Xbox One Gets Last Minute CPU Boost

[Steven Bogos]

Xbox One Gets Last Minute CPU Boost

Microsoft is now in full production for the Xbox One and is still on schedule for a November 2013 launch.

Microsoft have announced one final performance boost for the Xbox One, which has just entered full production ahead of its November 2013 release date. A last-minute change will see the console's CPU performance upgraded to 1.75 GHZ from 1.6 GHZ. This news comes after confirmed reports [http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/02/microsoft-confirms-xbox-one-gpu-boost] last month that Microsoft had beefed up the Xbox One's GPU clock speed from 800 MHz to 853 MHz. Overall, it looks like we are getting a slightly more powerful machine than we first expected.

Xbox chief marketing officer Yusef Mehdi, speaking at the Citi Global Technology Conference, confirmed that Microsoft is now in full production for the Xbox One and is producing the machine en masse. He did not, however, offer a solid release date, simply saying that the system is "really going to shine," and "This will be the biggest launch we've ever done by a wide margin in terms of units shipped at launch."

For the record, Sony have yet to announce the PS4's clock-speeds, but rumors suggest it is around the 2.0 GHZ mark. The Xbox One's GPU shader throughput is now closer to 1.33 TeraFLOPS/s, while PS4's shader is estimated to be around 1.84 TeraFLOPS/s.

Is this last minute performance update enough to sway you over to Microsoft's side, or are you worried that they are still tweaking the console considering it will be on store shelves in two months?

Source: Phil! [http://www.geekwire.com/2013/xbox-update-console-full-production-improved-cpu-performance/])

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[Saulkar]

Still not interested. For the first time I will purchase a Playstation and give it to myself two months used for Christmas.

I do not know why but just remembered I used to play a game on my cousin's original Playstation where you drove a tank in first person on alien worlds and constructed bases and units that you could take over like an RTS. Man, the nostalgia!!!

Back on track, there is nothing Microsoft can do at this point to win me over.

 

[The White Hunter]

Okay so they boost the CPU clock speed.

How does it change performance? Thats a pretty small boost in speed.

 

[Yopaz]

Just mentioning this FLOPS = Floating-point Operations Per Second there's no need for that /s as it's already included in the original acronym.

Not sure what to think about this. This late in its development cycle changing clock speeds without sufficient time to test enough might cause some problems. Here's hoping we don't see them repeating the red ring of death. I'm not planning to get one regardless of that, but it would be nice to see them care a tiny bit about the consumer for once.

 

[Alleged_Alec]

Yeah... This is not going to horribly wrong or anything. It's not like we had huge overheating issues in the last generation.



Also: seriously? Only 1.33 TFLOPS? My 560 GTX ti, bought two years ago and already a good bit below the top of the line GPUs has 1.26 TFLOPS. I'm not impressed, Microsoft.

 

[TomWiley]

Still not interested. For the first time I will purchase a Playstation and give it to myself two months used for Christmas.

I do not know why but just remembered I used to play a game on my cousin's original Playstation where you drove a tank in first person on alien worlds and constructed bases and units that you could take over like an RTS. Man, the nostalgia!!!

Back on track, there is nothing Microsoft can do at this point to win me over.

This console generation sure is off to an interesting start:

consumer: "If Microsoft takes away DRM I'll probably get one."
MS: "We have taken away our DRM policies"
consumer: "still not buying, they shouldn't have done it in the first place."

consumer: "If Microsoft changed their indie policy I would probably buy one"
MS: "we have changed our indie policy and all consoles will be dev kits"
consumer: "Still not buying, i don't even like indie games"

consumer: "if they included a headset i would probably buy one"
MS: "We will be including a free headset with the xbox one"

consumer: "Still not buying, PS4 is more powerful"
MS: "We amped up the performance of the xbox one"

consumer: "Oh well, still not buying. I've hated them for so long I might as well hate them some more!"

 

[N3squ1ck]

This all just smells like marketing to me.

