Xbox One S gets 16nm FinFET SoC (TSMC)

[Sweepr]

Digital Foundry: Slimmer, smaller consoles are often made possible with process shrinks. Xbox One runs with a 28nm processor - does Xbox One S stick with that, or are you using a FinFET process? If you're on a smaller process, can you give us an idea of how much smaller the die is now?

Albert Penello: Correct! The SoC in the Xbox One S is designed in the 16nm Fin FET process, which results in a die that is 240mm2; 33 per cent smaller and consumes less power than the 28nm SoC in the original Xbox One.

Digital Foundry: If you are at 16nmFinFET for the new SoC, does that confirm you're using TSMC [Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company - currently producing Nvidia's new Pascal chips] to fabricate the processor as per Xbox One?

Albert Penello: Yes, for the Xbox One S consoles shipping this year the SoC is fabricated at TSMC.

www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-inside-xbox-one-s-tech-interview

 

[ElFenix]

consoles are that way ----->

 

[Sweepr]

This is a SoC discussion, not console. We don't talk about Apple / Samsung SoCs in the Mobile forums.

 

[The Stilt]

:whiste:

 

[raghu78]

Interesting information. This also partially explains the drastically reduced wafer usage at Globalfoundries by AMD in Q2 2016. I think there is a very high probability now that Project Scorpio is also fabbed at TSMC 16FF+. TSMC has the better process with superior electrical characteristics and yields.

 

[Phynaz]

Got a speed bump too.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/08/surprise-new-xbox-one-s-gpu-smooths-out-some-older-games/

 

[frozentundra123456]

Yea, but as usual the hype train got carried away in the previous threads. No Zen, no increase in shaders. Also no increase in cpu speed, just the gpu. Pretty blah overall, IMO.

 

[tonyfreak215]

This is just the slim version. It's not Scorpio.

The fact that they increased the performance at all is surprising. Usually they just do a direct shrink and leave everything the same.

 

[Dresdenboy]

OK, more performance to handle HDR.

The cores should actually be "Tiger" cores.

 

[Phynaz]

This is just the slim version. It's not Scorpio.

The fact that they increased the performance at all is surprising. Usually they just do a direct shrink and leave everything the same.

There's no such thing as a direct shrink anymore. It's been a decade since you could do that. Now you have design to the new nodes rules. Half nodes are thing of the past too.

 

[Sweepr]

7.1% higher boost - 914 MHz (1.4 TFLOPs) / ESRAM now at 218 GB/s.

DigitalFoundry tested gaming performance:

But should it have been? In the video below, you'll see the results of our own extensive testing, but the bottom line is this. At worst, Xbox One S operates exactly like the standard Xbox One. At best, we saw a 9fps 'in the moment' differential between both consoles running the same content. As Penello says, the difference presents most strongly in games with an unlocked frame-rate, but the bottom line is that even your standard 30fps capped title will see improvement if the original Xbox One hardware can't meet the performance target.

As we explain in-depth in our Xbox One S GPU benchmark analysis elsewhere, this allows games to more closely adhere to their 30fps/60fps targets and while most people probably won't be able to tell the difference, it is there and essentially makes for a more refined, slightly smoother gaming experience: fewer drops from 60fps and less tearing. And despite the overclock, the Xbox One S is indeed considerably more power-efficient than its predecessor. In our tests, it draws anything from 25 to 40 per cent less juice from the wall, depending on the application.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...as-a-gpu-overclock-and-we-have-benchmarked-it
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-microsoft-xbox-one-s-review

 

[Phynaz]

Sounds like AMD put together a really nice upgrade. Goes to show you what they could be if they weren't anchored down by GloFo.

 

[imported_bman]

Wish they had been a bit more aggressive with the clocks (1GHz GPU/ 2 GHz CPU), but MS has their reasons. I will wait for Scoprio for my Halo and NHL machine.

 

[superstition]

Sounds like AMD put together a really nice upgrade. Goes to show you what they could be if they weren't anchored down by GloFo.

Maybe Global Foundries will get better now that it has access to IBM tech.

Yea, but as usual the hype train got carried away in the previous threads. No Zen, no increase in shaders. Also no increase in cpu speed, just the gpu. Pretty blah overall, IMO.

As it should be.

Fragmenting consoles a lot is a bad idea. Consoles are supposed to give people time to build up a software library rather than have to constantly replace them.

 

[Phynaz]

Maybe Global Foundries will get better now that it has access to IBM tech.

