With the Xbox Series X, Microsoft is bringing a console onto the market that not only promises top speed, but actually pushes the tube in every respect. It remains as quiet as a mouse and is fully backwards compatible. Player, what more do you want? Okay, PC gamers who spend thousands of euros on perfect hardware may never be won over by consoles. And somehow they were right so far, the performance of the devices was usually not enough to get the most out of games. The Xbox Series X may tempt hardcore PC gamers, however. Because the console is so powerful, among other things, that you no longer have to choose between high resolution and high refresh rate. Microsoft has done almost everything right with its new top console, as ntv.de was able to determine in a first short week of testing.
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The design of the 4.5 kilogram Xbox Series X clearly follows the function. The console is simply a 30 centimeter high cuboid with a square base with 15 centimeter long edges. The most visually exciting thing is the top, which consists of a slightly inwardly curved, large-meshed grid. A large fan sits under him. With this design it is not easy to find a place for the console, it is best to keep it behind the television if possible. You can also put the Xbox on its side, which makes things a little easier. Either way, it is important to ensure that the grille side has a clear view of the room. The Xbox Series X may not be beautiful, but its design is ideal for efficiently conveying the hot exhaust air outside. In order to optimize the air flow, the console has a split motherboard. There is also a vapor chamber on the processor, in which the liquid evaporates, rises to cooling fins in a vacuum, gives off heat, condenses and flows back.
8K possible at 120 Hz, The top is also visually interesting due to its slightly green color.
Good cooling is also urgently needed, because Microsoft’s new flagship has four times the performance of the Xbox One X, which was the most powerful console to date. Among other things, it can not only display games in 4K resolution at a constant refresh rate of 60 Hertz (Hz), up to 8K and 120 Hz are also possible. In addition, there are technologies that are supposed to enable particularly realistic lighting, reflections and acoustics. Finally, the console can independently give older games a modern HDR shine, and it offers developers AI support for new titles. What the Xbox Series X really has in the box, it probably only shows with specially developed games, and upcoming blockbusters such as “Assassin’s Creed Walhalla” or “Watchdogs: Legions” may ntv.de only after their release in the optimized version play. But the latest games also receive Series X updates and the console pimps older games on its own. And so ntv.de was able to get a pretty good impression of the console’s performance.
Exemplary compatibility, You can also lay the console down.
Older games? Yes, exactly, Microsoft has also given its new generation of consoles full backwards compatibility. The other way around, Xbox One controllers work on the Series X. The new controller looks almost unchanged to match. But it has a new share button, the steering wheel allows additional intermediate steps and it is a bit more handy. There is now a USB‑C port that can be used to charge batteries in the controller. It is supplied with standard AAA batteries. If you install games that were previously played on an older Xbox, you will automatically receive the optimized version, if available. Conversely, new titles on previous consoles are only installed with the necessary features.
Not much has changed with the controller.
The very first game in the test was “Titanfall 2” from 2016, which was played on the Xbox One and then played on the Series X. All saved games were taken over, you could pick up where you left off on the previous console.
Rapid loading times
Two differences emerged. On the one hand, the game looks a bit better than on the “old” One X thanks to the console’s technical tricks. But the much faster loading times are much more blatant. In addition to the higher performance, this is mainly due to the new SSD storage. It feels like everything takes just seconds, measurements showed loading times were roughly halved. The console’s boot process is also rapid, even in energy-saving mode — and does not end with a big bang, as with the One X, but with a somewhat more subtle fanfare. The approximately one year old “Gears 5” has already been optimized for the Series X. This makes the game much smoother and storms, which were previously optical delicacies from the Microsoft exclusive, are now so much fun that you occasionally run into ruin out of exuberance. The game also looks a bit more attractive, especially if the television can display HDR well: the Series X also supports Dolby Vision. The same goes for the good sound with Dolby Atmos.
Quiet even under maximum load
In the noisy action games, there is another special feature that is not noticeable at first, but even more so during breaks: You hardly hear anything about the cooling. The Xbox Series X is whisper-quiet, even when it has to perform at its best. If there is a game on a disc, the drive temporarily banishes the silence, but then gives peace. SSD and performance also allow you to quickly switch between different games that are waiting for their resumption in sleep mode. This works not only with new titles, but also with 360 games. The SSD is a terabyte in size, which is quite generous. Around 800 gigabytes (GB) are freely available. If you need more, you can connect normal hard drives, but then you will hardly enjoy any speed advantages with games that are installed there. If you want to have them, you can insert special SSDs into a proprietary slot on the back of the console. So far, however, there is only a 240 Euro storage expansion card from Seagate.
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The Xbox Series X is a device that shows that the days of consoles are far from over. For 500 euros it comes close to the performance of much more expensive PC systems and it rewards loyal Microsoft gamers with backward compatibility. Technically, the Xbox Series X is a treat, but whether it will be successful also depends on the range of exclusive titles where Sony has been ahead in the past few years. But Microsoft has bought heavily, including Bethesda, which is responsible for the “Fallout” series, among other things. And now Sony has to catch up with the Playstation 5 first, the Xbox Series X has set the bar pretty high.