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  • - This is the Xbox Series X.

  • It is real and I have it in my hands right now.

  • Don't believe me?

  • Well let me show you.

  • So, first of all, Microsoft were very kind to invite us out

  • for a very early look at the Series X.

  • Now keep in mind that this is not final hardware,

  • this won't be shipping until almost the end of the year.

  • However it is definitely going to be our best look

  • at what the next generation of console experience

  • can really provide.

  • In this video not only am I giving you a sneak peek

  • at what's inside the Series X,

  • but on top of that we have gameplay

  • and pretty much every spec you might wanna know.

  • So today is a very good day because I can actually

  • walk you through exactly what is inside the Xbox Series X.

  • So to start with we have to look at the mainboard,

  • or specifically the dual mainboards.

  • Because of the unique design of the Series X

  • it actually has a very unusual cooling system.

  • One of the things I'm most excited about

  • is just how powerful the SOC inside the Series X is.

  • So there's a lot to talk about here

  • but first I wanna go over the actual CPU spec.

  • So keep in mind this is an SOC that has not only

  • the CPU and the GPU onboard,

  • and yet they're able to fit eight Zen 2 cores

  • that can clock all the way up to 3.8 gigahertz.

  • And that's not some kind of like boost speed,

  • it can run it 3.8 gigahertz, sustained, pretty much forever.

  • You have a couple of options

  • if you're a developer with this guy.

  • So if you want multi-threading you actually have to drop

  • from 3.8 to 3.6 gigahertz,

  • but a lot of developers are probably gonna be fine

  • with eight very fast cores onboard.

  • Now when it actually comes to games,

  • seven of those cores are available to a game

  • and one is reserved for Windows

  • and the OS in the background.

  • But that's a lot of power, especially considering

  • that most of this chip is actually graphics.

  • They just threw in eight cores

  • because it's much better than the previous generation.

  • And by much better, I mean four times better.

  • On top of that we have some seriously powerful graphics.

  • So onboard we have twice the graphics horsepower

  • of the Xbox One X, which I would just keep in mind,

  • only came out a couple years ago,

  • or two and a half years ago, at this point.

  • And beyond that we also have

  • eight times the graphics horsepower

  • of the original Xbox One.

  • So there are a couple of really interesting things here.

  • So first of all this is taking advantage of AMD's

  • brand-new RDNA 2.0 architecture,

  • which is not even out on the PC yet.

  • There's a lot that comes with that

  • and there are also some customizations

  • that Microsoft has done specifically for the Series X.

  • So, for example, there is not only ray tracing built in,

  • but also there's some specific hardware and audio engines

  • that have been built into the chip.

  • But the GPU itself is massive,

  • we're looking at 52 CUs at 1825 megahertz.

  • Now if you're not a speeds and feeds kind of person

  • that might not mean anything,

  • but this is an incredibly huge graphics card,

  • or GPU, I suppose,

  • and it is running at very very high clocks.

  • So with a Series X dev kit here

  • the first game I'm going to try is "Minecraft".

  • Now this is no ordinary version of Minecraft.

  • This is, to be fair, a very early technical demo,

  • but this is incorporating ray tracing.

  • So you can see, standard lighting,

  • looks like "Minecraft" as you expect.

  • However, I turn it on, the game is completely transformed.

  • I mean, can you see the difference here?

  • That's crazy, you can even see how

  • the lava's reflecting on the actual material of the rails.

  • Awesome. (chair squeaking)

  • That's a really squeaky chair, how annoying is that?

  • I get I shouldn't get up, huh?

  • Not only is the lighting completely transformed

  • but you actually can see some real depth in the world

  • that obviously when you have ray tracing off,

  • it's fine, it's sort of very brightly lit

  • as you're expecting with "Minecraft".

  • When you turn on it makes a huge difference.

  • Just look at the way that the torch is naturally reflecting,

  • and you actually can see how there's real texture

  • and there's real depth in the gold.

  • And if you look on this side you can see the diamond here.

  • It's really cool at how much this sort of brings

  • the "Minecraft" world to live.

  • And as we walk into this room with a bunch of

  • glowstone and glass panes in front,

  • with standard "Minecraft" lighting it looks fine,

  • but it really doesn't do much.

  • You can just sort of see a little bit of light come through.

