Gadgetory

- Hey, guys, this is Austin, and this is the Xbox One X. So, Microsoft just unveiled it here at E3 and we get a super-secret hands-on, even though sadly it's not actually plugged in. So, one of the first things that you'll realize with the Xbox One X is that it is tiny. So, even though this is significantly more powerful than the Xbox One, the Xbox One S, even something like the PS4 Pro, it's still a really small console. So, even though it looks fairly similar to the Xbox One S, pretty much everything inside has been changed. Inside the Xbox One X is the Scorpio engine. So, this is an evolution of what was in the original Xbox One. So, not only does it have the same eight CPU cores, which have been improved and are clocked higher, more importantly it has a much more powerful GPU. Honestly this is one of the biggest improvements on the X, so it's going from 1.3 teraflops of computing power to six teraflops. Not only is that more than something like the PS4 and the PS4 Pro, but I think more importantly it is a huge upgrade over the Xbox One. Games that were playing at 720p, 900p, or even 1080p, should easily be able to be handled at 4K here. The X is also rocking 12 gigabytes of GDDR5 memory, which is a big step up over the 8GB of DDR3 on the Xbox One. What's cool is you're really not giving up a lot by with going up with the X, besides price, which we'll get into in a minute. So, the size, like I said, is roughly the same as the S. It's very slightly smaller, but more importantly, it is much smaller than the PS4 Pro, and also pretty much has all of the same ports, the I/O, the Blu-ray drive, and what's cool is if you actually look at the back of the Xbox One X, everything is pretty much the exact same orientation as the One S, so in theory if you want to upgrade, you can just unplug, replug it in, everything's the same, and that even includes the power cable, which is still the tiny figure eight power cable. So, all of this noise right now is because we're actually shooting in the skybox right above where we actually watched the E3 demo, and in about 30 minutes, they've torn down the entire stage. It's like gone. I really do like this matte black finish in person. So, even though I think the Xbox One S looks really cool in white, just having a little bit of sheen on the top, and we still have the vents on the side, it looks nice. Speaking of the vents, they actually have done some really cool stuff to get so much power in such a small space here. So, it pulls air in here from the sides and runs it through a vapor cooling chamber. That's actually really cool, and it makes sense how they're able to get so much power in such a small console. So, that's kind of what you would find on stuff like a GTX 1080, or something. So, essentially, it pools the air in from the side, cools it and then sticks it out the back through the vents right here, which has the added benefit of you can actually stack stuff on top of the X without it overheating and exploding in your face. Speaking of the size, even though it's around the same footprint of an Xbox One S, this guy pulls a lot more power, as you would expect from a much more powerful console. But, what's cool is you actually really don't notice that from the outside, and Microsoft claims that it shouldn't be any louder than something like an Xbox One as is. Of course, all that power doesn't mean much without games to actually play, and there were a fair few that were announced today at E3. So, the big one that I was excited about is Forza 7. To be honest, I'm a huge Forza fan. I love racing games, and I feel like Horizon, especially the Motorsports series is awesome, so that looks really cool and the best part is it runs at full 4K at 60 frames per second on the One X. So, Metro Exodus I think is probably one of the top ones that I'm excited to try. I was a big fan of Last Light and this looks like a great sequel. There's also Middle-Earth: Shadow Of War, which again is another sequel to a game I'm really excited to try. It did look really nice looking on the Xbox One X. There are also some cool surprises, such as PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS is coming to the Xbox One, Minecraft is getting a super duper texture pack to support 4K, and there are other cool things like Cuphead finally getting a release date. It's not just new titles that will see a benefit. So, things like better texture sampling, as well as a faster hard drive should make all Xbox One games run better on the X, and there's also the fact that it's just a more powerful console. So, say an Xbox One game had a low frame-rate or had dynamic resolution scaling, all that should be pretty much cranked all the way up when you're playing on the X. About 30 games, including the Forza Horizon 3 and The Witcher 3 are going to see updates to support 4K running on the One X, and that's the cool thing. We're talking about true 4K here. So, the PS4 Pro is undoubtedly a very powerful console but very, very few games run at proper 4K. These rely on upscaling, or cool features such as checkerboarding, which get you close to 4K, but with the One X, you have that additional power to make sure that supposedly, all games will run in true 4K. The big elephant in the room, though, is price. So, the Xbox One X is going to be coming in at $499 and it'll be on sale on November 7th. That is a lot for a console. So, when you look at the original Xbox One S, right, it's not original, but the standard version of the Xbox One, that's going to run you $250. Even if you jump up to something like the PS4 Pro, that's $400, which means that you're definitely paying a big premium for the One X. Don't get me wrong, the One X is an impressive piece of hardware. Getting proper 4K gaming for $500 is no small task. Building an equivalent PC is probably going to be pretty difficult, which brings me to my next slight criticism of the One X. I wish it ran Windows. It wouldn't have been totally crazy. The Xbox One actually does run on Windows 10, just with a different UI on top, but I understand that that Microsoft likes to sell Xbox games and not games inside Steam, but I just can't help but imagine if the One X was a $500 absolutely killer little gaming PC. As is, it is just a very, very powerful Xbox One. The Xbox One X is an incredibly impressive piece of hardware. If it was $400, I think it would be totally killer, but as is, it might be a little bit of a tough sell, especially with the PS4 Pro around. So, what do you guys think about the One X? Let me know in the comments below, and I'll catch you on the next one.