Anyone can take a hammer and rib-spreader to a new piece of hardware. But it takes someone like
Anand Shimpi, the man behind
Anandtech who has personally suffered through four out-of-warranty Xbox 360 failures, to bring sage analysis to a
teardown of the new Xbox 360. His reluctant
sixth Xbox 360 is the
new slimster (codename
Valhalla) which, for the first time, combines the CPU, GPU, and eDRAM onto a single chip -- previous Xbox 360 motherboards featured two discrete packages that split the CPU from the ATI designed Xenos GPU and eDRAM. The design allows for a single heatsink to be cooled by a single, larger fan making the new Xbox "noticeably quieter," measured at 45dB when idle or 51dB with the 1.5Gbps SATA Hitachi HTS545025B9SA00 with 8MB buffer spinning at 5400RPM -- that's down from 50dB and 54dB, respectively, as measured on late 2008 through 2010 Jasper-class 360s. Regarding power consumption, Anand measured a 50% reduction from the original 2005 Xbox 360 (25% less than
Jasper-class rigs at idle, or 20% to 17% less under load) and pulled just 0.6W when "totally off" compared to the 2W of vampire power pulled by older 360s. Anand speculates that Microsoft might finally be using cheaper 40nm components. However, we shouldn't expect to see a price cut anytime soon as it will take Microsoft awhile to ramp up the material and manufacturing cost savings. Regardless, with
Kinect and several new game titles on the horizon, Anand concludes that there's still plenty of life left in the old Xbox 360 platform for those looking to make the jump.
posted June 18th 2010 5:10AM
I just they'd actually made this thing 'slim'... maybe with a nice slot loading drive... disc trays are so 90's!! That said, i'll probably pick one up around xmas!
@redmamoth
Disc Trays are so "I'm a PC"
@redmamoth The next gen of consoles better have Cd changers!
@Eroded Fallacy
Umm pretty sure it does already... Ever heard of Windows 7... D&%n I just said something good about windows!!!!
I would be more impressed by a real generational update (4 years is long enough for a refresh w/ new technology), that had backwards compatibility w/ current titles.
And it shouldn't be rocket science for developers to create games that can scale two generations, they'd just have further draw distance, anti-aliasing, proper lighting and shadow effects, and 1080P vs the 720P that is most games on the xbox now. Its still a far cry from trying to scale to thousands of hardware combinations, as is done on PCs quite effectively.
The noise reduction was essential. When on a hard floor the old xbox vibrates the whole room. Stick a DVD in it and it sounds like there is a souped up car idling away outside your house.
I miss the red ring of death. At least it gave me a warning before it stop breathing.
@ slofatmatt
I mean using the Kinect not a bluetooth headset. Or even better if you were able to use had gestures
HDD uses standard SATA connectors, ableit on a drive in a plastic shell. Opens up easy access to the Xbox 360 HDD and possibility of replacing it with a standard laptop drive in a cardboard shell without ever lifting a screwdriver.
@sockatume
I'm sure that Microsoft will still have it locked down to a few select models. At least it should be easier to upgrade to the next higher existing capacity assuming you use the bare OEM version of the drive.
I need to read into that Hitachi DVD drive... Well here goes my day then.
They should have overclocked it.
I mean, you're building technology from 2005 using modern, cooler, process sizes, it should be easy to overclock the GPU and CPU by at least 25-33%. Its the exact same thing Nvidia has been doing for years.
Developers can create games that run perfect under the 'V1' Xbox, but when they are played in the newer overclocked one, they have increased graphical effects, draw distance, resolution etc.
@voodoo
But then they would have to develop different sets of textures, different draw distances, etc. The main benefit of console hardware is that its a stationary platform, not constantly changing like PC hardware.
Besides, all they care about is maximizing profits with a refresh.
@voodoo
I think you're onto something there...
@Nitesh
No they wouldn't.
You can run old games exactly the same as before, you don't need new textures.
And with new games, you can just design them with two graphical levels, one for the original 360, and one for the overclocked version. The overclocked version could maybe run at 720p instead of 600p, maybe some extra lighting effects etc.
It just keeps the console looking good for another few years, while still maintaining full compatibility with the original version.
@Eroded Fallacy but the Kinect does it using the microphone..so isn't that essentially the same thing??
trust me.. i bought the new one yesterday.. it is worth it. But then again, in my case, I only paid 20 bucks for it. I traded in my console, HDD, and wifi adapter for 190 bucks and used a $90 trade-in credit from before.
So it's only 3-5 db quieter? Is that really going to make a huge difference? Mine (which is old and decrepit) pisses me off with it's noise when playing video. I'm pretty sure 45db is still way louder than my projector.
@gersam Yes, 3-5 db reduction is quite a bit. Since the decibel scale is logarithmic, not linear, a 3db reduction equates to the perceived sound reduction of half. So, the OLD xbox 360 is in essence twice as loud as the NEW xbox 360...or the NEW xbox 360 is half as loud as the OLD xbox 360.