  • When I turn on ray tracing it completely changes the scene.

  • You can see how it's almost like a rainbow effect

  • and the light naturally sort of cascades.

  • This is just a tech demo, so it is a an early look

  • at what ray tracing will do on the Series X.

  • But, I mean, it makes a huge difference, just look at that.

  • That's crazy.

  • Next I have some gameplay of "Gears 5"

  • running on the Xbox Series X now.

  • This is a very early build,

  • it only took them a few weeks to get this up and running,

  • and therefore probably some other things

  • are going to be tweaked and changed

  • before it finally comes out.

  • However a couple of key things to keep in mind

  • is that not only is this running at 4K60

  • with all of the ultra PC presets enabled,

  • they even added some additional settings

  • that were not even able to run on the PC or the Xbox One X.

  • So sit back grab your popcorn and enjoy some

  • true Series X gameplay.

  • - [JD] Okay now, open fire!

  • (explosions blasting)

  • (monsters roaring)

  • Del, we got a nest.

  • - [Del] Toss a frag, close it up!

  • - [JD] Got him!

  • (dramatic music)

  • (upbeat funky music)

  • - Feeding the SOC is a full 16 gigabytes of GDDR6 memory,

  • which you actually can see is arranged

  • around the chip like this.

  • So it's actually a slightly unusual configuration.

  • So Microsoft are taking advantage of a 320 bit memory bus,

  • and that's because there's a mixture of

  • one gig and two gig modules.

  • Now as the end user

  • you're probably not gonna notice any of this,

  • but as a developer you actually have

  • two classes of memory available.

  • So there's 10 gigs of GPU optimized memory,

  • which is essentially the fastest RAM

  • for, obviously, the graphics.

  • However, you also have a further 3.5 gigs

  • which can be played with, it's slightly slower

  • but, you know, you have to offload

  • your audio or something to that, you can use that.

  • Now it's kind of interesting to think

  • because on top of that you have a further 2.5 gigs of ram,

  • which is partitioned off for the OS and apps

  • and that kind of thing.

  • Now when you look at this it might not actually seem

  • super impressive, right?

  • We've got four times the CPU power,

  • we've got up to eight times the GPU power

  • compared to the Xbox One,

  • but we only have about double the memory.

  • In fact, even less if you compare to the Xbox One X.

  • However, there's actually one other thing here

  • which is helping to improve the memory story.

  • So you flip the board over

  • we'll see another major improvement,

  • which is the standard one terabyte SSD.

  • This is actually a big component of why the Series X

  • is able to be a big leap forward in a lot of ways.

  • So of course the previous generation

  • was bottlenecked by fairly slow hard drives.

  • It made sense back on the time,

  • but in 2020 we expect more speed,

  • and every Series X game also expects to have a SSD.

  • So this is a PCI 4.0 SSD.

  • It is, of course, been custom designed by Microsoft,

  • so it's actually fairly powerful.

  • It can pull almost four watts by itself,

  • which is part of the reason why it's

  • shielded and cooled in this sort of way.

  • But there's actually a couple of

  • very interesting things they're doing.

  • So first of all, like I said, all games expect to have

  • access to all this performance at all times, right?

  • So the CPU, the GPU they're all gonna sit

  • at that very consistent clock speed

  • and the same goes for the SSD.

  • So you're getting 2.4 gigabytes per second

  • pretty much period.

  • They've done a lot of optimizations, of course,

  • on the latency side, which is important

  • because you actually can pull stuff straight off of the SSD

  • straight to memory, so essentially it will kind of

  • expand that 16 gigabytes based on how developers use it.

  • But the, I don't wanna say downside,

  • but one of the things you have to consider

  • is that while, yes, you can plug in a USB hard drive

  • and play games off of that on the Series X

  • you can't play Series X games,

  • just simply because they expect that high level of speed.

  • So if you have your Xbox One games on a hard drive

  • you can plug in, it'll be just fine.

  • But if you want more than one terabyte of space

  • on your Series X you're gonna want one of these guys.

  • So this is a little Seagate expansion module.

  • So there actually were some rumors beforehand

  • about this little mystery port here which they

  • very cleverly not shown until this point.

  • Essentially that means that you can expand with another SSD

  • right into the back of the system.

