We now know the most important specifications of Project Scorpio, Microsoft's next Xbox.
Even since it was announced during the Xbox press event at E3 2016, Microsoft's mid-generation successor to the Xbox One was said to be more powerful than Sony's 4K-capable PS4 Pro. And now we know that for sure.
On Thursday 6 April, the techy partner to Eurogamer, Digital Foundry, revealed that it had seen the new console running at Microsoft's Redmond HQ. It has also got permission to reveal the specs.
- What is Project Scorpio? The future of Xbox explained
- PS4 Pro vs Project Scorpio: What’s the difference?
Project Scorpio will have the following inside, a smorgesbord of confirmed high-end components that greatly overshadow the Xbox One S:
- Processor: Eight custom x86 cores clocked at 2.3GHz
- Graphics: 40 customised compute units at 1,172MHz
- RAM: 12GB DDR5
- Memory bandwidth: 326GB/s
- Hard drive: 1TB 2.5-inch drive
- Optical drive: 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player
The main focus of Project Scorpio is delivering full 4K gaming, not just upscaled or checkerboard Ultra HD. That's a different position to the already available Xbox One S, which supports 4K Ultra HD sources like Netflix, but it cannot play games in 4K.
It is said to run games at 4K in 60fps natively. Digital Foundry claims to have seen a Forza demo running in native 4K at 60fps "with power to spare".
The optical drive is also of particular interest considering the PS4 Pro does not play 4K Blu-rays.
Project Scorpio will be fully unveiled at E3 2017 - or, more accurately, on Sunday 11 June prior to the main show opening. Based on what has already been revealed, we cannot wait.