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Microsoft has given some reviewers the green light to post extensive Xbox Series X previews. A few weeks ago, we got reports based specifically on backward compatibility. Now, the company has authorized other disclosures regarding the system.
The reports, at least when it comes to the hardware itself, are uniformly excellent. There was some concern that the Xbox Series X hardware would get hot, but Ars Technica reports that the console never gets hotter than an equivalent Xbox One X. They write: “As a computing device, Xbox Series X may go down in history as one of the most extraordinary machines ever made, compared to other products of its time, power level and price.”
Polygon’s writing focuses on using AutoHDR and an HDR calibration feature that makes it easy to enable the option. This sounds incredibly useful – if you’ve ever tried calibrating a display for HDR per game, you know that getting the feature to work properly on PC can be a bit tricky. Consoles have been ahead of PCs in implementing HDR support, but it appears that Microsoft has taken some necessary steps to make it easier to implement the feature. AutoHDR is used to add the feature to games that don’t support it by default, while the calibration app guides you through the software calibration process so that it works well on your own screen.
Verge doesn’t beat around the bush, stating that the $ 500 box is “quieter and much easier to use and maintain than the $ 3,000 gaming PC I built a few weeks ago. There’s a reason the Xbox Series X looks like a PC – it’s because it often feels like one. “The Verge also posted a comparison of modern title loading times between Xbox One X and Xbox Series X.
Many of these gaps are supposed to be even bigger when compared to the Xbox One / One S, so keep that in mind. Overall, the performance gains are exactly what Microsoft promised. In The Outer Worlds, load times drop almost 80 percent. Even in the weakest case, CoD: Warzone, the Xbox Series X is still 25 percent faster. Accelerations of 40 to 60 percent are quite common. Gamers have access to 802GB of the 1TB SSD, which is actually a bit more than the Xbox One X (780GB).
Everyone loves 120Hz gaming, PC-quality details
The 120Hz option offered by Microsoft requires you to swap a lot of graphic details, in general, but the trade-off in certain games is well worth it according to various posts. Ars writes: “There’s no getting around it: The X Series is a fundamental change in terms of console power, and the Gears 5’s smooth, smooth 120fps stick has me. instantly excited at the prospect of other console game developers following suit. “(Emphasis in original).
Xbox Series X Gears 5, Swamp Edition, 120Hz. Image by Ars Technica
PC Gears 5, Maximum Detail, Swamp Edition. Photo for Ars Technica
The PC still retains a slight edge over Xbox Series X in Gears of War 5, thanks to a superior implementation of ambient occlusion. I zoomed in on a couple of screenshots from Ars to create the following up-close examination of how the levels of detail vary between the two:
Extreme close-up of Xbox Series X, 120Hz. Image by Ars Technica. The accidental inclusion of the Paint.net tool selector reflects an error on my part, not a bundling decision by Microsoft.
Extreme close-up of PC, maximum detail. Image by Ars Technica.
While PC image quality is even higher, the PC image was shot with the game running at maximum levels of detail on a Core i7-8700K and RTX 3080. The RTX 3080 will only cost you $ 700 if you can. find one, while the Xbox Series X is a $ 500 rig. Also, it loads data stupidly faster than a PC in at least some cases. Ars reports that some areas of the game took up to 53 seconds to load on an NVMe PCIe 3.0 drive, compared to 12 seconds on the Xbox Series X. Such a large gap is unlikely to be explained by the difference between PCIe 3.0 and PCIe. . 4.0. One might expect performance to double with twice the bandwidth, but the Xbox takes 22 percent as long as the PC to load the same content. It’s not 2x faster, it’s 4.4x faster.
Ars points out that there is one game that performs terribly on Xbox Series X – the Xbox 360 version of Dark Souls will apparently go down to 10fps in places.
The games being tested in these previews are “Optimized for Series X”, but Microsoft is keeping actual next-gen titles at bay. Weak links in the current design include the time it takes to load clips (Polygon) and the rather awkward means of sharing content compared to equivalent features on the PC side of the equation.
In addition to the constant concerns about release titles and the impact COVID-19 has had on software development, people who have spent time with the platform love it. Various previews speak to how much it feels to play on the console on a PC. In some places, the Xbox Series X outperforms even a high-end PC. Console performance will be impossible to match with a full $ 500- $ 700 system, and may even challenge the value of the mainstream PC. updates. Imagine, for example, that the Xbox Series X proves to match the performance of a discrete $ 300- $ 450 GPU. Arguably, this is likely, considering it has 52 CUs versus the Radeon 5700 XT’s 40 and runs at speeds. equivalent clock. Since we have already measured RDNA performance and know how fast a Ryzen 7 3800X is, Microsoft should It will be able to beat the current Ryzen 5700 XT with its RDNA2-powered GPU.
It would be ridiculous to declare a winner between Microsoft and Sony when Microsoft shares a lot of details and Sony is keeping quiet. But at least, we can say that the Xbox Series X seems to be a much better competition for the PlayStation 5 than the Xbox One against the PlayStation 4. The fastest console is not always the one that wins the generation, but Sony. it had a known edge in that department when the PS4 was released in 2013. This time around, the technical numbers favor the Xbox Series X. We’ll see whether or not that translates to a real-world edge in a few more minutes. weeks.
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