  • It looks like a memory card,

  • but this is actually a full one terabyte SSD

  • which essentially gives you the exact same performance

  • of your standard SSD, and of course you can imagine

  • with that expansion port on the back,

  • maybe larger capacities,

  • maybe you could own a couple of these.

  • We'll see how expensive they are, to be fair.

  • So this next demo is of quick resume.

  • So to give you a little bit of context here

  • we're not gonna do any cuts here

  • to show you just how fast this is.

  • So I have a Series X controller,

  • I am playing on this actual Series X.

  • So right now I have "State of Decay" up,

  • or "State of Decay 2", rather, up.

  • You can see it playing on the Series X,

  • works just as you would expect.

  • However, say I want to, I don't know, play "Forza"?

  • Well if I switch over to it

  • you can see just how quick it's going to move.

  • So essentially in the background

  • it's saving "State of Decay" in its own VM.

  • So I can jump in and, look, I'm playing "Forza" now,

  • it's that fast.

  • Whoa, whoa, okay.

  • Well it might be that fast, I am not that fast. (laughs)

  • All right, hold on.

  • I'm gonna actually get back on the track here,

  • you can see "Forza" is running just fine,

  • and if I want I can jump over to, say, "Hellblade".

  • Again, you can see how fast it loads,

  • in the background it is saving my "Forza" game.

  • And, there we go, boom, I'm now into another game.

  • Now the cool part about this is that this is all saved

  • across, even you shut down the system or whatever,

  • this is all going to work no matter what.

  • And keep in mind that these games that I'm playing

  • are not optimized at all for the Series X,

  • these are just standard Xbox One games

  • that you could play right out of the gate.

  • So if I wanna jump over to a 360 game

  • all the stuff is being saved directly to that SSD.

  • It is really cool.

  • You can imagine what this might look like

  • if, say, I'm playing on Series X titles

  • that are actually optimized for this use.

  • But that is so cool to be able to just have

  • essentially no load times going between.

  • You can see this is my fifth game and, again, no problems.

  • Right in, boom.

  • - [Ken] Go back to "State of Decay".

  • - Oh, yeah, you'll see it's all still loaded up here.

  • You can see, we're what?

  • Three, four seconds between these games,

  • depending on which one we're at.

  • Look, "State of Decay", it jumps right on the internet

  • without even missing a beat.

  • But that is a good look at the actual

  • hardware behind the Series X,

  • but the rest of the supporting components,

  • I think, are really interesting

  • because there's a lot that goes in

  • to putting together the Xbox Series X.

  • Microsoft's have actually set up

  • a very cool little demo here, where most of these parts

  • are obviously slightly modified, they're magnetized.

  • But essentially I can put together the Series X

  • and show what it looks like from top to bottom.

  • So to start out with we have this center chassis.

  • So this is a piece of aluminum

  • which actually preserves a bunch of functions.

  • So now I just helped give some structure

  • but everything attaches to it.

  • So let's see if I can do this right,

  • I'm gonna start out with the rear I/O board.

  • I know how to do this, I'll definitely get it right.

  • It's fine.

  • Which goes in like this.

  • So you can see there are a ton of air channels here

  • but essentially it should just go with the I/O facing out.

  • And look at that.

  • Look how good I am at building things.

  • All the guys who designed this are standing right over here,

  • I'm definitely getting a little nervous. (chuckles)

  • No judgment, it's fine.

  • Okay, so, the next step would be to take

  • the other part of the mainboard

  • and it should just attach like this.

  • So you can see essentially we have

  • the SOC and the memory facing this way

  • and then we have the other mainboard facing this way,

  • with our SATA port and some of our various connectors

  • with the southbridge.

  • You can see that the I/O all comes together like this.

  • So this would stick out the back of the console.

  • So with this level of power there is a lot of, well,

  • literal power flowing through the chip

  • and all of that has to go somewhere,

  • and that somewhere is a

  • ridiculous, ridiculous vapor chamber.

  • So while the Xbox One X was the first Xbox

  • to feature a vapor chamber, this is a whole other level.

  • So not only do you have the aluminum fins on the back

  • where air flow will pass through,

  • but you can see this is a massive vapor chamber.

  • So actually if I take off the SOC, here, you can kinda get

  • a little bit of an idea what this looks like.

