Here’s What’s Inside The Xbox Series X

Last month Microsoft posted a lengthy article talking about what the upcoming Xbox Series X console can do. Today the company details the hardware inside the box that’s getting it done, including a custom eight-core AMD Zen 2 CPU running at 3.8 GHz and its powerful RDNA 2 GPU.

The technical jargon runs thick in Microsoft’s Xbox Series X technology post this morning, so much so that the company has created a helpful glossary to aid readers in navigating the various acronyms being thrown about. What you really need to know is that at this moment the hardware inside the Xbox Series X is the most impressive I’ve seen in a gaming console, easily rivaling today’s more powerful gaming PCs. Here’s the full spec list Microsoft laid out this morning.

Xbox Series X System Specs

• CPU: 8x Cores @ 3.8 GHz (3.66 GHz w/ SMT) Custom Zen 2 CPU

• GPU: 12 TFLOPS, 52 CUs @ 1.825 GHz Custom RDNA 2 GPU

• Die Size: 360.45 mm2

• Process: 7nm Enhanced

• Memory: 16 GB GDDR6 w/ 320mb bus

• Memory Bandwidth: 10GB @ 560 GB/s, 6GB @ 336 GB/s

• Internal Storage: 1 TB Custom NVME SSD

• I/O Throughput: 2.4 GB/s (Raw), 4.8 GB/s (Compressed, with custom hardware decompression block)

• Expandable Storage: 1 TB Expansion Card (matches internal storage exactly)

• External Storage: USB 3.2 External HDD Support

• Optical Drive: 4K UHD Blu-Ray Drive

• Performance Target: 4K @ 60 FPS, Up to 120 FPS

Between the CPU and GPU and the inclusion of a solid-state drive as primary storage, the Xbox Series X is ridiculously fast. Microsoft released a video comparing load times on the Xbox One X to the Xbox Series X and the difference is just ridiculous.

In another video posted today, Microsoft demonstrated the Xbox Series X’s much-discussed quick resume feature. Here’s how that works.

In case that’s not enough Xbox Series X information, the folks over at Digital Foundry have an excellent comparision of the Xbox One X and Xbox Series X, breaking down the differences in both console size and performance.