Performance benefit of Xbox Series X vs Series S - Hardware-Limited to 1440p 120Hz

Thanks for your response - sounds as though my fears are confirmed, but then again it also sounds like games that hit the same framerate on both consoles will still show some improvement on the X versus the S, albeit graphical improvements and not necessarily
framerate based. Some control over what you prefer, as you pointed out, is available on DiRT, which is decent. Hopefully this will become a staple of console gaming, as the advance in graphical processing power seems to be outstripping affordable display capabilities.
VRR is also a massive plus - it is incredibly noticeable when FreeSync isn't working on a 120Hz monitor when the framerates are still up at 90-100fps.

I'd be surprised if there are games that are 120fps on the Series X, and only 60fps on the Series S, but there's an obvious benefit right there. It just seems a shame that you can't divert the raw power of the Series X to something more useful if you're
running a sub-4K setup. Perhaps this is something that can be looked into going forward, as more and more people seem to be rocking monitors in favour of your casual lounge TV setup.

As you point out though, a Series S with the additional storage card will, for the time being at least, be as expensive as the Series X, so it's worth getting the Series X anyway if you want more than 2 games installed at any one time.

I can't be the only one who's thought about this, so hopefully this will be useful to any others with the same thought process!

Will the Series X output a higher Refresh Rate at 1440p than at 2160p (4K), for games limited to 60Hz or lower at 4K?

Your thinking is correct. The game is still rendering at 4K internally (or whatever the developer has set) and is then downscaled by a form of ‘super sampling’ down to the resolution the screen is in. This isn’t any different
in playing said game at full resolution on a 4K display. There are no performance benefits. It’s designed to ensure the best picture quality on multiple types of TV’s/Monitors with their varied native resolutions.

The games with full 120Hz support are games that can run up to 120 fps (frames per second). These games don’t run in 4K, they are either locked to 1080P or use a dynamic 1440P resolution. There may be some simpler Indi titles
that can run at 4K 120 (or dynamic 4K), but don’t expect AAA titles to be able to do this.

For example, a game runs at 1440p 60Hz on the Series S, and at 4K 60Hz on the X. When used with my 1440p monitor, will I be able to get an improved refresh rate/framerate at 1440p (90/120Hz) out of the Series X? Or will it still render natively
in 4K or be capped by the developer, and therefore gain no performance benefit by outputting the lower resolution of 1440p?

Depends on the game really. Not all Series games can run at 60 fps. The new Assassins Creed Valhalla for example is dynamic 4K on Series X but 1080P 30 fps on Series S and does not have any performance options. Unlike Dirt 5 that
can run at 120 fps on both consoles, albeit with graphics settings compromises. It really depends on what optimisations the developer has implemented for each platform.

There is also a lot of confusion about the other benefits of 120Hz and VRR, let me explain:

On a standard 60Hz display, you get a new image (a frame) every 16.7ms (milliseconds). This means that if your game is targeting 60fps,
but crucially, not hitting it, you have to wait an additional 16.7ms until the next frame appears. This makes a game that is failing to perform appear like it’s stuttering/juddering.

On a 120Hz refresh, the scene updates every 8.3ms. If a game has a frame ready, rather than wait 16.7ms, it does it in half the time. This isn’t the same as running a game at 120fps though, that’s a different process. But interestingly,
because the display is refreshing at a faster rate, a dropped frame stutter is effectively cut in half. And believe me, a heck of a lot of Xbox games – even on the One X – fail to hit their targeted frame rate. The faster refresh gives the impression of smoother
performance when frames are dropped, even if the game itself isn’t actually rendering any faster.

A 120Hz refresh also has a benefit even on games that have a 30fps lock. Per-frame persistence is lower, and so games still feel smoother when they drop frames – Sekiro, I’m looking at you!

120Hz doesn’t improve how a 60 fps or 30 fps game performs or how it feels, it only makes a difference when a game can’t hold its target frame rate. A locked 30 fps game (with no frame drops) will still feel as it does running
on a traditional 60Hz display.

There is one massive caveat between these two consoles that may sway you more towards Series X than S and this is storage.

Series S Internal SSD is 512GB (360 GB usable) whereas the X is 1TB (about 870GB useable).

While both support external drives, only the Internal SSD or the expensive 1TB Expansion Card SSD can run Series X/S games. External drives connected via USB can only play BC titles (Xbox One, 360 and original Xbox). You can store
Series X/S games on USB drives, but you can’t play them from here.

The Expansion SSD costs almost as much as the Series S costs. So, a Series S and an Expansion card will set you back almost as much as buying a Series X.

good info there, all the throwing about of 120fps etc etc has made lots of others think this is a minimum guarantee when in fact it will most likely be 60fps on most games and a few that run full tilt.

You will need the Xbox Series X for 4K 120hz. The Series S can only do 1440p 120hz

Yes but as mentioned you will have issues

It upscales not native

Only the xbox one x and series x are 4k native

https://www.tomsguide.com/face-off/xbox-series-x-vs-xbox-series-s

The reason why smart delivery compresses files because of the CPU and GPU power and storage limitations

https://www.xbox.com/en-CA/consoles/compare

True 4k vs 1440p

Most.games will.only run 1080p max on series s

It will do less CPU intensive stuff like 4k streaming

Series x does 4k 60hx with possible 120hz (dropped fps )

Xbox one x does only 4k 30hz