Xbox Series S [XBSS] [Release November 10 2020]

Also, GDDR on the back, so 5x 2GB chips?

View attachment 4901

Yeah, I think that was semi-confirmed when initial shots were released. They seem to have clamshelled the 4th and 5th chips in order to hit the 10GB on the 128-bit bus (3x32-bit + 2x16-bit)

I suppose they'll eventually replace that with a single 4GB chip when they become available for a tiny cost saving.
 
We've known for a while the custom SSD in the Series X/S is PCIe 4.0 x2 (2 lanes), effectively getting the same max performance as a standard PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe drive.
So while you can put a >7GB/s capable SSD in there, the interface won't support more than the 3.94GB/s (practical 3.5GB/s) speed the x2 connection allows for. I think you would lose performance if you got a PCIe 3.0 x4 drive there though (assuming the OS would allow it), since it would only work at PCIe 3.0 x2 for around 1.8GB/s performance.

But even if you found a 2230 sized PCIe 4.0 SSD that provides 3.5GB/s on 2 lanes of PCIe 4.0, I doubt the I/O hardware would make use of more than the standard 2.5GB/s raw throughput it's been designed around.
 
But even if you found a 2230 sized PCIe 4.0 SSD that provides 3.5GB/s on 2 lanes of PCIe 4.0, I doubt the I/O hardware would make use of more than the standard 2.5GB/s raw throughput it's been designed around.

Some have tried putting standard Samsung M.2 2230 NVME in there and it didn't work. Many suspect it's because of customized firmware.

https://forum.xboxera.com/t/xbox-series-x-s-ssd-are-not-soldered-to-the-pcb/4691/31
Rato Borrachudo is live streaming his Series S disassembly right now. It’s also a standlone drive, it’s not Western Digital and they said it’s the same manufacturer of the Surface SSDs. He is about to install a larger Samsung SSD drive to see if it works.

They also said people yesterday thought the Series X SSD is gen 3 because they matched the model number of the Series X SSD with another one on WD site that has a similar model number. However, they said it has one different letter on the X model, which differentiates it from the gen 3 people were thinking it was the same. They said it isn’t, it is gen 4.

If anyone wants to watch his experiment with the Samsung SSD, here is his Twitch link (it’s in Portuguese, since he is a fellow Brazilian, but you can watch it anyway): https://www.twitch.tv/ratoborrachudo

https://forum.xboxera.com/t/xbox-series-x-s-ssd-are-not-soldered-to-the-pcb/4691/35
It didn’t work.
 
Full hardware Backcompat confirmed :LOL:

Well, maybe xD. MVG confirmed it was a retimer chip from the XBO, so it's nothing that'd enable BC in a hardware-based sense. Though that shouldn't be surprising for anyone; MS've already said multiple times their BC is emulation-esque. They wouldn't need XBO CPU, GPU etc. to accomplish it.

OTOH we know Sony's is hardware-based but I'm assuming that's through configuring microcode on the GPU to simulate GCN (are they doing similar with the CPU?) and the whatnot.


Maybe they should've...confirmed their information before running with the story in the first place? The things some of these websites do for clicks, it's like journalistic integrity doesn't exist.
 
Perhaps it's just a manufacturer ID check, in which case a Surface SSD could be recognized by the OS?

Maybe, but then they need a large table of id's as I've seen at least 4 different NVMEs from Series X and S teardowns. Some were Western Digital, some were Solid State Storage Technology Group, some where SanDisk, and the externals are Seagate. *shrug*

EDIT: Though I wonder if they tried to clone the partitions and filesystems and MBR and GPT exactly. Maybe they weren't as meticulous about it as hardware hackers like us would be.
 
when we first started building the original Xbox 360 - the smallest one without the HDD - that cost us about $460

Crikey.

Goossen is essentially suggesting that leveraging these nodes for cheaper consoles may not be an option

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm


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Oh nice. They included a die shot of Lockhart there. It kind of just reminds me of a typical AMD APU.

:p

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so we feel good about the 8GB that we make available."
Confirmation of 8GB available to devs on Lockhart.
 
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Crikey.



hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm


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Oh nice. They included a die shot of Lockhart there. It kind of just reminds me of a typical AMD APU.

:p

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Confirmation of 8GB available to devs on Lockhart.


Yea its what i've been saying for awhile. You can see it in the xbox one / ps4 generation the consoles didn't really get under $300 even over 7 years of time.

Xbox series s / x will give way to new consoles designed for their price points with new hardware.
 
Well, maybe xD. MVG confirmed it was a retimer chip from the XBO, so it's nothing that'd enable BC in a hardware-based sense. Though that shouldn't be surprising for anyone; MS've already said multiple times their BC is emulation-esque. They wouldn't need XBO CPU, GPU etc. to accomplish it.
.

Man, it was a tongue in cheek comment

The chip has nothing to do with backcompat, It´s indeed the southbridge, for comparison this is the Xbox One S southbridge

909632-MLM32667378205_102019-Y.jpg


https://es.ifixit.com/Desmontaje/Xbox+One+S+Teardown/65572

part number X861949-005 T6WD5XBG-0003

It´s strange that they didn´t change the xbox one marking in the Series S southbridge :rolleyes:

Has anybody teardown a Series X yet?
 
The XSS was the right decision.

I'm still curious if MS will nail down the production allocation balance that best suits demand for both models, knowing these two systems are sharing production budgets for manufacturing, assembly, shipping & handling etc. But so far it seems they have a pretty good handling on that.

It was my biggest worry for a while actually because I got over the whole "it'll hold next-gen back" nonsense rather quickly (and with WD:Legion results on Series S I don't think that concern really flies anymore), but matching production budgets to both systems in line with expected levels of demand, that could always be a challenge.
 
I'm still curious if MS will nail down the production allocation balance that best suits demand for both models, knowing these two systems are sharing production budgets for manufacturing, assembly, shipping & handling etc. But so far it seems they have a pretty good handling on that.

It was my biggest worry for a while actually because I got over the whole "it'll hold next-gen back" nonsense rather quickly (and with WD:Legion results on Series S I don't think that concern really flies anymore), but matching production budgets to both systems in line with expected levels of demand, that could always be a challenge.
depends on die size , i think MS can make 3 xss apus per xsx apu. So they shouldn't have a real issue meeting demand.
 

That was an interesting interview, but this bit stood out. The reason they kept support for the base XBO-S instead of the XBO-X.
  • XBO-X is too expensive to justify being at a price point that represents the bottom of the console stack.
    • This was expected.
  • They want to have the previous gen feature set disappear as quickly as possible without abandoning people that cannot immediately get a XBS-S/X. Continuing support for the XBO-X would have meant that the previous gen. limitations would potentially linger far longer into the current generation as it's a more powerful and capable machine.
    • Makes sense, I didn't think about it from this angle before.
Regards,
SB
 
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