Sure, you might've seen the purported
Xbox 360 Valhalla motherboard leaked yesterday... but have you ever really
seen it? There's a subtle difference, one that requires you gaze through the ocular receptors of our dearest old friend (he hates when we call him that)
Ben Heck.
Joystiq sat down with him to deconstruct the pictures and get his take on all the hardware nuances. First and foremost, there appears to be no connectors that "look remotely like a Xbox 360 memory card reader," which lends credence to the thought process they might be
going the way of the dinosaur. WiFi is still missing in action, and as for
Project Natal integration, Heck's highly doubtful that's in the cards, though he shares our mindset that a bundle would make sense. The big question is
size reduction, and to that our game console laptop guru suggests that, given the constraints due to a DVD drive, the best we can expect is a one-inch drop in height (standing console), 0.5 inches in depth, and just "slightly thinner." Sorry folks, looks like even in your wildest dreams, it'll still tower over the Nintendo Wii. A great read, don your thinking cap, give yourself 15 minutes, and hit up the source.
posted March 18th 2010 9:29PM
@Freakhead - Why not? The heatsink/fan combo goes to the lowest bidder.
@MRCUR
Yeah well that's the point I'm making. These things use cheap parts.
I'd expect some no-name fan on the thing. Cooler Master doesn't seem served by having their label on a 360 fan.
Anyway it is just what stuck out for me. Could be wrong. But seems odd.
@Freakhead - Every fan manf. puts their name on a sticker on the fan. It just so happens that consumers recognize CM since they sell consumer products. Delta and Sunon don't really, so that generally goes unnoticed.
(Delta and Sunon are the two big 360 fan suppliers.)
@MRCUR
Well bud obviously various OEMs make fans, but this notion they slap a big sticker on the thing for inclusion into a closed product doesn't jive.
The reason this sticks out is because CoolerMaster is a big 3rd party after market pc accessory retail brand. Not an OEM.
@Freakhead CoolerMaster is actually a cooling solution OEM that sells to both AMD and Nvidia. They just happen to sell to consumers too. Try again.
@Freakhead putting stickers on the fan costs less than splitting the production line into stickered and non-stickered fans. and CM isn't going to stop making aftermarket fans, they still need to put stickers on most of the fans they sell.
@notatoad
You can turn of the sticker stamp machine bud with no extra cost. ;)
I certainly wouldn't want my fan brand name to get recognized as cooling a console when it is noisy as hell.
@polobunny
Actually Nvidia and AMD only design the gpus. They don't manufacture the video cards. So no Cooler Master doesn't sell to them.
There's no reason for a Cooler Master sticker on a fan inside a 360.
@Freakhead
sarcasm only works when you know what you're talking about, buddy. Having the same product branded in different ways DOES add cost in logistics (that's why Microsoft is killing SKU's, actually). I'll put an example:
say you're a fan manufacturer and you have a stock of 100 pallets of branded fans (with the sticker on them), and 100 pallets of unbranded ones(without the sticker). Then an order arrives, and you need to ship 150 pallets of branded fans.
To deliver the shipment, you'll hace to manufacture 50 extra pallets of fans, when you indeed have another 100 pallets sitting in your warehouse, just because those don't have a freaking sticker on them. Now, there's your added cost.
It's not about turning off the damn thing, it's about logistics. The less SKU's you have, the most cost-wise your logistics will be. You don't want to have different SKU's for the same product unless you have to.
@Freakhead
The whole "you can just turn the machine off" sentiment doesn't apply here. Why on Earth wouldn't you slap your sticker on a product you're manufacturing unless it's being resold by another company and they've requested that you do not apply your label? It's all about branding, and even though probably 95% of the people that own 360's will never crack theirs open (in frustration or curiosity) there is that 5% that can still be advertised to. Say this is legit and there is a significant reduction in RRoD occurrence at launch and for the life-span of the product, wouldn't you want your brand to be associated with that?
looked at this...then i looked at the student made xbox 360 here :http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/17/student-made-xbox-360-laptop-channels-the-heck-out-of-well-y/
and im suprised that no one has noticed...but...i think this picture is the students make of the 360.
