that suggest a 30-40% performance increase.

[gamer2013]

According to B4 developer both XB1 and PS4 versions of the game will run at 720p 60fps. I find it funny with the talk about how the PS4 is supposed to be so powerful that it can't even run this game in 1080p. Just makes the PS4 argument of being more powerful pretty silly.

[hollabox]

Sony has a long history of lying about their specs. Since the PS4 announcement the PS3 specs has been downgraded several times. The same thing happened with the PS2 and PS1 when both of their successors were announced.

I know the PS4 will have more power but not as much as people make it out to be. XB1 is around 70 percent of the power of Sony's PS4, less than a third and not 3-5 times more powerful as some peopled claimed. Regarding pixel fill rates, Sony has a long history of having the ROP advantage. The PS2 had 16 pipelines compared to XB 4, the PS3 which is still up for debate several years later has between 8-24 pipelines with the MHZ advantage compared to X360 8.

Later on the down the line the PS4 shader count will separate itself from XB1 when developer get down to the metal. Same way Cell CPU allowed the PS3 to exceed what X360 could do in extreme cases.

[Harmonizer]

The PS4 is more powerfull than the Xbone, but it is nowhere near PC-specs that is true. That is why i will continue to enjoy my games on PC. I do intend to get a PS4 for Sony's exclusives that i enjoy very much.

Down the line i might also get an Xbone if MS gets some cool exclusives.

[voodoogts]

With all these tech specs talk M$ in the end gets more it seems like. It's not fair. They always get first DLC content and exclusive content. PS4 always gets left out and have to wait months before... now we got to pay to play online.

And how the hell did M$ get NFL as there official sponsor?

[Ulf]

If this shared memory space is accessible by the CPU cores, as well as the GPU, that's a pretty freaking huge deal.

...and, no one seems to have noticed the last slide -- the one that states there is a custom audio chip. That basically means the XB1 can remove audio processing from the CPU cores, making more CPU available for gaming. Another huge deal.

[cabbitwithscissors]

the audio chip being there has been known for a long time already. Nothing new here.

[GoodnessGreatness]

lol delusional Xbox fanboys..

[lunatic0001]

doesnt matter...multiplat games would look mostly the same..its the 1st party games that would show what each system is capable of and im happy to say that i would be getting both consoles to go along my wii u...best of all three worlds :)

[kewlkat007]

XboxOne will have more memory bandwidth AND a lower latency system ,if you look at the chip itself. I'm not even sure what the 8GB flash is for...

The XboxOne might not have the better GPU but if it were a Race car, it will have a more efficient and very very zippy Pitcrew looking at the architecture.

[FinalomegaS]

umm, still the same old N4G with the numbers...

i will break it down in simple terms

XONE will be a bit more expensive (499$) and have MS logo on it and we will still see timed exclusives "again",XONE exclusives and the ever watchful eye looking at us and online gold will cost.. well depends on your location and applicable tax:

http://www.blogcdn.com/www....

Will you notice a difference in the GB/s bandwidth? Not really, will you enjoy what you bought? Yes.

[GoodnessGreatness]

Woo Microsoft 180's keep on coming lol