The Xbox Series X was shaped by heat, Tetris-style packing and a fan
Microsoft wanted its 2020 flagship console to have twice the graphics power and four times the processor speed of the Xbox One X while staying just as quiet. The parts would draw around 315 watts. Engineers solved the heat problem by splitting the electronics across two boards and building a tall, square tower topped by one large fan.
The two boards sit on opposite sides of an aluminium frame, forming channels for air. Principal designer Chris Kujawski said the heat sink, power supply, disc drive and fan were then fitted together like Tetris pieces. The result stands 30.1 centimetres high on a 15.1 centimetre square base, and sensors adjust the fan to keep noise down. Inside is a custom AMD chip rated at 12.155 teraflops, with 16 GB of memory. Phil Spencer said the priority was high frame rates and fast loading rather than ever higher resolution.
From the start, around 2016, the team planned two machines developed together so every game would run on both. The cheaper Series S, codenamed Lockhart after a Texas town nicknamed the little city with the big heart, drops the disc drive and targets 1440p rather than 4K. Microsoft even hid it in the background of announcement videos before revealing it in September 2020.
Both launched on 10 November 2020, the same month as the PlayStation 5, and play almost every game that runs on the Xbox One, including older titles already made compatible. Critics liked the hardware but felt launch games did not stretch it. The pandemic had cancelled the trade shows where it was due to be detailed, so specifications were revealed online in March 2020.
Prices have since climbed. In the US the Series X rose from $499.99 to $649.99, blamed on tariffs and memory shortages, and further rises in August 2026 were linked to demand from the AI industry. Sales passed an estimated 35 million by February 2026.
Source: Xbox Series X and Series S
