The Xbox One X is a bold new move from Microsoft. While its previous consoles have all been generational leaps compared to what came before, the company's newest machine is more of a half-step beyond what it currently offers with the Xbox One.
That's not to say the Xbox One X isn't a big jump in terms of power. With 6 teraflops of graphical performance packed in, it's able to run games natively at Ultra HD, a resolution that's four times higher than Full HD.
No, when we say the Xbox One X is a half-step what we mean is that it doesn't break compatibility with previous consoles. The console will play all Xbox One games, but crucially all of the X's games will also be playable on the previous machine.
Think of the One X as the iPhone 7 to the original Xbox One’s iPhone 6. It’s powerful, much more powerful, but it runs the same apps and services, and these are all also available on the older hardware.
There's a lot of horsepower under the hood but the downside, of course, is that all this extra horsepower is going to cost you. The new machine will retail for $499 (£449 / AU$649), which is around double that of what the Xbox One S costs. Read on to find out what bang you can expect from your significantly increased buck.
Design
Starting with the exterior, the Xbox One X follows a very similar design blueprint to the Xbox One S. That’s no bad thing, the One S was a breath of fresh are after the hulking VHS-player inspired Xbox One, and we’re completely content for Microsoft to continue this design trend.
Size-wise the new console is a touch smaller than the old one, although you’re unlikely to notice unless you put the two next to each other.
The biggest change is the color. Whereas the One S came with a clean white color scheme by default, the new console is more of a space gray. Obviously the hardware needs to look different from its predecessor to avoid confusion, but we’d be lying if we said we didn’t prefer the white that had preceded it.
One the front of the machine there’s a subtle slot-loading disc slot, a single USB port, an ‘on’ button disguised as an Xbox logo, a controller sync button and an IR receiver. It’s very similar to the Xbox One S, although the disc slot has been moved down to the dividing line between the top and bottom of the console.
Round the back the similarities to the One S continue. From left to right you’ve got a power connector, HDMI out, HDMI in, two USB ports, an IR out, an Optical Audio port and an Ethernet port.
Controller-wise the new machine is packing a new space gray themed gamepad which, for all intents and purposes is exactly the same as the one that currently ships with the Xbox One S.
So far, so standard. The real difference with the console comes when you look at what it’s packing inside.
Specs
Microsoft has been very upfront about the specs of its new machine, proudly proclaiming that it's the most powerful console every made.
The console would comes equipped with an eight core CPU clocked at 2.3GHz, alongside 12GB of GDDR5 RAM. It features a GPU clocked at 1172MHz leaving the console with 6 teraflops of graphical computing power.
The machine will come equipped with a 1TB hard drive, and that the Ultra HD Blu-ray player found in the Xbox One S would be making a return.
On paper, then, this is a powerful machine. It doesn’t quite have the GPU horsepower of the latest high-end cards from Nvidia and AMD, but thanks to the combination of Blu-ray player and Dolby Atmos it has a breadth of capabilities that’s wider than most modern gaming PCs.
Microsoft may have taken a step back from its original ambitions for the Xbox One to be the centre of your media center, but that doesn’t mean One X isn’t a competent media player in its own right.
Gaming performance
When it comes to consoles it’s very difficult to translate the specs on paper into what the machine will actually be capable of. We can compare two PC graphics cards because we have the ability to keep the rest of the equation, the operating system, CPU and games for instance, the same.
Comparing the PS4 and Xbox One based on raw specs, meanwhile, is almost meaningless. These are two completely separate machines, running completely different code. As such, while we know that on paper that Xbox One X is more powerful than the PS4 Pro, Sony’s own 4K competitor, its gaming performance will ultimately come down to how well its games and APIs are optamised for its hardware.
We’d been given tantalising hints as to what the hardware would be capable of, such as the Forza engine running in Ultra HD with a framerate of 60fps, but this information was the result of just two days of work by a team porting over an engine developed for what is now the last generation of Microsoft’s console hardware.
