Project Scorpio: Microsoft Unveils Next Generation Game Console Specifications

On the game console Project Scorpio talk and write for a long time, more than a year. This name is the code name of the new generation of game console from Microsoft. Previously, the company mentioned Project Scorpio several times, but without particular specifics, just saying that this would be a “breakthrough” in the world of video games. For example, head of Xbox at Microsoft Phil Spencer talked about the console almost a year and a half ago. At the exhibition E3 2016 Project, he said that this console will be the most powerful in the world. According to him, the console is able to play games in 4K resolution with a frame rate of 60 fps. All this was said a year and a half ago. What now?

Microsoft has repeatedly stated that the next generation console is not just an updated hardware, it is a qualitatively new device offering the widest possibilities to its users. One of the parameters that Project Scorpio developers reported earlier was a graphics adapter with a capacity of 6 teraflops. Such high performance was achieved thanks to a video card assembled from scratch. It is paired with 12 GB of GDDR5 RAM and an eight-core custom processor. So the hardware platform is very powerful. Recently, the corporation shared additional information about its project.

4K games for every gamer

Project Scorpio developers promise to work with games with real 4K resolution, without any interpolations. And the frame rate is indeed stated at the level of 60 fps in this graphics mode.
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“For me, all this has a special meaning. This is much more than just displaying these 8+ million pixels on the display during the game, ”said Kevin Gammill, Xbox Core development team representative. “This means displaying pixels without losing the refresh rate of the screen, it will be the same as the 1080p version of the same title, which is extremely important for us. High-quality audio accompaniment adds the possibility of immersion. This is not only what you see, but what you hear. ”


The developers of the new generation of the console said that in this console, almost everything was developed from scratch, the main elements are very productive. The project team previously used a special hardware emulator to check how the games on the new hardware will look and work. For the best game balance, the developers tested several modes of operation of the device, and this work was carried out long before the creation of any significant hardware platform for Project Scorpio.

Now the hardware base is already there, as a confirmation of the work done, a number of publications showed a prototype of Project Scorpio, which was able to reproduce the demo version of the ported Xbox One ForzaTech in 4K mode with 60 frames per second. The video card of the system was loaded only by 60%.

So what's inside?

So, the hardware configuration includes an x86 processor with 8 cores, with a frequency of 2.3 GHz each. Microsoft announced that the new processor received not only increased frequencies for the cores, but also a large number of optimizations for the overall performance increase.



The Xbox One uses 8 GB of DDR3 RAM with a 256-bit bus. Accordingly, the system capacity is about 68 GB / s. This is not so much, so a way was found to get around the limitation - using 32 MB of eSRAM. The capacity of this memory, integrated in a single-chip system, was 204 GBytes / s. Project Scorpio's total bandwidth is 326 GB / s, plus eSRAM was removed, which caused problems for game developers. Of the 12 GB installed in the new system, 8 GB can be used by games, and another 4 GB is reserved for the operating system.

About GPU already mentioned above. If more, the number of computing units of the graphics system is increased from 16 to 40, while its frequency increases from 853 MHz to 1172 MHz. Microsoft managed to double the number of shader units. This gives a 2.7-fold increase in the performance of computational blocks when processing certain types of graphic objects. Added and full support for DirectX 12, which opens up opportunities for game creators. For example, you can increase the number of draw calls.



The central element of the entire system is a single-chip chip with 7 billion transistors, produced using 16-nm technology. The total area of ​​the chip is 360 mm ₂ .

As for the other characteristics, it is known that the memory capacity is 1 TB. Among the findings - HDMI 2.0. The developers left an optical drive that supports Blu-Ray 4K. The power consumption of the console will be small - about 245 watts. A cooling chamber is used to cool the attachment. Scorpio is also backward compatible with the Xbox One. If someone has not bought yet the latest Microsoft gaming console, then you can enjoy simultaneously the hits for her and the next-generation consoles already on Scorpio.



Generally speaking, the game ecosystem is a sore subject for any game console. The lack of hits can be a serious obstacle to the promotion of almost any "iron" project, including Project Scorpio. So, Microsoft needs to try so that by the time the new console is released, corresponding game titles have already been developed for it.

And another point - so far neither the design, nor the price, nor the exact release date (announced for the winter of 2017). Project Scorpio are unknown.