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Digital Foundry vs Xbox One S

I know I'm petty but I wish I could find all those people who were shitting on me in the old threads where I said we should believe Rod and not he PR guys about performance boosts that would come from having a console that supported 4K HDR.
 
Digital Foundry forgot to ask if the GPU is still GCN 1.1 instead of GCN1.2. The bandwidth efficiency of GCN 1.2 would have been a as big, if not bigger, impact for future games taking advantage of it than the 7% overclock.

Given that there are zero compatibility issues with existing games, it should be pretty clear that there was no change to the architecture. The delta compression wasn't the only thing that changed with GCN3 (1.2).
 
Hmm which TV are you using? I'm using a Samsung JS9500 and definitely sticking to using it for the 4k streaming apps. I had issues with ARC though, as sometimes it wouldn't switch to the audio, but using optical now and it's fine. The JS9500 uses an Octa Core processor so very speedy too! I'm not going to be using the One S for the apps (well no 4K support on Amazon anyway), only Blu-Ray's and UHD (although still no HD audio option for bitstream, so will miss the HD audio signs on the AV which I do like seeing! Chosen uncompressed 5.1 instead).

As am I with my Sony 4K. It has come a long way with the Android OS. Apps are fast, snappy, and everything works through ARC for me.
 
I never understood this way of thinking to be fair.

Lower process = smaller chip = less cost to produce each chip.

You spent a bit in R&D to adapt the chip to the new process but that is way cheaper than create a new chip and most of these cost to shrink will be covered in the first batch of chip produced.

That is how it works... if you can shrink then do it... you will cut the costs a lot.


That is bullshit.

Sony will make the OG PS4 chip in 16nm to cover costs too... there is no other path to go if they want to cut prices in the future.

The ideia of not having money to shrink for a lower process with a forecast to sell over 20 million chip yet is ridiculous... Sony selling 20 million in 16nm will give them way way way more money than 20 million in 28nm... the costs to adapt the chip to the new process will be way lower too than the cut in cost to produce them.


In the past, node shrinks produced cost savings, but you do realize its been getting more and more expensive right? Node savings don't reproduce the same kind of cost to performance ratio that they did in the past.

In addition to that, they have already been making the current PS4 model's internals cheaper to produce under marginal number revisions, 16nm isn't going to make it that much cheaper. Its more about power savings moving to 16nm.

As i said before. a slim PS4 and NEO is not happening because Sony is focusing on NEO as the alternate PS4 and are not going to introduce another PS4 into the equation
 
As am I with my Sony 4K. It has come a long way with the Android OS. Apps are fast, snappy, and everything works through ARC for me.

Ah that's good to hear :) yeah the Tizen OS for Samsung is really good now too. ARC was fine for a while for me, but ran into issues lately when I'd switch to the TV apps (selecting TV Audio on the receiver remote) then if I'm lucky I'll get sound. If I don't, somehow turning the TV off and on sorted out the problem haha, I'm wondering if it's the Denon receiver though. Anyway, now I'm just using optical and no issues. One button to the apps then one button to switch to "TV Audio" on the remote. Once I'm done, exiting the app will go back to SkyQ and set the sound back.

Anyway, Xbox One S all setup! I'm now downloading and installing the games I had on the original console. As its 2TB (well 1.5..) I'm installing on the console itself instead of an external HDD like I had before. Should keep me going until Scorpio. Now I need to eBay the launch console...
 
that sounds like a good upgrade. btw, if it is like some of you guys say that ms/sony paid for the nm upgrade. that means the normal PS4 is gonna get one too right? will it be possible for it to hit the 2TF mark?
 
Hmm which TV are you using? I'm using a Samsung JS9500 and definitely sticking to using it for the 4k streaming apps. I had issues with ARC though, as sometimes it wouldn't switch to the audio, but using optical now and it's fine. The JS9500 uses an Octa Core processor so very speedy too! I'm not going to be using the One S for the apps (well no 4K support on Amazon anyway), only Blu-Ray's and UHD (although still no HD audio option for bitstream, so will miss the HD audio signs on the AV which I do like seeing! Chosen uncompressed 5.1 instead).

