Digital Foundry: Xbox Series X: Thermal + Power Consumption Analysis - How Efficient Is Next-Gen?

Ultimately, I can only see good news coming out of the results of these tests. First of all, there’s no need to worry about Xbox Series X’s power consumption or thermals - it’s more demanding than the consoles we already own, but there’s almost a sense that the thermal solution is over-engineered when the overall power draw (seen thus far at least) is only a relatively small step away from Xbox One X, despite the big leap in performance. In fact, Series X’s power draw is quite similar to the launch PlayStation 3 - but the thermal solution is obviously on another level.

People hoping this console will heat their house are in for disappointment. :wink:

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Mods, please merge with the other thread, thanks.

They say they are doing more on Gears 5 and Gears Tactics too. And interestingly added a note to say Gears 5 uses RDNA2 features like VRS. Also said Gears 5 is using software based RT but I just don’t think that is correct…but anyway we will see what happens when they do full coverage of it.

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Gears 5 is using software based rt, it was one of tue highlights of the announcement.

It’s raytracing in the screen space for gi

SSGI in unreal 4 though is not ray traced…as far as I was aware. I guess the definitions of these things are fast and loose. Alex from DF over weekend was saying the SSGI in Gears 5 isn’t ray traced,

It does trace rays (as in shoots rays in directions and see what hits), but the key here is that it’s limited to screen space, so the rays are only tested against a volume texture which makes the access more predictable not requiring any of the acceleration structures needed for full scene raytracing.

Software based raytracing usage in super limited scope is not particularly new, games from 360 era (perhaps even ps2) were already using some techs extensively.

Rendering in the full scene scope however was only recently enabled by the hardware implementation more due memory access patterns because since you can go from one object in the scene to any other one

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I honestly cannot wait to get my hands on this system.

More confirmation that gears 5 runs 120fps locked in multiplayer, too.

Gee, what a surprise that the console runs cooler and uses less power than expected. Who would have thought that despite all the empty space inside the casing, the dual motherboards, a vapor chamber and fan at that top. Call me shocked. “rolls eyes”

We already have a official video of Series S running it in 120fps so for me it was never in doubt haha

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Not shocked but happy to see a trusted source like DF put the ridiculous claims to rest.

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Very impressed with what the engineer’s achieved.