Xbox Series S: 1440p 120FPS, 512GB SSD, ray tracing, 4K video playback

Microsoft finally reveals the Xbox Series S after last night's leak, confirming key specs we've known about for a while.

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It's official: The entry-level Xbox Series S next-gen console will launch alongside the beastly Xbox Series X in November. The Series S is a lower-powered, all-digital console that features the same 7nm SoC as the Xbox Series X, albeit with dramatic reductions in GPU (the CPU is slightly down to 3.6GHz too). A big difference is the storage reduction: The Series S features a 512GB PCIe 4.0 SSD compared to the Series X's 1TB storage.

Microsoft confirms the Series S targets 1440p 120FPS gaming. It won't target native 4K 60FPS gaming like the Series X due to its lower specs. This corroborates reports of the Series S featuring a weaker 4TFLOP Navi RDNA 2.0 GPU.

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The Series S also features hardware-based ray-tracing via the RDNA GPU, and affords other optimizations like variable rate shading, which boosts frame rates by reducing visual quality, variable refresh rates for 120Hz displays and monitors, and fully supports Microsoft's DirectX 12-powered Velocity Architecture for massively accelerated data streaming at up to 4.8GB/sec compressed speeds.

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All of these higher-end components are packed in the smallest Xbox design ever built; the Series S is 60% smaller than the Series X, but most of that real estate is taken up by a huge fan vent mounted at the top. Oh, and there's no disc drive. This is by design to ensure you get permanently stuck in Microsoft's digital ecosystem.

Microsoft didn't reveal more visceral and in-depth specifications, such as RAM memory or speed, but that info should be coming soon.

The Series S will release alongside the Series X on November 10 for $299. The Xbox Series X is expected to be $499.

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Check below for spec comparisons of the Xbox Series X and S consoles:

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