Xbox Series X: Full Specs Revealed

[Paul2]

The full specs list for Xbox Series X has been released.
The specs were revealed in an Xbox blog post, and you can see the full list below.

Those specs also confirm what the Series X's mystery port is for - as Digital Foundry reports, Microsoft and Seagate have made a proprietary external 1TB SSD that can be plugged into the console for extra storage. Essentially, it's a giant memory card.


CPU: 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.8GHz (3.6GHz with SMT)
GPU: 12 TFLOPs, 52 CUs at 1.825GHz, Custom RDNA 2
Die Size: 360.45mm2
Process: TSMC 7nm Enhanced
Memory: 16GB GDDR6
Memory Bandwidth: 10GB at 560GB/s, 6GB at 336GB/s
Internal Storage: 1TB Custom NVMe SSD
I/O Throughput: 2.4GB/s (Raw), 4.8GB/s (Compressed)
Expandable Storage: 1TB Expansion Card
External Storage: USB 3.2 HDD Support
Optical Drive: 4K UHD Blu-ray Drive
Performance Target: 4K at 60fps - up to 120fps

Digital Foundry's testing includes some impressive reading. The Series X processor, for instance, is powerful enough to run four Xbox One S game sessions simultaneously. Ray Tracing - a major point of pride for both Xbox Series X and PS5 - is also delivering apparently incredible results. Dedicated hardware inside the Series X seemingly means that the console can handle more intensive Ray Tracing than expected, harnessing the equivalent of 25 teraflops of power, despite the console's GPU having 12 Teraflops.

The Quick Resume feature continues to sound impressive, too, storing game states in the SSD and allowing you to turn off, unplug, or update your console, then boot directly back into the game, where you left it running. Per the Xbox blogpost: "One of the testers on the team unplugged his console for a week, then took an update, and was still able to continue right where he left off without so much as a loading screen."

One major point covered in today's news is the benefit of Series X on older games. We've already learned that Gears 5 will have a Series X port, free to those who already own it; however, Microsoft has also discussed a curated list of Xbox One games that it will work to improve on the new hardware, upping resolutions and potentially doubling frame rates.

The Series X is also seemingly capable of applying convincing HDR effects even to games that weren't designed with that functionality in mind. Digital Foundry was shown both Halo 5 and original Xbox title Fusion Frenzy (released well before HDR was a going concern), running with what was apparently a real-looking HDR effect. This is system-wide, and should apply to any game capable of running on Series X, no matter its age. This tech can also be used to add colourblindness modes to games that didn't support them at the time.

We also got a true sense of the console's size today, using a banana for scale (and a fridge, just for the fun of it).

As pointed out by Austin Evans, the console's internals include a Master Chief Easter egg - which the Xbox One X also did. It's becoming a bit of tradition.

https://www.ign.com/articles/xbox-series-x-our-best-guess-on-pricing-based-on-fully-revealed-specs

sounds very interesting about xbox series x.  i think microsoft made a mistake by naming their next generation xbox as series x which will confuses consumers between xbox one x and xbox series x.

sony is going to announce something about ps5 later today and i am curious what they will reveal.  probably specs of it and maybe pictures of the console too.

[Paul2]

...Today, gamers are demanding more and more games run at 60 frames per second (fps) with high visual fidelity and precise, responsive input. Developers have come up with creative solutions, such as dynamic resolution scaling, to maintain high image quality while not compromising on frame rate, but this is often done to work around the limitations and constraints of current generation hardware. That’s all about to change with Xbox Series X. "It’s not just about making games look better, though. It’s about making games play better too," Microsoft says.



“While the Xbox Series X will deliver a massive increase in GPU performance and continue to redefine and advance the state of art in graphics with new capabilities such as hardware accelerated raytracing,” said Jason Ronald, Director of Product Management on Xbox Series X, “we don’t believe this generation will be defined by graphics or resolution alone.”

The next generation console can run games in 4K at 60 fps with no compromises for developers. The console's developers also challenged themselves to deliver a level of performance once thought impossible on console, including support for up to 120 fps for the most demanding and competitive games. While they believe resolution and frame rate are creative decisions best left in the hands of title developers, the team wanted to ensure the system was able to support the needs of the largest blockbusters, competitive esports, and independent creators...

...

AMD and Microsoft worked together for several years to design and optimize every aspect of the Xbox Series X System on a Chip (SoC). Key features include:

-CPU computing performance powered by 8 “Zen 2” CPU Cores (16 Threads)

-A customized GPU based on next generation AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture with 52 compute units to deliver 12 TFLOPS of single precision performance, enabling increases in graphics performance and hardware accelerated DirectX Raytracing and Variable Rate Shading

-New gaming experiences with seamless content paging from the SSD to the GPU based on the Xbox Velocity Architecture

-A 320-bit wide GDDR6 memory interface

-The custom RDNA 2 GPU and “Zen 2” CPU Cores, SoC accelerators and re-architected software stacks will enable gamers to see better image quality, higher resolutions, more stable frame rates and much shorter boot and load times.

-The Xbox Series X SoC was architected for the next generation of DirectX API extensions with hardware acceleration for Raytracing, and Variable Rate Shading.
Xbox Series X will support the latest HDMI 2.1 specification, with support for 4K up to 120 Hz, as well as Variable Refresh Rate and Auto Low Latency Mode.

One of the biggest (and most noticeable to players) features in Xbox Series X will be support for hardware accelerated DirectX Raytracing, which simulates the properties of light and sound in real time more accurately than any technology before it. Clayton Vaught, Technical Director for Minecraft, provided a technical demo of how raytracing could impact one of the world’s most popular games.



