Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, explains how fast the Xbox Series X is supposed to be in terms of graphics settings. He promises that the new console with 12 teraflops GPU will completely overshadow the old one, the Xbox One.
What is the Xbox Series X? Microsoft officially introduced the successor to the Xbox One X at the Game Awards 2019. At that time, the project was still called “Project Scarlett.”
Where does the information come from? The information comes from the official Xbox blog (external link). Here, Phil Spencer highlighted the performance of the console, Xbox Series X, and explained a few features. Already with the console design Microsoft caused a stir back then.
In the blog, he talks about the performance of the new console, expected in 2020. And one specification is impressive: the graphics processor, the GPU.
Not only is there a graphics processor from AMD based on Zen 2 and offering RDNA 2. The performance will far exceed all previous consoles. Phil Spencer says on the official blog:
The Xbox Series X is our most powerful console we have ever made (…), twice as powerful as the Xbox One X and more than eight times as powerful as the original Xbox One.
Phil Spencer, Source: new.xbox.com
And Spencer also gives numbers: The AMD GPU’s performance is said to be 12 teraflops. In comparison:
- The PlayStation 4 Pro offers about 4.2 teraflops
- The Xbox One X achieves 6 teraflops
- And a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti from Nvidia theoretically achieves 14.2 teraflops.
What are FLOPs? – TeraFLOPs explained
A FLOP actually means “Floating Point Operations Per Second.” The acronym FLOP has now established itself in German.
A FLOP describes how many floating-point calculations (additions and subtractions) the processor can perform per second. “Tera” is a computing prefix, so we are dealing with TeraFLOPs in a range of 10 to the power of 12, which is a huge number: about one trillion Flops.
Simply put: The larger the number, the more powerful the computer or console, because the system can perform more calculations per second. However, this is just a theoretical value.
How are FLOPs calculated? The number of FLOPs describes the performance of the entire architecture, consisting of
- The main processor itself, which mostly sits on the motherboard socket
- The bus or Back Panel Unit Sockets, on which for example the RAM sits and also influences the computing speed
- And the compiler, which is responsible for calculating and processing the data. The compiler converts the source code into executable code that the main processor can then use.
Can I calculate the FLOPs of my computer? Anyone who knows the values of their PC or CPU can also calculate the maximum theoretical performance themselves. For the calculation of FLOPs (external link), it works like this:
(CPU clock in GHz) × (number of CPU cores) × (CPU instructions per clock) × (number of CPUs in the computing node)
The number obtained then represents the theoretical maximum performance of the system.
Do many FLOPs mean a lot of power? The number of FLOPs describes only the number of calculations on paper that the processor could perform per second.
Usually, it is based on a best-case scenario. In practice, theoretical values are rarely achieved.
Spencer: “The strongest console we have ever made”
In detail, Spencer lists the following advantages of the new console. Here are the individual details once again:
- Graphics: Microsoft promises a GPU with a performance of 12 teraflops. This is to be delivered by the Zen 2 with RDNA 2 from AMD. Google Stadia is only supposed to offer 10.2 teraflops of performance.
- DirectX Raytracing: The Xbox Series X is expected to provide ray tracing. This technology is supported by the hardware.
- HDMI 2.1: HDMI 2.1 supports Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) and Variable Refresh Rate (VRR). Both are supposed to prevent unpleasant side effects such as tearing. The current console generation still relies on HDMI 2.0.
- Variable Rate Shading (VRS): The Xbox Series X is supposed to use a proprietary technology patented by Microsoft. This is to provide players with a stable frame rate at higher resolutions.
- Refresh Rate: Spencer also promises that up to 120 fps should be possible on the Xbox Series X.
- Backward Compatibility: The console is supposed to support all Xbox One titles as well as all titles for the Xbox 360.
Hardware Specs: PS5 vs Xbox Series X
In the following, we will compare the two next-gen consoles, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X once again:
| Xbox Series X | PlayStation 5 | |
| Processor (CPU): | AMD Zen 2 processors, with 8 cores and a 7nm Zen 2 architecture | Based on 3rd generation AMD Ryzen with 8 cores and a 7nm Zen 2 architecture |
| Graphics (GPU): | Graphics card with Navi technology with ray tracing support and 12 teraflops GPU performance | Custom build based on AMD’s Radeon Navi with ray tracing support |
| Supported Resolution: | Up to 8K and at 4K up to 120 FPS | Up to 8K – 4K at 120 Hz possible |
| Storage Medium: | New SSD generation, which is used as virtual RAM | Special SSD – up to 19x faster than common models |
| Drive: | Physical Blu-ray drive | Physical Blu-ray drive |
All important information and news regarding the new Xbox can be found in our overview:
