Xbox Project Scorpio's Full Specs Revealed (eurogamer.net) 135
Microsoft unveiled last year that it will be launching a super-specced Xbox One variant -- codenamed Project Scorpio -- soon. Now the company has shared what those hardware modules look like. According to a report on Eurogamer, which visited Microsoft campus at the company's invitation, the specs of Project Scorpio are:
1. Project Scorpio has 12GB of DDR5 RAM, clocked at 6.8GHz with 326 GB/s bandwidth.
2. Scorpio will be powered by eight CPU cores. It's a custom design sporting 2.3GHz, with a 4MB L2 cache.
3. Project Scorpio will feature an internal PSU (245W) and a compact design, leveraging the advanced cooling techniques pioneered by Microsoft's leading industrial design team.
4. Project Scorpio will achieve six-teraflops of GPU power using a customized design, with 1.172 GHz, 40 compute units, leveraging features from AMD's Polaris architecture.
5. Scorpio will retain the Xbox One S 4K UHD Blu-ray drive.
6. Scorpio will have both HDMI-in and out, 3x USB 3.0, a SPDIF digital audio port, an IR receiver/blaster, and will support Kinect with a USB adapter.
From the report: 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. And while 4K is the target, Microsoft is paying attention to 1080p users, promising that all modes will be available to them.
1. Project Scorpio has 12GB of DDR5 RAM, clocked at 6.8GHz with 326 GB/s bandwidth.
2. Scorpio will be powered by eight CPU cores. It's a custom design sporting 2.3GHz, with a 4MB L2 cache.
3. Project Scorpio will feature an internal PSU (245W) and a compact design, leveraging the advanced cooling techniques pioneered by Microsoft's leading industrial design team.
4. Project Scorpio will achieve six-teraflops of GPU power using a customized design, with 1.172 GHz, 40 compute units, leveraging features from AMD's Polaris architecture.
5. Scorpio will retain the Xbox One S 4K UHD Blu-ray drive.
6. Scorpio will have both HDMI-in and out, 3x USB 3.0, a SPDIF digital audio port, an IR receiver/blaster, and will support Kinect with a USB adapter.
From the report: 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. And while 4K is the target, Microsoft is paying attention to 1080p users, promising that all modes will be available to them.
1080P 'modes'? (Score:1)
Microsoft is paying attention to 1080p users, promising that all modes will be available to them.
Meaning what?
Also, 6.8GHz on the RAM? Goddamn.
Re:1080P 'modes'? (Score:5, Informative)
That's GDDR5 so it will be counted as quadpumped. In reality it's 1700MHz, slightly slower than a 170€ RX 470 right now. At the stated throughput it's 384bit wide which is fairly obvious with 12GB of RAM.
40CUs with Polaris CUs means 8 more than a RX 470, but it only has "some Polaris features", not all apparently, no real Polaris level GPU then. RX470 has 4960 GFLOPS with 1206MHz clock, so this one will be clocked at ~1150 or less to be able to reach 6000 GFLOPS (they like to add in the few GFLOPS of the CPU cores to inflate the numbers). A RX 480 you can buy off the shelf usually reaches 6000 GFLOPS too.
The CPU seems to be the same higher clocked Jaguar core, same cores just with more L2 cache than before.
So: the original XBox One was a Kabini 8 Core with a DDR3 crippled Radeon 7850, the new one is a tweaked Kabini with a beefier RX 480 videocard and finally decent RAM for its purpose.
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So: the original XBox One was a Kabini 8 Core with a DDR3 crippled Radeon 7850, the new one is a tweaked Kabini with a beefier RX 480 videocard and finally decent RAM for its purpose.
Xbox One GPU is a DDR3 crippled 7750-7770. It was the original PS4 that had a 7850-7870.
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Unless AMD is very quick with implementing DDR5... But it seem weird and I assume they mean GDDR 5 too.
A lower clocked Ryzen 7 1700 with RX 480 would cost ~$500 right now and then there's everything else so a good deal.
Weird PCs doesn't do better with multi-core designs considering how the consoles are speced.
