Home / News / Microsoft exec explains Why They Boosted Xbox One GPU clock by 6%

Microsoft exec explains Why They Boosted Xbox One GPU clock by 6%

By on August 3, 2013

xbox one high res screenshot 5

Microsoft earlier confirmed that they were going to increase the clock speed of the Xbox One to 853mhz, and while this offers exactly 6% more performance from what it was earlier, there will be benefits to that, according to Microsoft’s Albert Penello.

He revealed that Microsoft had “set aggressive targets for reliability, performance, yields, and noise.”

Rock-solid reliability was also one of the main design goals behind the system.

“We set aggressive targets for reliability, performance, yields, and noise. Those things always have to be balanced. We want this box to have rock-solid reliability,” he wrote on GAF.

“We want it to be DEAD quiet (and let me tell you, X1 is quieter than the new Xbox 360 we just released). And we wanted killer game performance. But those targets are in conflict with each other.

The reason why they went ahead with the GPU clock increase was that they were actually able to exceed their goals on thermals and acoustics.

“What we’ve found through the development process is we were able to actually exceed our goals on the thermals and acoustics,” he added.

“This gave us headroom to increase the clock speed without any hit to noise, reliability, or heat, so we took the opportunity to bump the GPU. I get it’s only 6% or so, but that could translate to a few FPS in the real world.”

According to some math, this bumps up the Xbox One GPU performance to 1.31tf, but Penello wasn’t sure about this and he doesn’t want to say anything about it until he gets a satisfactory answer from the silicon team.

“I’m confirming with the silicon team how this impacts ESRAM and TFLOPS. I’m pretty sure but I don’t like to post without being 100% sure,” he wrote in another post.

Along with the clock speed increase, Microsoft have also created some new drivers called “mono” which essentially allows deeper coding to the metal and developers can extract more performance from the system.

Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

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  • http://www.originalplots.com/ OriginalBryGuy

    I think Microsoft saw this video.

    http://kotaku.com/ps4-vs-xbox-one-a-hypothetical-graphics-comparison-976352430

    Realized the PS4 is going to have higher frame rates because of DDR5 after all, and they’re trying to compensate by trying to up the GPU clock speed.

  • Emezie Aneke

    More Good news

  • Imran Ahmed

    Great keep it coming Microsoft listen to the developers/indie and the consumers and u can’t go wrong

    Microsoft+indie/dev+consumer= success

  • Jeffrey Alexander

    It’s a small step, but it’s a step.

    Still planing on playtime being a 60/40 split between Xbox One and PS4, with Wii U getting 100% once they release something I want to play…

  • cozomel

    This sucks, I wish the PS4 would up its gpu to 850mhz, and also its cpu to at least 2ghz and if it has been disabled, enable to other two CU’s. But I guess the good news here is that the multiplats will be better for it, cuz we all know they are developed to the lowest common denominator

  • Albert Zweistein

    “According to some math, this bumps up the Xbox One GPU performance to 1.31tf, but Penello wasn’t sure about this and he doesn’t want to say anything about it until he gets a satisfactory answer from the silicon team.”

    He didn’t mention any value in TF in his comments, only stating he will confirming (= approve) the impact of the boosted GPU clock to the ESRAM and the TF performance. He explicitly denies any confirmation on the rumors XBox One GPU has about 1.2TF. I think we will see the raw performance after HOTCHIPS where they have a session about the XBox One SOC.

    So stop doing math on unconfirmed rumors, please!

    • cozomel

      are you smoking something, after the xo reveal the tech panel guy they had on after it, said it has 768 shader cores and runs at 800mhz, that right there confirmed it. This was a lead developer of the system. Plus Sony has confirmed its 1.84Tf whereas MS hasn’t, why do you think that is? Let me give you a little hint, its because its lower and they don’t want you to know that.

      • Albert Zweistein

        I have nothing said about the PS4 because they have announced already their TF value, but MS has not, so it is still speculation.

      • Zach

        Do you just spend your whole day going around to x1 articles and cry because the Ps4 isn’t as good as the X1?

