MICROSOFT XBOX SERIES X

£450 / stuff.tv/xsx

The Series X is Emperor Xbox: rammed with tech, faster and quieter than any console before it, and able to make games look shinier than ever. It’s also rather big – which is why, rather than pretending not to notice the internet naming it ‘the fridge’, Microsoft embraced it, even building Snoop Dogg a fridge styled like the Series X.

But you’ll forgive the heft when you consider what’s under the hood. It has 4x the CPU power of the Xbox One X, while the GPU’S 12 teraflops is double the old machine and 1.7 teraflops more than the PS5. Oh, and you can float ping-pong balls over the air vent.

The controller still requires batteries and looks like the Xbox One’s, but with textured grips and triggers, an updated D-pad and a share button.

JACK OF ALL SHADES

Don’t plan on owning a 4K HDR TV soon? Don’t buy the Series X. Want to fulfil the promise of 120fps gaming? You’ll need an HDMI 2.1 port, and most pre-2020 sets don’t have one. It still plays nice in 4K at 60fps via HDMI 2.0, though.

The processing power from those extra teraflops facilitates new graphical features like variable rate shading (VRS), Auto HDR and ray-tracing, to produce more accurate light and shadow. This is supported by a 1TB NVME SSD, which massively speeds up the experience, and it’s instantly noticeable: Forza Horizon 4 fires up in seconds compared to the now-lethargic One S.

Possibly our favourite feature, Quick Resume enables multiple games to be left in their frozen state in storage memory until you play them again. We played FIFA 21, hopped to Watch Dogs: Legion, relaxed with some Tetris Effect: Connected and then doubled back for another virtual kickabout, all without any time lost waiting for the games to boot. And don’t forget backward compatibility – yes, your old Xbox games are still good here and will often look and play better.

With a lack of new games, though, it does feel like we’re reviewing a very powerful, very expensive time machine with a built-in 4K Blu-ray player.

Yes, we love the crazy-fast loading times, Quick Resume and the upscaling of older games, but we want to see all those teraflops employed on something new, with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X spatial sound blasting in our ears.

Tech specs

CPU 8-core 3.8Ghz AMD Zen 2 CP GPU 1.83Ghz AMD RDNA 2, 12 teraflops Max resolution

4K @ up to 120fps RAM 16GB Memory bandwidth 10GB @ 560GB/S, 6GB @ 336GB/S Storage 1TB Dimensions 301x151x151mm, 4.45kg