Switching back and forth between current visuals to hardware accelerated DirectX Raytraced visuals, Vaught walked around a pre-built Minecraft world to show off the ways realistic lighting completely changes the game. Shadows cast from objects soften or harden depending on how far away from the object you are, while lava gives off a warm orange glow that dissipates over distance and reflects off of minecart rails. Even the moon casts its own rays, streaming down through cracks in the walls and reflecting off particles in the air. The Raytraced visuals fundamentally change the way Minecraft feels, drawing the player in and immersing them in a much more realistic world.

The most impressive feature was the way light now passes through transparent objects like glass, picking up the color on its way to your eyes. This was demonstrated while walking through a hallway lined with a veritable rainbow of colored glass cubes, each of which cast a different colored shadow on the floor. The big wow moment came from the most unassuming of substances: water. With raytracing on, water was now fully transparent and allowed light from the moon to pass through it to the player underneath and realistically reflect off the seaweed swaying in the current..

To close out the segment on the power of Xbox Series X, The Coalition’s Technical Director, Mike Rayner, came up to show us how his team is planning to optimize Gears 5 for Xbox Series X. The team showcased a technical demo of Gears 5, powered by Unreal Engine, for Xbox Series X using the full PC Ultra Spec settings, which included higher resolution textures and higher resolution volumetric fog, as well as a 50% higher particle count than the PC Ultra Specs allowed. They also showed off the opening cutscene, which now runs at 60 FPS in 4K (it was 30 FPS on Xbox One X), meaning the transition from real-time cutscenes to gameplay is incredibly smooth.



There were also some noticeable improvements in a few other areas as well. Load times were extremely fast, and Microsoft's team was able to turn on some features that, while previously implemented, had to be turned off for the Xbox One X version. This included contact shadows (providing extra depth to objects) and self-shadow lighting on plants and grass, making every scene feel more realistic. Rayner also shared that the game is already running over 100 FPS and that the team is investigating implementing 120 FPS gameplay for multiplayer modes, giving players an experience never before seen on consoles.



...The next major tenet of the Xbox Series X is speed, which can be defined in a large number of different ways. Most of us want to be able to instantly jump into an experience or return right to where we left off. This influenced the team designing the system architecture, as they wanted to ensure they enabled gamers to spend more time playing and less time waiting.

A big part of that revolves around the addition of a solid-state drive (SSD).

Enter Xbox Velocity Architecture, which features tight integration between hardware and software and is a new architecture optimized for streaming of in game assets. Microsoft says that tThis will unlock new capabilities that have never been seen before in console development, allowing 100 GB of game assets to be instantly accessible by the developer.

“The CPU is the brain of our new console and the GPU is the heart, but the Xbox Velocity Architecture is the soul,” said Andrew Goossen, Technical Fellow on Xbox Series X at Microsoft. “The Xbox Velocity Architecture is about so much more than fast last times. It’s one of the most innovative parts of our new console. It’s about revolutionizing how games can create vastly bigger, more compelling worlds.”
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https://cdrinfo.com/d7/content/microsoft-details-xbox-series-x-technology

here is more detailed information about xbox series x and more pics.  looks and sounds very interesting.  i wonder how much something like this will cost though.

[Paul2]

Updated:

Microsoft has since deleted the original tweet and released a new one updating their plans when it comes to Backwards Compatible games running on the Xbox Series X. They now say "thousands" of Xbox One games will be playable on the Xbox Series X at launch.

"Correction: To date, we’ve spent over 100K hours testing your favorite games from Xbox One, including existing backward compatible 360 & OG Xbox games, on Xbox Series X," reads the tweet. "While we are still in the process of validating, we can confirm thousands of games will be playable at launch."


James Sherman
@JamesSh20263742
 · Mar 19, 2020
Replying to @Xbox
When you say all games are backwards compatible for the Xbox Series X does that mean every Xbox game ever made or just the ones that are currently backwards compatible?


Xbox
✔
@Xbox
Correction: To date, we’ve spent over 100K hours testing your favorite games from Xbox One, including existing backward compatible 360 & OG Xbox games, on Xbox Series X. While we are still in the process of validating, we can confirm thousands of games will be playable at launch.


Original:

The official Xbox Twitter account announced all Xbox One games and all currently Xbox 360 and original Xbox Backwards Compatible games will be playable on Microsoft's next generation console, the Xbox Series X.

This news follows the announcement from Sony that most of the top 100 most payed PlayStation 4 titles will be playable on the PS5 at launch.

Microsoft earlier this week revealed the complete specs for the Xbox Series X, as well as diving into the details of the changes to the Xbox controller for the Xbox Series X and revealing the dimensions for the console.

The Xbox Series X will launch in Holiday 2020.

https://www.vgchartz.com/article/442837/all-xbox-one-games-will-work-on-xbox-series-x-updated/

Another great news, all or almost all of older generation xbox games from original xbox to xbox 360 to xbox one will be forward compatible on xbox series x.  not only that but they might get higher and/or stable frames rate and/or higher resolution too with the help of the higher clock frequencies of the cpu and gpu i think.  cool! 

[Titan]

Well they did name their third generation console the Xbox One. So confusing people with weird names is kinda what they do.

[Paul2]

lol titan.  that is so true.   but why did they do that though as i wonder.

[Caio]

The GPU is 12,155 TFLOPs, 52 CUs at 1.825GHz, Custom RDNA 2.

 Great Job, and yes, MS did very well with this XSX, the Hardware is fantastic. I hope Halo Infinite will be what Halo was for the first XBox !

[BizioEE]

EXCITING Xbox Series X Rumor Details MULTIPLE Xbox Digital Events | Fable, Halo Infinite and More!

[Titan]

I just realized the new Xbox looks like my Alexa. It's kind of a weird design IMO.