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Project Scorpio specs unveiled: The next Xbox has serious power

Microsoft's next gaming console arrives in the fourth quarter of 2017. Today it teased us with what will make it "the most powerful game console ever made."

David Carnoy Executive Editor / Reviews
Executive Editor David Carnoy has been a leading member of CNET's Reviews team since 2000. He covers the gamut of gadgets and is a notable reviewer of mobile accessories and portable audio products, including headphones and speakers. He's also an e-reader and e-publishing expert as well as the author of the novels Knife Music, The Big Exit and Lucidity. All the titles are available as Kindle, iBooks, Nook e-books and audiobooks.
Expertise Mobile accessories and portable audio, including headphones, earbuds and speakers Credentials
  • Maggie Award for Best Regularly Featured Web Column/Consumer
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David Carnoy
Watch this: Xbox Project Scorpio is one fancy game console

Last year Sony gave us the PlayStation 4 Pro , a more powerful version of the PS4 that allows you to play certain games at higher resolutions. Microsoft has the Xbox One S , its souped-up Xbox One . But Project Scorpio -- coming in the fourth quarter of 2017 -- is supposed to take things to a whole new level. An Xbox One on steroids, if you will.

Today Microsoft teased its specs. We still don't know what the new console will look like, how much it will cost or how much better games will look on it.

Here are the specs according to Eurogamer's Digital Foundry, which got an exclusive preview of the console from Microsoft:

  • CPU: Eight custom x86 cores clocked at 2.3GHz
  • GPU: 40 customized compute units at 1,172MHz
  • Memory: 12GB GGDR5
  • Memory bandwidth: 326 Gbps
  • Hard drive: 1TB (2.5-inch)
  • Optical drive: 4K UHD Blu-ray

Watch Eurogamer's full reveal of the specs below.

Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, director of programming for Xbox Live, posted about the reveal, including a high-res image of the Project Scorpio system-on-a-chip. A spokesperson for Xbox confirmed to CNET that all of the technical specs and information in the Digital Foundry stories and video is accurate.

Microsoft will be revealing the new console in full at its E3 press conference in June.

Read next: Everything you need to know about Project Scorpio