ha! that's funny. That's what I get for not paying attention to what I was copying, the load tests were done with a spinning disc in the drive (Halo 3).
Honestly, the drive noise on my Jasper isn't an issue for me, as I install my games to the HDD. It's a feature I love because it kills most of the noise, AND it boosts load times significantly. Really, putting the game data on the HDD is the only way I could fill up the drive--I don't use that space for anything else except a demo or two and the game saves.
I do wish the fans were better though. I don't mind the noise; it's the pitch that gets me.
Doesn't that seem a bit sad, though? They couldn't even utilize a proper DVD drive so they just make users dump the game onto their HDDs?
This is why they should have gone with Blu rays.. The higher density of the discs would: 1) Decrease load times 2) Decrease the spin speed of the drive, which would in turn 3) Decrease noise
And thanks to the epic coating on Bu Rays, would make the games discs a hellova lot longer without having to resort to d skins.
Dumb comment because you didn't check FACTS and you contradicted yourself for a start the facts are blu ray is SLOWER than dvd at load times because it spins the disk slower than dvd's e.g all blu rays spin at 2x speed dvd's go up to 24x i think. This is the reason PS3 has to install parts of all games to hard drive to decrease load times. You contradicted yourself when you said 1) decrease load times then said for your 2nd point decreased spin speed also, as mentioned before decreased spin speed means decreased load times as it doesn't read the data off the disk as fast. The only advantages it has is storage space (on that point hard drives are quickly becoming the future with online downloads as the the HDD is faster and holds enormous amounts of data way faster than blu ray and holds more data) and decreased noise thats it blu ray isnt the future for gaming its way too slow a very good example of how slow it is is to time how long it takes to put a small amount of game data to hard drive on the ps3, the load times you talk about are the ps3's hard drive running partially installed parts of the game compare the install time of the ps3 which only installs parts of a game, compare that to the 360 when you dump the ENTIRE dvd to the hard drive.
You seem to be forgetting that increased density counters the slower spin speed in this regard. Just because a smaller arc of the disk is read in the same period of time doesn't mean more bits aren't in that smaller arc than in the larger arc of a DVD.
To answer in more detail, 1X on a DVD refers to 1.32MB/s. Equivalent to a 9X CD speed. 1X Blu-Ray refers to 36MB/s. So about the same as a 27x DVD drive. Yes, despite slower rotational speed, a 1x Blu-Ray drive (and most are 2x since at least 1.5x is required to play a movie at Blu-Ray quality) reads data at a far faster rate than even a 16x DVD drive.
The reason the entire Blu-Ray isn't installed to the hard drive in the PS3's case is the sheer amount of data involved. Two games would completely fill a drive.
Meh, to correct myself, my sources mixed up bytes and bits. A 2X Blu-Ray drive is about as fast as 7X DVD, at least at the outer edges of the DVD. DVD's read inside-out, though, and the Blu-Ray is actually faster than the first half or so of a 12X DVD drive's first layer of data, but slower than the last half. Functionally, the difference is small in the overall bits read per time between the two formats at 2X BR vs 12X DVD.
The speeds you quoted are not in the same format. The Blu Ray speed you quoted is in megabits while the DVD speed you quoted is in megabytes (also 1x DVD speed is 1.38MB not 1.32MB)
To convert from megabits to megabytes you divide by 8. So 1x BluRay = 4.5MB (Megabytes).
So a 2x BD drive like the one in the PS3 has a speed of 9MB.
A 12x DVD drive like the one in the Xbox 360 has a speed of 16.5MB, almost twice the speed of the PS3s drive.
Slim DVD drive's cost more and are slower to read discs. Having engineered a HTPC that fits into a 360 case with a full size drive, psu, and real gfx card (90 degree pci-e riser) I can tell you it's all about engineering smartly. If there's plenty of room for something bigger but cheaper then that's just what makes sense to use.
The 360 uses a 12x DVD drive, so at least the rotational speed of the drive isn't hard to match (slim drives also go up to 12x). I'm not sure if the average seek time would be fast enough in a slim drive, though.
Another consideration is that a slim drive would have required Microsoft to switch to a slot loading system like Nintendo and Sony use; a slim tray would be too flimsy for a console, and requiring the user to snap the disk onto the central spindle might have been a bit awkward.
To be honest, though, I'd rather have had the new xbox use a slot-loading slim drive and an internal power supply.
Seriously, that doesn't look like a full-size drive to me (I could be wrong). Not a slmiline drive, but doesn't seem full-size to me. Since they are using custom drives all they need be concerned with is the size of the actual electro-mechanical bits and circuit boards.
I like the HS design, looks like an OEM bundled PC HS/Fan, maybe we will see some heatpipe versions.