It was an impressive feat, but in the months since, Microsoft’s engineers have achieved so much more.
We were treated to live demonstrations of both Forza Motorsport 7 and Gears of War 4, which will be receiving a free One X patch later on this year.
In Forza Motorsport 7 the Xbox One X’s power was being used to add fantastic amounts of detail both in and outside of the car. Sitting in the cockpit you could make out the stitching in the steering wheel, and with a third-person camera cars retained their crisp detailing even as they disappeared into the distance.
But the really impressive work happened when the car started to hit higher speeds, and parts of the exterior started to rattle with the wind. Seeing the mirror, complete with reflection, vibrate was especially satisfying.
Switching to Gears of War 4 allowed the console to show off its HDR capabilities with sunlight that almost had us shielding our eyes with how bright it was. The One X version of the game also features much sharper shadows beneath our character’s feet.
Although all of these effects won’t be as apparent on a non-4K screen, they should still be present to a certain extent. Microsoft has said that the console will continue to render at 4K, but will supersample this content down to HD.
We haven’t had a chance to see this super sampling in action, but similar technology from Nvidia’s graphics cards produces improved, if not mind-blowing, images.
Game Library
At launch, Xbox One X will support all of the Xbox One’s existing games. This sounds impressive, but it’s not entirely unprecedented.
When the PS3 was originally released it was able to play the PS2’s entire back catalogue, and the PS2 could do likewise with the PS1’s library.
On Microsoft’s side, backwards compatibility has historically been more patchy. The Xbox 360 played a large majority of the original Xbox’s games (albeit with occasional hiccups), but at launch the same could not be said of the Xbox One - though the situation has improved considerably since.
Regardless of its history, Microsoft is turning over a new leaf with Xbox One X, which at launch will not only play every Xbox One game, but will also support those 360 games that are playable on the newer hardware. If the Xbox One S is anything to go by, then even Xbox One games will see a performance boost on the new hardware.
However the really impressive feat is that new One X games will also be playable on the Xbox One. Granted, they’ll be playable without the bells and whistles of 4K, and VR titles will be excluded, but, aside from that, they’ll all be there.
This might initially sound like something that’s more of a benefit for Xbox One owners than Xbox One X owners, but it could not be further from the truth.
Normally, when a new console comes out, publishers are reticent to spend too much money on it because the install base is so low. However, with One X that problem doesn’t happen, because games will have a guaranteed install base with all the Xbox One consoles that are currently out in the wild.
Microsoft was keen to show off the new games developed for the console which included new patches for Gears of War 4, Halo 5 and Minecraft, as well as all new games such as Forza Motorsport 7, Assassin's Creed: Origins and Crackdown 3.
Wikipedia currently maintains a list of all the games that will be released for the Xbox One X if you want to dive deeper.
Early Verdict
At double the price of the Xbox One S, the Xbox One X feels like a premium piece of hardware for anyone that’s invested in a 4K TV and is just dying to find a machine to make the most out of it.
Sure, the PS4 Pro offers similar functionality, but upscaling can never beat the raw detail that native 4K on the One X offers.
This is a machine that offers best-in-class graphical performance that comes tantalisingly close to what a PC can achieve at a much lower price point.
But while it might be a lot cheaper than a similarly specced PC, there’s no escaping the fact that the One X is significantly more expensive than its two closest relatives, the Xbox One S and the PS4 Pro. Yes, its graphics do seem to have the edge based on the demos we’ve seen so far, but whether the extra eye-candy is worth the extra money is still a very subjective topic.
If you've already invested in a decent 4K setup with one of our best 4K TVs, one of our best Ultra HD Blu-ray players, and a 4K set-top box like the Sky Q then the Xbox One X is a no brainer.
But if you're a slightly more budget-conscious consumer then the Xbox One S should serve your needs for a number of years yet, especially since it's set to continue to receive all the games that will be arriving on the X.
Stay tuned to TechRadar for when we get the hardware for ourselves to conduct a full review.
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