New Xbox Rumors: $249/$499 Consoles, 1TB NVMe SSDs, Ray-Tracing Support

Megalith

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Grab the salt: a redditor on r/xboxone teased the supposed specifications and pricing of the upcoming Xbox consoles and PS5 last week, and while it has since been removed, some of that information has been confirmed by a “verified” ResetEra member. There will be two Xbox consoles; the successor to the X (Anaconda) will be priced at $499 (Navi @12+ TFLOPS, 16GB GDDR6), while the all-new streaming box (Lockhart*) will cost $249 (NAVI @4+ TFLOPS, 12GB GDDR6). Both will feature a 8C/16T Zen 2 CPU, 1TB NVMe SSD, and DirectX Raytracing. The PS5 has slightly lesser guts compared to the X2, but is priced at $399.

"The hardware is partially true," the post reads. "Storage is true. Raytracing is true. Lockhart is not streaming box. Xbox SoC codename is Anubis, check AMD's plan. MS AI is not a part of the hardware, in other words, never heard of TPU or ASIC like it. How to implement Raytracing? See GDC 2019. Why they make a decision like Lockhart? See GDC 2019. Why there still no DevKit? After GDC 2019."
 
This could be interesting, I can't wait to see RayTracing on AMD gcn to see if they can pull this off at 12flops I wonder if it will be limited to global illumination with no reflections.
 
>8C/16T Zen 2 CPU, 1TB NVMe SSD, 16GB GDDR6, Navi GPU
>500 USD

laughter.gif
 
Nope. Wouldn't surprise me if they still have spinners. Also the cost to go NVMe over a SSD makes no sense.
 
harvest the 1tb ssd and sell off the console.

profit!

Lol, naw it will be a QLC 1Tb drive, meaning not really worth much as they are pretty cheap. Samsung are going for 150$ currently and prices are expected to fall more there have been random sales of 500gb for 58$ sata m.2 from crucial, as well as a 1tb qlc name for 150$. So not really worth it.
 
Going back to the 80s I Can't recall a new console gen I was less interested about these two new ones. Even the neogeo and sega satyrn/cd had had more compelling gimmicks.
 
Heh, I predicted NVME for next-gen consoles a week ago as NVME prices are dropping fast. Ray tracing will be great though.
 
Going back to the 80s I Can't recall a new console gen I was less interested about these two new ones. Even the neogeo and sega satyrn/cd had had more compelling gimmicks.

I think they're pretty interesting- not sure I have personal interest, but they are pushing performance and featuresets, and they're coming at a time when low latency, high frequency, variable refresh TVs will be available.
 
Complete BS.

I think 8 Zen 2 or Zen+ cores WITHOUT SMT and some sort of Navi chip with 8 to 12 GB of unified memory. No way Navi will have ray-tracing specific acceleration.
 
Complete BS.

I think 8 Zen 2 or Zen+ cores WITHOUT SMT and some sort of Navi chip with 8 to 12 GB of unified memory. No way Navi will have ray-tracing specific acceleration.

Lisa Su has already said they have RT acceleration in the pipe. In the pipe is Navi. I have no doubt the AMD chip going into the next gen consoles is going to be powerful. SMT on or off costs nothing more really... the only reason some chips sell without it is defective silicon. Selling non SMT versions of x86 anything at this point means they have fused off some non working bits.

These specs do seem a but out there for 500 bucks... but who knows If the launch is 2020 that might not seem quite as crazy.
 
Moving to SSD is one of those things with consoles that I'm up in the air about. HDD is just so much cheaper, when every penny counts, it's hard to see how they would justify it.
 
Both info including the "verified source" are fake or passing on rumors. But I do love hardware gossip. Keep it coming, the crazier the better.
 
I don't get the cheaper $250 Xbox that is suppose to be for cloud gaming? It looks to have half decent hardware to play games, so I don't get the streaming part.
 
But will developers prioritize FPS over graphics?
Some say the current consoles have too weak of CPU to support 60fps.
If true, then the Zen 2 shouldn't have that problem (at least I hope not).
 
Moving to SSD is one of those things with consoles that I'm up in the air about. HDD is just so much cheaper, when every penny counts, it's hard to see how they would justify it.

Volume, both with flash production and with volume purchasing.

That and you just don't need that much storage on consoles.

One would expect the ability to use external storage as well. Now what would be cool would be the ability to use SMB or other network-based solutions to extend storage.
 
I believe the specs on the 499 box even if they use nvme 1tb. I am sure they will use custom one with average speeds. Could also be just m2, which would be fine.

As for the 250 dollar Xbox. Not sure. I mean if it is supposed to be cloud-based or not. I don't see 1tb nvme, zen 2 8c/16thread, 12gb GDDR6 happening. I mean if the purpose of the box is low-mid range and cloud based gaming. Not sure if it needs zen 2 8 core goodness.
 