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But they need to utilize 8 threads on the consoles anyway. Or well, not if the OS reserves some for itself.
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That's GDDR5 so it will be counted as quadpumped. In reality it's 1700MHz
Ah, of course. Thanks.
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Having read the Eurogamer/Digital Foundry articles, the quote you pick out appears to mean that users with 1080p displays will be able to enable supersampling, where the console renders an image at 4k but then displays it over a 1080p output.
It's basically a very, very resource heavy version of antialiasing and has been available in many PC games for years now.
12GB over how many channels? (Score:2)
12GB over how many channels?
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Dual Channel gives less than a 5% performance increase over single-channel RAM. It's almost always better to skip the DC kit in favor of just more RAM.
12 from the sound of it (Score:2)
GDDR5 (I have to imagine DDR5 was a misprint) has a 32-bit wide memory controller. It then gets the bandwidth by stacking those in parallel. So 384-bit = 12 32-bit controllers.
Um... (Score:2)
4. Project Scorpio will achieve six-teraflops of GPU power using a customized design, with 1,172 GHz, 40 compute units, leveraging features from AMD's Polaris architecture.
Can someone who does GPU architecture confirm whether this is a) a typo, b) for real, or c) proof that Microsoft has finally invented a time machine, but is using it to do some oddly mundane shit?**
**Compared to, you know, going back and killing Hitler or snapping a selfie with Actual Jesus.
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Commas don't have their place in numbers, they can mean too many things.
- Decimal point in some countries
- Digit group in some other countries
- Separator between numbers
- Their usual meaning in a sentence
It can often be deduced from the context but there are cases like that where it is not obvious. It is worse when software is involved.
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More likely it is in the euro-version of the metric system, you may read it (in your best Imperial Units voice) as 1.172Ghz.
I'd Rather Read it as Doc Brown (Score:2)
To be fair, that is how the scientists told them it was pronounced.
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To be even fairer - it sounds cooler that way. For years after we had learned the SI prefixes in school I still wondered about what fantastic scale "Jiga-" must lie on :)
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1.21 Gigawatts, Great Scott!!
redundant release? (Score:1)
Hopefully the new Xbox will be less redundant than the including "Scorpio" in each one of the OPs specification points 1-6
The only informative part of this news is Forza does 60fps.
What about what really counts? VR performance.
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Not even close, no.
Anyway, 245W is pretty damn low by gaming machine standards.
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Yup, Microsoft pulled the same trick as they did to Original Xbox owners again. Aka, announce a console, then after a short period of time announce a second console, radically different and hence by definition incompatible.
Dude, despite the significant upgrades in hardware it's still ultimately just a bunch of x86 CPU cores paired with DirectX compatible graphics running the same OS. It's being presented as a mid-gen upgrade with 100% backwards compatibility, with custom profiles being generated for each and every existing game to ensure that compatibility. No, it is nothing like the Xbox 360 launch.
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There was a time when you paid $200 to get a console because it was $200 and games worked. You could play games on PC, except you had to futz around with autoexec.bat and config.sys to exclude drivers so you had 770k of conventional RAM or DOOM wouldn't run. Eventually, you could play games on PC, but the games cost $60 and you had to spend $400 on upgrading your video card every 4-6 months, so you spent a lot just to play games. $200 for a 10-watt console playing $20-$50 games for the next 3-5 years wa
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Holy Crap flashback Batman! I sadly remember these times, lots of people won't. We're so retro...
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I don't know that its quite as a bad as all that yet but I agree with your point. The big draw with consoles is they just worked and the life cycles were fairly long.
You did not bring a game home and find out it runs terribly on your video card and you need a better one despite what the system requirements state. You don't install an updated video driver to make your latest game work, and find out you now get weird glitch black boxes in the menus when you run your old favorites.
What was great about consol
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Now you spend $400 on a console that has 6 separate models
2 models.
your version might not play the game without long-ass load times
No evidence of that.
so you have to spend $600 more for the new one
They have not released the price of Scorpio. I doubt it'll be $600. And if you are happy with your current console running 1080p60, great.
Then they make it modular, so you have to keep buying RAM and GPU modules to upgrade for $200 every several months.
