Earlier during the game awards 2019, Xbox Series X made itself known. While we now know details about the Microsoft machine specifications, Twitter user Nadav Ziv posted tweets explaining the Xbox Series X memory setup.
There were a total of three tweets which elaborate how the Xbox Series X Memory setup will function. The Series X specifications consist of an 8 core AMD Zen 2 CPU clocked at 3.8GHz. On the graphics side, it packs an RDNA 2 based GPU with 12 Tflops (Teraflops) and 52 CUs (Compute Units).
For storage, it has a 1 TB NVMe custom SSD and an expandable storage of another 1TB. Finally coming to the memory, The Xbox Series X packs 16gb of GDDR6 memory with a 330mb bus speed.
These tweets explain how the machine’s GPU will utilize the GDDR6 memory type. Firstly the fast bandwidth GDDR6 memory type will use a parallelism technique. Both the Series X and the PlayStation 5 will be utilizing GDDR6 memory type which can offer 56GB/s. This means if a developer lays out data over 10 chips, they can achieve 10 times the bandwidth in return which is 560GB/s. Nadav further explained the parallelism technique with an example.
Let’s think of a GDDR6 chip as a glass with a 56GB/s straw. Xbox Series X has 10 glasses, games spread each piece of data between the chips just like pouring liquid across 10 glasses. When data is needed, the game drinks data from 10 straws at the same time, reading the data at 560GB/s.
However, in the third tweet, he mentions “But not all glasses in the Xbox Series X are equal in size”. Data like textures which need higher speeds will use the first 1GB of each of the 10 glasses while slow speed data like sound will use 1gb from the bigger glasses. In simpler words, GDDR6 ram is efficient in spreading out data transfer equally which puts the Series X on the same league as high-end PCs.
The Xbox Series X will come out in the holiday season. Microsoft may demonstrate GDDR6 memory in more detail in the coming months. While both Sony and Microsoft plan to release their consoles later this year, the Series X’s hype is real. If you want more news on how the Series X cooling architecture works then click here.