I have a JS8500. Just looked it up and it's a quad core, so half the cores of your tv's processor. Probably the difference right there.

I love the TV, but don't care for Tizen or the apps I've used on there. I feel that it's pretty slow to navigate myself. I had many issues with ARC so I also switched to optical, which works fine as I don't have a 4K AVR (however when I do, it will be a lot nicer to neaten it up and have direct HDMI to the AVR).
 
Its a DECENT boost to power man, that's what i can say. 5 to 10 FPS is no joke, and would surely be made a deal of if it was between XB1 and PS4 in a DF comparison.

Its true that it won't really matter to casual fans sure, but i wasn't really speaking about them you know? I was musing on the technical specifications in general.
I would wager if the XboneS were 5-10 fps ABOVE ps4 level in 3rd party games, this would be game changer news all over gaf and the internet would explode, yes.

From the looks of it though, most games may be pretty much on par with the OG xbone. Unless we've seen how it helps with unlocked dynamic res games like Halo5?
 
I wish they would have been less conservative (1GHz GPU and 2GHz CPU), but I am sure MS has their reasons. Unless I can unload my fat Xbone I will wait till Scorpio.
 
If Scorpio wasn't out out next year this would be a pretty amazing upgrade. As it stands now, still pretty pointless if you already have the OG Xbone.
 
In the past, node shrinks produced cost savings, but you do realize its been getting more and more expensive right? Node savings don't reproduce the same kind of cost to performance ratio that they did in the past.

In addition to that, they have already been making the current PS4 model's internals cheaper to produce under marginal number revisions, 16nm isn't going to make it that much cheaper. Its more about power savings moving to 16nm.

As i said before. a slim PS4 and NEO is not happening because Sony is focusing on NEO as the alternate PS4 and are not going to introduce another PS4 into the equation
Well we will see...

16nm PS4's APU is coming ;)

Manufacture process is still based in Wafers and good yield that come from it... smaller = cheaper.... you pay per wafer and not the chip... the chip will cost more if you can get only 50 big chip from this wafer or cost less if you can get 200 chip from this wafer.

Makes no sense any company staying with 100 chip per wafer in 28nm instead to migrate to 200 chip per wafer with 16nm.... less sense yet for a console that will sell millions of units yet.

No company is that dumb to throw money on fire.
 
If this is their solution to compete with NEO, its not a good one.

NEO is in between this and Scorpio, but that's a huge gap for most titles. This is about 100gflops stronger than XB1. NEO is about 3000gflops more than XB1.

This bodes significantly well for NEO, because this is just with a clock speed increase of the original GPU without any changes to the CPU clock. NEO is replacing the old GPU with a far more power efficient and stronger GPU, and a significant upclock of Jaguar to boot.

Remember how Xbox 360 S got a huge bump in power just by putting the same 360 components on a SoC and shrinking down to 45nm? The only reason that didn't show in games was because MS forced the S to run at the same speed of the OG 360.

This is the same thing they are doing now for XB1 S, with the shrinking down to 16nm, except they are allowing that speed boost due to the 16nm process, even while using the same exact components as OG XB1.

how do you figure this?

the xbox S is the answer for xbox one
 
This article has nothing to do with potential Sony hardware. Lol I can't even...

On topic. Super excited for the future updates regarding HD audio!
 
Slightly off topic, but considering watts were just mentioned in the OP..

I'm curious to see how much power the NX will draw for the console aspect. The handheld version will be low for sure compared to consoles...

But looking at this interesting chart, its pretty cool to see Nintendo being more energy efficient than Sony and Microsoft(although they've been a generation behind in power since wii)

http://energyusecalculator.com/electricity_gameconsole.htm
 
Does the S actually give a little bit of a graphical boost outside of framerate increases?

It can upscale to 4K and dynamic resolution games might stay at the higher resolution options more often, but apart from that it shouldn't do that on any existing games. New (or patched) games could potentially use the slightly increased GPU power but the things I already mentioned are already the most likely uses.
 
Yeah -- it's an expected slim remodel. It's not a response to the Neo.
I don't think anyone expected a 'slim remodel' to have more power than og xbone. And if devs are able to push 5-10 more frames in games, that seems decent no?

But nah, I don't think anyone really believes it's a response to the Neo, lol.