Saw this on Tweaktown a few days ago but didn't bother posting since they are WCCFtech v2.0.

The 16GB of GDDR6 is just too damn pricey for a console. Same goes for the NVME drive.
 
Saw this on Tweaktown a few days ago but didn't bother posting since they are WCCFtech v2.0.

The 16GB of GDDR6 is just too damn pricey for a console. Same goes for the NVME drive.

well in 2020 it probably wont be that bad. I think you are looking at a box that they probably looking at a box they will barely break even on but I am still thinking they will be selling it at a loss of 50-100 but they more then make it up on the software side of things. I am suspecting late 2020 for launch on these consoles. So by then it would be over 2 years for GDDR6 and SSD prices will likely be much lower as well.

But that xbox looks to be a monster in specs though. I think we are looking at more then double the speeds of previous gen.
 
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The 16GB of GDDR6 is just too damn pricey for a console.

This is one of those instances where HBM makes a bit of sense, combined with DDR4- the Vega GPUs are expensive because they use the largest HBM die available and this would be considerably smaller, similar to how Intel's collaboration with AMD does.
 
Volume, both with flash production and with volume purchasing.

That and you just don't need that much storage on consoles.

One would expect the ability to use external storage as well. Now what would be cool would be the ability to use SMB or other network-based solutions to extend storage.

yes you do need that much storage..hell i wish i had a 2 or 3 TB drive on my PS4, bought my son a wrestling game last week and after all was said and done it took up over 60 gigs of space, would like to be able to keep all his games on the system but the drive is way to small. we had to remove another big game just to get it to fit.
need a hot-swapable drive.
 
I find it interesting that medium/ high end PC GPU's need a super duper large sized cooler to perform like they do but consoles claim they will give similar performance (like their 4K claim) all the while fitting the GPU into a small cigar box sized enclosure :barefoot:
 
I find it interesting that medium/ high end PC GPU's need a super duper large sized cooler to perform like they do but consoles claim they will give similar performance (like their 4K claim) all the while fitting the GPU into a small cigar box sized enclosure :barefoot:

Yeah, not to mention a larger power supply.
 
I'll admit that I love seeing 2 separate news articles referencing the ResetEra forums.

As far as the streaming Lockhart box; I wonder what kind of uptake it'll have in the market. The price is pretty alluring though so perhaps it'll do better than I think it will.
 
I could see the NVME storage actually being memory and a controller built directly into the main board and connected through PCIe, if they drop the optical disk they could even omit the SATA controller and save a few bucks there.
 
Most of these rumors just seem to be an extension of what current PC parts seem logical. No great insight on the guess work.
How will the consoles differentiate themselves? I mean the important parts are all AMD. So what is going to be different between them? If they are both targeting the same price points how different can they be?
If one pulls RT, does the other have to follow? If both consoles incorporate RT then AMD instantly takes the RT lead in hardware in-spite of any lead Nvidia will have gained in the mean-time. The amount of specialized programing that will be dedicated to the console RT, if it is a feature, will translate immediately to AMD's future GPU's on PC.
Realistically I'm not sure if RT will be in. Why stress an evolving console with a feature that is currently extremely poor and expensive? Are things going to change that much in a year?
I still currently see VR as more of a draw then RT. VR and consoles in general need more FPS. RT does the opposite. How is that good for a resource/cost limited console?
 
Most of these rumors just seem to be an extension of what current PC parts seem logical. No great insight on the guess work.
How will the consoles differentiate themselves? I mean the important parts are all AMD. So what is going to be different between them? If they are both targeting the same price points how different can they be?

Not hard to answer that one , look at current get , even if the hardware was exactly the same , the software is what counts.
Each company focuses on different areas , Sony is more into exclusive and peripherals like VR , while MS is more focused (in last 2 years) on a large gaming library subscription with tons of content and backwards compatibility.
 
Moving to SSD is one of those things with consoles that I'm up in the air about. HDD is just so much cheaper, when every penny counts, it's hard to see how they would justify it.

HDD's are too slow to keep justifying them, when playing state of decay 2 on the xbox one x which is open world, I already had a bunch of times a loading screen mid game where the machine could not keep up with me.

This bottleneck is only going to increase with higher res textures etc..
 
They need to keep to magic price points. My "dad" reaction to magic prices means starting at $299 - less is better of course. $499 would not be an option for my house.
What would be interesting is if Microsoft supports other apps on this device - essentially, embrace your foundation and make this a family computer (think back to the days of the C64/Atari/Apple II). If it did that, I think they might be able to get away with $499 in many more sales.
 
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