How much does a gaming PC cost with the performance of an Xbox One X? PS4 vs Xbox One

We look at what kind of hardware the Xbox One X has inside, plus a video report

• Release date: November 7, 2017 in Europe and the USA, pre-order available

More and more details are being revealed about the most powerful gaming console at the moment - the Xbox One X. The technical parameters of the console have been known for a long time, but now Microsoft has allowed a wider circle of people to look inside the new version of its line of Xbox consoles and, moreover, to photograph all the features on video.

In short, the new Xbox One X is very different in hardware from its predecessor, undoubtedly for the better. Only the appearance is very similar, which is also made in a minimalist body without any special design revelations.

• Central chip: Scorpion Engine Soc, which includes an 8-core processor. at 2.3 GHz and a 6 teraflops graphics system (for example, GTX 980 5.5 teraflops, 980 Ti 6.5 teraflops) at 1.72 GHz (This is a specially designed chip for the Xbox One X console);
• RAM: 12 GB;
• HDD: 1 TB (as well as 8 GB of additional flash memory);
• Disc drive: 4K UHD Blu-Ray;
• Cooling system: 2 coolers - chamber cooler for cooling the processor and for general airflow of the console.

What is inside the Xbox One X

So far, the game console is positioned as the most powerful device of its kind in the world, with full output of real 4K resolution. Microsoft said despite this big release, this is not a new generation of consoles at all, it is still ahead.

As part of a press conference held at E3, Microsoft revealed all the key details of the so-called Project Scorpio, a promising gaming console aimed at supporting games in 4K resolution. The official name of the console, release date and price were announced: the console will be called Xbox One X, its cost will be $499 (price in Russia - 39,990 rubles), and the start of sales is scheduled for November 7 of this year.

The cost of the new console is quite familiar for Microsoft: the original Xbox One from 2013, complete with Kinect, cost the same. However, compared to the basic version of Xbox One S, the new product will be twice as expensive. It will surpass the Xbox One X in price and the Sony PlayStation 4 Pro, which sells for a hundred dollars less.

However, the main thing in the last announcement is not even the information about the price, but the fact that Microsoft described in detail what kind of hardware will be used in the Xbox One X. The console is based on a new highly integrated 16-nm system-on-chip, which should make it not Not only is it much more powerful than previous versions of the Xbox, but it is also the fastest gaming system on the market. Microsoft itself names the following numbers: in terms of graphics accelerator performance, the new Xbox One X is 4.3 times superior to the Xbox One S, and the frequency of the processor scalar cores in the new version of the console has increased by 31%. Interestingly, this time Microsoft did not openly talk about the architecture of the processor cores, although it is known that the company continues to rely on the AMD Jaguar architecture, as in previous versions of the Xbox.

The most serious changes occurred in the memory subsystem. Engineers decided to abandon conventional DDR4 SDRAM, and the Xbox One X will use a unified high-speed GDDR5 SDRAM with a 384-bit bus, and the volume of this memory has been increased to 12 GB. Thanks to this, the throughput of the memory subsystem reaches 326 GB/s, which is one and a half times the bandwidth of the eDRAM buffer in Xbox One S and is between the memory throughput of the flagship NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 Ti video cards.

Microsoft also states that the graphic performance of the new console reaches 6 teraflops: the GPU in it has 40 Radeon computing units and operates at a frequency of 1172 MHz, which allows us to evaluate the built-in video card of the new console as a relatively close analogue of the Radeon RX 480. This makes the Xbox One X noticeably more powerful in terms of graphics even compared to the Sony PlayStation 4 Pro, whose graphics performance is rated at 4.2 teraflops. Such a fast GPU should allow the Xbox One X to produce 60 frames per second at 4K resolution - and this is true for almost every new game that was revealed during the Microsoft event.

As for the external design of the Xbox One X, Microsoft was unable to surprise the public with a radical redesign. The new console is similar to Project Scorpio, which we saw earlier, with the only difference being that the OLED screen and physical buttons will be removed on the consumer version. In fact, the Xbox One X looks like a slightly thinner Xbox One S, which, nevertheless, gave Microsoft the right to talk about the new product as the smallest Xbox. The exact dimensions of the Xbox One X are 300 x 240 x 60 mm, which means that the console is 5 mm wider and 10 mm deeper than its predecessor, but at the same time 5 mm thinner. As a result, in terms of volume, the new product is actually 2% smaller.

However, in general, Microsoft is not positioning the Xbox One X as something fundamentally new; rather, it is another mid-life cycle upgrade of the Xbox platform. We heard similar words at the time of the announcement of the Xbox One S. Thanks to this approach, existing games will be fully compatible with the Xbox One X, but will receive some improvements from more powerful hardware (which ones depend on the specific game). New games that will receive special optimizations for the updated version of the console will have native support for 4K resolution (3840 × 2160), but will also be able to be displayed on 1080p TVs using subsampling.