GloFo has had access to IBM tech for a decade via the Common Platform Alliance.

http://techreport.com/review/24343/...-samsung-offer-a-glimpse-of-chipmaking-future

 

[know of fence]

Wish they had been a bit more aggressive with the clocks (1GHz GPU/ 2 GHz CPU), but MS has their reasons. I will wait for Scoprio for my Halo and NHL machine.

Isn't the new "unified platform" strategy supposed to make Xbox games available on the PC? Xbox exclusive includes windows store.

 

[Burpo]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...-VrhXz5q52V0-b_qhTWzERoCwhfw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

http://www.ebay.com/itm/172285594925

 

[frozentundra123456]

Isn't the new "unified platform" strategy supposed to make Xbox games available on the PC? Xbox exclusive includes windows store.

Off topic I guess, but I have to say it. This sounds like a great idea. However, I am skeptical, since every time MS has gotten its finger in PC gaming (post maybe Ensemble Studios era) it has been at best mediocre and at worst a disaster (cough*windows live*cough). I really dont like the idea of Windows Store exclusive PC games. Fortunately there is Steam to compete with them, and plenty of legacy games in my library.

 

[jpiniero]

TBH I am surprised AMD was able to get enough wafers to be able to release this. I see that only the 2 TB model is available now, but the $299 model is coming out on the 23rd.

MS might sell a bunch of these just simply because it looks like the 4K Bluray choices are not that great.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Yea, but as usual the hype train got carried away in the previous threads. No Zen, no increase in shaders. Also no increase in cpu speed, just the gpu. Pretty blah overall, IMO.

Are you confusing this with the PS4 Neo or Scorpio? Pretty sure Microsoft said this was going to use the same CPU and a slight bit more GPU performance just for HDR. It was known this was going to be more or less the same.

I'm actually surprised they did a die shrink since Sony was able to accomplish the same, and I'd guess that Microsoft could've gotten the extra clock speed on 28nm.

I don't even know that the die shrink offers much benefit for heat dissipation either. Could lower power use quite a bit though. I'm a little surprised that they're only seeing a 33% smaller die though.

 

[darkswordsman17]

GloFo has had access to IBM tech for a decade via the Common Platform Alliance.

http://techreport.com/review/24343/...-samsung-offer-a-glimpse-of-chipmaking-future

The bigger boost is likely from Samsung who seemed to be the one leading the 14nm process that they're using.

 

[imported_bman]

I don't even know that the die shrink offers much benefit for heat dissipation either. Could lower power use quite a bit though. I'm a little surprised that they're only seeing a 33% smaller die though.

ESRAM scaling is probably very poor, so that is probably why the die is still quite large.

 

[darkswordsman17]

ESRAM scaling is probably very poor, so that is probably why the die is still quite large.

Good point, plus the 4K decode block probably added some. Would be really curious about the power consumption, they might have favored that (since they didn't really care about pushing performance and possibly die size too much).

Was also surprised that they kept the RAM layout, since Sony had gone with denser GDDR5 to cut the amount of chips (and traces) and so were able to shrink the board size without changing the SoC.

 

[imported_bman]

Good point, plus the 4K decode block probably added some. Would be really curious about the power consumption, they might have favored that (since they didn't really care about pushing performance and possibly die size too much).

Was also surprised that they kept the RAM layout, since Sony had gone with denser GDDR5 to cut the amount of chips (and traces) and so were able to shrink the board size without changing the SoC.

I don't think anyone makes 8Gb DDR3 modules, have to move to DDR4 or GDDR5/5X to get densities higher than 4Gb per module. From the ifixit tear down it can be seen that the One S uses Samsung RAM instead of Hynix RAM. It is using what Samsung calls gDDR3, which is not GDDR3, but DDR3 made for graphics applications (probably just marketing for overspec speeds). The other change I noticed from the tear down is that the eMMC flash memory went from 4.5 to 5.0 (significant improvement in read and write speeds, and an improvement in write IOPS). It would have been nice if MS upped the eMMC memory to 32GB so that the entire OS plus some apps (Netflix, IE, Youtube) could sit on the flash instead of the HDD.

 

[Arachnotronic]

TBH I am surprised AMD was able to get enough wafers to be able to release this. I see that only the 2 TB model is available now, but the $299 model is coming out on the 23rd.

MS might sell a bunch of these just simply because it looks like the 4K Bluray choices are not that great.

Why? TSMC has a bunch of 16nm capacity online.