Xbox One bumps up GPU speed by 7 percent

Xbox One developers will have access to slightly more GPU power than expected, with the clock speed bumped from 800 to 853 MHz.

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Xbox One developers will have access to slightly more GPU power than expected. When Microsoft announced the console, the GPU clock speed was cited as 800 MHz. However, Microsoft's Marc Whitten has confirmed that the GPU will be overclocked when the console ships later this year. The new clock speed is 853 MHz--a 7 percent increase.

"This is the time where we go from the theory on how the hardware works... to really having them in our hands. That's the time where you start tweaking the knobs. Either your theory was right, or you were too conservative," Whitten told Major Nelson in his latest podcast.

Increasing the clock speed may cause concern over potential overheating--an issue Microsoft will want to avoid given the RROD fiasco of the 360 generation. However, it appears the system was designed with heat in mind. One rumor suggests that the console was designed to be on for ten years continuously. With always-on no longer a requirement for the console, it's likely Microsoft has some wiggle room to overclock its GPU.

The surprise performance boost for Xbox One is undoubtedly good news. However, even with the increase in clock speed, Xbox One may still be unable to match PS4 spec. But as these two consoles become increasingly similar, the gulf between them is becoming ever smaller.

Andrew Yoon was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

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  • reply
    August 2, 2013 6:00 AM

    Andrew Yoon posted a new article, Xbox One bumps up GPU speed by 7 percent.

    Xbox One developers will have access to slightly more GPU power than expected, with the clock speed bumped from 800 to 853 MHz.

    • reply
      August 2, 2013 6:02 AM

      Interesting, perhaps the shit yield rumours are untrue! - with the ESRAM and this bump - the gap is closing up a bit there.

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        August 2, 2013 6:04 AM

        [deleted]

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          August 2, 2013 6:10 AM

          CBOAT - and for the most part he was bang on consistently - very consistently.

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            August 2, 2013 6:19 AM

            [deleted]

          • reply
            August 2, 2013 7:25 AM

            except when he wasn't

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              August 2, 2013 7:29 AM

              Please be providing links to where he wasn't - because he pretty much was.

              • reply
                August 2, 2013 7:35 AM

                http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=62291087

                ^_^ onlingamingpayo.w.-allklk for Sony? ahha nope.noconfirm

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                  August 2, 2013 7:42 AM

                  Well he got that wrong, he also said "noconfirm" - and pretty much everything else was right - and fucking fresh info purely from him and no other source. So I'm going with CBOAT on this one, sorry.

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                    August 2, 2013 7:47 AM

                    What does noconfirm actually mean in that "sentence" he is confirming it as no, or he has no sources that confirm it? Because you can see elsewhere in the thread where he doesn't elaborate on xbone DRM because he can't get corroborating proof which would imply the first.

                    It's not like we're taking about him being wrong about Mirror's Edge 2 being at the MS presser. The PS4 paywall was actually a big deal.

    • reply
      August 2, 2013 6:02 AM

      Good to hear they were able to get that.

    • reply
      August 2, 2013 6:03 AM

      That's good to hear. Hopefully the cooling is more than adequate and won't lead to any RROD equivalent.

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        August 2, 2013 6:14 AM

        I can speak with full authority of having no clue - the Xbox One cooling is exceptional. The ArsTechnica (or was it wired) article on designing that console shows they clearly, clearly put some fucking effort in to that thing hardware wise. The specs might not be PS4 level but I'm betting it's as quiet as a fucking mouse and likely reliable to boot.

        The PS4 might be fine, it might even be as good - I can't see how it can be better though. The Xbox One is larger, it has slower running components and less of them and the power brick isn't inside the box. They put the thing in one of the quietest rooms in the world to test it,......


        All of my post is based on gut feeling and following hardware / PC's and consoles for a long long time. It doesn't take a genius to know - bigger case, less components, slower components is probably going to be quieter.

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            August 2, 2013 6:56 AM

            I'm all for giving MS shit when they deserve it but I completely believe them on this. The wired article was too comprehensive, the 360 too damaging. I'd almost take bets we'll see PS4 failure rate significantly higher than the Xbox One. Hell the PS4 is almost too fucking slim.

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              August 2, 2013 7:27 AM

              What odds are you offering?

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                August 2, 2013 7:57 AM

                Tempted to bet money on this, I'm pretty confident but not confident enough to risk my coin.

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              August 2, 2013 6:51 PM

              This is what I'm expecting too. MS obviously erred on the side of caution here.

              • reply
                August 2, 2013 7:49 PM

                Good to see you posting man, didn't see much of you for a while!