@the illustrious
WRONG!
1dB is the smallest sound difference noticeable by the human ear. The required power needed to make 3db difference is double, but 3db is only 3 times a noticeable difference.
What I want to know is whether the new unit is finally as quiet as the ps3, I doubt it.
I'll correct myself before anyone else does, but the required decibel drop to achieve half the perceived volume is over 10dB, so a drop of between 5-8 on a logarithmic scale would equate to ~ 3/4 volume.
those decibel specs don't make it sound much quieter
@uncola: Read the post above you which explains dB.
Its more than half as quiet.
@Ruben: Sorry, its half as loud as the previous console. Its early.
@Ruben
Nope, check above
@Eroded Fallacy
HAHAHA
your asking for a feature included in vista and WIN7.......
fail
Who will be the first dork to install Android on it?! :)
Um... Sixth Xbox? What the hell...?
I wonder if I can get the Kinect to respond like the computer in Star Trek "Computer Pause...." "Computer off"
4 out of warranty? pfft....just call them up and tell them you see 3 red rings, have your power supply plugged in and the light is orange, but it still won't go.
No matter what hardware failure it is, if you tell them you have a RROD they'll tell you to ship it in and they'll send you a fixed refurb. So if your DVD tray is broken or something else, you get a new one. Done this 3 times for broken Xbox 360's
@Eroded Fallacy I read an interview Bill Gates somewhere (cnet I think) and he said the technology of Kinect is being rolled out to all MS team, the first team that get it was the Windows team
But then again...MS' CEO is Steve Ballmer :P
@Trang Damn, what's wrong with my English today?
It's supposed to be "I read an interview with Bill Gates somewhere (cnet I think) and he said the technology of Kinect is being rolled out to all MS team, the first team that get it was the Windows team
But then again...MS' CEO is Steve Ballmer :P"
BTW in that interview Bill still called Kinect "Project Natal"
I definitely Agee that the xbox needs a Bluray player. I think this coming year things may change in favor of Sony
Blu Ray no....They'll never pay Sony. Besides I'd rather just stream the high def content to my console....(other than games) who buys disks?
Blu Ray < Hulu,ESPN, Netflix (kinda wish they would stop the disks and put all the content online)
@TCrimson05 you ain't streaming bluray quality
@ajwoodhouse
Who says Blu-ray is quality... the video might be great but the product still sucks for the most part, and its over priced to boot... but then DVD is also overpriced.... Digital Downloads are the way to go, Hollywood would adopt it if the perponents of it would just develop a DRM that makes it easy to transfer but harder to copy.
Is it just me or does it seem ridiculous that the guy from ANANDTECH couldn't do a simple x-clamp removal hack on one of his old x-boxen and stopped the cycle of returns?
It took me like 30 minutes to do and I'm not exactly a hardware kind of guy.
@aedile When you founded one of the best tech blogs on the internet, you just can go out and pay for a new one. But it does seem a little fishy. I mean, how geek is Anand if he doesn't hack an Xbox 360 at least once after red ringing?
I will be happy to not here a 360 sound like its going to take off and mask the quieter sounds in games (would just crank up the volume but neighbors don't usually like hearing explosion going off in the middle of the night)
Your move Mr. Heck...I expect to see the Xbox 360 Netbook sometime in the next few months...
as cool as this new xbox looks.i think i'm going to stay cozy with my ps3. i'm happy xbox is bringing some competition though.
Maybe I'm weird but the old 360 noise doesn't bother me, I can't justify getting a new console for sound reduction purposes only. Besides the touch controls and the extra USB ports, there is not a big enough difference for me
@Caprice Dates
Well if you were like me wanting to update the WiFi and HD its actually a pretty good deal if you can get at-least $100 for your old system, it would save you money, but I understand where you're coming from about it being quieter not being worth the replacement cost.
Question how did you get you're face book profile translated into a 3D bar-code?
I googled QR Code Creation and it came up with a few sites that do it, I forgot which one I used. It creates it and you can keep it as a jpeg, bitmap, etc. Yeah the wireless n and hdd is pretty cool. That just made me wonder if th ethernet port on the 360 is does a gigabit of just 10/100. I will look that up.
At 45dB, the XBOX is officially at the lower threshold for noise producing sleep disturbance. Woot! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_from_noise
Ehhh, my current Xbox 360 Elite from Christmas suits me just fine. I install my games to my HDD to keep the system quiet. I don't notice it when I do that. Although I hope Kinect isn't $150. It's still a bad economy, Microsoft.
So they go from a 65nm chip to a 45nm chip.....redesigned case for better airflow.....they are seriously trying to do something about the RRoD issue.
Good Job MS!!!! This is gonna the best 360 yet.
That has to be one of the worst applications of thermal paste I've ever witnessed.
Good job, Microsoft!!!