Xbox Series S GPU has 20 CUs Running at 1.550 GHz, to Support Ray-Tracing, According to Source - News

Hot damn! If that was the case I can see why Xbox is not revealing it early. This is why I think the controller compatibility is a great idea.

It will support RT, as that is part of the RDNA-2 architecture and necessary for it to play Xbox Series X games. The idea is you have to have a GPU that has all the capabilities, like ray-tracing or variable rate shading, but just "less" (smaller) so that it can play the same games with the same graphics effects, just at a reduced resolution. Digital Foundry did a great article showing PC games at the same ultra-settings would play at 1080p/60fps on a ~4TF GPU, but then needed a ~10+TF GPU in order to run in native 4K at the same settings. In other words - you need to go from 4TF to 12TF just to hit native 4K at the same graphics level.

Thank you :) Do not know much about all of this. I my mind it was just another "chip" they added to support RayTracing :) I understand it is one single APU, but just for the sake of explaining my understanding.
Well, this is good news, I really like this approach.

@ Imaginedvl: It is definitely a pro's and con's type of approach.
Pros: If you only have a 1080p TV (and let's be honest, that has got to be a big percentage of gamers still), then in theory, the Xbox Series S will give you the same next-gen games with their next-gen graphics and physics and fast loading, as the big boy Xbox Series X. That is pretty huge.
Cons: If the divide between the two is mostly resolution, with maybe a few other things (slightly enhanced shadows, etc. maybe), then that means the main (only?) reason to spend more on the XSX is if you have a 4K TV. Current sales between PS4/PS4 Pro and XOne/XOne X show that the vast majority of gamers don't seem to care about getting a system powerful enough for 4K gaming...
Cons: And further on that topic, that might also limit what games can do. What I mean is, if the only thing most developers can do with XSX is run at native 4K, it is sorta wasting that machine's potential. On PS5, a developer is actually free to target checkerboard 4K and really pump up the graphics, for example. I'm not sure how things like that would work if you always have to take into account a 4TF Xbox Series S. You might have to cut into the graphics more than to get it running smoothly, as just dropping the checkerboard 4K to native 1080p wouldn't be enough.

I still see some devs developing games that won't be over 1440p on PS5. But then sure it could be 720p or 900p upscaled to 1080p on Series and no one would really mind it. Not to mention MS could put an internal scaller to make it do 4k on the TV.

Funny how you started off by saying that consoles are more optimized than PC. Then you used Digital Foundry's experiment as an example where they used PC to conclude how consoles would perform.

Those Digital Foundry experiments are extremely flowed and pointless. You cannot use PC with the same specs as a console to conclude how a console would perform especially next gen consoles. For example no PC has the same SSD and custom I/O setup as the one in PS5. Consoles are a lot more efficient than PC especially in running games. One of the reasons is that in a console pretty much everything e.g. CPU, GPU, RAM ...etc are all integrated in one board whereas in a PC you use cards in slots. In consoles there is, as you mentioned, a lot of optimization and customization many of which are proprietary that cannot be found in any PC yet. Because of the those customizations it is very difficult to predict which console will perform better than the other. Teraflops and raw compute units are not hugely relevant in consoles otherwise Xbox 1x would be a lot more superior compared to Lockhart. So I would not really take what Digital Foundry say too seriously.

GoldenHand you can keep the simple analysis. 1/3 the power for 1/4 the resolution should keep the rest more or less the same making it able to run all games on Series X.

@DonFerrari you're missing the point

And what is the point? There will be plenty of gaming PCs nextgen that will be less powerful than Series S but will still be supported. MS will certainly launch their games on it as well so I see no point. If you were claiming exclsuives would be hold down and the like I could agree somewhat. But to claim that games designed to be 4k60fps on Series X can't be 1080p30fps (or even better) on Series S is wrong from what we know so far.

@DonFerrari you are so missing the point. My comment has nothing to do with Xbox or PS. It's a criticism of how Digital Foundry conduct their experiments and make conclusions.

Your point would still be weak since they used disclaimers and don't say that would be the exact performance (it they thought it was then they wouldn't need to test PS4 and X1 version of games, they would just use a PC with same configuration of PS4, Pro, X1 and X1X and not look back). They simply demonstrated that with the specs of rumored Series S it would be possible to run on 1080p games designed for 4k on PS5 and Series X. Again you overcomplicated the DF discussion.

Lol you're so funny. But yeah whatever floats your boat.

What makes you think it won't support all XbSX games? The fact that it has the same CPU and they're trying to support ratracing, makes me think the goal is for them both to be fully compatible with one another.

Guys it literally says Series X exclusives under the "backwards compatibility" section (weird place to put it yea). Might not be many and might only be later in the gen, but they're pretty much confirming there will be games than can't be played on the Series S.

Yah well if you read on side, you need to read the other one :)
It also says "next gen supports" for Series S. So when the OP says it won't play "next gen games". We are not talking about exclusives which my be something different.

But this is not from Microsoft; cause in any case all the wording in the whole slide is weird and very confusing anyway. Microsoft or any official thing will not have "next gen supports" and then "Series X exclusives" on both side, makes no sense. So yah, based on everything else we know, both console will play next gens (at different resolutions/FR)

OP said it won't play ALL next-gen games so IF it the Series X has exclusives, then he is right, even if "splitting the userbase" is an overstatement. The Series S having "next-gen support" and the Series X having exclusives are in no way mutually exclusive concepts. It's true that this is not official though, so nothing here is the final verdict, but while it sounds plausible that Microsoft requires all games too be able to also run at Series S for now, realistically games will be heavier in 5 years, especially since many multiplats might be developed mainly with PS5 in mind, so the series X eventually having some exclusives seems very believable to me.

Don't think it will be the case. The only games Series S won't play are the ones that Series X won't play as well due to being exclusives to other platforms. But sure we can be wrong and some dev refuse to launch a game on Series S and Xbox allow them to launch it only on Series X, but I seriously doubt it.

They can just scale the games down, same as they do on PC.