Xbox One GPU fine tuned for better performance

As Microsoft is getting closer to the launch of the Xbox One, their final specs and features for the console are falling into place. The company has recently been talking about the new Xbox Live features with Smart Match and Reputation Ranking system, but the actual hardware is still being fine tuned as well. According to Xbox exec Marc Whitten, the Xbox One GPU has actually gotten faster since the console was initially announced.

We’ve tweaked our clock speed on the GPU from 800 to 853 MHz

According to Whitten, who recently spoke about the console on the Major Nelson podcast, the console has been optimized as a final product.

“This is the time where we’ve gone from theory of how the hardware works—what do we think the yield is going to look like, what is the thermal envelope, how do things come together—to really having them in our hands. That’s the time where you start tweaking the knobs because either your theory was right dead-on or you were a little too conservative or you were a little too aggressive.

An example that’s actually been really good news for us, an example of that is we’ve tweaked up our clock speed on the GPU from 800 MHz to 853 MHz. Just an example of how you really start landing the program as you get closer to launch. It’s just an example where we really get close to the final performance envelope of how the box works and really making sure we have a great product for our developers to build great games against.”

It’s hard to tell what these speed increases mean in the big picture of their arms race with Sony, but more speed is certainly better for the Xbox One.