Is this the first attempt to comprehensively answer the big question? Fundamentally, what is next-gen? In Xbox chief Phil Spencer's latest blog for Xbox Wire, we get a smattering of tech specs for the new Series X, reaffirmation of a frictionless future for gaming thanks to solid-state storage and a reminder that as powerful as raw power is, technological innovation is just as important.
However, despite that focus on new ideas, there is still room for Microsoft to clarify and indeed emphasise the extent of the processing power crammed into the Xbox Series X GPU. In a GameSpot story at the tail end of 2019, Spencer invited us to 'do the math' based on the notion that the new console had twice the graphics power of Xbox One X and over 8x that of Xbox One. The implication was that the console packs a 12 teraflop GPU - but muddying the waters somewhat is the fact that innovations in GPU architecture meant that Microsoft wouldn't need 12TF to deliver 2x Xbox One X performance - our tests showed that a ballpark 9-10TF could conceivably get the job done.
The new blog clarifies the situation and it's only good news. With 12TF unambiguously confirmed, Microsoft may well have twice the basic level of GPU compute on tap, but actual gaming performance should exceed that handily. However, the firm goes further in explicitly stating that AMD's latest RDNA 2 architecture is at the heart of Series X, meaning that there may well be some further optimisations in the upcoming AMD Navi design implemented in the console that we are not yet aware of, simply because PC parts based on the latest architecture are not yet available for us to experiment with.