Should You Buy an Xbox One S – Specs Info

The Xbox One S released on August 2, 2016 and offers a decent specs improvement over the original Xbox One, but the real question on everyone’s mind is should you buy an Xbox One S. This article will take a closer look at some of the differences and changes between the original Xbox One and the Xbox One S to determine if you should be in the market for the new console, or if maybe you should wait for Scorpio late next year. With so many choices, it’s a great time to be a gamer.

Xbox One S Specs and Performance

The biggest differences between the original Xbox One and the Xbox One S comes in a slightly overclocked GPU (graphics processing unit) from 853MHz up to 914MHz. This also allows for a slight increase in the ESRAM bandwidth, bringing it up to 218GB/s. Most of this was done so that the Xbox One S can handle 4K HDR media, but you may also notice a slight increase in game performance.

In games that do not have a locked frame rate, there’s a fairly noticeable increase in performance. These games will run a bit faster and smoother. However, even in games with locked frame rates, there’s still a slight improvement in overall performance, especially in multiplatform games where the PlayStation 4 or PC version ran considerably better. The gap seems much smaller when playing on the Xbox One S (depending on the title), which is a significant selling point given that games have not been designed to specifically take advantage of the overclocked GPU.

Here’s a more detailed look at the most important specs for the Xbox One S:

• 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray Player
• 4K 60 Hz Video Streaming
• Upscale Games From 1080p to 4K
• 914MHz Overclocked GPU
• 218GB/s ESRAM
• 40 Percent Smaller
• Blootooth Controller
• Integrated IR Blaster
• HDMI 2.0a

Should You Buy the Xbox One S?

If you already own an original Xbox One, there are only minor differences with the Xbox One S. If you have a 4K display that your Xbox One is connected to, and 4K content to display (UHD Blu-Ray movies, Netflix, Amazon, etc.), then you’ll get a lot more out of the Xbox One S than you might if you are only interested in using the device to play games. Games do see a slight improvement over the original Xbox One, but if you’re happy with your current gaming experience, the improvement probably isn’t worth the 400 dollar asking price.

If you don’t already own an Xbox One, this is a great time to jump in. The Xbox One has plenty of exclusive titles, especially if you don’t have a nice gaming PC. In addition, there are quite a few exclusive titles coming over the next few months and years that make an Xbox One S a great purchase for any console gamer. There’s nothing wrong with owning multiple consoles, especially if the last console you bought was a launch PlayStation 4.

Should You Wait for Scorpio?

Scorpio is still over a year away, and we don’t know a lot about the Xbox console upgrade. Once again, if you already own an Xbox One and you’re happy with its performance, there’s no reason to spend the money to upgrade to an Xbox One S. In addition, by the time the Scorpio releases, you may be ready for a proper upgrade instead of the smaller performance increase of the Xbox One S.

If you don’t already own an Xbox One, but you’re happy with your PlayStation 4 or gaming PC, you’re probably not in a rush to pick up Microsoft’s latest. Either you’re not into the exclusive titles, or you can already play most of them on PC. Whatever the case may be, you’ve waited this long, so waiting another year or so for a much-improved Xbox One (Scorpio) probably isn’t a big concern.

We’ll have more on the Xbox One S and Project Scorpio over the coming months.