The Xbox One Scorpio will be a complete overhaul of the Xbox One console hardware when it launches next year, but looks like Microsoft have already begun to incrementally improve performance of the console with the launch of the Xbox One S, the slimline redesign of the console that launches worldwide today.
As Digital Foundry reports, the Xbox One S has a GPU clock-speed of 914MHz, up from 853MHz in the original model, which is a 7.1% increase.The eSRAM sees an increase in its bandwidth accordingly to, now bumped up to 218GB/s. These enhancements and upgrades all seem to be part of an effort to make the Xbox One S capable of outputting 4K and HDR video.
"Some games (ones that utilize dynamic resolution and/or unlocked frame-rates) may see a very minor performance improvement," said Microsoft's Albert Penello, senior director of product management and planning to Eurogamer. "Our testing internally has shown this to be pretty minor, and is only measurable on certain games, so we didn't want to make it a 'selling point' for the new console."
Which is admirable, but I honestly think it would have been fine had they done it- especially since it almost sounds now like the Xbox One S is the kind of incremental upgrade on the original system that the PS4 NEO promises to be for the PS4, while the Scorpio seems to be a complete overhaul- almost a generational leap.
The Xbox One S appears to already be selling out, so it seems like there will be a lot of box One owners who will have access to the improved and boosted performance that it offers.
Although Microsoft maintains that the spec increase in Xbox One S is marginal, and mostly for video playback support at UHD, HDR, and 4K resolutions, Microsoft's Albert Panello revealed that developers also have the option to run a game at native 4K resolutions on the Xbox One S, should they wish to.
"If they want to [run at 4K], they can. As you said, if a developer had a game that could use it we are enabling 4K framebuffers, but only on Xbox One S consoles," Albert Penello, senior director of product marketing and planning at Microsoft, told Digital Foundry.
So, it sounds like the Xbox One S is actually basically a full fledged incremental bump for the console and its specs, as opposed to being just a simple slimmer, aesthetic revision of the console.
Well. It almost seems like the Xbox One S is more comparable to the PS4 NEO than the average slimline revision for a console, what with its incremental spec bumps and everything- and that the Scorpio, when it launches, will be a more dramatic and thorough revision/step up.
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