        • reply
          August 2, 2013 7:27 AM

          Yeah, they wrote off a billion dollars for the 360 problems and extended warranty. No way they're doing that again.

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          August 2, 2013 8:47 AM

          That was my first conclusion at the reveal: a huge box = better cooling, no repeat of the RROD scandal

    • reply
      August 2, 2013 6:04 AM

      I'm pretty sure we won't be able to see much difference in framerate and visual quality between games when these consoles hit.

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        August 2, 2013 6:12 AM

        By that do you mean that you think both systems will run about the same as is, or that the gap will be closed with tweaks leading up to launch?

        As is, they have a pretty significant gap, and at this level, little milestones can make a world of difference in the way a game handles framerate and different rendering tricks it can pull.

        I recently upgraded my PC and just because of my ram, I still can't pull off an acceptable framerate in the Witcher 2 ( which I am replaying before the third one hits sometime after console launches ) with the Ubersampling turned on. Once I pick up a set of ram for about 30-40 $ I should be able to pull it off.

        I only say this because the small price and specs between ubersampling on and off, which changes the way the whole game feels in my opinion. Small things like that can make all the difference between these two consoles.

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          August 2, 2013 7:28 AM

          Smart money will stay far away from either console and buy a PC, imo. Regarding W2, with my former gpu, an HD 5770 1GB Ubersampling slowed things down to a slide show under 8GBs of system ram--couldn't use it. My new GPU is a 2GB HD 7850, clocked @ 1.05GHz/5.8GHz (barely gets warm), with the same 8GBs of system ram, and Ubersampling runs so well I forget it's on and have to check to make sure! Lol. (Under Win8x64) No trouble at all with W2 anymore. Best investment is GPU first, system ram later (unless you are already very low on ram--say, 2-3GBs, for instance. Only then would I get the ram first and then the gpu.) My standard game res is 1920x1200--better than 1080P. ('Course, I can drop down to 1080P if I should ever want to.)

          To put things into perspective, although my 2GB 7850 cost $180 shipped to my door (NewEgg), at its present clocking--which I see no reason to change--it's about 25% more powerful than the PS4 GPU and about ~45% more powerful than the xBone GPU. With today's pricing I can take the $500 for xBone and build a much faster PC with at least 2x the hard drive capacity--which I can upgrade at will, replacing components as I see fit, when I see fit--and I have the ultimate in backwards game compatibility. With PS4 and xBone you have zero backwards compatibility. I'm running 20-year-old + games on Win8x64 and having a ball with some of them. There's no gaming platform like a PC. Period.


          • reply
            August 2, 2013 8:03 AM

            Hahahahaha

          • reply
            August 2, 2013 8:10 AM

            You're young aren't you?

          • reply
            August 2, 2013 8:12 AM

            very true. now imagine a PC plus a console!

            • reply
              August 2, 2013 8:41 AM

              WatchDogs and Red Dead Redemption are going to be sooooo fun on a PC in 2018.

          • reply
            August 2, 2013 8:22 AM

            Ah, this post.

          • reply
            August 2, 2013 8:29 AM

            Welcome young Padawan! The things you'll learn here!

            • reply
              August 2, 2013 8:48 AM

              You all are mocking him but he is correct. I'm saying this as a PC gamer that also owns a ps3.

              • reply
                August 2, 2013 8:50 AM

                his point is technically correct but his delivery is more of the same snide, arrogant PC master race bullshit that is so tired.

                i have a nice PC which i love. i play old games, emulated games, new games, casual games on it. console ports. i have a joystick and a controller for it. if i wanted to hook it up to my HDTV it would be a breeze. steam is amazing. i have a mechanical keyboard and $100 mouse. but that should in no way detract from the enjoyment i get from my consoles in the living room. i've never seen it as a competition. consoles and PC supplement each other. if you can only afford one ecosystem, great, enjoy the fuck out of it, but don't go backwards from that to justify why your choice is the best and only one.

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                  August 2, 2013 5:36 PM

                  it's not that arrogant. "Wait and see" is a viable tactic at the beginning of a new console generation. Also imagine connecting your PC to a TV and playing PC games in the living room from the comfort of your couch. Science fiction, I know.

          • reply
            August 2, 2013 8:48 AM

            You are clearly poor.

            Shackers are going to buy a valcan_s rig as well as 2-3 XBones and PS4s each.

            Fuck the Wii U, though.

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            August 2, 2013 8:50 AM

            Why do you need a 2GB 7850 to run games that are twenty years old?

