Xbox Series X, features, price and release date

Microsoft has removed the veils from the new console of the Xbox family. It is a black parallelepiped inside which there is space for powerful CPUs andGPUs

Until a few days ago, it was known to all under the codename "Microsoft Project Scarlett". Since yesterday, however, has officially become Xbox Series X, the Microsoft console that will have to challenge the PlayStation 5 from winter 2020. And, at least according to the house of Redmond, has all the credentials to do so: the Xbox Series X is four times more powerful than an Xbox One X.

The power, however, will not come at the expense of backward compatibility: Xbox Series X will in fact run all the titles released for Xbox (first series), Xbox 360 and Xbox One. The Xbox Series X will arrive on Christmas 2020 and will feature a new wireless controller, with a button to capture and share screenshots and game clips, and a d-pad derived from the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2. This controller will also be backwards compatible and can be used on previous generations of Microsoft's console. What the house of Redmond has not yet communicated, however, is the price of the Xbox Series X.

Xbox Series X: technical characteristics

The heart of the Xbox Series X is the CPU produced by AMD specifically for this console. It is an evolution of the Zen 2, with eight cores at a maximum clock frequency of 3.5 GHz. It is flanked by a GPU with AMD Radeon RDNA 7 nm architecture. Xbox Series X supports variable screen refresh rate, Ray Tracing and Variable Rate Shading. RAM is 13GB, while storage is in NVMe SSD technology. The video output, HDMI 2.1, is compatible with Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) which, combined with Dynamic Latency Input (DLI) technology, dramatically lowers response times.

Aesthetically, however, the new Xbox Series X is a black parallelepiped that can be placed either vertically or horizontally. We still don't know its dimensions, nor its power consumption (but, with these technical specifications, it's unlikely to be low).

Xbox Series X: performance

Naturally, to credibly evaluate the performance of the Xbox Series X we'll have to wait to see it live and play titles optimized to take advantage of its technical characteristics. The promises of Microsoft, however, are very good: fluid video games at 4K resolution and 60 fps, the possibility of reaching 120 fps and even 8K resolution. The SSD with NVMe technology, on the other hand, promises very short game loading times. Microsoft has also released the trailer for Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, developed by Ninja Theory, and it is truly impressive.