All accessories available in the Xbox One ecosystem will remain fully compatible with the Xbox One X. In addition, some new features are promised for the console: Dolby Atmos support, support for 4K Blu-Ray discs, supersampling technology for upscaling 1080p games to 4K resolution, HDMI 2.1 and Adaptive Sync support.

Review and test of the Xbox One X game console | Introduction

Microsoft proudly calls the Xbox One X, which officially goes on sale November 7, 2017, “the most powerful gaming console in the world.” This console ($499 in the US) should be a compelling answer to the Sony PlayStation 4 Pro ($399). The new system offers features never before seen in a set-top box, including a custom-designed 6 teraflops AMD graphics processor that delivers native 4K resolution in games, as well as support for high dynamic range (HDR).

However, despite the advanced hardware of the Xbox One X, its capabilities are still seriously limited due to the uneven implementation of new functions in games and native support for 4K resolution only in some of them. Additionally, Microsoft also needs to expand its rather meager library of exclusive games to truly compete with the PS4 Pro and Nintendo Switch. However, if you are looking for the most powerful console on Earth, then the Xbox One X will fully meet your expectations.

Review and test of the Xbox One X game console | Design and construction

One thing is certain: Microsoft loves the aesthetics of boxes. Compared to the console with overall dimensions of 300 x 239 x 61 mm and a weight of 3.81 kg, the original Xbox looks truly huge (317 x 267 x 102 mm and 3.85 kg). The Xbox One X is heavier and slightly taller than the Xbox One S (2.9 kg and 295 x 231 x 63.5 mm), and slightly smaller than the PlayStation 4 Pro (3.2 kg and 396 x 295 x 66 mm).

Click to enlarge

The rest of the One X's body is made of matte black plastic with deep, some of it covered with deep stripes that hide the vents. The front panel features the signature stylized Xbox power button with white backlight, as well as a button for pairing with controllers and a disc eject button. There is also a USB 3.0 port and an infrared receiver window. On the back there are two more USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI 1.4 input, an HDMI 2.0 output, as well as Ethernet and S/PDIF ports - just like the Xbox One S.

Review and test of the Xbox One X game console | Specifications: Welcome to the world's most powerful console

Microsoft is making a big splash by touting the Xbox One X as the "world's most powerful console." And, at least on paper, this is completely true. The One X features a custom-designed 2.3GHz 8-core AMD processor, 12GB of GDDR5 memory, and a custom-designed GPU with 40 compute units for a total of 6 teraflops of performance. Compare these numbers to the PS4 Pro's specs: 2.1GHz 8-core AMD processor, 8GB GDDR5, 1GB DDR3 RAM, and integrated AMD Radeon Polaris GPU with 36 compute units for a total of 4.2 teraflops of power.

	Microsoft Xbox One X	Sony PlayStation 4 Pro
Price, $	499	399
CPU	2.3 GHz, 8 cores	2.1 GHz, 8 cores
GPU	AMD Polaris, 6 Tflops	AMD Polaris, 4.2 teraflops
4K, HDR support	Yes	Yes
Support	Not yet	Yes
Main exclusives	Gears of War, Halo, Forza	Uncharted, The Last of Us, Bloodborne

Recall that flops stands for the number of floating point operations per second. System performance is measured in the number of such operations per second. "Tera" is "trillion". Those. "teraflops" means trillions of floating point operations per second.

Multiply that by 6 and you get 6 trillion - a significant advantage over the PS4 Pro's 4.2 teraflops. However, this processor can't compete with mid-range PC GPUs like the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 (6.5 teraflops) or AMD Radeon RX 580 (6.1 teraflops). However, it should definitely handle rendering 4K graphics better than the PS4 Pro without significantly reducing frame rates.

CONTENT

Last month, Microsoft unveiled what it says is the world's most powerful gaming console. really impressive even by the standards of the PS4 Pro: 6 TFLOPS is still a considerable figure.

However, is this enough for 4K gaming? Thanks to the first test of the new console, a partial answer to this question already exists. The review can be found in the video below.

For brevity, we present the data in a more convenient form. So, the console was tested in nine games, the names of which are unknown.

Presumably Title A is ReCore, Title B is Forza Motorsoprt 7, Title C is Gears of War 4, Title G is Halo Wars 2, Title H is Star Wars Battlefront. The results for these games compared to Xbox One can be seen in the chart below.

As you can see, everything is not so simple. Let us remind you that the Xbox One X was tested at 4K resolution and the Xbox One at Full HD. As a result, in four games out of nine, the new console was able to beat its predecessor, but lost in five, and in one game very significantly. We also note that in three games the number of frames per second does not even reach 30, and in one it is completely below 20. In general, we can say that the Xbox One X really provides the ability to play most modern games in 4K resolution, and new projects will receive the additional benefit of appropriate optimization.

Following Sony, Microsoft also introduced a new generation of its gaming console, which they decided to call Xbox One. If you are not yet aware of the hardware of the new console from Microsoft, then, as in the case with, we hasten to disappoint you. At the same time, if it seems to you that it is impossible to configure a new console worse than Sony, then another disappointment awaits you;): the new Xbox One not only significantly loses in performance to the PlayStation 4, but it is also simply worse made, and is also 100 more expensive dollars (499 versus 399). It’s worth noting that the Xbox One comes with the Kinect 2 system, but more on that later.