  • So essentially the SOC will go on

  • with this little section right here,

  • so it'll cool not only the chip but also the VRM around it.

  • And then you also have all of your GDDR6 memory

  • which can also make contact here.

  • But there's certainly a lot of heat

  • that has to be dissipated by this vapor chamber.

  • So let's see if I can actually put it together.

  • So next we have the SOC chassis

  • which goes on something like this.

  • (upbeat music)

  • Almost there.

  • Oh, there we go.

  • All right, all right.

  • Next I need to put the vapor chamber on,

  • which obviously will go something like this.

  • There we go.

  • There we go.

  • Okay, that starting to look a little bit more like an Xbox.

  • Now we have the power supply.

  • This is a very compact unit.

  • I remember back when the Xbox One came out,

  • the original, and it had that huge external supply.

  • Well now we've got a 300 watt supply

  • which not only fits inside,

  • but is also cooled by the exact same fan, spoiler alert,

  • that cools the rest of the system.

  • So I believe this slides on something like this?

  • Yeah, all right.

  • That's looking like a shape of a thing.

  • Next step we have the little bottom shield.

  • So I slide it on something like this?

  • Yes!

  • Next step is the optical drive.

  • So this is a very similar Blu-ray drive

  • to what you had on the previous generation,

  • and believe it goes on something like this.

  • Hey, look at that!

  • Now we're getting a little bit more of an Xbox One shape.

  • I'm sorry, did I say the Xbox One?

  • Xbox Series X.

  • Next up we have the fan, and you have to consider

  • this is the only fan in the entire Xbox Series X.

  • So it is a very, very custom unit.

  • So it's a 130 millimeter fan.

  • And you can see that not only are the blades

  • really uniquely shaped, but the entire top shroud

  • is pretty much designed for the optimal airflow

  • to keep things moving.

  • 'Cause you have to keep in mind, with only one fan,

  • the airflow has to be very carefully managed.

  • So if you imagine this is the Series X,

  • which it is very close to at this point,

  • air is coming through a few different channels,

  • so of course a lot of air is passing through the heat sink

  • on the back of the vapor chamber

  • and being exhaust at the top.

  • But air also comes through the center chassis

  • to cool the various components like the SSD.

  • We also have to consider that the power supply needs air

  • which is exhausted underneath this

  • black little plastic piece.

  • There's a lot going on here

  • and it all really starts and ends with the fan.

  • Which if I can line it up like this,

  • is essentially how it sits.

  • Obviously, as someone who builds PCs and stuff,

  • you see a lot of fans that are exactly the same,

  • or you see, like, "Oh, we added RGB," or whatever.

  • But this is such a complicated shape,

  • especially when you look at the fan blades

  • and the way that this shroud.

  • And this is actually kind of interesting.

  • So you were mentioning this earlier.

  • So there's a little sort of, like, escape path.

  • So say someone accidentally put something over the top

  • there's still the ability for air

  • to be exhausted through here.

  • - That's right. - Obviously, it's optimal.

  • But somebody accidentally puts a book

  • on top of your Series X it's not gonna immediately go

  • and completely get all the air cut off.

  • You've done a lot of cool stuff here.

  • - There is.

  • The surfacing around the fan shroud, like you said,

  • it's super complex

  • and super driven by the engineering requirements

  • of getting that air up

  • and then spread out as wide as possible as it exhausts.

  • - If you wanna a better visual what this looks like,

  • there happens to be a wonderful graphic right behind me.

  • Look it's a tornado of heat and exhaust.

  • - [Ken] You didn't think that one through did you?

  • - Didn't think that one through at all.

  • Everyone the room is very upset with me.

  • Is not a tornado, it's very carefully managed.

  • Also, if you look up close which you probably never will

  • because no one should ever open up your Series X.

  • I mean, I guess technically it could but you shouldn't.

  • Inside they're actually a couple of

  • really interesting Easter eggs.

  • So first of all a lot of the components

  • are individually labeled.

  • So you can see this is number one, the center chassis.

  • We have the optical disc drive.

  • They're actually in total of seven of these things.

  • But my favorite is if you look on the very top of this fan

  • you'll see a tiny little Master Chief.

  • No one's ever gonna see this,

  • but it is very very cool of these guys

  • to have spent so much time optimizing this layout.