No, they aren't doing that.
The console also eats 245W of power, so playing for 4 hours per day is like an extra 15% on your electricity bill.
That's the console's fault? If you want better performance, the power requirement is higher. If you don't, stick with a lesser performing console. P.S., 245W is very reasonable for a gaming setup.
Then the console idles at 30W all the time
Try turning it off.
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2 models.
XBox 360, XBox 360 Elite, XBox 360 Arcade, XBox 360 S [250/4/320]GB models, XBox 360 Pro, XBox 360 Super Elite, XBox 360 Core. The Arcade has 256MB or 512MB of on-board memory; some models don't handle HDMI; and the low-storage models have to read from disc which, for some games, takes a minute or two to load large sets of assets instead of 10-15 seconds from hard drive.
That's the console's fault? If you want better performance, the power requirement is higher.
The Switch eats under 20 watts. The Wii U eats under 10 watts at full load. The Playstation 3 uses 170+ watts to play a movie. All o
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radically different and hence by definition incompatible
What the hell are you talking about. There's nothing by definition incompatible in those specs. In fact if anything if you have been paying attention to anything Microsoft has done in the past 4 years you'd realise that there is nothing incompatible in the xbox world anymore. Write once run anywhere programs in the brave new Unified Windows Platform.
CPU architecture (Score:1)
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Even if it adds instructions, so what? A game targetting both platforms would need to be developed with both platforms in mind.
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Backwards compatibility is for looking backwards. Its not about new games that can (and almost certainly would be) be cross-compiled, its about old games and not having to keep two consoles taking up space and standby power if it can be done by one and so on.
If they're purely adding instructions then that's almost certainly not a problem. But if they're removing or changing existing instructions, then all old games would have at least a chance of failing (how big a chance depends on which instructions and
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Oh, right. I think the probability of them removing instructions is close to nil.
I hope there's no modern games out there that use busy-loop timing
Agreed it's not likely. The Xbox One S had a slightly greater GPU clock-speed, so non-uniformity in the Xbox One platform isn't totally new.
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Yeah, the summary got it wrong. It's GDDR5, which, as you were getting at, isn't at all the same thing as DDR5.
I'm just here... (Score:2)
If you need me, I'll be in my hammock.
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Dafuq? Costco has 40" 4K TVs for $289. Bought one to use as a computer monitor, it's insane! They are getting cheap.
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Oculus/Vive/VR? (Score:1)
pioneered by Microsoft's leading industrial design (Score:1)
Supposedly, It will have "the advanced cooling techniques pioneered by Microsoft's leading industrial design team.".
Would be the industrial design team responsible for the Metro Interface? The design team responsible for the insufficient cooling on the Xbox360 that gave birth to the infamous RRODs? Perhaps the design team that thought that huge, hot power bricks were a good idea?
I'm far from favourably impressed by Microsoft's Design teams.
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Hardware... Software... Totally the same, I see why you might be confused (my sarcasm filter is broken today, so it doesn't register for me. So sad)
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Going from TFA, it appears to refer to vapour-chamber cooling. Now that's not actually an MS innovation; it's already in use on tech such as very high-end PC graphics cards (it's on the Nvidia 1080 Ti in my PC). But this is probably the first time it's been used in a piece of mass-market hardware like this.
Wake me when it's shipping (Score:2)
It's Microsoft we're talking about here. MS is notorious for promising vaporware so people wait for its product and don't buy an already existing one on the promise that Really Soon Now (tm) they can buy the MS equivalent.
I'll judge those specs when the console ships. Until then, you can promise 8k gaming and 512gigs of ram. Hell, I can promise you that. Sure, the console will ship in 2026, but you only asked for the specs, not when it's available.
Why is Microsoft working on Project Scorpio? (Score:2)
Shouldn't it be GlobEx? They could put Homer Simpson in charge of it, if Hank Scorpio is too busy!
What does that even mean, a "performance overhead" (Score:1)
"and it hit 60 frames per second with a substantial performance overhead" - What does that even mean, a "performance overhead"?