It was more about the timeline/generation gap argument. Whether Scorpio should be considered a full gen leap or not. If XboneS was the .5 version, then that would be the response to Neo as the .5 console version.

It's blatantly obvious that isn't the case tho :p
 
I don't think anyone expected a 'slim remodel' to have more power than og xbone. And if devs are able to push 5-10 more frames in games, that seems decent no?

But nah, I don't think anyone really believes it's a response to the Neo, lol.

It was more about the timeline/generation gap argument. Whether Scorpio should be considered a full gen leap or not. If XboneS was the .5 version, then that would be the response to Neo as the .5 console version.

It's blatantly obvious that isn't the case tho :p

IIRC the Xbox 360 and PS3's die shrink versions and hardware updates could have slightly increased performance like this, but the differences were small and intentionally disabled in firmware to make sure it didn't cause any compatibility issues with existing games.
 
Slightly off topic, but considering watts were just mentioned in the OP..

I'm curious to see how much power the NX will draw for the console aspect. The handheld version will be low for sure compared to consoles...

But looking at this interesting chart, its pretty cool to see Nintendo being more energy efficient than Sony and Microsoft(although they've been a generation behind in power since wii)

http://energyusecalculator.com/electricity_gameconsole.htm

The Wii U uses less energy, but like you said it's also significantly less powerful than both the XB1 and PS4, so you can't really say that it's more energy efficient.

On the other hand we have the Xbox One S which has the same performance as the Xbox One while consuming less power - definitely more energy efficient. Maybe if the Wii U had 1/3 the perfomance of the PS4 while consuming 1/4 the power, but I don't think that's actually the case.
 
Slightly off topic, but considering watts were just mentioned in the OP..

I'm curious to see how much power the NX will draw for the console aspect. The handheld version will be low for sure compared to consoles...

But looking at this interesting chart, its pretty cool to see Nintendo being more energy efficient than Sony and Microsoft(although they've been a generation behind in power since wii)

http://energyusecalculator.com/electricity_gameconsole.htm

Nvidia Shield TV is just under 20W while gaming, so I expect the NX to be around 20W.

On the subject of power consumption I noticed that none of the reviews/analysis looked at standby power draw, both the PS4 and Xbone were pretty terrible in standby mode, curious how much they improved this with the S.
 
Slightly off topic, but considering watts were just mentioned in the OP..

I'm curious to see how much power the NX will draw for the console aspect. The handheld version will be low for sure compared to consoles...

But looking at this interesting chart, its pretty cool to see Nintendo being more energy efficient than Sony and Microsoft(although they've been a generation behind in power since wii)

http://energyusecalculator.com/electricity_gameconsole.htm

Wii U isn't even half as energy efficient as PS4 or Xbone. Low power consumption != high efficiency. My GTX 1070 uses more power than the entire PS4 console, yet it's still considered efficient. NX will be the most efficient and use the least power (<10W) though.

One S should be the second most efficient.

Nvidia Shield TV is just under 20W while gaming, so I expect the NX to be around 20W.

On the subject of power consumption I noticed that none of the reviews/analysis looked at standby power draw, both the PS4 and Xbone were pretty terrible in standby mode, curious how much they improved this with the S.

NX won't be 20W because that requires a fan.
 
NX won't be 20W because that requires a fan.

Shield TV has a fan.

SHIELD-TV-3.jpg


Edit: my bad, you are saying the NX will have no fan
 
I own a gaming pc and a ps4 and have had 0 interest in xbox this gen, but once the 299 sku is out Im all in on this. A 300 dollar 4k uhd player and I can play some halo now? Stoked. Can't wait. Selling one of my tvs this weekend and getting ready for some uhd hdr goodness. Good job msoft.
 
Well we will see...

16nm PS4's APU is coming ;)

Manufacture process is still based in Wafers and good yield that come from it... smaller = cheaper.... you pay per wafer and not the chip... the chip will cost more if you can get only 50 big chip from this wafer or cost less if you can get 200 chip from this wafer.

Makes no sense any company staying with 100 chip per wafer in 28nm instead to migrate to 200 chip per wafer with 16nm.... less sense yet for a console that will sell millions of units yet.

