Xbox Series X review: a next-gen PC

If you buy something from a Threshold link, Vox Media may earn a commission. Find out our ethics statement.

Microsoft's new Xbox Series X console is designed to inaugurate a new era of gaming. We affectionally call it the "next gen" all time a largish leap in solace ironware arrives, promising new games and things we've never seen before. The Xbox Serial X will undoubtedly deliver those in time, but for nowadays, the big launch games, flashy new graphics, and next-gen games are still on their way.

Meantime, Microsoft has built what feels like an electric PC upgrade experience in a solace form. The Xbox Series X comes the closest I've ever witnessed to re-creating the superior PC experience of playing games, thanks to SSD storage, a far more potent CPU, 120Hz support, and stately backward compatibility features that improve existing games. This is complete deep down a $499 box that's quieter and far easier to use and maintain than the $3,000 gaming PC I reinforced a few weeks ago.

There's a reason the Xbox Series X even looks like a PC — it's because it often feels similar one.

*The Xbox Series X looks first standing vertically.*

Cool and quiet hardware

Microsoft has squeezed all of the components of the Xbox Series X into a three-dimensional, angular, column-like case. It looks like a compact PC but with an unassuming design that looks far break standing vertically than it does laying horizontally (just like most PCs). The base of the Xbox Series X International Relations and Security Network't removable, and (dissimilar the PS5) the console is not configured to make up opened up. When placed horizontally, it's fair to say that the Xbox Series X looks like it fell concluded with the alkali permanently attached. I'm not in love with the design, but I'm also not bothered past it. Information technology's a black box you stick low-level your TV and forget about, as long as you're able to check it low-level your Tv set.

There are two USB ports at the rear alongside an Ethernet port, a storage expansion time slot, and HDMI 2.1 away. At the front, there's a single USB port and the 4K Blu-ray drive. Microsoft has likewise added raised Braille bumps next to the ports on the Xbox Series X, a nice touching for accessibility. I would ingest liked to take over seen USB-C here or even the clever HDMI passthrough system from the Xbox One years, but neither is a major omission. Sadly, the Xbox Series X doesn't living Wisconsin-Fi 6, which would experience been uppercase future-proofing for some.

I haven't detected any issues with heat energy or make noise on the Serial publication X. Microsoft has placed the Xbox Series X exhaust fan at the top, flanked by a green finish in the plastic cover that makes it look like there's an LED up top. I've never once heard this fan, which is unexpected since my Xbox One X can get pretty loud in certain games. Still, the Series X has remained uncommunicative throughout the weeks I've been using it. The fire u exhausting from the top is very analogous to what I've ma on the Xbox One X, and it has never been too hot to touch.

It's difficult to pronounce junk buildup, racket, and fans in just a few weeks of use, merely I don't have any immediate causes for concern. I have more often than not been victimization the Serial X outside of a TV stand where air can flow easily, so IT hasn't been squeezed inside a unit. I think most people are releas to pauperism to think of positioning and airflow with these next-gen consoles, just like you would with a giant gambling PC.

The only other hardware that's untested with the Xbox Series X is the controller and the memory board expansion cards. (More on these in the next section.) The updated controller is very similar to the Xbox One version, with an updated D-fill out, textured grips, and the addition of a new share button and a USB-C port. The part button lets you speedily share clips operating room screenshots with friends, much like on a PS4, while you'll need to purchase a rechargeable play-and-charge kit separately ($24.99) if you really deprivation to strike vantage of USB-C — the controller runs on AA batteries aside default.

*The Xbox Serial publication X has a green gist up exceed.*

Depot and charge multiplication

Incumbrance multiplication are incredibly good on the Xbox Series X compared to what we're wont to happening current consoles. The Xbox Serial publication X utilizes a greatly improved Mainframe that whole works in tandem with the SSD to help games load far quicker than the current Xbox One X.

I've detected load time improvements crosswise every game I've used along the Series X. Some are dramatically faster in price of proceedings saved ready and waiting for a game operating room A level inside a game to load. Others are a few seconds blest Here and there, but they all add capable more time spent playing games instead of waiting for them to load.

Xbox Serial publication X load multiplication

Game	Xbox Series X	Xbox One X
Game	Xbox Serial publication X	Xbox One X
CoD: Warzone	16 seconds	21 seconds
Red Dead Redemption 2	52 seconds	1 min, 35 seconds
The Outer Worlds	6 seconds	27 seconds
Dark Within 2	33 seconds	43 seconds
Offshore of Thieves	20 seconds	1 min, 21 seconds
Warframe	25 seconds	1 min, 31 seconds
AC: Odyssey	30 seconds	1 min, 7 seconds
No Man's Sky	1 minute, 27 seconds	2 mins, 13 seconds
Circumstances 2	43 seconds	1 min, 52 seconds

I'm used to the speedy lading multiplication from PC SSDs, but I'm still affected with the Series X load multiplication. Games like Sea of Thieves and Circumstances 2 lading in less than half the time they do on the Xbox Unitary X. Even older games like GTA V load a great deal faster than before.

