Updated leaks suggest the next Xbox’s processor and GPU will be even more powerful than expected
Now that Xbox Series X has been officially revealed in all its glory, it’s time for a heap of techie speculation. While rough estimates of what Microsoft’s new machine packs under the hood have been circulating for some time, a newly verified raft of leaks out of components manufacturer AMD suggests Series X is going to be even beefier than expected. Brace yourself for some graphics, Team Green fans. Hell, get ready for all the graphics.
Last April, an intrepid Twitter user had a poke around a 3DMark benchmark database, discovering info on a new form of silicon processor from AMD that is likely to power both Xbox Series X and Sony’s PS5. Much more recently, this leak has been verified by those pixel-counting wizards over at Digital Foundry. The main takeaway? It looks like the supercharged next Xbox will be even more monstrously powerful than we were expecting.
Power to the people
The juiciest nuggets from the leak surround AMD’s processor. Internally referred to as ‘Arden’, this silicon packs in eight Zen 2 cores and should easily outstrip the CPU in Xbox One X. There’s also updated info on Series X’s graphics tech, with newly solidified talk of the machine packing in a 12-teraflop monster. Digital Foundry’s technology editor Richard Leadbetter certainly seems to be bowled over by the raw numbers being discussed. “With caveats in place, the sparse data in the leak includes mention of 3,584 shaders, which would translate to a frankly ginormous processor with 56 active compute units,” writes Leadbetter. For context, Xbox One X’s GPU delivers 40 compute units at a considerably lower clock rate than the 1,700MHz Series X’s will apparently deliver. Ugh. We really need to stop typing ‘X’ so much.
Pair this latest info on both the new console’s processor and GPU with the GDDR6 memory that should help Series X blitz open-world games, and the numbers point to Microsoft’s machine delivering a colossal upgrade ov
