Just how hot does the Xbox series X get?
Well, to find out I’ve got the console and.
A thermal image in camera.
Let’s take a look.
The first Test is actually going to be with the console switched off.
Now I know what you might be thinking.
The console switched off its drawing no power.
It’s not doing anything obviously.
Therefore it’s not going to be generating any heat.
That’s not quite the case, be cause the Xbox has got it quick resume feature.
It’s got various things it does when it’s in standby mode.
It is still doing something, and indeed if I put my hand over here I can feel that there is coming out because of the fans and I can see on the thermal camera.
Is some heat being generated already?
In fact, you can see exactly how much heat is being generated.
This is all the cold area around you can just see the corner edge of my TV just here to where it’s white and orange is, where its hottest and we can see on this little grid up here 188.
degrees Celsius at its absolute hottest point, which is this bright spot right in the middle.
So 18 degrees will always 19 degrees, even though it’s apparently switched off.
’cause of course.
Isn’t switched off, its just in standby mode.
Now you can change the power saving preferences so that it will completely shut down when you press the off button.
’cause of course if we have a look the Xbox light is not on, so as far as it looks from the outside, this console is completely powered off, but evidently it is still doing quite a lot, so now.
Let’s hit the on button and see how it changes.
So while it’s just booting up, I’m not really seeing an initial change much in the temperature.
It still at basically 19 degrees Celsius, but I’m expecting that want it starts loading up into the menus.
I start using the console, and certainly when I start booting up some games, that number really is going to go up.
I also think we’re going to see a lot more heat coming out of the top of the console, ’cause of course that is where it vents all the heat.
That’s where the huge fan is, so I do think that on the screen on here.
We’re going to start seeing more heat being expelled.
You can see we’re just in the menu screen right now.
The console is basically idling.
It’s not doing a lot, but it has gone up by about 1 degrees Celsius is now about 195.
before it was about 18 point 5186., so is starting to warm up.
Going to give it a few minutes of it just sitting in the menu screen, see how it changes.
So one way to will tell you a little bit about the thermal camera were using.
It’s actually a phone.
It’s the cat S 62 pro, but it’s got a Fleer thermal imaging sensor built in now.
It’s not a scientifically accurate heat sensor, it gives you a rough overview, and it does show you areas of heat and coolness, but the numbers that it gives you are not completely accurate, so take what we’re finding here with a pinch of salt.
Is phones really designed for builders or plumbers who can look in the walls and see if there’s a blockage in your heat pipe?
It’s also just pretty cool to look at your gadgets and see what they get, and in this instance we’re getting to about 204..
Degrees Celsius at its hottest point, and again the highest point really is sort of in the middle of the console.
So I guess that is probably where the main processor is.
That’s where most of the work is being done.
But I think it’s really time we fire up some more demanding games.
See how hot we can get it for TSA horizon Forza.
Pretty beautiful game.
Should take quite a lot of power to run so we should see those numbers really start to go up.
OK, so I’m going to recklessly drive this Bugatti Chiron around Edinburgh, which is great because that’s actually where I live and where I’m filming this right now.
OK, we’re taking this off road.
This is a lesson in how not to drive a big at E Sheeran can see here that were already up to 262.
degrees at the hottest point.
264.
definitely climbing.
It’s even numbers are definitely going up on the thermal camera.
Probably as a result of my terrible driving.
Which is forcing the car to go through a load of trees and break things which is creating more particles and more items that the console has.
Now got to process.
So basically, the worst I drive, the harder the Xbox has to work to process things so.
Let’s get reckless.
Let’s look at the numbers on the thermal camera.
It’s gone up to 358..
That’s several degrees higher than when we started, so it definitely is warming up.
But I think it’s going to take a little bit more time, probably a little bit more playing for those numbers to get even higher.
Again, it’s really easy to see where most of that he is coming from.
We’ve still got the hot spot here, presumably where the processor is, but it’s now sort of come down in this line here.
Along the top is where the heat is being pumped out.
Because of that fan, so it’s no surprise that it’s hotter than the top than it is in the bottom.
Down here in the bottom corners there’s basically no heat at all.
Well, now I think that’s about 14 degrees, which is pretty much the ambient temperature in this room.
Just moved it a bit closer so we can get more of a focus view on kind of where this heaters and having done so, the number has gone up.
We’re almost at 40 degrees.
We can just change the view.
Maybe go for this lava look instead, which gives you a different impression of kind of where that heat is not really seeing a lot coming out of the top at this point, but that could just be because of the sensitivity of the thermal camera.
Go try some gears 5, so after about an hour of what I think is pretty intense, gaming in both Forza Horizon 4 and gears 5, the highest temperature that I recorded on the phone.
Was just under 50 degrees Celsius.
It was actually about 495.
which is really not too bad and certainly I haven’t seen any massive amounts of heat escaping out of the top.
If I put my hand over it, certainly warm, but it’s not venting so much heat that you’d have to really think about.
Kind of what you’re putting around your console, which I think is pretty good news that Microsoft hasn’t really said what sort of temperatures do you should expect, or if it ever gets dangerous if it exceeds.
Certain point, let’s not forget the Xbox 360, which did sometimes overheat and that is why we had the horrible red ring of death.
But also the moment I’m basically playing a previous generation gains which have just been updated slightly for the series X, so clearly they’re not going to be the most demanding things we can play on the console.
In time we’re going to have more demanding games that have been built specifically for this platform.
Maybe games like Cyberpunk or when we eventually get Forza Horizon 6. Or gears 6 or gears 11 or whatever it gets to those games will almost certainly be a bit more demanding.
Probably taxes thing a bit more and as a result it’s probably going to get a bit hotter for now.
I think that’s being a pretty interesting little test.
Hopefully you thought so too.
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