Microsoft has been very coy regarding their highly anticipated new Xbox console codenamed Scorpio. Now, at last, we have some confirmed specs for the mysterious unit and it seems that it will give the PS4 Pro quite a run for its money.
Thanks to Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry we finally have an indication of what the specifications of the Xbox Scorpio will be, and it’s looking quite good.
The biggest concern for gamers seems to be the price, 4K output and, of course, raw unadulterated power.
In order to fully understand just how powerful the Scorpio is, it’s necessary to compare it with it’s closest rival, the PS4 Pro. Below are the specifications for both consoles.
PlayStation 4 Pro
CPU- eight x86-64 AMD Jaguar cores at 2.1 GHz
GPU – 36 Improved GCN compute units at 911 MHz
8GB of GDDR5 RAM with a memory bandwidth of 218GB/s
1TB 2.5-inch hard drive
BD/ DVD drive
Xbox Scorpio
CPU – eight custom x86 cores clocked at 2.3GHz
GPU – 40 customized compute units at 1172MHz
12GB of GDDR5 RAM with a memory bandwidth of 326GB/s
1TB 2.5-inch hard drive
UHD Blu-ray drive
Show me the money
According to Digital Foundry, they expect the price for the Scorpio to hover around $499 in comparison to the PlayStation 4 Pro’s $399 price tag. Basically, they calculated it by using the PlayStation 4 Pro’s price as a base and then adding the cost for the faster hard drive, extra memory, and new cooling system. So it seems the Scorpio, as expected, will cost quite a bit more than the PlayStation 4 Pro. Again, keep in mind that the Scorpio price is yet to be officially announced.
I have the power
Microsoft has not made a secret of the fact that the Scorpio would turn out to be more powerful than any console currently out there and, with its six teraflop performance, it seems that this would indeed be the case. Currently, the PlayStation 4 runs at 4.2 teraflops which are a significant decrease from that of the Scorpio. The Scorpio also contains 12GB of GDDR5 Ram which is quite a bit more than the 8GB found in the PlayStation 4 Pro. Lastly, Scorpio boasts eight custom x86 CPU cores, with each clocked at 2.3GHz versus the PlayStation 4 Pro that has eight Jaguar cores that each runs at 2.1GHz.
To 4K or not to 4K?
So, there has been quite a bit of excitement around the fact that Scorpio, unlike the PlayStation 4 Pro, will be able to run at native 4K. While only a few games currently run at 2160p (most are running at 1440p) on the PlayStation 4 Pro, Microsoft seems to believe that there is no reason why all titles that can run at 4K should not run at 4K.
The final question
The biggest question remains to be answered. Will the Scorpio impress when it comes to the actual games? Well, it seems that those who have seen Forza Motorsport 6 running on the system have been thoroughly impressed. If Microsoft can keep the price reasonable, and maybe release some really amazing games (a new Halo) with 4K support gamers could be in for one hell of a ride.
I truly hope Microsoft can pull this off as the Scorpio does look, on paper at least, to be quite the amazing little console. Microsoft has revealed that they will be unveiling the console at E3 2017.
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