I like the HDD tray, looks like with a simple plastic carrier you can slot in any laptop style HDD. (Or just stuff newspapers around it if you don't care about fire.)
While power has increased considerably for the PC counterparts, I still dont see any better cooling methods introduced. Even if were to assume that Microsoft would stick a 5870 into their box I dont see how they can cool such a beast in a small form factor. We would need to move to a lower die size in order to be able to adequately cool the device. Also, we need to remember that TVs have a hit the 1080p mark and will not move to a higher resolution anytime soon, so console makers will have to push technology in different area of improvements. Also, what about buffers for the GPU? While CPUs can make do with 12 MB of L3 cache what about GPUs. With higher textures we need the ability to feed the beast and consoles will need to somehow figure that out. Also game developers have not really demanded higher capabilities from the consoles. I have a 5870 in my PC and having played the same games on PC and my 360 I dont see much difference in fidelity . We must also remember that software for this generation cost a lot more to develop for. This means that if a new technology was introduced they would have to optimize for it at an even higher cost and most devs are not ready for it. The only reason I see in the future which would demand more power from consoles is 3D. If significant market penetration is achieved (which is a long way IMHO) then and only then will we demand more from our consoles. Also, Microsoft will have a tough choice when it comes to the media they want their games to be on. Blu-Ray seems to be the only alternative at the moment and I am sure Microsoft would prefer something more( them getting that is a different thing altogether)
I'll state here what I stated elsewhere: This thing looks like a fat woman sat on a DVD player. What were they thinking? I don't want it anywhere near my EC.
Hopefully someone will put out some decent-looking aftermarket cases. And at just $300, warranty isn't really a concern.
Hugely disappointed you didnt tear the heatspreader off and measure the chips. That's my favorite part of these teardowns besides maybe the power draw numbers.
Also disagree we'll see X360 power in a phone in three years. Heck you dont even see PSP power in a phone now, which is way less than a PS2. And PSP is like 6 years old!
Also, the reason high end PC market isn't tapped anymore is piracy. That's obvious. The same piracy your affiliate over at Dailytech Jason Mick supports so strongly.
Oh and forgot, the asthetics is a matter of opinion. I tend to think that while the lure of the shiny and new is overpowering here, objectively if I were honest the old X360 matte Elite looks better imo. The old X360 Elite is the best looking console ever imo.
Also, it's pretty funny how 360 and PS3 have switched positions in regard to capacitive buttons and glossy finishes.
Personally I dont like capacitive buttons, I have them on my samsung blu ray player and dont care for it. I prefer the tactile feedback of knowing yes, I pushed the button. I find myself wanting to jam on capacitive buttons all the time to make sure I pressed it, or maybe because I'm used to regular buttons.
It's good to see MS is thinking about end user experience in a bit of an Apple way here and including some rubber bits to dampen sound though.
Also, I disagree that MS is waiting on 40nm volumes to pick up to drop prices. As I posted in the other article, I think Kinect has totally screwed up their pricing. For now they are just in a pricing hold while they figure out what theyre going to do with kinect regarding bundling and the like, and Kinect may in fact be bundled with a price raise raise, or a steady price, thereby negating the cut that would have occurred had kinect not existed. Because I still think an argument can be made Kinect and Move will have to be bundled with every new SKU sold to avoid an uncertain fate that has befallen past optional add ons.
The high end PC market is still tapped sufficiently. The (in my view) most important titles are all released there, that is why I don't bother getting a console. And that is despite MS and Sony trying their a$$ off to convince developers to go system exclusive.
I think the OP meant the opposite of what you understood. He's saying that he doesn't need a console because most games are *also* released on the PC, not *only* released.
The PowerVR SGX535, as used in most current smartphones (with the snapdragon being an exception), is roughly equivalent to the graphical power of the PSP. Without knowing more about the architectures, the 535 has does 28MPolys/sec, while the PSP's does 33. The 545, which doesn't appear to be in any shipping devices yet, should be slightly faster than the PSP's.
Of more note is that the PSP has a very limited amount of VRAM available. In general, a smartphone can expect to have 16 to 32 times more usable RAM than the PSP, and likely at significantly faster speeds (the PSP's is DDR, while smartphones these days are using DDR2)
In terms of processing power, any modern smartphone should take the PSP to task, as the PSP's 333Mhz MIPS R400 is pretty dated. These days, smartphones are shipping with ARM Cortex A8 chips at up to 1GHz, usually on a much smaller manufacturing process (the PSP is still at 90nm). Dual-core Cortex A9 chips at 1GHz or higher should make it to market before the PSP's successor is released. It was rumoured that the Nintendo 3DS would use an nVidia Tegra 2 featuring an A9, but these rumours haven't been confirmed.