Like they planned that well ahead and just now release that info, so it feels like they would be catching up to the PlayStation 4

 

[RicoADF]

This console generation sure is off to an interesting start:

consumer: "If Microsoft takes away DRM I'll probably get one."
MS: "We have taken away our DRM policies"
consumer: "still not buying, they shouldn't have done it in the first place."

consumer: "If Microsoft changed their indie policy I would probably buy one"
MS: "we have changed our indie policy and all consoles will be dev kits"
consumer: "Still not buying, i don't even like indie games"

consumer: "if they included a headset i would probably buy one"
MS: "We will be including a free headset with the xbox one"

consumer: "Still not buying, PS4 is more powerful"
MS: "We amped up the performance of the xbox one"

consumer: "Oh well, still not buying. I've hated them for so long I might as well hate them some more!"

We don't trust them, they say a lot but I'm waiting to see if they do what they say. I might get one in a few years when it's cheaper.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Microsoft don't know how to treat customers, I'm staying away from this.

 

[viranimus]

I do find this a bit perplexing. Now I get optimization and all, I get the need to raise the tech bar from the current generation, but with all the pissing and moaning that started to show up about 2008-2009 that "WE NEED NEW GENURASHEUN!!!" to first see the hype period of 6 months between official announcement to release and then see that the technical hardware particulars are still being nailed down, I really have to wonder why this was not a little better planned for than this?

Dont get me wrong, Who doesnt like a little extra horsepower, but to do a switch like this two months before anticipated release for what when is all said and done will be a nominal speed increase does sort of cast an aura of confusion and lacking professionalism. It almost feels like one of those watching a car crash from a distance vibes. You see it coming. The signs are there. You can tell it is going to happen. You are powerless to avoid it and all you can do is sit there and watch as it all happens.

Not trying to sale the console is going to be a failure. Just saying this is another one of those signs that makes this honestly feel eerily reminiscent of all the buildup after the announcement of Win8 and what it had no other alternative but to turn out exactly as it did.

 

[Sol_HSA]

I do find this a bit perplexing.

Microsoft has had problems with their communication for some time now, so I'm not really surprised..

 

[Tanis]

If the Xbone has some kind of RRoD issue...I'm gonna laugh.

So hard...so very very hard.

 

[alj]

Congratulations Microsoft you know how to change a CPU multiplier.

 

[Kahani]

Is this last minute performance update enough to sway you over to Microsoft's side

Absolutely. The only thing that prevented me from running out to buy one when I first heard it existed was my concern that the CPU was 0.15 GHz too slow.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

I do find this a bit perplexing.

Microsoft has had problems with their communication for some time now, so I'm not really surprised..

Saying MS has communication problems is a massive understatement.

I'm honestly surprised by this news, generally you want to lock in your hardware months before production starts so you can iron out all the bugs before full scale production.

This increase can be seen as a bad thing, 3 months to test, build and ship isn't much. If they miss something or the console goes boom after 6 months then MS will be trouble.

 

[Hazy992]

Upping the clock speed by such a small amount is barely going to do anything performance wise. I don't know why they bothered in all honesty.

 

[Johnny Wishbone]

Weren't there reports coming from the devs months ago about Microsoft having to throttle back the CPU and GPU speeds by as much as 30% because they were having stability issues with the hardware and couldn't make it work at native speeds? If that's true, then even this "boost" is still less than what the console hardware should be capable of. It wouldn't surprise me a bit to see Microsoft roll out "performance enhancement" patches over the first couple months of the console's life to slowly crank the speeds up to what they should already be at (if they could get it right in the first place).

Of course, they will spin it as "giving the consumer added value" instead of "you bought a gimped console and we're finally letting you get what you paid for."

Why yes, I am a cynical bastard. When it comes to Microsoft, I have every right to be cynical.

 

[Teoes]

Upping the clock speed by such a small amount is barely going to do anything performance wise. I don't know why they bothered in all honesty.

It allows them another bullet point in the marketing spiel about how awesome their new console is. That's about it.

 

[Sol_HSA]

I'm honestly surprised by this news, generally you want to lock in your hardware months before production starts so you can iron out all the bugs before full scale production.

Nah, they probably just found that they get acceptable yields with the now-published clocks so they decided to go with it. It's not like they're swapping one piece of hardware with another or anything.. =)