Redmond's company used two mainboards and the system is cooled by air pushing from the bottom to the top using a 130mm fan.
Developers have a total of 16GB of memory available, which can be used in two ways: 10GB for fast GPU optimal memory, 3.5GB standard memory and 2.5GB O/S dedicated. All this power includes the ability to expand the storage with 1TB cards, which is mounted in a dedicated slot on the back of the console, support for external HDD USB 3.2 and 4K Blu-ray drive.
Microsoft aimed for average 4K @ 60fps, which can reach up to 120fps.
One of the most important improvements have to do with loading times. In a related demo, State of Decay 2 was used, which loads 40 seconds faster on the Xbox Series X than on the Xbox One X. Moreover, Microsoft used a solid-state drive on the Xbox Series X, where speed and loading times are the focus of series X's games.
It even uses a technology called "Xbox Velocity Architecture", which helps to better integrate hardware and software to stream in-game assets.
The results are the ability to play huge open world games, with the developers able to reproduce the environment with the utmost fidelity. In addition, using SSDs allowed Xbox Series X owners to instantly restore up to three games from the point they were stopped, even after the system update restarts. The gameplay stoppage time is stored on the SSD and players are able to restore the action to the point where it was interrupted, even after weeks.
On the back of the console, 1 TB Expansion Cards designed in collaboration with Seagate is able for connection. The algorithm used for HDR backwards compatibility is based on Gears 5's HDR technology, with the ability to map different parts of an SDR image to HDR. Unlike older methods that result in pseudo-HDR, Microsoft increases the brightness of all elements of an image, with a ceiling of 1,000 nits. The feature works with all backwards compatible games.
Microsoft also introduced some of the features of ray tracing on the Xbox Series X. Ray tracing allowed more realistic changes to the game's photorealism, with improvements in shading and cinematic effects. In addition to supporting 8K gaming and 120fps refresh rate, Microsoft is partnered with the HDMI forum and TV manufacturers to integrate technologies such as Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) and Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) through HDMI 2.1. ). The above reduces the latency observed from the moment a user presses a button on the Xbox controller until the movement is displayed on the screen. The controller is USB-C technology, uses AA batteries and supports Bluetooth Low Energy. A new share button was added for sending clips and screenshots to friends. As for previous controllers, they work perfectly with the Xbox Series X.
SPECS
Price: $499
Release date: November 10 2020
Processor: 8-core, 3.8-GHz AMD Zen 2
GPU: 12 teraflop AMD RDNA 2
RAM: 16GB GDDR6
Storage: 1TB custom NVMe SSD
Ray Tracing: Yes
Maximum resolution: 8K
Optical drive: 4K UHD Blu ray drive
External storage: USB 3.2 - external HDD support
Maximum frame rate: 120 fps
Key features: Quick Resume for suspending multiple games, Dynamic Latency Input, Variable Refresh Rate