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            August 2, 2013 9:38 AM

            You'll have a wonderful career in sales or management.

          • reply
            August 2, 2013 7:14 PM

            Thanks to Steam (and also I guess, being an adult with a career), my PC game library of very good games to finish is practically infinite at this point. So yeah, being satisfied with PC gaming is easy. And the games typically are better on the PC.

            That being said, the consoles will get a title now and then that is just amazing, like The Last of Us, or Shadow of the Colossus, and having access to those experiences at the moment when everyone is falling all over themselves about how amazing it is, is kinda good. The hype elevates the experience a bit.

            Like a lot of other people with lightning bolts around here these days though, we are in a phase of our life where the impact of the cost of these things is very different to us than it was when we were arguing over PS2s, Pentium Pros, N64s. It's not as easy to appreciate the need to pick one thing because you can only realistically have that one thing.

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        August 2, 2013 7:22 AM

        I agree with this. With the platforms being rather close I can easily see developer having a set of commons in terms of performance that's 'good enough' for both systems and leave it at that. It doesn't sound like the platform-specific advantages are as large as PS3 vs 360. So, that would translate into more effort for the next gen to capitalize on the additional performance for less gain.

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        August 2, 2013 8:27 AM

        the ps4 is faster, if they give all things the same, the framerate will be faster on the ps4. no matter what

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          August 2, 2013 8:40 AM

          yeah, weirdly I think the two being closer in architecture and potential than last time will actually result in slightly more pronounced differences. The trend will also be clearer, with less ports where people say "fuck it, just ship it with the slowdowns" due to the complexity of low-level tweaks.

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        August 2, 2013 10:14 AM

        I think we'll see one or the other. Many games will probably look identical with the PS4 having either a higher steady frame rate or just fewer slowdowns. Or worst case, if a game never slows down on the Xbox, the ps4 will just match it exactly.

        In some cases though, I could see them having similar performance with just a couple little extra bells and whistles in ps4 graphics.

      • reply
        August 3, 2013 12:21 PM

        I'm thinking that multiplatform games will look similar, console exclusives might be another thing though.

    • reply
      August 2, 2013 6:15 AM

      Sony gamescom announcement. We have bumped our gpu and cpu clock and now have 2TF of POWER!!

    • reply
      August 2, 2013 6:22 AM

      So if you never announce specific specs, because specs don't matter.

      Then come out like yay our specs matter now because it's x% better. Who are they trying to convince with this shit?

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      August 2, 2013 6:39 AM

      Hello, Microsoft Heat Death! What's the new RRoD?

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        August 2, 2013 8:23 AM

        Do you honestly think they haven't spent a huge amount of their engineering time to ensure that nothing like the RROD happens again?

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          August 2, 2013 12:26 PM

          I imagine they've put some thought into it, and I also imagine they didn't plan on OCing it at the time. I'm sure management is quite willing to eat whatever margin of safety was there to make them competitive with the PS4.

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            August 2, 2013 5:30 PM

            I just can't see them being willing to even possibly repeat the same mistake given the huge PR and financial hit they took last generation.

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              August 2, 2013 5:55 PM

              I think they're stupid enough that it just might work.

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              August 2, 2013 6:49 PM

              They don't have a recent track record of making the best decisions.

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            August 2, 2013 5:36 PM

            They wrote off ONE BILLION dollars. It will not happen again.

            ONE BILLION

            • reply
              August 2, 2013 6:23 PM

              Meh, they wrote off $900M for the Surface RT price drop.

              "History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme." -- Mark Twain

              • reply
                August 2, 2013 7:43 PM

                Two completely different things. One was a design flaw with a massive warranty and the other simply failed in the marketplace.

    • reply
      August 2, 2013 6:43 AM

      Sony fans should be happy about hearing this. Cross-platform games are going to be built on the lowest common denominator, which is the One. This means that the PS4 won't be hitting it's full potential. The better the One, the more of that potential the PS4 gets to use.

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      August 2, 2013 8:44 AM

      But I wanted 50% :( Nonexistent-order cancelled.

    • reply
      August 2, 2013 8:44 AM

      the fierce competition has really whipped both sides into shape this time. Either means a golden age, or a bunch of copies of CoD being buried in the desert.

    • reply
      August 2, 2013 9:11 AM

      The effects of this speed boost are so minimal, I can't even believe its a story. Good on MS, I guess. The more power the better.

    • reply
      August 2, 2013 9:43 AM

      Probably will lead to better framerate, but more artifacts on screen, occasional crash. Wont overheat. Its not Cpu they're overclocking.

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