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I assume it means staying at 60 rather than dipping below during busy scenes (it could average above 60, but it's locked at 60).
one question (Score:2)
Can you install linux on it?
More CUs than in 480 (Score:2)
480 has 36 units (AMD's "Polaris" chip, competitor of 6Gb version of 1060)
PS4 Pro has kinda weaker 470 (no serious competition on nVidia side, price wise it is close to 1050Ti, but it is 30% faster)
CPU is still Jaguar, although on a new process node and much higher clocks.
All in all, it is a faster than PS4 Pro "Xbox One Pro" from Microsoft.
Much more serious jumps will become possible in 2019, when Zen and Vega mature.
Scorpio v. Apple? (Score:1)
I'm no chip designer, but wouldn't this destroy any current Apple offering short of the mostly defunct Mac Pro?
I mean, yeah, the i7 MBPs go up to 3.6Ghz, but the vast majority are dual core.
Too little too late (Score:2)
On the high end it's already outperformed by even a 1070, and launching expensive as a premium system, and is restricted by a software library that must remain compatible with the 1.3 tflop Xbox One. Developers won't want to be designing two discrete games. The system also barely has time to get off the ground before the next generation of consoles expected in 2019, or at the very least Sony's 3 year follow up to the PS4 Pro (which came 3 years after the PS4), whatever form that will take.
It doesn't seem li
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I am REALLY hoping they upgrade the video before they release it.
So, basically, it matches a current gaming PC (Score:2)
So, basically, it will be of the same performance as a current decent gaming PC.
Da Hell?
NVidia GTX 1070 is at 6.5 TFlops.
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And at 245W. That's the part that really boggles me. Its difficult to find a graphics card that requires less than 300W, and gaming-quality cards seem to bottom out around 400-450W. Some of the top end cards are looking at 750W. The 1070 you bring up is 500W.
(Recommended system PSU according to http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page362.htm [realhardtechx.com].)
So they've either gone to great lengths to reduce power consumption, or your average gaming PC is running with some serious inefficiencies (
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Will it have a new Kinect? (Score:1)
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I guess they only have to do better than the PS4 Pro.
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Not to burst your bubble, but.. People didn't want 3d in their TVs with basic glasses. What makes you think they want it in their living room with whole head helmets?
I agree that it IS amazing. But the technology has been available for years in the arcades. The arcades that have survived? Are generally full of pinball machines.
I remember the Battletech themed arcades. I have to remember them since, they're mostly gone and dead.
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I dont really know what the point of your post is. I didn
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VR dev checking in.
You seem to be implying that makes you have some sort of inside knowledge, but it's quite the opposite. How subjective are you to how normal people view and perceive VR when it's your job day in and out?
It will see wide use in arcades, architecture visualization etc. The tracking tech itself will go on to see use in many industries. Think Lighthouse guided Roombas, etc
So everything other than the use case we are discussing here: console gaming?
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I use my holodeck every day.
Or, to put it another way: You don't live in the city, you have a software developer's income, and you have no kids.
It's either that or rich parents.
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No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
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It's gen 1 and clunky still but it's making games wonderful and new again. VR is far from a fad. It's total immersion!
AR is also going to be huge. There is a place for both.
Gen1?! More like Gen3. I have a set of VirtualIO iGlasses from the 90's. The resolution sucked but PC's of the day couldn't spit out 1024x768 @ 30fps with all the detail cranked much less 1080p. VR has been around a long time, the tech is just now catching up with the dream at a price mere mortals can afford.
As for AR, I don't see it being incredibly useful for gaming other than cheesy ass find-the-pokemon style bullshit or AR chess. As a tool it could be neat for CAD and such and I can see some indust
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I remember playing Heretic on a 90's VR set up. Maybe I'm weak, but that shit made me want to barf after 5 minutes and I haven't considered VR since. Do modern VR systems still induce motion sickness?
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I don't care about the motion sickness
Huh. It's the number one reason I wouldn't pick up a VR headset at this time.
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It will always be an issue with certain games. If you "see" yourself moving but you really aren't, you can experience motion sickness. No bumps in frame rates or detail will ever fix that.
