News Xbox Series S Specs: 4 Teraflop GPU, AMD Zen 2 CPU at 3.6 GHz

[hotaru.hino]

Microsoft is just using the same strategy that PC games use every day...
( PC Game: Minimum System Requirements / Full Features and Effects System Requirements )
You could build a very basic PC Gaming Rig with a Nvidia GTX1070 that would come pretty close to equaling the performance of the XBOX Series S. That Basic PC Gaming Rig would cost you a lot more than the XBOX Series S at $299. The XBOX Series S is quite a deal at $299. For those that would build a Mid to Higher End PC Gaming Rig with a Nvidia RTX2080, That is close to equaling the XBOX Series X. Once again, that Mid to Higher End PC Gaming Rig would cost you a lot more than the XBOX Series X at $499. The XBOX Series X is an insane value at $499.
More people build or buy budget gaming PC's than people that build or buy Mid to High End Gaming PC's.
I think Microsoft's strategy could pay off.

Yeah, it's very hard to beat the performance you get out of a console at launch with a PC. Especially if you try to match the feature set, which any fair comparison will do so.

I hate it when people build "console killer" PCs only to leave out features that come with the console. A common one in the 8th gen was to leave out an optical drive. I'm sure people who are going to try to build "console killers" for the 9th generation are going to leave out ray tracing capable GPUs.

 

[cryoburner]

I hate it when people build "console killer" PCs only to leave out features that come with the console. A common one in the 8th gen was to leave out an optical drive.

Why would you need to put an optical drive in a gaming PC long after most of the PC world moved on to digital distribution? Most recent PC cases don't even include a spot to install an optical drive. Even back when the last generation of consoles launched in late 2013, you would struggle to find any current games distributed on discs, as all new-releases were being primarily distributed through services like Steam by that point. Perhaps an optical drive could be useful for someone wanting to watch disc-based movies on their PC, but not so much for the primary goal of gaming.

I'm sure people who are going to try to build "console killers" for the 9th generation are going to leave out ray tracing capable GPUs.

It was possible to get raytracing-capable GPUs for under $350 nearly two years ago. With the next generation of graphics cards that should be coming out, raytracing will likely even be available in $200 cards, and the $300 models will probably be comparable in performance to a PS5's graphics hardware.

Certainly, the consoles are being sold below the cost to manufacture at the time they come out, and you are unlikely to match a PS5 or Series X's performance for $500 at launch, but if one is willing to spend a few-hundred dollars more, they could certainly get something that's faster.

 

[nashb456]

The 4 tflops RDNA 2 architecture of the Series S puts it much closer to the One X's 6 tflops GCN 4 architecture, yes it much less capable than the Series X and PS5, but comparing it to the One X is nowhere near as simple as comparing TFLOPS. The only logical comparisons are the ones based on game performance data, which have mixed results because the Series S shoots for a lower res 60fps most of the time, while the One X goes for a 30fps but higher resolution.