  • And I know a lot of people are kind of wondering

  • when you saw the announcement

  • of why the Xbox is shaped as it is.

  • But as we put it all together you can see

  • that there's actually a lot of very clever engineering

  • that went into putting this together.

  • I almost have the Series X complete.

  • The next step is just to put it all in the chassis

  • which I'm sure I'll get first try, no problem.

  • (gentle music)

  • Okay, so I'm going to line it up.

  • Angle it just a little bit.

  • Hey wait, wait, wait!

  • Look, I got it, I got it.

  • And there we have the Xbox Series X.

  • Don't look at this side, look at this side.

  • It's fine, look at that.

  • Look how beautiful of a job I've done

  • in developing this console.

  • (coughs) With no help at all from anyone in this room.

  • No one just told me how to do that or anything like that.

  • Thanks guys, appreciate it. (coughing)

  • So you know I'm gonna have to ask the question

  • that the entire internet asked

  • the second one that we saw this.

  • Why is it this shape?

  • - Ha, very good question, and it's a good reason.

  • I mean, you put the box together, you can see how

  • all of those big components kind of fit together

  • in this really unique way,

  • and it's all driven by pulling air through the system

  • with this big axial fan on the top.

  • - Are you concerned at all about this not fitting

  • under people's TVs or anything like that?

  • - No, I mean, that that's a good question.

  • We were really conscious about being

  • able to fit into people's homes, fit into the TV consoles

  • that they had now on their shelves.

  • One of the cool things about this is you can,

  • as you were doing, you can put it down sideways,

  • you can use it vertically.

  • It's actually got a really small footprint,

  • so you can put it on a much shallower shelf

  • than you ever could before.

  • So we think it gives people a lot of flexibility

  • in where they can put it.

  • - So I know when I first saw this,

  • and, of course, if you've seen the the announcement video

  • you'll see that you've got the little scoop on the top,

  • with what looked like LEDs.

  • But, in fact, it's sort of more of like

  • an optical illusion here, right?

  • - I mentioned that the fan needs to pull a lot of air,

  • we need really big holes and we decided to embrace that

  • as a design element.

  • And we added this slight dish,

  • on a really deep set of holes here,

  • so that as you look at it

  • your view changes and you see more or less inside.

  • And the green was really kind of a nod to our fans,

  • a nod to Xbox, it's got like the soul of Xbox inside it.

  • And it reveals itself as you get closer.

  • - A new console is nothing without a new controller

  • and the Series X has some interesting differences.

  • So you can see we have everything from The Duke

  • all the way up to the Series X.

  • And while at first glance this looks

  • very, very similar to the Xbox One

  • there actually are some pretty significant differences.

  • So one of first ones is actually in the size.

  • So while the grip and everything down here

  • is pretty much the same,

  • the top has been tapered a little bit more.

  • So it's better for smaller hands.

  • And in fact there's actually a demo here that I have.

  • It's basically a giant controller

  • to kind of give you a sense of what it would feel like,

  • and it's still very comfortable

  • even if you do have the smaller hands.

  • Also, this looks hilarious.

  • So a lot, of course, is very similar.

  • So the sticks and a lot of the buttons feel the same.

  • However we do now have a much nicer D-pad.

  • So it's nicely faceted, it has a nice sort of clicky action,

  • and we also do have a share button built in.

  • Now in the bottom it is pretty much identical,

  • so a lot of accessories,

  • including your headsets and everything,

  • should just slide in, no problem, on the bottom.

  • And if we flip over to the top we now have USB-C.

  • Now if we open up the back you will see

  • that we have the exact same setup as the Xbox One.

  • So it will ship with AA batteries

  • and you can, of course, still use your Play and Charge Kit.

  • Obviously, if you really value AA batteries,

  • that's an option, although rechargeables are definitely

  • the way that I like to go.

  • But interestingly this is a very different style

  • of controller they've done in the past,

  • mostly because this is actually backwards compatible

  • with the Xbox One and vice-versa.

  • So obviously there are some improvements here.

  • At it's sort of core fundamentals

  • this is not wildly different than the Xbox One,

  • which means that if you wanna take your current

  • Xbox One controller and move it over to the Series X,

  • or even take a Series X controller and play it on Xbox One

  • you can absolutely do that.

