The Xbox Project Scorpio specs are finally out of the bag and paint an exciting picture, revealing the most powerful console yet.
We already knew that Eurogamer's Digital Foundry, the harshest Xbox critic, was taking the Xbox Scorpio for a spin and planning an exclusive reveal, and it has now delivered.
While Microsoft previously touted some Xbox Scorpio specs, the Digital Foundry reveal now offers far more information, and the beastly console might just have what it takes to catapult Microsoft on top of Sony and its PlayStation.
Xbox Scorpio Specs
As expected, the Xbox Scorpio is a true beast shaping up as the most powerful gaming console ever, boasting a six-teraflop Polaris GPU that's 4.5 times more powerful than the Xbox One and 1.4 times more powerful than the PlayStation 4 Pro.
Of course, that's not as powerful as an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 or 1080 Ti, for instance, and PC gamers might scoff at this feat, but processing 6 trillion floating point operations per second is an impressive achievement for a gaming console. The PS4 Pro, for instance, has 4.2 teraflops of graphical power. Xbox Scorpio will also allow users to play games at native 4K UHD at 60 fps, taking the whole console gaming experience to the next level.
Microsoft is also equipping the Xbox Scorpio with 12 GB of GDDR5 RAM and opting for a custom Jaguar-based processor rather than an AMD Ryzen CPU as some may have hoped. More specifically, Microsoft teamed up with AMD to pack 40 customized Radeon compute units in a TSMC-made chip.
The Xbox Scorpio will pack an octa-core CPU gunning at 2.3 GHz, and out of the 12 GB of RAM it packs in total, 4 GB of RAM will deal specifically with the operating system alone. This should translate to a silky smooth performance with virtually no hiccups, especially since Microsoft has also optimized Direct3D 12 APIs to have the GPU naively handle API calls.
Simply put, it's a CPU-GPU power combo that should translate to a blazing fast, extra smooth experience for a console, but don't expect it to match a top-notch gaming PC rig. Xbox Scorpio is still a console after all, and while it does pack plenty of extra oomph, it won't revolutionize gaming altogether.
Xbox Scorpio: Sheer Horsepower, Remarkable Performance
Even Digital Foundry is impressed with the Xbox Scorpio, praising its "sheer horsepower," six-teraflop graphical power, and noteworthy clock speed, which is unprecedentedly high for a console. The entire rig is packed in a compact build with integrated supply and state-of-the-art cooling for a console, again scoring extra points.
"Performance is remarkable," notes Digital Foundry. "We saw a Forza Motorsport demo running on the machine at native 4K and Xbox One equivalent settings, and it hit 60 frames per second with a substantial performance overhead - suggesting Scorpio will hit its native 4K target across a range of content, with power to spare to spend on other visual improvements."
At the same time, Microsoft promised that all modes will also be available to 1080p users, not just 4K ones. All Xbox One games should work on both the Xbox One S and the upcoming Xbox Scorpio, but they should look significantly better on the new console, as Scorpio boasts an improved framerate, better loading times, and less tearing.
While photos of the final Xbox Scorpio form factor are not available yet, the console is expected to resemble the Xbox One S in many respects. Microsoft will share more details about the new console at E3 in June, where we could also learn more about pricing and availability.
Until then, check out Digital Foundry's Xbox Scorpio reveal in the video below.
