As part of the Xbox Series X | S release date and pricing announcement, Microsoft have released a little slide detailing the final tech specs of the two consoles, showing the relative teraFLOP-iness of the two consoles, and confirming a few details about CPU speed and RAM size. What’s surprising is that, since the start of this year, the Xbox Series X has apparently become just that little bit more powerful.
But first the Xbox Series S. The console has a lot in common with the Xbox Series X, with an 8-Core Zen 2 CPU, but this is clocked at 3.6Ghz or 3.4Ghz with SMT, putting it 200Mhz shy of the bigger console. That’s paired with a 20 CU RDNA 2 GPU at 1.565Ghz, which produces 4 TFLOPS of power. There’s also 10GB of GDDR6 RAM, with 8GB at 224GB/s (roughly half the speed of the Series X) and 2GB at a much, much lower 56GB/s on the Series S to cater for system processes. The 512GB SSD is an exact match for the speed of the Series X, and the console will take the same 1TB expansion card SSDs.
All of that is roughly what was expected, though it’s clear they’re scrimping a little on CPU speed. The main surprise is the speed of the RAM, which is dramatically slower, though a typical compromise made in GPU design for lower specced parts.
Update: As noted on Twitter by GigaBoots, the Series S has less of its speedier RAM (8GB) than the Xbox One X makes available to developers (9GB), and it also runs at 224GB/s compared to the One X’s 326GB/s. The implication is that for backward compatibility to Xbox One titles, the Series S would not be able to run games in the One X mode, and would instead step back to original Xbox One resolutions up to 1080p. The Series S target of 1440p could also be the target it adopts for Xbox 360 and Xbox One backward compatibility.
But on to the Xbox Series X, where all of the specs match up exactly to the March hardware reveal… except one. The stated GPU Power is now at 12.15TFLOPS instead of 12TFLOPS. That’s despite featuring the same 52CU design and having the same 1.825Ghz clock speed as announced way back when. All we can assume is that some kind of refinement of the GPU design on AMD’s part has allowed them to eke out just a smidgeon, and almost unnoticeable amount of extra power.
Here’s the full table:
| Xbox Series X | Xbox Series S | |
| CPU | 8-Core Zen 2 @ 3.8Ghz / 3.6Ghz w/ SMT | 8–Core Zen 2 @ 3.6Ghz / 3.4Ghz w/ SMT |
| GPU | RDNA 2 GPU – 52 CUs @ 1.825 GHz | RDNA 2 – 20 CUs @ 1.565 GHz |
| GPU Power | 12.15 TFLOPS | 4 TFLOPS |
| Memory | 16 GB GDDR6 | 10 GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Bandwidth | 10GB @ 560 GB/s, 6GB @ 336 GB/s | 8GB @ 224 GB/s, 2GB @ 56 GB/s |
| Performance Target | 4K @ 60 FPS, Up to 120 FPS | 1440p @ 60 FPS, Up to 120 FPS |
| Internal Storage | 1 TB PCIe Gen 4 NVME SSD | 512 GB PCIe Gen 4 NVME SSD |
| I/O Throughput | 2.4 GB/s (Raw), 4.8 GB/s (Compressed) | 2.4 GB/s (Raw), 4.8 GB/s (Compressed) |
| Expandable Storage | 1 TB NVME Expansion Card | 1 TB NVME Expansion Card |
| Optical Drive | 4K UHD Blu-Ray Drive | Digital Only |
| Video Output | HDMI 2.1 – Up to 4K at 120Hz, 8K, VRR | HDMI 2.1 – Up to 4K at 120Hz, 8K, VRR |
| Backward Compatibility | Xbox One, Xbox 360, Xbox | Xbox One, Xbox 360, Xbox |
| Availability | 10th November 2020 | 10th November 2020 |
| Price | $499 / £449 / €499 | $299 / £249 / €299 |
Source TheSixthAxis