How powerful is the Xbox One X?
Does the Xbox One X have a huge advantage over the PS4 Pro?
Published: 3rd November 2017 | Source: Microsoft Xbox One X specifications |
How powerful is the Xbox One X?
We have created a chart that compares the specifications of today's x86 consoles from Sony and Microsoft, allowing you to see exactly how they compare when it comes to CPU, GPU and memory performance and detail what allows each modern/upgraded console to offer higher levels of graphical fidelity or performance than their existing counterparts.
When comparing the Xbox One and its enhanced Xbox One S to the new Xbox One X, it is clear that Microsoft wanted to decrease the complexity of their chip design by removing its 32MB of ESRAM and replace it entirely with a faster GDDR5-based memory sub-system, with the console's new GDDR5 memory solution offering more memory bandwidth than their SOC's contained ESRAM ever did.
Alongside this memory bandwidth boost, Microsoft has increased the amount of RAM in their console by 50%, which will allow for more memory intensive graphical effects and/or higher resolution texture packs to be used in Xbox One X enhanced games. When playing older Non-X Xbox One games this extra memory will be used as a RAMDISK, allowing older games to load faster than on a standard Xbox One.
The Xbox One X also contains more compute units than the Xbox One and has these units clocked at higher speeds, giving the Xbox One X over four times the raw GPU performance of the Xbox One and Xbox One S, which is why this console is able to push more pixels than its standard non-X counterparts. Microsoft has also upgraded their console with an Enhanced Jaguar CPU, which offers core clock speeds of 2.3GHz, a 31.4% improvement over the Xbox One and S in terms of clock speed alone.
| Xbox one | Xbox One S | PS4 | PS4 Pro | Xbox One X | |
| Process Node | 28nm | 16nm | 28nm | 16nm | 16nm |
| CPU Cores | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| CPU Archtecture | Jaguar | Jaguar | Jaguar | Jaguar | Enhanced/Custom Jaguar |
| CPU Clock Speeds | 1.75GHz | 1.75GHz | 1.6GHz | 2.1GHz | 2.3GHz |
| Memory amount (Total) | 8GB | 8GB | 8GB | 8GB (+1GB) | 12GB |
| Memory Type | DDR3 | DDR3 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 (+DDR3) | GDDR5 |
| Memory Bandwidth | 68.26GB/s | 68.26GB/s | 178GB/s | 218GB/s | 326GB/s |
| Memory Bandwidth (ESRAM) | 204GB/s | 219GB/s | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| GPU Archtecture | GCN | GCN | GCN | Custom Polaris | Custom Polaris |
| GPU CUs | 12 | 12 | 18 | 36 | 40 |
| GPU Cores | 768 | 768 | 1152 | 2304 | 2560 |
| GPU Clock Speeds | 853MHz | 914MHz | 800MHz | 911MHz | 1172MHz |
| GPU Perf (TFlops) | 1.31 | 1.4 | 1.84 | 4.2 | 6.0 |
When compared to the PS4 Pro the increase in raw CPU and GPU performance are clear, even when looking at the console's spec sheets. Though it is the increase in memory bandwidth and capacity that really places the Xbox One X ahead of Sony's most powerful console.
This extra 4GB of VRAM and the console's extra 108GB/s of extra bandwidth will allow the console to load data faster from memory and enable the Xbox One X to offer higher resolution textures than the PS4 Pro, a factor that becomes much more important as console move to higher display resolutions.
Right now there are not many games that have been "upgraded" on both the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro, so no detailed comparisons between the graphics provided by both consoles are readily available yet, though based on the specifications alone it is clear that the Xbox One X will have the advantage in terms of raw horsepower and memory capacity, which should allow skilled developers to get more from Microsoft's new console. That being said, the lower price of Sony's PS4 Pro still makes it a compelling purchase.
In the UK the PS4 Pro costs around £350 and the Xbox One X costs around £450, making the Xbox One X £100 more expensive, though its additional horsepower and its ability to play 4K Blu-ray content will likely be a big factor when it comes to choosing between both consoles for some people.
Microsoft's claim that their Xbox One X console is "40% more powerful than any other console" is somewhat misleading, as while this is true in terms of memory bandwidth and GPU performance this is not the case when it comes to CPU horsepower, where the Xbox One X is less than 10% more powerful than the PS4 Pro. Regardless, the Xbox One X is easily the most powerful gaming console to date, though it remains to be seen how this new device will change's Microsoft's future outlook when it comes to gaming.
You can join the discussion on Microsoft's Xbox One X on the OC3D Forums.
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Hopefully with a Ryzen powered SoC. That will finally address the appalling CPU bottleneck that the current consoles have to suffer with.Quote