While the Xbox Series X comes equipped with 1TB of storage, you can only use 802GB of it. That's actually slightly Sir Thomas More than the 780GB of usable space on the Xbox One X, level with Microsoft reserving space for the OS and fresh Quick Resume feature that lets you trade betwixt games in about 10 seconds or less.

Microsoft is also using a copyrighted storage expansion slot on the Xbox Series X, and so far, only Seagate has been unchangeable arsenic a spouse for the $219.99 1TB cards that expansion slot into the rear of the soothe. The usable space on these cards is 920GB as, once more, space is reserved for Quick Resume.

Games that have been specifically updated for the Xbox Serial publication X have use of Microsoft's new Velocity Architecture to get the most performance out of the system's SSD, so you rear't run them hit USB storage. The vast majority of backward-compatible games, still, don't use Speed Architecture, meaning they fire exist played directly off a USB drive — unless they receive a Series X update in the in store.

That means a lot of the immediate load time improvements are thanks to the SSD and CPU unparalleled, not the new APIs Microsoft has enforced that should ameliorate load times even more in the later. It also way that if some of your older games Don River't get updated for the Velocity Architecture, then you could just run them freely from USB storage. You'll go steady plentifulness of load time improvements this way — providing you'Re using libertine USB SSD storage drives — and some may even come rattling close to the times you'll see using the internal drive.

Optimized games and 120Hz modes

These load times and CPU improvements, alongside a enormous bump to 12 teraflops of GPU carrying out, all contribute to an experience in active games that feels a good deal smoother. That could mean value a jumpstart from 30fps to 60fps in games like Fallout 4, or menus and planet load up multiplication in Destiny 2 on the spur of the moment existence on equality with Microcomputer.

These improvements also mean that to the highest degree titles with poor performance connected an Xbox One should rack up a stable 30fps at the minimum. Very much of frame rate drops that I've seen in games on the Xbox Single X have simply disappeared with the Xbox Serial X, thanks to the hardware boost. I've noticed Apex Legends, Warframe, and Destiny 2 totally dipping less at demanding points.

A phone number of Xbox Series X optimisation patches volition be available when the cabinet launches connected November 10th, and I've had a probability to test both Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon 4. Some games are transformed by these updates, moving from 30fps to 60fps. Seafaring of Thieves feels equivalent a new game as a result, or like you're playing on a PC. That's how dramatic the chemise from 30fps to 60fps feels.

*The other 120Hz option on the Xbox Serial X.*

Plane backward compatibility affirm gets an stupefying boost. The Xbox 360 version of Heroic Thievery Auto IV now runs super smoothly along the Xbox Series X secured at 60fps, while the Xbox One X often struggled to maintain that 60fps performance. Terrific Theft Car IV also benefits from the car HDR feature that Microsoft is shipping with the Xbox Serial X, that volition work at most games to make them look even better.

Alongside the optimization patches, the most exciting games I've tried up to now on the Xbox Series X are Grunge 5 and Gears 5 — not because they're necessarily technical showcases for the soothe, but because some offer a new 120Hz selection.

This is where the Xbox Series X really started to feel even more PC-like to me. I romp at 165Hz with frame rates that surpass 200fps in games like Destiny 2, Valorant, Call of Duty: Warzone, and CS:GO connected my gaming PC. I personally respect frame rates o'er visual timbre, so I regularly drop settings to scram as many frames as possible. Functioning around the versus multiplayer mode in Gears 5 in 120Hz feels like I'm playing on my PC. With frame rates hitting 120fps, input gaol is reduced, and the feel is suddenly thus much smoother than what I've ever fully fledged on any Xbox before.

*Gears 5 supports 120Hz in multiplayer.*

That same feeling of Microcomputer-ilk smoothness plays out in Dirt 5 with the 120Hz mode enabled. The overall visual calibre drops to reach 120fps, simply when I'm sliding around corners, the input latency is reduced, and I value that over both mud and snow rendering just that little better on my 4K TV.

It's that feeling that's actually important with this new Xbox, and I can't stress it enough. Games feel better. Whether that's because of cargo times, better frame rates, or simply the CPU, SSD, and better GPU making things like menus or character changes in games feel instant, a lot of the sluggishness has been removed without developers even having to touch games.

High frame rates are clearly a centerin on the Xbox Series X, but some games will favor novel ray-tracing techniques instead. Watch Dogs: Legion is a exemplar, as it will hunt at 30fps on the Xbox Series X with ray tracing enabled. The Watch out Dogs: Legion patch for Series X wasn't visible in clock time for go over, and then light beam tracing is unmoving largely a mystery on the Xbox Serial X right now.

I'm also encouraged to see that a choice is emerging in Xbox games. That's something we've seen in current-gen games, with telecasting options like FOV sliders you typically only find along PCs. Dirt 5 and Gears 5 are good examples of this choice, allowing you to enable a 120Hz manner for the high frame rates and smoother gameplay or cente a 4K target with image quality prioritized.

I'm hoping we run into these choices happening many optimized Xbox Series X titles in the future.

Quick Resume and the Xbox dashboard

While the hardware and experience of gaming have changed connected the Xbox Series X, the dashboard remains the same. Microsoft is keeping the Lapplander Xbox One splasher that exists today, with a few sense modality changes the company has been working on in Holocene epoch months.

