
Xbox Project Scorpio Specs Exposed Eight CPU Cores, 40 GPU Cores, 12GB of GDDR5 - rbanffy
http://hothardware.com/news/xbox-project-scorpio-specs-exposed
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mastax
Original source:
[http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2017-projec...](http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2017-project-
scorpio-tech-revealed)

And HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14050338](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14050338)

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ChuckMcM
Sounds like a pretty interesting console. And given the customization it also
sounds like the fusion of the 'standard' PC architecture and the 'custom'
console architecture have blended a bit more. I find it pretty amazing that
AMD sees this sort of customization as cost effective (consoles are price
sensitive so it would be hard to earn back your NRE on low margin parts)

~~~
KeyBoardG
AMD also sells the console chips at a very low profit margin. They benefit a
bit from their name being on so many products as well as hoping that games are
optimized for AMD hardware which will benefit their PC business side as well.

Well, that's the plan, but NVidia is kind of wiping the floor with them.

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cordite
On iOS, they circumvent the reader feature and then hover the ads on top of
the article content, so all I can read is the headline.

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cordite
In case anyone runs into the same thing, there's a classic mode link at the
top right in the blue header bar. This will go to a more mobile friendly
experience.

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JitterAtt
Yes, thanks. And we instructed our mobile platform people to remove the ribbon
ad at the bottom. We do aim to please. :)

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crims0n
If nothing else, it is technically impressive. Especially if they can hit
"consumer pricing" as they desire to.

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gigatexal
They probably can sell at a loss and make it back on Xbox Live subscriptions
and other licensing.

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jorgemf
I want something like this for deep learning at home (and gaming on my free
time)

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ansible
What's stopping you from setting up a PC to do this now?

GPUs with 4GB of RAM like the Nvidia GTX 1050Ti aren't expensive.

I just built a few Kaby Lake workstations with NVMe SSDs and those GPUs, and
it is a slick little platform.

~~~
sremani
One of the best ways to put life back on to long unused desktops lying around
is 1\. 1050Ti ($150) 2\. Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

I did this to a 6 year old Dell XPS 8300, and now that thing rocks!

(I do a little bit of Tensorflow playing around on it).

~~~
ansible
Yup. General comments to the folks reading this from home:

For machine learning, you'll want as much RAM on the GPU as possible. I can't
recommend a 2GB GPU card. 4GB cards can be less than $140, and then there is a
jump in price to the 8GB cards (6GB cards aren't cheaper enough to consider,
in my opinion).

Check that your power supply has the extra PCIe 8-pin power connector, though
some of the GTX 10xx series cards don't require any additional power.

8GB system RAM minimum is also what I'd recommend. Some NN applications can
benefit significantly from a faster CPU, even though it is mostly running on
the GPU. For example, for training a Caffe model, an Ivy Bridge i7 was vastly
superior to a Kaby Lake i3, using the same GPU card.

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brian_herman
Why no HBM?

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theandrewbailey
HBM (and HBM2) is still too expensive. Consoles optimize for cost
effectiveness, and often usually the hardware at a loss.

~~~
brian_herman
that makes sense thanks!

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justforFranz
So let me guess. After XBox 1 was rolled out, it was compared unfavorably to
the competition. So MS lowered the price. Then it had to make it backward
compatible with XBox 360 games - further limiting its revenues. So I'm
guessing now MS thinks they can squeeze more $ out of consumers by simply
upgrading once again.

Look MS, maybe you can't keep growing this market indefinitely.

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dawnerd
I love games but I've never once used backwards compatibility with new
consoles. It's never quite the same. Plus in some cases, who wants to buy the
games again, really?

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jerrac
On the Xbox, if you owned it on the 360, you own it on the One. You can either
download it from your library if it was a digital purchase, or stick the disc
in the One if you have the disc.

I have not noticed any difference between playing, say, Burnout Paradise on my
360 vs. on my One. So it seems like MS actually did a decent job on it.

'Course, you're probably referring to how you have to buy Playstation 1 games
to play them on the Playstation 3 or 4, right? I have a PS3, but I've never
had any PS1 games. They really don't let you just stick the disc into the PS3
to confirm you own it and then download the emulated game from the Playstation
store?

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cuckcuckspruce
PS3 owner here.

There are three levels of backward compatibility for the PS3: \- PS2 in
hardware / PS1 in software \- PS2 in software / PS1 in software \- PS1 in
software

The PS2 in hardware was only select launch consoles (20 GB and 60 GB). PS2 in
software were the 80 GB consoles, but that feature was patched out in an OS
update some time ago. All PS3s have PS1 backwards compatibility for games from
the PlayStation Store and the physical media. I was playing Chrono Cross the
other day on my PS3 slim with no issues.

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Dylan16807
> PS2 in software were the 80 GB consoles, but that feature was patched out in
> an OS update some time ago.

I never heard of that happening, when was that?

Wikipedia says that those 80GB consoles still had hardware PS2 GPUs and only
did the CPUs in software, and that later models took out everything. No
mention of software downgrades.

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cuckcuckspruce
I stand corrected.

There is an 80 GB model that is backwards compatible with disc based games
(though it's backwards compatibility is only listed as "limited"), and,
according to Sony, all PS3s can play PS2 classics downloaded from Sony. See
this article for more details:

[https://support.us.playstation.com/articles/en_US/KC_Article...](https://support.us.playstation.com/articles/en_US/KC_Article/Play-
PSone-and-PlayStation-2-Games-on-a-PlayStation-3)