No company is that dumb to throw money on fire.

Did skip over my explanation? Shrinking the current PS4 APU to 16nm is pointless because the cost ratio compared to what they already manufacture the PS4 for is not that high, which is one of the reasons why they went with NEO as an alternative refresh solution to a traditional slimline model.

And they don't want to confuse the marketplace by adding a slim model in addition to NEO and OG PS4 on the market. Because it doesn't make much business sense, hence why i didn't think it was a good idea during E3 when MS announced their own plans.
 
Tonight is our neighborhood night out, where our streets are closed off and we can meet our neighbors and let our children play safely on the street. Its an amazing opportunity to connect with real, living people in a way that has been lost to Americans. I suggest that's what people do tonight instead of playing with technology. Is a thing I was thinking till I remembered HDR and uncompressed 4k.


So here I am learning about Canadian trains in the Rockies.


C7PbYIz.jpg


Dat spiral tunnel...
 
Did skip over my explanation? Shrinking the current PS4 APU to 16nm is pointless because the cost ratio compared to what they already manufacture the PS4 for is not that high, which is one of the reasons why they went with NEO as an alternative refresh solution to a traditional slimline model.

And they don't want to confuse the marketplace by adding a slim model in addition to NEO and OG PS4 on the market. Because it doesn't make much business sense, hence why i didn't think it was a good idea during E3 when MS announced their own plans.
I think there will be a new model(not necessarily slimmer) with 16nm that will have the 4K bluray player as well for 299 to compete with the Xbox one s. maybe sell the OG ps4 model for 249 to clear out remaining stock. They may even have stopped shipping those by now if this is the case. Neo will be the slim model with more power to make it the more attractive buy.
 
Tonight is our neighborhood night out, where our streets are closed off and we can meet our neighbors and let our children play safely on the street. Its an amazing opportunity to connect with real, living people in a way that has been lost to Americans. I suggest that's what people do tonight instead of playing with technology. Is a thing I was thinking till I remembered HDR and uncompressed 4k.


So here I am learning about Canadian trains in the Rockies.


C7PbYIz.jpg


Dat spiral tunnel...

Cut your toe nails bro!!!!

jk I can't see them and im jelly.
 
I think there will be a new model(not necessarily slimmer) with 16nm that will have the 4K bluray player as well for 299 to compete with the Xbox one s. maybe sell the OG ps4 model for 249 to clear out remaining stock. They may even have stopped shipping those by now if this is the case. Neo will be the slim model with more power to make it the more attractive buy.

Competing with XB1 S is unnecessary if they price OG PS4 right. I don't know when you expect this 16nm PS4, but i already expect an official 299-249 price drop of the OG PS4 when NEO is announced without any major SKU revisions of OG PS4. i think NEO may get a slimline model before OG PS4 ever does, but that's years away IMO
 
I'm still waiting on Scorpio provided it's not going to be a 4K only console and games will see a boost the way that the S has at resolutions up to 1080p.

Oh and please release Scorpio in black please Microsoft. I can't be dealing with having a white slab in my entertainment system when everything else is black.
 
I'm still waiting on Scorpio provided it's not going to be a 4K only console and games will see a boost the way that the S has at resolutions up to 1080p.

Oh and please release Scorpio in black please Microsoft. I can't be dealing with having a white slab in my entertainment system when everything else is black.

You don't have to worry about Scorpio's restrictions. Its not going to be 4K only and Phil has already said games that were patched to take advantage of Scorpio will see a huge jump just like NEO
 
Netflix app is acting really weird. As soon as I launch it the entire console changes to what looks like a 480p image upscaled to 4k. If I close the app the xbox reverts back to it's normal quality.
 
Tonight is our neighborhood night out, where our streets are closed off and we can meet our neighbors and let our children play safely on the street. Its an amazing opportunity to connect with real, living people in a way that has been lost to Americans. I suggest that's what people do tonight instead of playing with technology. Is a thing I was thinking till I remembered HDR and uncompressed 4k.


So here I am learning about Canadian trains in the Rockies.


C7PbYIz.jpg


Dat spiral tunnel...
Mmmmmmm, I bet that tanker is filled with sweet glorious nectar of the Gods maple syrup.
Or poutine gravy.
 
