For the last year, the "Next-Gen" conversation has been a series of "what-ifs." But following AMD's recent earnings transcript and new industry reports circulating this Monday morning, the picture is becoming remarkably clear. Microsoft has reportedly finalized the specifications for the Magnus SoC—the brain of the next Xbox.

The "Path Tracing" Console?

The headline figure in the Magnus leak isn't the raw teraflops—it's the 110 TOPS NPU (Neural Processing Unit). In the 2026 hardware landscape, raw silicon is no longer the bottleneck; it's the efficiency of AI-driven upscaling.

Reports suggest Microsoft is pivoting entirely toward an AI-first rendering pipeline. By utilizing this 110 TOPS NPU, the next Xbox could potentially be the first console to deliver sustained Path Tracing (full ray tracing) by letting AI reconstruct over 75% of the frame in real-time. This mirrors Nvidia's DLSS 4.0 strategy on PC, but integrated directly into a console's "Magnus" chiplet.

Technical Breakdown: Zen 6 and RDNA 5

Unlike the current Series X, Magnus is expected to use a hybrid CPU approach to balance heat and performance:

• 3 "Full" Zen 6 Cores: These handle the heavy lifting for game logic and physics.
• 8 Zen 6c Cores: These "compact" cores handle the OS, background tasks, and multi-threaded simulation, significantly reducing the console’s power draw during low-load scenarios.
• 68 RDNA 5 CUs: For context, the Series X has 52 CUs. This represents a 30% increase in core count, but with the architectural leap to RDNA 5, the actual throughput could be over double that of current hardware.

The GDDR7 Hurdle

The most expensive part of this build is the rumored GDDR7 memory. With the global memory shortage of early 2026 driving up prices, there is internal debate at Microsoft regarding the retail configuration. While the "Magnus" chip supports up to 48GB, current projections suggest a 36GB split is more likely to keep the launch price under the feared $799 mark.