PlayersNexus confirmed in a teardown video that the Xbox Series X dev kits feature 40GB of GDDR6 memory on the motherboard.
Xbox Series X dev kits confirmed to have 40GB of GDDR6 memory in 20 Samsung dies, Teardown reveals
Currently, Microsoft Xbox Series X consoles shipping to gamers worldwide feature 16GB of full system memory. Although the memory is all GDDR6, it is partitioned into two segments, a faster 10 GB segment that operates at 560 GB/s (14 Gbps at 320 bit) and a slower 6 GB segment that operates at 336 GB/s (14 Gbit/s @ 192 bit). This is the configuration used on all XSX consoles, but the SDKs have more than twice the memory of the top-tier console.
In the teardown, you can see Steve Burke being shocked that the Xbox Series X has 10 GDDR6 memory chips on the back and also 10 on the front. These specific dies are labeled as part number “K4ZAF325BM-HC14”, offering 16GB (2GB) capacity per die and memory speeds of up to 14Gbps. These memory chips operate on a 320-bit bus interface and offer bandwidth of up to 560 GB/s. It’s the same bandwidth as the Xbox Series X but split across all memory dies rather than using a segmented approach as a retail unit.
Shots of the Xbox Series X Dev Kit PCB (Image Credits: GamersNexus):
Now, the main reason for having such massive memory pools on board the Xbox Series X dev kit is pretty obvious. They are designed for developers and a 40 GB GDDR6 buffer can help debug the game with uncompressed textures while not yet optimized. It’s a comically large buffer for anything not used by developers. The current flagship gaming desktop graphics card comes with 24GB GDDR6 memory capacity, so the XSX Devkit offers 66% memory. Only a workstation card like the RTX A6000 offers a similar amount of memory to 48GB GDDR6 and that thing costs a fortune (around US$5000).
Besides the huge memory pool, some other interesting parts of the Xbox Series X Devkit teardown are its cooling design. The case that resembles the Xbox One console features a large fan-type fan and a smaller blower-type cooler that directs air out of the chassis. The larger fan sits above a large heatsink that covers the Xbox Series X’s “Project Scarlett” SOC. It features a copper block made up of aluminum fins and copper heat pipes. The entire block is one large vapor chamber and has padded surfaces that come into contact with the GDDR6 memory dies.
Series X dev kit cooling teardown (Image credits: GamersNexus):
Unfortunately, these specs and design are only limited to Microsoft’s Xbox Series X dev kits and even if you manage to get one from the listings online, you won’t be able to play any games as the system will lock you out immediately. .