Like the PlayStation 4, Microsoft's new console is based on a fairly basic processor and graphics card from AMD, combined into a single module. Similar to the PlayStation 4, the Xbox One focuses on 8 cores and 8 GB of universal (RAM + video) memory, so, apparently, the same Eldorado specialists (or any other electronics supermarket) were involved in selecting the configuration, as well as in the case of PlayStation 4 ;). At the same time, if the frequency of the Xbox One processor and video chip is slightly higher than that of the PS4 (1750/853 versus 1600/800 MHz), then in more important characteristics the Xbox One is seriously inferior.

Thus, the performance of the PlayStation 4 video chip in floating point operations is 38% higher than that of the new Xbox One (1.84 TFLOPS versus 1.33 TFLOPS, respectively), while the number of stream processors in the PlayStation 4 video chip is generally exactly 50% higher. than the Xbox One (1152 versus 768, respectively). And these are not all the factors that speak of the dismal performance of the new console from Microsoft: while the PlayStation 4 is equipped with universal (RAM + video) GDDR5 memory (with a frequency of 5500 MHz and a bandwidth of 176 GB/s), the Xbox One uses DDR3 memory , which is significantly inferior in terms of characteristics (frequency 2133 MHz and bandwidth 68 GB/s). As you can see, the memory bandwidth of the Xbox One is almost 2.6 times less, which can affect gaming performance in the worst possible way. Here it’s worth remembering the last time you saw a modern gaming video card with DDR3 memory (hint: a long time ago :)).

Apparently, realizing that with such memory the graphics subsystem of the Xbox One console would slow down significantly, engineers from Microsoft, together with AMD, added 32 MB of high-speed cache memory with high bandwidth (102 GB/s) to the combined processor and video card chip ) and super low latency. However, it is unlikely that such a desperate measure will be able to significantly improve the performance of the Xbox One, but it will definitely add trouble to game developers. According to my estimates, the gaming performance of the PlayStation 4 will be about half (50 - 60%) higher than that of the Xbox One. It is also worth noting that, despite the fact that the Xbox One console has weaker hardware than its competitors, they took care of powerful cooling - apparently Microsoft engineers drew conclusions from the company’s past losses of more than a billion dollars due to for insufficient cooling performance.

The hard drives of the new generation of consoles, as standard, have the same capacity of 500 GB, however, in the PlayStation 4 it can be replaced with a larger one without voiding the warranty. In the case of the Xbox One, you will not only lose your warranty, but it is also not yet clear whether the console will support a third-party drive without hacked firmware. Another design difference between the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 is that the Microsoft console is equipped with a large external power supply - this can be either a plus or a minus, depending on personal preferences. Another dark side of the new generation of consoles are paid online services (their under-analog of Steam), for which you need to pay $50 per year in the case of PlayStation 4 and $60 per year in the case of Xbox One.

With all this in mind, just like with the PlayStation 4, building an inexpensive gaming PC seems like a much more logical decision than buying an Xbox One console. There are so many advantages of a PC that a whole separate article could be written about them, but the most obvious are: no fees for operating Steam, lower prices for games (including thanks to regular sales), the availability of free games and mods, the ability to upgrade and great functionality.

As I mentioned earlier, the Xbox One comes with the Kinect 2 system, which is a system for simultaneous tracking of several users (their facial expressions, faces, movements of body parts, voices, etc.), which includes one high-definition video camera , one infrared camera, special hardware for image processing and three infrared emitters. So users will have the opportunity to control game characters using movement, and the guys from the NSA will have the opportunity to catch terrorists and continue to violate the rights and freedoms of people, spying on them in every possible way, without any trial, investigation or even a drop of common sense :). The Xbox One also has another interesting feature - a built-in microphone (with appropriate harness), which works even when the console is in standby mode. Its purpose is to wait for the user's voice commands to turn on the console, etc., and of course, to wait for commands from the NSA to wiretap;). If Microsoft did not take care of adequate protection NSA Backdoor in their new console, then not only cloak and dagger workers will be able to connect to it, but also, potentially, a wide variety of hackers. Am I the only one who remembers the new console from Microsoft, and SmartTV in light of the latest news, as “telescreens” from George Orwell’s 1984?

One of the first production Xbox One consoles has already fallen into the hands of iFixit specialists, who, as usual, quickly posted a detailed guide on how to disassemble it. So, if you are interested in the internals of the new console (I think not only we are interested in knowing what’s inside the new gadgets), then we recommend that you read the corresponding guides for disassembling the Xbox One and the Kinect 2 system on their website. You can also watch the attached videos on the topic. iFixit specialists assigned the new console a fairly high repairability rating, equal to that of the PlayStation 4, which is 8 out of 10 points (the higher, the more repairable the device is), which is not often found in modern technology.

As usual, you can leave your comments about new consoles, choosing the best gaming platform, as well as spy scandals on our forum.