One of the reasons it is so difficult to catch a restock of the Xbox Series X before it sells out is the ongoing chip shortage.

However, some of the Xbox Series X chips may have been redirected from consoles to pre-built PCs. Our sister site Tom's Hardware reports that Chinese retailer TMall is selling PCs with the AMD 4700S, a mysterious chip that closely resembles the Xbox Series X's AMD CPU.

A PC listing via Twitter user @momo_us confirms that the AMD 4700S is an octa-core chip with a total of 16 threads. That in itself is not surprising, but the system memory is 16 GB of GDDR6 RAM, and photos of the PC's interior show no memory slots for DDR4 memory modules, the most common type of RAM for desktops.

All of this indicates that the AMD 4700S is a system-on-chip (SoC) rather than a traditional desktop CPU like the AMD Ryzen 5000 series. Furthermore, it may be a reused Xbox Series X chip. This is also an 8-core, 16-thread SoC with 16GB of GDDR6 memory. [The Xbox Series X chip runs at a maximum boost clock of 3.8 GHz, while the AMD 4700S appears to be up to 4 GHz. However, the Xbox chip has an integrated GPU, which AMD may have disabled to reduce power consumption and provide the thermal margin needed to slightly increase the boost clock. In this PC, the 4700S is paired with a dedicated graphics card, so an integrated GPU is not needed.

Again, while not conclusive, there is evidence to suggest that AMD sells Xbox Series X chips to OEMs as AMD 4700S. as Tom's Hardware has suggested, these chips were originally graphics-deficient Xbox components. and may have simply been modified to allow the chips to be used elsewhere so as not to break the exclusivity agreement with Microsoft.

Sadly, recycling chips that have already been produced will not help the current backlog of processor supply. Therefore, those who want a next-generation console will need to be lucky enough to find a buyer for the Xbox Series X or dig up PS5 inventory.