I am a lifelong gamer, and gaming is in my heart.
With more than one in three people in the world gaming, gaming has brought communities together across the world and across all cultures. It’s all about how we learn and connect with each other through play. The highly anticipated next-generation game consoles are unlocking the full creativity of game developers to build the games they could only previously imagine.
Gaming is at the core of AMD’s DNA. Our Semi-Custom group’s mission is to lead, innovate and push the boundaries of technology to usher the world into the era of immersive computing. We started this journey with Microsoft about five years ago with the dream that we heard loud and clear from gamers to bring 4K120 gaming to everyone. Together with Microsoft and the gaming community, we are making this dream a reality this holiday season.
Just like in an online Role Playing Game (RPG), we assembled our team from the best heroes of AMD and Microsoft to advance through the challenges together and optimize every aspect of the Xbox Series X System on a Chip (SoC) and Xbox Series S SoC. The goal was to deliver a transformational design, generational performance and broad experience uplift with innovation throughout the silicon, system and software, with the game developers with us for every step of the journey.
The much-anticipated Xbox Series X will be available starting November 10, with pre-orders beginning September 22. The Xbox Series X will enable 4K gaming at up to 120 fps for truly immersive experiences, powered by the 8 core, 16 thread AMD “Zen 2” CPU optimized for gaming. Coupled with the brand new RDNA 2 GPU architecture, which also powers our upcoming Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards, we are providing game-changing performance behind the most powerful Xbox ever created. We have focused on ensuring games don’t just look better but play better as well, driven by key, new hardware-accelerated features such as seamless content paging from the SSD to the GPU based on the revolutionary Xbox Velocity Architecture and DirectX 12 Ultimate Raytracing, Variable Rate Shading and mesh shaders.
It’s always good to have a partner for a journey. The Xbox Series S will launch alongside the Xbox Series X, and thanks to its uniquely designed AMD Semi-Custom SoC will also include next generation features such as near-zero load times, high framerates and so much more – all in the smallest Xbox ever.
Microsoft is also providing gamers an experience on the go with cloud gaming via Xbox Game Pass Ultimate powered by custom Xbox One hardware with AMD Semi-Custom SoC, running in Microsoft’s Azure datacenters. Beginning September 15, in 22 countries across North America, Europe and South Korea, gamers will have a seamless gaming experience delivered to their Android mobile devices.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate includes all the benefits of Xbox Live Gold and over 100 high-quality games for console, PC, and Android mobile devices. Beginning this holiday, Ultimate members will get an EA play membership at no additional cost so they can play more than 60 of EA’s biggest and best console and PC games.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate brings an AMD Semi-Custom SoC, the same one that powers the Xbox One S, to the Microsoft cloud. The SoC helps ensure games render exactly as the game creators originally intended without modification or compromise by addressing the following pillars:
- Compatibility – Over 3,000 games run on Xbox One and they all needed to run in the cloud as well.
- Power – Highly optimized gaming experience within a power envelope that easily fits within the operating requirements of a high-density datacenter rack.
- Low Latency – The end-to-end user experience is optimized for low latency throughout the data path, from the graphics engine to media encode to the end-user display.
We are incredibly honored by the decade-long partnership AMD has with the Microsoft team. We’re also very excited about our collaboration as we further extend our leadership position in gaming – across console, PC and cloud – and innovate together to shape the future of gaming.
As a fellow gamer, I look forward to playing a wide array of next-generation content on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and on my mobile device - creating unforgettable memories with friends around the world!
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Jack Huynh is Corporate Vice President and General Manager for the AMD Semi-Custom Business Unit.
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