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Xbox One X

Microsoft's Xbox Ane X drops on Tuesday and information technology'southward hands the strongest console ever built. Its GPU sports higher clocks and additional cores, its CPU is clocked a total one.3x faster than the erstwhile Xbox One, and its unified GDDR5 memory offers vastly more bandwidth (and a much simpler memory architecture) than the Xbox One's 32MB of cache + quad-channel DDR3 retentiveness design.

Hardware pattern, however, isn't the entire story. Because the Xbox One X (Buy on Amazon) maintains full backwards compatibility with the Xbox One, information technology's on developers to evangelize optimized titles with amend experiences that justify the new system'southward $500 price tag.

Permit's establish some ground rules before we talk nearly the relative value of the platform.

  • If you lot're happy with the panel y'all own and see no need to upgrade, don't upgrade.
  • As with the PS4 and PS4 Pro, the value of the Xbox One X depends somewhat on what hardware you already own. If you take an SDR 1080p television, you might not want to upgrade until y'all can afford a new Idiot box.
  • When I say the Xbox One is worth buying, that doesn't hateful information technology makes sense for literally every person correct now. As with the PS4 Pro, it could be that people who ain 4K TVs with HDR are all-time-positioned to upgrade.

It's going to take time for the Xbox One X to field a solid set up of upgraded titles, just as information technology'southward taken time for Sony to do the same with the PS4 Pro. Not every game is upgraded in the same way, and Eurogamer has written a number of game profiles that range from dramatic improvements to relatively modest updates. Just the biggest single reason I'grand comfortable maxim panel gamers should feel good most opting into the Xbox One X'due south ecosystem is because this console has a much better gamble of driving a high-end 4K experience than the PS4.

Xbox One X

The GPU inside the Xbox One X is a Polaris-derived function that's designed for much higher performance relative to the remainder of AMD's product stack than the Xbox One's GPU was back in 2022. The RX 580 is a 2304:144:32 configuration with a 42.9GPixel/due south fill up rate and 256GB/southward of memory bandwidth. Microsoft's Project Scorpio is 2560 cores, 144-160 TMUs (we've seen both figures), with 32 ROPs (2560:144-160:32) with a 37.5GPixel/s fill rate. That's stronger than the PS4 Pro in graphics by a fair margin. Eurogamer does annotation that there are games, similar Assassin's Creed Unity, that are CPU-spring in spots, but fifty-fifty here we see a 20-30 per centum flat improvement. Some games are going to hit the CPU harder than others, but Microsoft does written report lowering the CPU memory access latency past up to 20 percent, which should definitely improve operation when retention latency was a bottleneck. And Eurogamer too notes that it's the original on-disk code for Unity that has an unlocked frame rate–and Unity ran similar dirt at launch. Equally evaluations of operation go, information technology'southward probably not an ideal title.

The 12GB of retentiveness is another primal characteristic. With 9GB of system RAM available for games, developers can use higher resolution targets, meliorate detail levels, or simply meliorate the frame charge per unit. The advent of a simpler memory arrangement (unified GDDR5 as opposed to 32MB enshroud + quad-aqueduct DDR3) means information technology'll exist easier for developers to hit the performance levels they're targeting without painstaking optimizations.

Finally, in that location'south 4K and HDR. If you're notwithstanding on a 1080p set up and happy with an Xbox 1, there's no reason to change that. I'1000 only recommending an upgrade for people who want to upgrade. But 4K + HDR is a gorgeous feel in games co-ordinate to basically everyone. And while the Xbox One S tin provide that capability with a small frame rate boost in some games, the Xbox One Ten is much better positioned to drive superior experiences over the next few years.

I don't think there'southward anything wrong with waiting to see which titles are enhanced and how the enhancement is handled, but I also expect that we will see developers taking reward of the hardware and delivering meaningful improvements. Given that the original Xbox One has been lagging Sony's functioning since launch, this is a meaningful take a chance to turn the tables and play older games at higher frame rates.

Microsoft has a long history of working with developers and providing robust tools for system optimization. The performance argument for the Xbox One X as providing the all-time-in-class panel experience is about air-tight. I'm confident saying that over the next 12 months, the Xbox I Ten will distinguish itself equally the platform to beat in any game that launches for both it and the PS4. If that doesn't happen, Microsoft and its game studio partners don't deserve to exist in the market against Sony at all.