Even though Microsoft did not deliver an official presentation for the upcoming Xbox Series X console at CES this year, AMD spilled the beans with some unofficial renders featuring the console connectors on the back, while the Xbox director Phil Spencer and senior director of hardware David Prien showed off pictures of the console APU on their Twitter accounts.
AMD took the liberty to present unofficial 360-degree renders of Microsoft’s next gen console, but was quick to set the record straight declaring that “the Xbox Series X imagery used during the AMD CES press conference was not sourced from Microsoft and does not accurately represent the design or features of the upcoming console. They were taken from TurboSquid.com.” Blunder aside, the renders show a similar selection from the current Xbox One X, including a two-pin power connector that indicates the existence of an internal power supply, along with an Etheret jack, two USB-C ports and two HDMI connectors. There is also one more USB port in front, most likely for charging the wireless controllers. Additionally, it looks like the HDMI ports support in and out connections, allowing other consoles or even cable boxes to be routed through the Xbox Series X console. The commercial version of the console might feature a different connector lineup, so take this AMD “oopsy!” with a grain of salt.
As for the APU pics, a direct comparison with the current Xbox Scorpio model made by WCCFTech suggests that the Project Scarlett chip is almost 11% larger in order to accommodate additional AMD Zen 2 cores coupled with hardware-based ray tracing capabilities. Moreover, the maximum resolution supported by the new console is supposed to be 8K, but games running at this resolution are hardly playable on high-end desktops right now, so support for 8K may only be available for video decoding.
More official details on the Xbox Series X are expected to be unveiled this summer at the E3 event.