@austin123123 - Uh, no. There's no way that guy who built the latest laptop redesigned the mobo to create a unified CPU/GPU.
@austin123123
No. There is no way someone could change the 360 motherboard. They just fit the normal one into a laptop style case.
This motherboard is actually smaller.
Okay, I like Ben Heck's work, but it doesn't take a genius to figure any of these conclusions out.
@jhoff80 - +1 again! Ben Heck isn't nearly the genius (when it comes to this stuff) that Engadget always makes him out to be.
@jhoff80 I was thinking that, just not out loud.
USB PORT
POWER PORT
FAN ASSEMBLY
FAN CONNECTOR
PCB
I can has medal too??
The only thing that the xbox REALLY needs is wifi & power supply integration.
He forgot to put the HDMI.
WiFi would be great.. but yeah doesnt look like its anywhere on that board. guess its microsofts adapters for me still.
so they finally come out with a new mobo, after I'm on my second console.
@tash3r This would be their... fifth revision of the motherboard.
Zephyr, Opus, Falcon, Jasper, and now this.
@jhoff80 Oops, sixth. Forgot the original Xenon.
@jhoff80 so it's taken them six tries, gotta love microsoft
@tash3r
no big deal. To put things into perspective, the PS2 you can find in stores right now is actually the 12th-or-so revision. Same goes for PS3 (4 versions at least).
hardware revisions are pretty common in consumer electronics.
the dvd drive is pretty bad.
i think it is a new Media center extender
So who else will laugh with me when MS tells everyone that this was a fake put out there to feed the fanboys, and give us a real motherboard with WiFi, a quiet DVD drive, an internal HDD bay aswell as an external HDD port, all put into a super slim and super awesome case?
Hey, let a man dream. Someday MS will learn how to pull a Google and amaze people by surprising us with great products randomly (Nexus One style release for the new 360 with Natal, anyone?)
@NGage22R
No you're right. It's like that time that my gf made me a bacon sandwich, proceeded to clean my apartment, wrote my dissertation then told me I was allowed to sleep with other girls.
@Oli D
Really? Even the Bacon Sandwich?
Lucky.
I went through 3 systems within 2 years of launch and just stopped buying them for a few years. I got an Arcade for my Bday but I'm waiting for either a true refresh/redesign of the 360 or this BR player to crap out so I have an excuse to finally try the PS-3.
+1 for saying couldn't care less
love the amateur mark up on that motherboard in ms paint
Ben Heck needs another Engadget appearance. Give us Heck.
I'm almost willing to bet that MS will be selling this for $199.
I'm also willing to bet that MS will also be ditching the faceplates, and sticking with a single color/sku for the duration of the 360's lifespan; smart move.
they should send me one to replace my RROD lemonade #4.
Why exactly do they need a sensor to determine whether the xbox is standing up or laying down? It's not like they need to change the screen orientation or anything...
@perrinoia
But the ring of light's orientation does...
@BigJayDogg3 Oh, that makes a lot of sense.. I probably would have figured that out if I had ever seen someone actually choose to lay their xbox360 on it's side.
I'm sure it's great Xbox 360 fans are getting to see what's in the next version of the console they'll have to buy when their current one dies of RRoD ... again. But can we at least be honest and stop calling intentional leaks, leaks.
They're not leaks. They're announcements.
Now looking at the technology bundled onto this motherboard I can't help but think Xbox 360 owners would be better off buying a decent gaming PC. If anything I think this short article only serves to prove how utterly pointless the Xbox actually is.
The Xbox is basically a PC running a modified version of Windows that is trying to deliver the full range of rich entertainment media that a PC delivers.
I'm guessing that ring of light connector also handles the wireless reset switch and the IR receiver.