Competing with XB1 S is unnecessary if they price OG PS4 right. I don't know when you expect this 16nm PS4, but i already expect an official 299-249 price drop of the OG PS4 when NEO is announced without any major SKU revisions of OG PS4. i think NEO may get a slimline model before OG PS4 ever does, but that's years away IMO

But a 299 OG PS4 starts to look poor value against a 299 Xbox one S with UHD and 4K blah blah. Regardless of whether the games will still be less pretty - marketing will push the 4K and bluray angle.

Maybe if neon is $399 they can use that to their advantage? 'Hey I can get a PS4 for $299. Oh but that new Xbox is the same price and I get cool 4K stuffs. Wait - what's this Neo? Also 4K and the games will look even better than PS4? It's $100 more but that seems worth it'
 
But a 299 OG PS4 starts to look poor value against a 299 Xbox one S with UHD and 4K blah blah. Regardless of whether the games will still be less pretty - marketing will push the 4K and bluray angle.

Maybe if neon is $399 they can use that to their advantage? 'Hey I can get a PS4 for $299. Oh but that new Xbox is the same price and I get cool 4K stuffs. Wait - what's this Neo? Also 4K and the games will look even better than PS4? It's $100 more but that seems worth it'

Sure. I personally don't think media is all that much of a selling point of games consoles these days, the newness aspect of a console will be much more of a selling point for consumers than actually buying 4K blu rays and watching them.

OG PS4 and XB1S will still fight it out value wise in the end from a gaming standpoint and a price standpoint IMO.
 
how do you figure this?

the xbox S is the answer for xbox one

Yep, and they don't have to compete with the NEO because it's not out, and Sony hasn't released any details. Sony is the one that will have to come out and prove why gamers should spend the premium over the S or additional $ after potentially dropping $300 on the S. Not to mention trying to sell them on the expensive VR headset at the same time.

Sure. I personally don't think media is all that much of a selling point of games consoles these days, the newness aspect of a console will be much more of a selling point for consumers than actually buying 4K blu rays and watching them.

OG PS4 and XB1S will still fight it out value wise in the end from a gaming standpoint and a price standpoint IMO.

For gamers only, maybe. When your step-dad calls you up and asks what the downside is for a $300 UHD BluRay player when companies are selling them for $400 with less features, then media is a bigger deal. Not sure how you market "newness." Not a lot of people are keen on being told they are wasting money, they want help rationalizing purchases.
 
For gamers only, maybe. When your step-dad calls you up and asks what the downside is for a $300 UHD BluRay player when companies are selling them for $400 with less features, then media is a bigger deal. Not sure how you market "newness." Not a lot of people are keen on being told they are wasting money, they want help rationalizing purchases.

In the age of phones, people buying up the shit that is newest and most shiny is even more important to sales
 
Sony doesn't have the money to eat that cost for a marginal revision of the original hardware on 16nm and a NEO type revision at the same time, and more importantly, probably didn't think the cost was worth it to bring out two different SKU's of different performance levels like that on 16nm as opposed to pushing one singular one and OG PS4 at the original node size.

MS have the advantage both of money and being more desperate for marketshare, hence opening up the market to more of their hardware via marginal S upgrade and a brand spanking new console in Scorpio.

NEO will fit in between the Xbox S unit and Scorpio in terms of architecture and power(same jaguar cores but upclocked, better GPU, higher bandwidth of the GDDR5, 4K compatibility ect)

Sony don't have the money???
So how do you think Sony will reduce costs of PS4 further if not at least having one die shrink???
I don't even think Neo is coming this year. It doesn't make sense for Sony to release a PS4 upgrade when they are releasing PSVR this year. A slim with UHD player and 4k would be the better option.
 
Competing with XB1 S is unnecessary if they price OG PS4 right. I don't know when you expect this 16nm PS4, but i already expect an official 299-249 price drop of the OG PS4 when NEO is announced without any major SKU revisions of OG PS4. i think NEO may get a slimline model before OG PS4 ever does, but that's years away IMO

Yup! That makes perfect sense. They'll release a slimline model of the Neo before they'll release a die shrink model of the PS4???? Lol
 
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