Xbox Series X hands-on
The start of a new generation of consoles is always something very special. For all video games but of course also for us editors. But in 2020 everything will be different, including the world of video games. No superlative E3 trade fair, no preview events, but one live stream date after another for months.
This new Xbox generation has landed for testing in the form of an Xbox Series X for around two and a half weeks. Enough time to take a close look at the hardware and the first software for you.
Stanley Kubrick sends his regards
The packaging of the Xbox Series X is well thought out and looks extremely valuable. A similar "unpacking experience" is usually only offered by Apple products. If you open the box, the accessories are packed in an extra pull-out drawer and the console is wrapped in protective material in front of you. In view of the straight, black monolith design, when you first pick it up, you can almost hear Richard Strauss's "Also sprach Zarathustra" in the iconic scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Of course, design is always a matter of taste. The fact is that the console with its 15.1 cm x 15.1 cm x 30.1 cm actually looks quite compact and makes a good and high-quality impression both vertically and horizontally in a modern living room set-up. There is also nothing to complain about in terms of workmanship, but you can quickly see fingerprints on the matte plastic surface. These can be removed quickly with a commercially available cleaning cloth. The green paint on the tubes of the exhaust air grille on the top of the console is also clever; depending on the viewing angle, this creates the optical effect of glowing green LEDs.
If you take the console in your hand, you will notice that it weighs a decent 4.46 kilograms. There is a plus point for a detail on the back of the console, where most of the connections are of course located and each has a haptic mark in the form of noticeable points. This allows you to switch a cable without looking directly at the back and without first trying 3 wrong connections until you find the right USB port. Of course, this is especially advantageous for people with visual impairments, but in our test this feature also made it easier for us to insert a USB stick. Definitely a good thing!
How loud How hot?
The first thing to do is to find a suitable place for your new console. As described, you can place the console vertically or horizontally. In any case, it is important that the console has plenty of space. Because the good power of the Xbox Series X and the rather compact design ensure that a lot of heat is generated under full load. The first good news is that the nifty split motherboard design and large fan won't cause heat problems if you build the console properly. The second good news is this thing is extremely quiet. Without a disk in the drive, we could only measure 38 - 39 dB in the office. That is almost nothing, every hard drive is clearly louder there, you hear, if you have the console close to you at your desk, a slight rustling of the fan. In contrast, even the Xbox One X can be heard much more.
The controller
For many, the Xbox One controller is the best standard controller of the last generation and so Microsoft has decided to concentrate primarily on improving the details of the new generation. So it is often about things that you only see at second glance, but which turn out to be a significant advantage when playing. In the new design, the controller now looks much more of a single piece and for the black version, a matte plastic has now been chosen that has significantly fewer fingerprints and streaks after use. You can immediately see that something has happened to the digital control pad. It was the weak point of the Xbox 360 controller, has been greatly improved for the Xbox One, and now the plate design borrowed from the Elite controller is starting here again. A big plus point, especially for beat ém ups and retro 2D games, the inputs click much louder and you can also control "intermediate inputs" like the top left quicker and more precisely.
The joypad is a little heavier than the one on the Xbox One and feels great in the hand, but thanks to the ribbed back it feels even better and more slip-proof. The two triggers have also been changed slightly and are now a bit narrower, which is especially beneficial for players with smaller hands. In addition, they now have a slightly nubby, rougher surface. If you want to share a video or a screenshot more often, you will also be happy about the additional share button that is now available. The controller should also be connected to the console much faster, i.e. with less latency, but to be honest, I never had a problem with the Xbox One or its controller. One or the other nanosecond is certainly there and should become an advantage in streaming games, for example. It's also nice that you can continue to use all Xbox One controllers on the Xbox Series X / S as second and third controllers.
The Xbox Series X in the technology check
PROCESSOR
CPU: 8 cores at 3.8 GHz (3.66 GHz with SMT) Custom Zen 2 CPU
GPU: 12 TFLOPS, 52 CUs at 1.825 GHz Custom RDNA 2 GPU
SOC die size : 360.45 mm
Process: 7 nm improved
WORK AND HARD DISK MEMORY
RAM: 16 GB GDDR6 with 320 bit wide bus
Memory bandwidth: 10 GB @ 560 GB / s, 6 GB @ 336 GB / s.
Internal storage: 1TB Custom NVME SSD
I / O throughput. 2.4 GB / s (raw), 4.8 GB / s (compressed, with bespoke hardware decompression block)
Expandable storage. Support for 1TB Seagate Expansion Card for Xbox Series X | S is the same as internal storage (sold separately). Support for external USB 3.1 hard drive (sold separately).
VIDEO FUNCTIONS
Game resolution. True 4K
High dynamic range. Up to 8K HDR
Optical drive. 4K UHD Blu-Ray drive
Performance target. Up to 120 FPS
HDMI functions. Automatic low latency mode. Variable HDMI frame rate. AMD FreeSync.
