Journalist says Xbox Series X can get ‘hot like a fireplace’

The latest Xbox Series X media impressions have expressed surprise at the amount of heat the console emits, with one journalist even appearing to burn his hand on its storage expansion during a live stream.

It’s not unusual for high-end console or PC hardware to emit significant amounts of heat, especially well-cooled devices like Microsoft‘s and Sony‘s new consoles appear to be.

The Xbox Series X, in particular, has been designed to create strong airflow through its top and rear vents via a large 130mm fan, which journalists and content creators praised last week for its quiet operation.

In a new video discussing his experience with Series X, Jeux Video’s Ken Bogard echoed others’ praise for the quietness of the console’s cooling system, but expressed surprise at how much heat the console emits as a result.

UPDATE: The original live stream video has now been removed by the author. No explanation was given for its deletion.

ORIGINAL STORY CONTINUES: He said (translated by VGC): “The Series X is hot, like really hot! It doesn’t make any noise, but damn it’s hot! The console is emitting heat like crazy. It’s almost like a fireplace shaft. You can heat up your flat with it.”

Bogard went on to note that the heat his pre-release console had emitted was generated entirely while playing backwards compatible games and navigating menus, as he does not currently have access to any Xbox Series X titles.

In a separate video, Giant Bomb co-host Jeff Bakalar said his pre-release console was emitting a significant amount of heat even when in standby mode, and even appeared to burn his hand on its storage expansion during a live stream.

“Here’s what’s crazy… this was just plugged in in standby mode behind me and you guys, the entire thing is a little toasty,” he said, emphasising that the console he’d been testing is pre-release hardware.

“It seems like in the way like a lot of the other consoles were doing stuff while you were not using them, it seems like this thing might be doing something while you’re not using it, to the point where it needs to exhaust heat.”

The first Xbox Series X press previews were published last week, with many critics reserving special praise for how quietly the console runs compared to current-gen hardware.

Xbox Series X includes a single, large fan, which Microsoft has described as “whisper-quiet”. It’s a claim that’s backed up by the first Xbox Series X hardware previews, which focus on areas including backwards compatible games and loading times.

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Sam Machkovech of Ars Technica wrote: “I’ll conclude this preview with the best news to come out of this venting weirdness: Series X, so far, is the quietest Xbox I’ve ever tested.

“Back-compat software runs the Series X to a high enough level to activate the fans and unleash noticeable heat dissipation, but I can barely hear it, even while spending hours in current-gen, open-world romps like Destiny 2 and Red Dead Redemption 2.”

Ryan McCaffrey of IGN concurred: “This thing is quiet. It’s almost inaudible when it’s idle, and in Red Dead Redemption 2, for instance, it’s still pretty quiet – much more so than the Xbox One X, which gets noticeably louder under full GPU load.”

However, both critics noted that performance could change when it comes to testing next-gen games that push the hardware more.