  • Now it still does take advantage

  • of the Xbox wireless radio,

  • and they've actually done a lot of work

  • to improve the latency, so that the controller will

  • update the console more often.

  • But, interestingly, on top of that, it does, of course,

  • you can connect it via USB,

  • but it does have Bluetooth low energy.

  • So if say you're using this with

  • an iPhone or an Android or something,

  • it will be a little bit more energy efficient

  • and it'll be a little bit quicker.

  • One very cool demo on this Series X

  • is the ability to do HDR reconstruction.

  • So you can see right here we have "Halo 5"

  • and, keep in mind, it's gonna be very bright

  • since it's now in HDR.

  • But essentially what we've got here is a game

  • which was never originally designed

  • to have the HDR implementation.

  • However using some very clever trickery

  • you can see on this display everything in the orange,

  • and you see anything in the reds and the whites,

  • that's actually full HDR color space

  • which was not originally designed into the game.

  • To me I can't believe, like, just looking at this.

  • Yeah, you can see how bright it gets over here,

  • for a game that was never designed for it.

  • And the cool thing is this actually works

  • for more than just like an Xbox One game

  • that never had HDR.

  • We got a demo earlier of an original Xbox game,

  • "Fuzion Frenzy", clearly never designed with HDR in mind

  • and it still looks great.

  • Maybe not quite as good as Halo, but you know.

  • So I have the exact same level loaded up

  • on both of these Series X dev kits.

  • So you can see on this we have the full HDR reconstruction

  • where especially you get a lot of brightness here

  • and this is a heat map.

  • So essentially all this is doing is just showing us,

  • based on the color, where we're really getting that

  • extra brightness and that extra range

  • that of course was never designed.

  • So you can see fire, you can see with this over here.

  • And if I try to throw a grenade at the same time

  • you can see, yeah.

  • Actually, I'll do that again, that's cool. (chuckles)

  • It's so bright.

  • Realistically, if this just was the way I played the game

  • I don't think I would ever realize

  • that this wasn't something that the developer had intended.

  • This is something that can be added, and this can be added

  • with essentially no impact to performance.

  • What is this called?

  • We know obviously it's the Xbox Series X.

  • But we've had the Xbox, we had the 360, we had the One.

  • What is this generation called?

  • - This generation's just called Xbox,

  • and this specific console's the Xbox Series X.

  • - Okay, gotcha.

  • So fourth generation Xboxes are just the Xbox.

  • - Exactly. - Okay.

  • - [Jason] Absolutely, we want people to be able

  • to just go in and say, "I want the latest Xbox."

  • So that's why we named it Xbox.

  • - You've been working on this for how long now?

  • - Xbox Series X development started in 2016.

  • So we've been working on it

  • for four years. - Before One X?

  • - Absolutely.

  • - [Austin] I'm assuming it's gotta be nice

  • to finally show off your baby.

  • - That's why we're so excited to have you here,

  • is to actually be able to start sharing more details

  • about what the team's been working on

  • for the last four years.

  • - I gotta give you props, I did not realize.

  • First of all, it's kind of crazy to me

  • that you guys are being this upfront open about a console,

  • what, six months or whatever before launch.

  • But on top of that, you've shown us so much stuff

  • and we get to show so much in the video.

  • Why are you guys being so open about this ahead of time?

  • Aren't you afraid that people are gonna be like,

  • "Oh, steal some notes," or whatever?

  • What's the thought behind that?

  • - Honestly, we're just really proud

  • with what we've actually built.

  • We've been working on this for so long

  • and it's finally great to just start sharing more details.

  • And as we get closer to launch

  • we're really focused on showing

  • what the platform can actually do

  • and the awesome games you'll be able to play.

  • - You do consider this to be a new generation, though right?

  • It's definitely-- - Yeah, yeah.

  • The technology inside of this generation

  • is so transformative and the kinds of gaming experiences

  • you're gonna be able to experience

  • are just so fundamentally different,

  • and its really unlocked by all the power

  • that we've put in the box.

  • - Thank you very much for watching.

  • If you enjoyed make sure to subscribe to the channel

  • because there's going to be a whole lot more

  • on the Series X coming soon.

  • (gentle upbeat music)

- This is the Xbox Series X.

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