It was never a big deal to me, even with 90's era VR HMDs. I never really got sick. Some people will lose their lunch quick but those people can't deal with 3D movies for any length of time either. Sometimes certain types of tech aren't for everyone. It doesn't have to be for everyone though. A product doesn't have
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I'm not going to go through the effort of throwing on $800 headgear to play a jigsaw puzzle game. Dollar general has the real thing for $1.50.
Dollar general does NOT have a Messerschmidt Bf109 I can strafe Russians in for $1.50 so a Rift is probably as close as I'll get.
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AR and VR are different.. There are a multitude of games and movies you're not going to want to play or watch in AR. You'd fully break the immersion.
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I'm not so sure about this. People do like the idea of "really" being in a game. Yes, the current models are mostly overpriced toys, and the games that you get for them are glorified tech demos that rehash the same idea over and over and over, but the technology is already pretty advanced and the computing power is there to make it work and it is actually more entertaining than frustrating already.
It's one of the few times when a technology hit the market when it was actually at least mostly ready. Next gen
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I wish it were true but as far as I can remember every tech platform that ended up being successful had a "killer app" in its targeted niche by the time it was first released. PC, Internet, PS/Xbox, mp3 players, iPhone 1... The killer app was what was *driving* the development of the platform. VR doesn't seem to have one though. It's not games, and I don't know what is. Some people say porn was the driver of most tech so will do the same for VR, but I don't see people clamoring for VR porn yet. It's almost
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It's one of the few times when a technology hit the market when it was actually at least mostly ready.
This technology has been hitting the market badly for a couple of decades now. What's astonishing is that people have persisted as many, many companies have gone under until now, when the market is indeed mostly ready.
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I think the big difference is that this time the equipment is actually affordable and consumer-ready. We're talking about a few 100 bucks for the hardware and you don't need a master's degree in computer science to set it up.
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the technology is already pretty advanced and the computing power is there to make it work [..] Next gen will already be the one that is "there".
The number one limiting factor with VR is motion sickness and the fact that your body does not experience the motion presented on screen. Solving this would require some sort of at home motion device, and the whole thing just seems too bulky and impractical for widespread adoption.
VR will be "there" when we've got neural implants and a connecting socket [youtube.com] on the back of our heads.
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It's not that bad, what really causes most motion sickness is lateral movement. As soon as you're moving to the side or spinning, things get ugly. If that can be limited or eliminated, the effects on most people aren't too bad.
What you can do so far is work around it. Either create a game where you are stationary (i.e. a single room scenario, with the VR room being, in size and borders, identical with the room you actually are in), or by making games where you "jump" from one location to the other, i.e. the
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There are practical uses to VR that will take it mainstream. Today, I use VR to help me figure out directions to new routes by virtually driving those routes. It helps me to know what lane to be in, etc...
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VR & AR are like desktops vs mobile. In theory AR can do everything VR can do, and do it while you're out interacting the world, but while VR is tethered and physically isolating, it's also FAR better at providing many kinds of experiences, those where isolation doesn't matter or is actually a benefit. Just like how mobiles are popular and useful, but there's a lot they don't do well, and desktops remain vital for a lot of tasks.
Re: Consoles and Console Manufacturers Suck (Score:2)
You know that the Xbox Scorpio and PS4 pro both share a games library with their precessor, right? You're not just ranting about a nonissue due to your ignorance?
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No, he was ranting about an issue brought up by the post to which he was directly replying, which suggested that he switch to PC gaming. Not quite the same thing.
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What? The CPU and GPU are both by AMD, as with the original Xbox One.
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Norman Haga is a known OS2/Warp shill. He takes any and all opportunities to bash Microsoft and Windows NT.
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Then why comment on this story?
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But your ASSumption is wrong.
Oh I see what you did there! What are you like 6 years old?
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What? Why?
They delivered on the Gamecube and the Xbox 360 back when they were ATi, they delivered on the Xbox One and the PS4... I'm not seeing a reason to assume they're going to screw up the Scorpio, other than a pre-existing personal dislike of AMD.
Re: Ok... (Score:2)