Microsoft Details How It Made The Xbox One X

Compact, powerful, sleek. What we once knew as Project Scorpio is now the Xbox One X, and its launch is quickly approaching. Thanks to Xbox Wire, we now have a closer look at how the forthcoming console came to fruition after three years of engineering.

Microsoft's E3 2017 briefing gave us out first real look at the power behind the X iteration, and now we've got more insight into how Microsoft have packed the power into such a small box. The Xbox One X is smaller than the Xbox One S, and Microsoft claims it's 40 percent more power than any other console on the market.

It takes a lot to cool down six teraflops of power. In a standard PC tower, that challenge isn't quite so daunting. But in a 13.5 by 10 inch box, keeping it cool and air flowing is a task all in itself, so the design team turned to high-end PC and graphics card cooling systems. The result was the Xbox One X's custom vapor chamber and fan system.

What makes this system so unique is that it places the motherboard at the top and the cooling system below. As the system is running, the heat literally sinks into the vapor chamber which fills with water. A vacuum sucks up that hot water and uses it to power the radiator fins, and a centrifugal fan pulls air through the console to keep everything, including the power supply, crisp and cool.

The Xbox Wire post also discusses how it came up with the visual design of the Xbox One X, referencing 2001: A Space Odyssey, as well as the unconventional way it placed all the console's components within its shell. Check out the full Xbox Wire post here for that and other insightful information on the Xbox One X's creation.