Today at midnight, Microsoft took to the stage to reveal their new gaming console which they have been teasing as Project Scorpio since November last year. It promised great performance thanks to the vastly updated hardware when compared to the Xbox One or Xbox One S and Microsoft sure made people wait for its final reveal.
Since Project Scorpio was a moniker, Microsoft finally revealed the console’s official name and it will now be known as Xbox One X.
The design seems unchanged from the Xbox One S but interesting enough, the Xbox One X is smaller than the other Xbox consoles. The controller is unchanged which seems like Microsoft is pretty satisfied with it. However, this console has really powerful hardware relative to what consoles pack and here is a rundown:
- 8 core custom AMD CPU clocked at 2.3 Ghz
- 12GB of GDDR5 RAM, which is higher than what you see on the Xbox One S, Xbox One, PS4 Pro and the PS4 which have 8 GB in comparison.
- 6 teraflop GPU (they call it the Scorpio engine) which is the most powerful put in a console that pips the previous leader, the PS4 Pro which has a GPU that pushes 4.2 teraflops.
- 326 GB/sec memory bandwith, which is higher than the one in the Xbox One S (219GB/s) and the PS4 Pro (218GB/s)
- 1TB hard drive, 8GB flash memory
- 4K UHD Blu-ray optical disk drive
- HDMI 1.4 1.4b in, HDMI 2.0 out which can output 2160p video at 60hz
- S/PDIF port
- Ethernet Port
- HDR 10 support which we have seen being added to smartphones too
- Bluetooth/WiFi/IR blaster
- 3 USB 3.0 ports
Thanks to these impressive specs, Microsoft says that the Xbox One X will allow you to have true 4K gaming, which is a relatively new frontier for consoles that started with the PS4 Pro.
Since the Xbox One X can play 4K games, it would be useless if there were no games that could take advantage of the increased resolution. Fortunately, Microsoft also announced several titles that you can play in 4K on the Xbox One X which includes the likes of Forza Motosport 7, Crackdown 3, State of Decay 2, Sea of Thieves and Super Lucky’s Tale.
The price for all this awesomeness is $499 and it will be available on November 7th this year. This is $100 dollars more than the PS4 Pro (its true competitor), but it is more powerful, can play 4K-Bluray discs and has more VRAM.
This looks like a hit from Microsoft and now we wait to see what Sony would do to counter this new threat, maybe supercharge their existing PS4 Pro to match the Xbox One X or to come up with one from scratch entirely.