        • cozomel

          You obviously do. And its funny how the technically superior and cheaper system isn’t as good to you. Yup you’re just a fanboy. Now stop talking me, kid, go outside, do something other than sweat me

          • Zach

            Your comments have now ceased to make sense, Congratulations…

          • cozomel

            bye, Zachie you lego maniac

        • Kenny

          Not as good as Xbox 1? It’s the Xbox that’s playing catch up. Last time I checked, the PS4’s specs still blow the Xbox 1 out of the water even with this measly tweak with the clock speed.

          And Guess what? A $500 PC blows them both out of the water. At least the PS4 will have true exclusives

  • abberjam

    Albert “Hardware Specs Are Meaningless” Penello explains the importance of an extra 53Mhz…..

  • mike

    Whether they do in on Xbox one or the ps4, we, gamers, won’t say NO to it.
    Sure, 6% extra power isn’t that big. But,for example,it could be used to add an extra layer of polish/anti-aliasing to a game, making it look even better.

    That’s why I will be happy with even 1% of extra power.

    Consoles are known for never evolving during its lifecycle. Maybe next gen, when they release a slim version, in a couple of years, they won’t even need a fan , anymore, and since the power consumption may decrease a lot, they could overclock the whole GPU/CPU, by 10 or 20%, which could bring us even bigger and better looking games.

  • Digitally Afflicted

    Sad, ms is trying so hard. Every time they do improve they x1 they admiting how bad the start of x1 was :) love it

  • Jackal Ysasaga

    I’m honestly kind of expecting a lot of these consoles to burnout like the 360 launch models unless they are planning to actually compensate for the additional power usage. In a sense, overclocking in itself shortens the consoles lifespan which isn’t nice for something $500-600 bucks.

  • Marlon

    Xbox One is powerful and nobody even knows it. All they see are Shaders/ Rops, DDR5 and Tflops and base their opinion on that. Developers consider specs “theoretical performance.” There’s always some numbers that people war over, that have little to do with the over all picture. Years ago, it was shear MHZ’s and now, GHZ’s doesn’t really matter…operations per cycle do. When I overclocked my CPU from 3.6ghz to 4.6ghz, I seen 5-8% difference, depending on the game and how much CPU it uses. People have also touted polygons, pixels, colors; “My card supports xxxxxx millions of colors.” These days, it’s Flops and shaders…which I doubt anyone really knows what a floating point operation is, or that it even stood for that.

    The real innovation comes from software, that’s the side that should scare everyone, particularly, Sony fanboys. Why? Microsoft has been doing API’s, SDK’s, and drivers and PC game support since, before Sony knew they wanted to get into consoles. The problem with hardware, is that software is the layer of the onion that gets in the way. Each year…heck, “month,” Microsoft is filing away patents on new and innovative software methods and DirectX features/ abilities. The better the software and tools, the less of a hindrance it becomes to the hardware. I am referring to drivers, API, OS, SDK’s and even, the software the dev teams are using…many, of which, are custom, in-house developed software. This is why all specs are theoretical…and now, you know why developers say, “these consoles are the same f***ng thing.” as Capcom has said, as Crytek has said etc. They use the same APU family, and same GPU family…that’s all that matters. They don’t care that Console A has “xxx TFlops” and console B has “xxxx shaders.” They look at those numbers and say, “well, that’s how much overhead we have to work with…and it’s essentially the same…now, let’s create!” What they do care about, however, is how to achieve working within those limits and that’s where things differ on the software end. Each of these consoles have the same essential specs, with minor intricacies that differ on how you extract their performance. This is why you haven’t seen many 1080p games on X1. Extracting the performance and resourcing is different. The same theoretical overhead exists on both consoles, but it’s going to be a slight learning curve for the X1…nothing like the PS3’s, however. Square Enix must have figured it out already, they’re touting 1080p for their reconstructed Tomb Raider title. However, it is up to Microsoft to further include tools to make resourcing and extraction easier, via, SDK. Also, the Xbox’s new monodriver, gives it the “direct to metal” edge.