Xbox Series X is twice as powerful as Xbox One X, says Phil Spencer

Microsoft says its next-gen console, Xbox Series X, will be twice as powerful as Xbox One X.

The console previously known as Project Scarlett was unveiled on Thursday night at The Game Awards, ahead of its launch during the 2020 holiday season.

“We wanted to have a dramatic upgrade from the Xbox One base console,” Xbox boss Phil Spencer told GameSpot. “So when we do the math, we’re over eight times the GPU power of the Xbox One, and two times what an Xbox One X is.”

Xbox One X is targeting around 12 teraflops (TF) of computing power, compared to the Xbox One X’s 6TF, and the Xbox One S’s 1.4TF.

“On the CPU side, which is [something] we really wanted to push relative to previous generations, we have four times the compute power on the CPU in Project Scarlett,” Spencer said, although he didn’t specify whether the reference point was Xbox One’s eight-core 1.75GHz CPU or One X’s eight-core 2.3GHz CPU.

Xbox Series X will deliver hardware accelerated ray tracing, Variable Rate Shading (VRS) technology and a next-generation SSD which Xbox says will virtually eliminate load times.

The console will minimise latency by leveraging technology such as Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) and giving developers new functionality like Dynamic Latency Input (DLI).

Spencer recently said Xbox is determined not to repeat the mistakes it made with Xbox One’s troubled launch, including not being “out of position on power or price” with its upcoming console.

While Microsoft has yet to reveal Xbox Series X pricing details, Spencer is confident about the system’s power.

“Our goal has always been to build the most powerful console we can, and I think we’re there,” he told GameSpot. “We like leading in power and performance and I feel like we’re going to be there again.”

Alongside Xbox Series X, Microsoft also unveiled the new Xbox wireless controller. As well as a new size and shape, it features a new Share button and a d-pad derived from the Xbox Elite Series 2 wireless controller.

Microsoft also revealed the second Series X game, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 from Ninja Theory. Halo Infinite was confirmed as a cross-platform title earlier this year.