Xbox One S has a faster GPU, improves performance on certain games – Digital Foundry

The new Xbox One S features a faster GPU over the original Xbox One console, Digital Foundry has discovered, resulting in improved performance on certain games.

Games like Project CARS and Hitman can both hand in higher frame rates on the new console, the outlet reports, while Rise of the Tomb Raider and Batman: Arkham Knight both suffer from less tearing.

That’s due to the console’s GPU being overclocked from 853MHz to 914MHz in the Xbox One S, resulting in improved compute performance (up from 1.31TF to 1.4TF) and ESRAM Bandwidth, which increases from 204GB/s to 219GB/s.

The intention behind the extra power, Microsoft says, is to let developers create HDR-supported titles with no hit on performance. But as an unexpected bonus, it’s also been opened up to all titles.

It won’t improve performance in all games, however (Fallout 4 and Resident Evil 5 being named as two of them), with the improvement most likely to be noticed in titles that feature an unlocked framerate or dynamic resolution.

“By making this change, developers creating HDR titles do not have to incur any performance hit,” senior director of marketing and planning Albert Penello told Digital Foundry. “We also decided to make the extra six per cent available to all titles. So some games (ones that utilise dynamic resolution and/or unlocked framerates) may see a very minor performance improvement. Our testing internally has shown this to be pretty minor, and is only measurable on certain games, so we didn’t want to make it a ‘selling point’ for the new console.”

Digital Foundry’s video shows examples of the improved performance, highlighting Project CARS as a game that benefits from the extra power quite significantly.

“Xbox One S, yes it is faster,” says Digital Foundry’s Richard Leadbetter. “Are you likely to notice the difference? In the majority of cases, probably not. But yeah, it adds a small layer of additional polish to some games, and when you can’t reach the framerate targets on older Xbox One hardware this one will get you closer to 30fps, 60fps, or whatever.”

Xbox One S launches today for £349.99. You can order the console from Amazon.co.uk(?)

Source: Digital Foundry, eurogamer.net