Xbox Series X / S – A PC Gamer's Review

[Music] so we built a lot of compact gaming systems on this channel and at the core of it that's exactly what the new xbox series x and series s are but are they actually worth picking up by the title of this video you'd probably assume that i'm going to say no but that's not my intention at all with the beefy hardware upgrades and the addition of variable refresh rate up to 120 fps i'm actually really interested to see what these can do so just how good is the gaming performance of these new consoles and how does the experience differ from a gaming pc and if you are considering them which one should you pick up sirius s or the series x [Music] so to start with if the xbox series x and series s were compact gaming pcs they'd be among the smallest that you could possibly build the series x comes in at just 6.9 liters in total volume whereas the series s is an insanely small 2.6 liters that's also without the need for an external power brick both of these i think we can agree are a very tidy package now the series s is the less powerful machine of the two but a case can definitely be made for its portability it is brutally small the additional size of the series x is mostly due to the larger heatsink and cooling solution but also thanks to the blu-ray disc drive which the series s does not have so the series s is a digital only system but coming from a pc that's something that i personally don't see as an issue now coming from the pc world where components are quite expensive 300 for the series s and 500 for the series x that just seems like an absurdly good deal to get an entire package there and be up and running in no time and the reason that that pricing is so good and so competitive is that microsoft reportedly sell these consoles at a loss and they aim to make that revenue back with game purchases and the subscription service which is called game pass which by the way is also an absurdly good deal but under the hood is where it gets really interesting to me as a pc hardware enthusiast both the series x and s use a custom 7 nanometer soc from amd with a zen 2 cpu and rdna gpu 8 cpu cores for both although the series s is clocked slightly lower the main hardware difference comes with the gpu where the series s has significantly less compute units than the series x the x also has more memory and at a higher bandwidth to deal with those higher resolution textures and now the hardware differences are starting to stretch a bit wider between the two then throw in the fact that the series x has more storage and i think it's definitely easy to justify the 200 price difference between them if you have that cash to spare the most interesting spec though 120 fps with variable refresh rate support this brings these consoles a lot closer to an unlocked pc gaming experience compared to what we've seen with previous machines and since there are no launch titles for the new xbox series x or series s gaming performance is going to heavily depend on backwards compatibility specifically how previous gen games are going to support the new faster hardware in these new consoles by adding a higher frame rate target or a higher rendering resolution or by even adding a 120 fps gameplay mode and since we are a couple of months after launch here the support is actually quite good call of duty warzone is probably the best game that i tested out giving a solid update for the new hardware not only that but it gives the user a couple of different options to play with the console set to 60 hertz the series x runs at a consistent 4k 60fps and the series s runs at 1080p 60fps but then switching to 120hz both consoles run completely unlocked between 60 and 120 fps mostly sitting between 90 and 100 depending on the section of the map although at this higher frame rate the drop in resolution is pretty significant for the series x it is still visually viable to run at 120 hertz and this is definitely how i would recommend playing the game if you do have a high refresh rate display on hand but for the series s the drop in resolution is a bit too much in my opinion and i found that i actually played a bit better having it set to 1080p 60 hertz the great news is you're not locked into either one so you can choose based on your preference but then on the other hand we have a game like control which i've played through a small amount on the pc and was pretty blown away by its ray tracing and dlss support here though the series x and series s are still running the previous gen versions of the game respectively even for the powerful series x that means a hard cap at just 30 fps at 4k so there are games like this great games which just haven't been updated to support the new powerful hardware in these consoles yet now to be completely fair to the developers of control they have said that they are releasing an update next month to support the new hardware in these consoles including a ray tracing mode which will still unfortunately be capped at 30fps but then a performance mode which will lift the frame rate target supposedly for both consoles up to 60fps for now though you are still stuck playing the previous gen version of the game i also played through a bunch of destiny 2 which has seen a nice update similar to warzone the series x gets a true 4k 60fps experience and on the series s you'll see just 1080p60 this update also brings a field of view slider which completely changes the feel and dynamics of the game and even a 120fps mode although that's only for multiplayer that's not something that i had the chance to test but i'm hoping to test that one out soon forza horizon is another updated title 4k 60fps on the series x but again only 1080p for the series s so when microsoft say that they're targeting 1440p resolution for the series s they are falling a bit short of that by about 1.6 million pixels and the result is a pretty big difference in visual clarity between the x and the s if you are playing on a large tv or sitting close to a gaming monitor in forza horizon the aliasing of the trees and shadows is a lot more noticeable and shimmery at 1080p where it's significantly clearer and more resolved at 4k on the series x a few more notes the game load times on these new consoles is extremely impressive definitely faster than any pc that i've built and the system boot time is equally as impressive then in terms of acoustics both the series x and series s state about as close to silent as a single fan console can get most of that is due to the superb power efficiency of the hardware inside but also because in some games that you'll be playing they're probably only sitting at around 80 to 90 load due to the resolution and frame rate cap warzone is an exception to this where both consoles can run completely untapped but even then they are incredibly quiet all right so as a pc gamer and a builder of pcs can i recommend the xbox series x and series s well based on value and the performance that you're getting at the price point definitely and i mean throw xbox game pass in there and you're just getting an absolute steal hundreds of games at a very small monthly fee what you pay for the entire package and the performance and gaming experience that you get back in return i personally don't think can be beaten by a pc having said that there are still some real limitations some games aren't updated to take advantage of the more powerful hardware there's no way to remove the frame rate cap in game for those with high refresh rate displays despite both machines probably having an extra 10 performance left in the tank in most games and as typical with consoles there is an extreme lack of graphics tuning and customization compared to pc despite all of this the gaming experience is exceptionally good for what you pay paired with a decent monitor or tv input lag feels very minimal and you can get a seriously responsive gaming experience a lot better than i had expected now despite the target resolution not seeming that different right 4k versus 1440p in reality these are two completely different performing machines not to mention the storage on the series s gets zapped up extremely quick you can purchase additional storage but at that point you're on your way to series x pricing anyway having said that at just 300 us dollars i do still think that the series s is worth it for some users for those who are on an extremely tight budget and can't spare the extra 200 for the series x maybe for those who do play those lighter titles and don't plan on playing at 4k anyway and also for those and this is probably the main one those who need an extremely portable package i mean this is just insanely small considering the gaming performance that it can deliver at the price point and i will say despite the shortcomings in resolution and frame rate you still get the benefit of those faster loading times and snappy user interface so it does still feel very premium just know that the performance compromise versus the xbox series x is there of course there is also the playstation 5 to consider as well from what i've seen the gaming experience there looks about even with the series x depending on the game so definitely consider that as an option if you are considering these two as well and if you are into compact gaming systems definitely stay tuned for a video i have coming out soon of a pc build smaller than the xbox series x but has an rtx 3060 ti until then a huge thanks for watching and i'll see you all in the next one

Channel: Optimum Tech

Views: 159,783

Rating: 4.9459777 out of 5

Keywords: Xbox, Series X, Series S, review, benchmark, warzone, 120fps, 120fps mode, framerate, destiny 2, pc gaming, xbox vs PC, gaming pc, pc build, Series X vs Series S, optimum tech

Id: HhAz_hXUX-4

Length: 9min 28sec (568 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 22 2021