Fabled Opus motherboard appears in Xbox 360

Well, what have we here? One of those unicorn-like Opus motherboards? According to an image put forth by one Electric Tuner, that's exactly what we have. If you'll recall, we heard back in February that Microsoft may be utilizing the Opus mobos in order to fit the newer 65 / 90-nanometer CPU / GPU combo into RRoDed Xbox 360s that are just collecting dust in warehouses. Thus, you'll find no dedicated HDMI port here, but it should operate much cooler and in a more reliable fashion than the pre-Falcon rigs. There's no word on how exactly this unit was acquired (a replacement, perhaps?), but you can head on down to the read link for one more picture and a little discussion.

[Via Xbox-Scene, thanks Leonardo]

[biggerx @ Jul 29th 2008 4:08PM]

So if my pre-falcon 360 ever takes a dump they'll throw one of these bitches up in it?

[Striker @ Jul 29th 2008 4:18PM]

Yes, and they should send you a new, compatible brick that has lower power consumption than your previous.

[Charles @ Jul 29th 2008 4:27PM]

@Striker

Er, no they won't. The existing PSU has a higher maximum output but it will run at the lower 175w for the newer boards.

[Striker @ Jul 29th 2008 4:58PM]

@Charles

The Opus units not only have a lower power consumption than the Xenon units, but they also use the same power connector as the Falcon units, and are NOT compatible with Xenon PSUs. The connector from the brick to the Xbox is physically different on the Xbox end, due to specification changes in the newer models.

[Andrew @ Jul 29th 2008 5:03PM]

actually my launch unit RROD'd a week after repair and they sent me the new smaller power brick....no problems since.

[martin @ Jul 29th 2008 5:25PM]

i have a new xbox 360 with hdmi and used my old power brick with it and they plug together just fine, no idea if the new brick is smaller, i never opened it

[Charles @ Jul 29th 2008 6:03PM]

@Striker

They changed the power connector to prevent the 175w PSU from fitting into the 203w Xenon (as it obviously could not supply the required wattage) but not the other way round.

Have you actually tried plugging in a 203w PSU into a 175w board? If you do, you will see that it fits and works fine. Or do a websearch for reports.

[phanbouy @ Jul 29th 2008 4:14PM]

wow... it's sim city, the motherboard

[ethana2 @ Jul 29th 2008 6:48PM]

...drop a Red Ring of Death right... /there/ ..and see what happens...

[Chris @ Jul 30th 2008 10:07AM]

*pushes tornado button*

[Ethan @ Jul 29th 2008 4:26PM]

If I ended up with one of these I'd be asking for a discount for my refurbished console or my money back. But I suppose those component ports have to do something.

Jasper's around soon, isn't it? Both of these on shelves... I suppose most consumers won't be able to tell the difference. Look for HDMI on the box I guess then.

[MRCUR @ Jul 29th 2008 4:34PM]

If you send in a console with HDMI, then you'll get a Falcon refurb back. This is for people who send in NON-HDMI consoles.

[Ethan @ Jul 29th 2008 4:43PM]

I don't have a console to send in. I'm planning to buy one and it sounds like they're putting them on shelves.

[MRCUR @ Jul 29th 2008 4:54PM]

Opus consoles do not appear in retail. All the consoles in retail stores have HDMI, and thus are Falcon consoles.

[Ethan @ Jul 29th 2008 6:40PM]

Brilliant.

[MRCUR @ Jul 29th 2008 4:33PM]

MS has been sending Opus refurbished consoles out for about a month now. It's very easy to see if you get an Opus console, you just have to look at the label on the box. It will say "Falcon" followed by the console type.

You can read the full guide here, including pics of the label:
http://forums.xbox.com/15804553/ShowPost.aspx

[computer.dude.28 @ Jul 29th 2008 4:33PM]

No HDMI no deal.

[michas_pi @ Jul 29th 2008 6:54PM]

Likewise, no 3G, no Wi-Fi, no deal :)

[yesimalex @ Jul 29th 2008 4:42PM]

is their any way to do a visual inspection to see if you got this board... without removing it from the xbox?

[Rick James @ Jul 29th 2008 4:50PM]

Well if u have a new 360 (the one with the 60GB hard drive) then u prolly have this one. So opening it to find out would be a waste of ur warrenty

So in order to have a non RROD xbox 360 u need to give up ur HDMI output :X

[MRCUR @ Jul 29th 2008 4:54PM]

http://forums.xbox.com/15804553/ShowPost.aspx

[nsdcx @ Jul 29th 2008 4:56PM]

@ Rick James

No, the 60GB does NOT use this mobo. Only non-HDMI consoles that have RRoD'ed will get this mobo, meaning if your non-HDMI console RRoDs then you will get the Opus board. All 360's leaving the shelves have HDMI (not quite sure about the 360 Arcade, but that's a waste of money anyways) and will NOT be Opus boards.

[yesimalex @ Jul 29th 2008 5:00PM]

Actually I have a Falcon board with HDMI, regrettably not the 60gb version. However my inquiry was for a friend who just had his first gen sent in for repairs. It looks like he still has a Xenon board though (label on return box said Xenon Pro as opposed to Falcon or Opus). I was hoping he got the new board seeing as this is the 3rd time his has gone back.

[Rick James @ Jul 29th 2008 5:03PM]

@nsdcx

Yea now that i looked into it ur right. My bad

[yesimalex @ Jul 29th 2008 5:04PM]

@ Rick James

And just to reiterate, I was asking If you could do a visual inspection, like 1 inducer coil for opus as opposed to 3 for xenon. Which would not void your warranty.

