Xbox Scarlett Boasts GDDR6 Memory, Custom Zen 2 Processor, 8K and 120 FPS, Ray Tracing, and More

Microsoft E3 press event may not have been the most eventful one, but there were some pretty eventful announcements made. Perhaps the most monumental one was the reveal for the next generation of Xbox, currently being called Project Scarlett.

Though we didn’t see the box, or the name of the console, we did learn a lot about what’ll be going on inside of it. The Xbox Scarlett is going to make use of a custom processor co-engineered by Microsoft and AMD, which makes use of the Zen 2 and Navi technology from the latter.

There’s also GDDR6 memory, which ensures better performance, and of course, the talk of the town- a solid state drive, or an SSD. That SSD is being used as a virtual RAM, Microsoft explained, which allows them to improve performance by roughly 40 times as much as current gen hardware. All of which is to say, the Xbox Scarlett will be four times faster than the Xbox One X (at least as per Microsoft).

Microsoft also confirmed that the console will be capable of 8K resolutions and 120 FPS frame rates (though didn’t specify if both those things can be achieved together- probably not), while also having variable refresh rates. Ray tracing will also be supported, and will be done in real time through hardware acceleration.

The console also has backward compatibility with “four generations of content”, which would imply that all Xbox generations will be playable on the Scarlett.

All of this was, incidentally, leaked merely hours prior to the conference itself going live, but it’s still nice to have official confirmation from Microsoft. With the console now slated for a Holiday 2020 launch, we can probably expect the next big Scarlett blowout (and formal reveal) at E3 2020.