Xbox at E3 2019: Xbox Project Scarlett Console Launching Holiday 2020
by Brett Howse on June 9, 2019 5:50 PM EST
Today at E3 Phil Spencer of Microsoft announced Project Scarlett, which is their next generation console and brings some massive performance increases over even the already powerful Xbox One X.
Once again partnering with AMD, Xbox Project Scarlett is, according to Microsoft, the biggest single generation leap in performance they’ve ever delivered, and it starts with its SoC. AMD is leveraging Zen 2 CPUs cores coupled with a Navi-based GPU. And while we don’t have the expected performance figures yet, these components are a big step up over the current generation.
Xbox One X is still based on Jaguar CPUs, which are a limiting factor, and adding Zen 2 is going to be an incredible step up in CPU performance, which has been the limiting factor of the Xbox One X. Coupling that with a Navi based GPU with hardware based Ray Tracing should provide a level of fidelity far above even the Xbox One X. Microsoft’s target for Project Scarlett was announced as 120 FPS (which we assume is at 4K) but also variable refresh rate, and support for up to 8K on the hardware. Microsoft states this console will be four times more powerful than the Xbox One X.
Microsoft is also going to be offering an internal SSD for the first time ever, and they discussed at length how they are going to leverage it to reduce the load times in games, which are a major block to immersion at the moment especially on consoles. Microsoft will be using some of the SSD as a RAM cache as well.
Microsoft also stated that they will continue to their tradition of moving gamers and the games they own onwards with this new launch, so existing Xbox One games and the back-catalog of backwards compatibility games will continue to be playable on the new console as well.
Project Scarlett will be launching in Holiday 2020 along with a new version of Halo to commemorate the launch. Not all details are available yet but we’ll keep you up to date when we hear more.
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shabby - Sunday, June 9, 2019 - link
What they probably meant is 4k@120fps of console quality graphics, meaning low detail. Not ultra quality graphics that the pc master race expects.Opencg - Sunday, June 9, 2019 - link
It probably wont play ultra maxed settings at 4k 120 but you cant even do that with a 2080ti. This consoles gpu will be at least as powerful as a 2070 and likely it will be more like 2080 level performance. Should be a very nice value.AshlayW - Sunday, June 9, 2019 - link
Of course it wont play PC-quality max settings 4K at anywhere near 60FPS. More like 30FPS. Either way the GPU doesn't excite me as much has the CPU. Jaguar really is a piece of poop, even Zen1 has like 2X the IPC and 75% higher clock speeds.AshlayW - Sunday, June 9, 2019 - link
Anywhere near 120FPS*mode_13h - Tuesday, June 11, 2019 - link
Given that AMD's RTX 2070-equivalent Navi will launch at the price of an entire console ($450), I'm not sure how they're going to pack a RTX 2080-equivalent in there. I guess they have a year for 7 nm and GDDR6 to get cheaper, but then you have to account for additional die space to add on HW ray tracing that the RX 5700X doesn't have.So... I'll believe 2080-level performance when I see it.
Gastec - Sunday, June 9, 2019 - link
What calendar date is this "Holyday"?boozed - Sunday, June 9, 2019 - link
Sundaysvan1971 - Sunday, June 9, 2019 - link
which holiday? CHRISTMAS???Opencg - Monday, June 10, 2019 - link
they are targeting the presidents day market this time. nobody releases consoles for christmasBp_968 - Sunday, June 9, 2019 - link
It wont beat a decent spec PC of the same time frame, but it will be a great console im sure. Same for the PS5. As a PC gamer I love to see this because it means the baseline AAA studios shoot for is going to be much higher than it is now (especially on the CPU level).Something else us PC gamers often miss i think is we compare component costs to build a similar machine but tend to ignore the fact that a gfx card is basically a PC by itself. You have to pay for all that extra ram, and the cooling and other goodies that go along with it. With these consoles they get to build it as a custom SoC and don't have to pay for so much duplication in hardware. Of course the downside is they can't slap a new GPU in there. Im running a 1080ti and its quite likely that by the end of 2020 or early 2021 ill be picking up a new GPU on the 2nd gen of ray tracing tech.
And maybe a new CPU since by that time my 8700k will only be able to process all the hack mitigations and won't have any left over CPU cycles for frivolous stuff like windows or a game. /s (hopefully its sarcasm...)