The Xbox Series X in 2025: Still a Powerhouse, But That Price Tag Hurts

Let’s address the elephant in the room immediately: it is late 2025, and the Xbox Series X costs more now than it did when it launched five years ago. At a new MSRP of $649.99, Microsoft is asking a premium for a console that is officially middle-aged. But here we are.

This review isn’t for the die-hard fanboys who tattooed “117” on their biceps in 2001. This is for the PC gamer tired of shader compilation stutters, or the PS4 holdout wondering if the grass is greener on the side with the green logo. We’re looking at the standard 1TB Carbon Black model. Is the “world’s most powerful console” (a title now contested by the PS5 Pro) still the king of value, or has the value proposition eroded like a cheap analog stick?

Design & Build Quality
Five years later, the “Monolith” design still sparks debate. Personally? I respect the brutalism. It’s a dense, matte-black brick that feels substantial. It doesn’t look like a sci-fi router (looking at you, Sony); it looks like a piece of hi-fi equipment.

The matte finish is premium but remains a forensic investigator’s dream—if you touch it, you will leave a smudge. The massive cooling vent on top, painted with that subtle green accent inside the holes, is a clever touch. It’s heavy, compact, and fits easily into most entertainment centers, provided you don’t shove it into a suffocating cabinet. The airflow design is strictly bottom-to-top, so give it headroom.

Under the Hood (Specs)
For 2025, the specs are a known quantity, but they hold up surprisingly well. You’re getting an 8-core AMD Zen 2 CPU and a 12 TFLOPS RDNA 2 GPU. That 12 TFLOPS number was the marketing hammer for years, and it still delivers raw grunt.

• CPU: 8X Cores @ 3.8 GHz (3.66 GHz w/SMT) Custom Zen 2 CPU

• GPU: 12 TFLOPS, 52 CUs @ 1.825 GHz Custom RDNA 2 GPU

• Memory: 16GB GDDR6 w/ 320 bit-wide bus

• Storage: 1TB Custom NVMe SSD (roughly 802GB usable)

The Achilles’ heel remains the proprietary storage expansion slot. While PC NVMe prices have crashed, expanding the Xbox still requires buying a proprietary Seagate or Western Digital card that costs nearly as much as a budget GPU.

The Gaming Experience (Performance)
I threw a mix of optimized titles and competitive shooters at the Series X to see if it’s showing its age. Spoiler: It’s aging like fine wine, mostly.

• Call of Duty: Black Ops 6: This is where the Series X flexes. In the 120Hz mode, the console holds a buttery smooth framerate. You lose some resolution (dropping dynamically to keep the frames high), but the responsiveness is snappy. If you play on a high-refresh monitor, this is the console experience you want.

• Cyberpunk 2077 (Phantom Liberty): In Performance Mode, Night City runs at a largely locked 60 FPS. Driving through the dense city center caused minor hiccups, but it’s a far cry from the disaster of 2020. The Ray Tracing mode locks you to 30 FPS, which, frankly, feels like swimming through molasses once you’ve tasted the 60 FPS mode. Stick to Performance.

• Starfield: Following the crucial updates, the 60 FPS Performance mode is a game-changer. Exploring New Atlantis finally feels fluid. It’s not a perfect 60—intense combat with particle effects can dip it into the 50s—but it’s a massive improvement over the launch 30 FPS cap.

Daily Drivers
Living with the Series X is mostly a joy, largely due to two things: Quick Resume and Silence.

Quick Resume is the best “next-gen” feature that nobody talks about enough. I can pause Elden Ring, jump into Overwatch 2 for a match, and then switch back to Elden Ring instantly, exactly where I left off, without reloading the game. It feels like magic.

Thermals and noise are top-tier. Even after a four-hour Cyberpunk session, the fan is barely a whisper. You can feel the heat pumping out of the top vent (it doubles as a space heater in winter), but the console itself stays quiet.

However, the dashboard is getting cluttered. In 2025, the amount of ads for Game Pass and random movies on the home screen is borderline intrusive for a $650 device.

Is it Worth It? (Verdict)
In a vacuum, the Xbox Series X is a fantastic piece of hardware. It’s quiet, powerful, and Quick Resume is a feature I miss every time I switch to PC or PlayStation.

However, the 2025 price hike to $649.99 makes this a complicated recommendation. If you are already subscribed to the Xbox ecosystem and have a library of digital games, it’s a no-brainer. But if you are a neutral buyer? The value proposition has shifted. The hardware is great, but you are paying a premium for a five-year-old architecture.

Buy it if you want the most hassle-free, backward-compatible friendly machine on the market and plan to abuse a Game Pass subscription. Skip it if you are price-sensitive or care about VR, which Microsoft has completely abandoned.