[Carl M @ Jul 29th 2008 6:29PM]

You look at the CPU heatsink. This one has no heat pipe, whereas the original has a copper heat pipe.

[DanMack10 @ Jul 29th 2008 5:14PM]

Remember when consoles were just consoles and we didn't have to worry about what motherboards were installed, how many watts they drew, or what firmware they ran? They used to be indestructible toys that were just fun all around. What happened?

[ethana2 @ Jul 29th 2008 6:47PM]

'progress'.

As for me, I only play console games when they run in emulators, and I'll keep that policy.... yeah, forever.

[Scott @ Jul 30th 2008 12:30AM]

I remember having to blow on the bottom of the NES cartridges to maybe get the damn game to run.

[neofolklore @ Jul 30th 2008 7:56AM]

hey, thats how my girlfriend gets me to work too!

[dustandechoes91 @ Jul 29th 2008 5:20PM]

Nice to see M$ is keeping up with hardware updates. Im still happy with my ps3 though

[ethana2 @ Jul 29th 2008 6:45PM]

Be glad you got a ps3, if we don't miss 8.10 like we did 8.04, it'll be a decent desktop dual boot in six months.

The 360 will only be what microsoft lets it be.

[Striker @ Jul 29th 2008 8:26PM]

I don't call 256 MB RAM "Decent" for desktop use, sorry.

[totoro @ Jul 29th 2008 5:26PM]

Wow, that is one impressive heatsink. Did they get rid of the noisy fans by using that monster?

[dothebanana @ Jul 29th 2008 6:42PM]

forserious!! that thing is huge!

[Iridium @ Jul 29th 2008 5:32PM]

That is still one shoddy looking board. I guess you can't fault Microsoft for skimping on the cost of replacement boards after they already wrote off billions. Well wait, you can. A $5 alarm clock made in China looks like it has a better quality mainboard than the 360.

Does that board even have a fan? Still won't do anything about bad optical drives.

[JB87 @ Jul 29th 2008 6:44PM]

Obviously, you've done very thorough testing to determine that this board model performs as "badly" as it looks, not just seen a photo of it.

[maff @ Jul 29th 2008 6:23PM]

hey microsoft, put them in the rubbish already, stop that now!

[ethana2 @ Jul 29th 2008 6:49PM]

Please recycle. The whole concept of garbage is ridiculous.

Oh hey, let's mix all this unrelated stuff together, stick it in the ground, and forget about it! Brilliant!

[Zorque @ Jul 29th 2008 8:31PM]

Fucking shut up, Ethana.

[NoAndThen @ Jul 29th 2008 10:38PM]

@ Zorque:

You, sir/madam/whatever, are a douche-bag. Ethena2 is right, and you have no reason to be an asshole.

Unnecessary/unrelated anger is always welcome on some iPhone posts, go find one and vent.

[Zorque @ Jul 29th 2008 11:43PM]

NoAndThen: Go read his post history, I dare you. Besides, even though the original comment about the 360 being garbage is stupid, taking it literally is even stupider.

[Jake @ Jul 29th 2008 6:53PM]

Design and production runs are VERY expensive. Microsoft much have several massive warehouses of Xenon cases/drives..

I mean they wouldn't bother for a hundred thousand, they would just scrap them, as the mobo is the main costly component.

So this means:

1/ The are reusing everything else from teh original Xenon, cases, DVD drives, the lot.

2/ They have so many it was worthwhile to do.

3/ with so many, I can't believe that many original Xenons havn't already failed. I suspect these will be sent out for ANY failed unit, including HDMI ones...

[michas_pi @ Jul 29th 2008 7:07PM]

I'm patiently waiting for the Valhalla revision before I get an Xbox 360.

[Joshua Walters @ Jul 29th 2008 9:09PM]

Replace the damn xclips with some screws and the board wont warp, and the system wont RRoD.

Seriously, how the hell is it that the internet can come up with such a simple fix, yet Microsoft still chooses to ignore that, and completely re-engineer the entire board!

[JLD @ Jul 31st 2008 11:34AM]

so... if i were to have an xbox 360 with a dvd drive on the fritz,

and i were to magically induce red-ringage in said xbox 360

...i could recieve, in the mail, an xbox 360 with an opus board?

what would potentially become of my launch power brick, were i to carry out this (purely hypothetical) course of actions?

[Lacan @ Jul 30th 2008 5:32AM]

I myself work as a technician for a company that fixes xbox 360's and i havent seen this opus replacement for xenon board. What i can gather is that we replace xenon with refurb xenon board with an additional gpu heatsink pipee seen on elite or falcon.

Working xenon consoles fails during the testing process because of the old gpu heatsink. So we have to replace the xenon with the attach gpu pipes to pass the testing process.

[ShadowKain @ Jul 30th 2008 4:00PM]

With no HDMI whats the user, being cooler (temp wise)? Neat though.

[Stuart @ Aug 21st 2008 11:29AM]

I had sent my xbox 360 in, it was manufactured in September of 2007, and I bought it in October. It seemed to have been the original Xenon design, but I'm not sure... No HDMI. Anyway, the one they sent back , said 'Xenon Pro' on the box. Someone else mentioned they got back a 'Xenon Pro' as well... what is this? Is it just the original design with a new heatsink or what? I was hoping to get back one of these 'opus/falcon' boards, but doesn't look like it. If it helps, I'm in Canada.