It feels like Microsoft has been tweaking the Xbox One dashboard ever since the disastrous set in motion of the console back in 2013, and not a twelvemonth goes by without an overhaul. I think it's definitely in much better frame these days, but I tranquillise feel the guide confusing to use at times.

Most of the adult issues I had with the Xbox One dashboard have disappeared, though. Speed and reliability problems have vanished, and, like games, the splashboard feels fair that bit more responsive on the Xbox Series X. A new store user interface, besides available along the Xbox Extraordinary, has by all odds helped. It's clear Microsoft has confiscate the feedback and made some important changes in recent months, but I'd still like to just live able-bodied to pin my favorite apps and games at the top of the base interface alternatively of visual perception recently used ones that rotate frequently. Microsoft could still come with offering more customization options here and simplifying the interface encourage.

You doh get the benefits of a dashboard that feels immediately familiar if you're coming from an Xbox Incomparable, but without the fun and fanfare that a refreshing UI entails. Thanks to the faster components inside the Xbox Serial X, you can now kicking from cold (non understudy) in about 20 seconds. That might be enough for some to cut the present secondary option in favor of some energy charge savings and the health of our satellite. Also, the iron heel animation no more has an accompanying sound so loud information technology makes you tone like your house is falling down.

The biggest original plus to the Xbox Series X dashboard over the Xbox One is Promptly Resume. It's a feature that lets you shift between games in more or less 10 seconds or less. The timing will motley per game, as will the number of games you can switch 'tween and quickly survey. I've been able to regularly swap 'tween five games freely, but the number volition vary along titles.

It even deeds after reboots or updates, and it's eager to just turn a console off and not stimulate to vex about save points. When Quick Summarize whole caboodle, information technology works really well, but it doesn't seem to process all games. I've not been able to use it with Forza Horizon 4, Watch Dogs: Legion, Sea of Thieves, or GTA V. Microsoft is still working to enable Quick Sum up on a number of games attributable a "recently discovered platform bug," so updates should arrive afterward launch. Spell to the highest degree games should support Quick Resume, information technology's still not transparent which missing ones will get over updated.

Piece I ran into a number of Quick Resume bugs on an Xbox Series X prevue unit, I haven't had as many problems on the retail hardware. Gears 5 has failed to resume or the audio has crackled arsenic IT resumes, but most games appear to resume well. I let had Quick Resume points just vanish, though. I think Quick Resume is the best partially of the Xbox Series X, but there are clearly some early bugs that still need to cost squashed. I also wish Microsoft had provided some style to manage Quick Resume or to know which games are in a delayed res publica.

The final examination section of the dashboard I want to contact on is sharing clips and screenshots. Microsoft made a big deal astir a unprecedented share button on the Xbox Serial X controller, but it's totally lower by the splasher. Information technology still takes far too prospicient for clips and screenshots to be uploaded to Microsoft's Xbox Live service for you to partake them.

This is a problem that exists on the Xbox One, and I've had to wait minutes for clips to be available despite having a dissolute 1Gbps upload at home. On my gaming Personal computer, I can instantly stream clips or my screen to friends on Discord, and the Xbox process just feels old and slow in comparability.

*The Xbox Series X also has a 4K Blu-ray drive.*

The feel of a PC

Microsoft's design with this New generation is to bring a PC-like have to a console. You fire feel it throughout the Series X and even the smaller Series S. If you upgraded from a GTX 1060 play PC to an RTX 3080 PC redress now, you'd puzzle out the same Windows 10 you acknowledge and access code to the same games you've been playing for years. Everything would just spirit faster and look better, and you'd be ready for the latest and greatest games.

That's exactly what you get with the Xbox Series X. Not only does information technology feel like you're upgrading your PC if you strike from an Xbox One to an Xbox Serial X, but IT feels and looks like it. (Hello, PC tower design.) You take everything you already own, true extant computer hardware accessories, and you bring them along with you, clean corresponding you fare connected a PC.

It's a different approach to Sony with the PS5 and its sacred single next-gen games, new dashboard UI, and unaccustomed controller. Microsoft has focused on the basics that really matter: high frame rates, a quiet and chill console, faster load times, accessory support, and backward compatibility. In my trine weeks of using an Xbox Series X, information technology's fair to say information technology has delivered happening these basics.

But the best parting about the Xbox Series X is that it's not in reality a PC. I don't have to worry about drivers, copious bet on launchers, or Windows updates ruining how my PC works. You turn back the Xbox on, and you play games. If developers embrace the choice and carrying into action options I've experienced on the Series X, I'd certainly be tempted to play far more connected an Xbox with crossplay, intersect-save, and keyboard and mouse support all becoming Thomas More prominent on Xbox.

There's matchless big doubtfulness that cadaver for me with the Xbox Series X: when will Microsoft's 23 first-party studios deliver the incoming-gen games to truly show what this console is capable of? Muscular hardware and a sleek user experience are only part of the mix. Microsoft will need the games to really make the Serial publication X tone like something brand-new.