If you find Microsoft’s top-of-the-line console a bit expensive, you don’t necessarily have to wait for your budget to stack up to enjoy its newest features. Instead, with the Xbox Series X, Microsoft blessed console gamers with a budget-friendly Xbox Series S that offers a similar gaming quality at a relatively lower price.
The Series S is a nerfed variant of the Series X, and although it is less robust, it’s still a not-too-shabby machine to enjoy the next-gen gaming experience. It has the same AMD APU that facilitates both graphics and general-processing tasks. It even has the same CPU with 8x Zen 2 Cores and a total of 10 Gigs of GDDR6 memory.
However, its “Lockhart” GPU chiplet is a bit weak. Utilizing the RDNA 2 architecture, the Series S has a GPU capable of producing 4 TFLOPs of precision with 20 Compute Cores and a slightly slower speed of 1.56 GHz.
As gamers, Especially PC gamers, we are more interested in its graphical prowess than anything else, and it is amusing to know what dedicated graphics cards hold up equally to the series S GPU chip. For this reason, we have found some dedicated GPUs with a familiar performance margin.
GPU equivalent to the Xbox Series S
The Xbox Series S GPU has impressive raw performance, outperforming Team Red’s RX 590 by a small margin while falling slightly behind the GTX 1660. The RX 590 and GTX 1660 are budget-friendly cards for around $100. However, their affordable price tags maintain their quality and performance. These cards are exceptional and can run demanding games with above-average graphics. Overall, their commendable value and performance make them excellent options for gamers looking to save some money without sacrificing performance.
AMD RX 590
The RX 590 marks the end of AMD’s GCN 4.0-based mainstream graphics cards and culminates in a commendable budget component that still sees the light of day with constant driver updates and soft tweaks.
Released in 2018, the RX 590 has some impressive qualities for a mid-ranger. It has a GDDR5 8 Gigabytes video memory and an upper-frequency limit of 1545 MHz for its 2304 Stream processors and 36 compute units.
It runs games smoothly in the 1080p resolution domain with room for 2K at medium to high graphics. Compared to the Series S GPU, it is slightly less efficient, with a higher power consumption and graphical output. However, it would work substantially fine to recreate the Series S experience on a gaming PC, regardless of some of its shortcomings.
| Feature | AMD Radeon RX 590 | AMD Xbox Series S GPU |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | GCN 4.0 | RDNA 2.0 |
| Core Clock (MHz) | 1469 MHz | - |
| Boost Clock (MHz) | 1545 MHz | - |
| CUDA Cores | 2304 | 1280 |
| Memory Type | GDDR6 | GDDR6 |
| Memory Size (GB) | 8 GB | 8 GB |
| Memory Bus Width (bits) | 256 bit | 128 bit |
| Memory Speed (Gbps) | 2000 MHz 8 Gbps effective | 1750 MHz 14 Gbps effective |
| TDP (Watts) | 175 W | 100 W |
| DirectX Version | 12 (12_0) | 12 Ultimate (12_2) |
| OpenGL Version | 4.6 | 4.6 |
| VR Ready | - | - |
| Ray Tracing Cores | - | - |
| Ports | 1x HDMI 2.0b 3x DisplayPort 1.4a | 1x HDMI 2.1 |
| Price | $455.99 | $299.00 |
Nvidia GTX 1660
If you want to talk honestly about equality with Series S, perhaps the most suitable choice is Team Green’s GTX 1660. Hailing from a similar timeline, the GTX 1660 includes faculties that overcome the graphical superiority of the Series S with its extreme optimization.
It has only six GB of VRAM, and with most of its features, like barely over 1400 CUDA units and 22 Streaming multiprocessor count, this GPU still outpaces the Series S by a 5 – 10% margin. As we mentioned, most of its enhanced performance results from its simply better optimization and very low power penalty, even at its highest speed of 1785 MHz.
The GTX 1660 is an easy choice to overcompensate against the Series S. It works well in its domain of 1080p to 1440p. It doesn’t suffer from thermal issues, a recurring theme in the RX 590, and is a fantastic GPU with its sub-100 price nowadays.
| Feature | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 | AMD Xbox Series S GPU |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Turing | RDNA 2.0 |
| Core Clock (MHz) | 1530 MHz | - |
| Boost Clock (MHz) | 1785 MHz | - |
| CUDA Cores | 1408 | 1280 |
| Memory Type | GDDR5 | GDDR6 |
| Memory Size (GB) | 6 GB | 8 GB |
| Memory Bus Width (bits) | 192 bit | 128 bit |
| Memory Speed (Gbps) | 2001 MHz 8 Gbps effective | 1750 MHz 14 Gbps effective |
| TDP (Watts) | 120 W | 100 W |
| DirectX Version | 12 (12_1) | 12 Ultimate (12_2) |
| OpenGL Version | 4.6 | 4.6 |
| VR Ready | - | - |
| Ray Tracing Cores | - | - |
| Ports | 1x DVI 1x HDMI 2.0 1x DisplayPort 1.4a | 1x HDMI 2.1 |
| Price | $168.00 | $299.00 |
Conclusion
In conclusion, these GPUs have a well-established performance on numerous gaming titles and are out to deliver the same or almost similar effectiveness as the Series S. They are pretty mediocre with their requirements, too, so you won’t need any specifically strong hardware to complement their usage.
Nevertheless, one thing that these graphics cards don’t have is the ability to do raytracing. While the Xbox Series S, despite its limited or capped output of only up to 2K, might not be enough to get that top-end experience, it still has raytracing and executes it optimally on the titles that support it.
Other than that, you must be clear by now of the power of the Series S GPU chip since it has been compared to some known equivalent counterparts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can the Xbox Series S have 4K raytracing?
The Xbox Series S isn’t capable of 4K gameplay, but it does have raytracing potential. Being equal to a mid-range gaming PC, the Series S is limited to 1440p resolution gaming. However, it can also perform raytraced lighting at those resolutions.
Is the Xbox Series S faster than the PS4 or Xbox One?
Yes, the Xbox series S is faster than the previous generation’s PS4 and Xbox One or any other console. Its latest APU has a hefty core count, and GPU makes it much more robust. Also, the inherently higher clock speeds and a faster 10GB memory cement its superiority further over the older consoles.