SOUND CAPABILITIES
Dolby Digital 5.1
DIRT 5.1
Dolby TrueHD with Atmos
Up to 7.1 L-PCM
PORTS AND CONNECTION
HDMI. 1 x HDMI 2.1 port
USB. 3 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports
Wireless. 802.11ac dual band
Ethernet. 802.3 10/100/1000
Accessory radio Special dual band Xbox Wireless
CASING
Dimensions 15.1 cm x 15.1 cm x 30.1 cm
Weight 4.46 kg
Games, games, games
If you switch on the Xbox Series X for the first time, you have 802 GigaBytes (GB) of the internal SSD available. That's a lot, but not that much either. An example: The NextGen upgrade from Forza Horizont 4 alone weighs around 65 GB and there are also games that need 100 or even 200 GB of space. The official 1TB memory expansion provided a remedy, but it still costs around 250 euros. Alternatively, an external hard disk or SSD can be connected via the USB 3.1 sockets. Since these are then operated at different speeds, the option is only available for backwards compatible games but not for Xbox Series S / X games. However, you can move games that you haven't played for a long time, but don't want to download again, to the slower external hard drive and then push them back into the internal SSD storage if you want to play them again. This can take some time (10-30 minutes depending on the disk and size of the game), but it is significantly faster than a new download.
Xbox Series X offers a radically different NextGen experience than previous console swaps. Not only can you play almost all Xbox One games as well as all Xbox Classic and Xbox 360 games that also ran on Xbox One, but all games benefit immediately from the console's new capabilities without having to be specially adapted. Fast loading times, very good upscaling and an automatic HDR feature put you in the mood to relive one or the other old pearl. For Classic and XB360 titles that you have on disc, the system automatically downloads the complete game as a compatible file, Xbox One games run from disc or are installed from there and then only need to be updated.
Games that don't have a frame lock benefit enormously from the CPU and graphics power and are pushed to a buttery smooth 60 frames. (A total of around 1,100 compatible games are available to you at the start). Even if you had an Xbox One X, that raises the issue of backward compatibility to a completely different level in the direction of the first two Xbox generations!
30 games have already been optimized for the start on November 10th and are often available via Smart Delivery. Means, if you have already paid for the game for the Xbox One, you will get the optimized Xbox One version for free. This not only applies to these 30 games, many more such as Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 2 or Halo: Infinite will follow in the next few months. You get new effects like ray tracing. Of course, you also take your score with you, start the game, the system fetches your last save game in a few seconds and starts exactly at this point.
The thing with the SSD
Once you have got used to the fast loading times of the Custom NVME SSD, a return to slower hard drives is difficult to imagine. Every game we tested benefits from this feature, even with non-optimized games you often save 20 seconds or more. That adds up quickly and effectively brings you more game time and less frustration if you fail and have to reload a level. With the optimized Xbox Series X / S games in particular, you can expect that they will benefit even more from the SSD.
Quick resume
Another thing that you will get used to extremely quickly is Quick Resume! You can switch back and forth very quickly between several games, the complete status of which is stored on the SSD. This gives you the impression that the games are running almost in parallel. If the game already supports this function, you can switch through the - currently up to four - open games by pressing the menu button in approx. 10 seconds. If you use this feature, you have another benefit, even if you switch off the console completely, you can jump to the exact place where you left the game.
The Xbox Series X dashboard
The Xbox Series X user interface is practically no different from the current version of the Xbox Dashboard on Xbox One. However, this recently introduced interface has also been introduced with the new Xbox generation in mind. It is immediately noticeable that everything is done extremely quickly and snappy and that the most important functions and menu items can be found quickly. Additional functions, such as the overview of the current quick resume games or the option to activate the 120 Hz display on supported TVs, have been well integrated.
The first conclusion
The Xbox Series X is a great piece of hardware and, above all, it is a new Xbox with numerous improvements and convenience features. There is hardly any real NextGen kick here at the beginning, the console even makes the same noise when you press the button to switch on. You feel more like coming home and in your absence some things have been improved and renovated. That should change quickly, however, if the games make better use of the stronger hardware, some optimized games already show, thanks to fancy raytracing effects, in which direction it will go. But once you've experienced the faster loading times, the stable frame rates and things like quick resume, you don't want to do without them anymore. The excellent Xbox One joypad has been improved and polished in many corners and otherwise it seems that Microsoft simply listened to the players. Together with the Game Pass, you herald the next generation on many levels. At first glance it looks as if not that much has changed ... this generation could bring about bigger changes than the change from modular systems to CD-ROM systems. In any case, I am already sure that this generation will be much more exciting than the current one. ( Shock² )
The post Xbox Series X in Hands-On first appeared on Xiaomist .
Comments
Post a Comment