So, on a hardware level, the PSP is outclassed by modern smartphones in every category except the GPU (where it may have a small advantage). Ultimately, however, it has an enormous advantage in one specific place that makes everything else moot; OS overhead. While smartphones are much faster on paper, they're constrained by large amounts of OS overhead that bring down their real-world performance significantly. There's still going to be more RAM and CPU power available after overhead, but the demands of the underlying OS can introduce enough latency to cause issues.
Ultimately, we're seeing a lot of convergence. The hardware in smartphones and handheld consoles is pretty analogous, and in the case of Nintendo's products, probably the same. Even if the 3DS doesn't use the nVidia Tegra, we know it's still using some sort of ARM processor, and that's going to be either a Cortex A8 or A9, just like smartphones are using. From Sony's perspective, the PSP2 is rumoured to use some sort of multi-GPU PowerVR SGX product.
I should probably bring this back to the original topic and say, modern smartphones do have the power of a PSP (and then some), so you should really re-examine the hardware going into modern devices. Of course, as I said, OS overhead hurts, but even that won't matter much if the PSP doesn't get a successor soon.
At the risk of rambling on a bit, the iPod Touch 3rd gen was a pretty direct competitor to the PSP Go. They had similar size and resolution screens, similar capabilities in terms of graphical quality, they're both gaming handhelds (even Apple doesn't claim that the iTouch products are music devices anymore, they now consider them gaming devices), they both get their content via DLC, and they have similar costs (the iTouch 8G costing $199, the PSP Go costing $250).
smartphones today are actually still using lpddr (on a 32bit bus, I believe) at fairly low clocks, I don't think the typical Cortex A8 they use supports lpddr2 (maybe the A4 used in the iphone 4 being an exception?) but next gen should be lpddr2. I'm not sure at all about the memory interface of the psp, but in any case this also had (fairly small) embedded dram which likely offers more bandwidth than todays smartphones. That said, the tile based deferred renderer sgx family used on smartphones shouldn't really need that much bandwidth.
Actually, price wise, you need to compare the 32Gb model to the PSP. The 8GB model doesn't have the increased power of the other third generation models.
Could you please give us an insight into the fan details? Is that a Coolermaster make as it came out in the initial batch of leaked pics from the Chinese website? What size/rpm?
Uhm, I am going to be the first to say this... It's hardly any smaller! (Not that the 360 is big) Also it looks like a normal 360 and someone got a heatgun on the faceplate and it bent inwards.
With both chips being proprietary items (ATI and PowerPC) Who integrated them on one die? I guess I find it hard to believe that each company would give up it's design specs so that someone could engineer it for a single chip.
From what I know it's unlikely the EDRAM was integrated. That's another reason it'd be nice to see the heatspreader off.
But as for who would do it, Microsoft?
The deal for X360 was such that MS owned the CPU and GPU IP, to a point anyway, so they can go fab it wherever. That was a big difference to the original Xbox, where Ms was forced to pay Intel and Nvidia whatever they wanted.
I wasn't aware of that, thank you. Makes me wonder how much info (specs, design) was given to whom and by whom? Still leaves me with questions, but it's a useful answer.
Does the slim still have an infrared signal receiver? I read somewhere that it doesn't, and I wasn't able to tell after looking at all of the pictures here.
This is killing me because I cant find an answer to this ANYWHERE so since u looked at it's guts I assume you can answer it.
Did they remove the IR receiver?
I use my current xbox as a media device more than an game system. I use a logitech harmony one to turn on my xbox, tv and receiver with one button and control my xbox itself. Now if, god forbid, my 360 red rings I will probably want to get the newer one. But if this new one no longer has an IR sensor then it puts a slight kink in my normal operation methods.
"I own a total of five Xbox 360s. Four of them have died. Three because of the Red Ring of Death, all out of warranty. Many have had serial Xbox 360 failures, I had them in parallel."
Yep. I'm only on my second XBox, with the launch day unit replaced under their extended "oh crap, we built a turd" coverage. While the new system looks slick, I'm not interested in rewarding Microsoft with any more of my money. If my current system fails, I'm going to sell off the games I have. I'll never understand the attraction people have to the 360 with the repeated and widespread failures. I already made an effort to pick up any cross platform game on the PS3 a number of years ago, so the 360 has been seeing less and less use as time goes on. I don't have the time to play every game that comes out, so having just the selection available to the PS3 doesn't bother me.
Vote with your dollar, thats all companies really pay attention to. Stop rewarding Microsoft for failure.
Yup. It figures, any hate filled rant against the 360 is almost always accompanied by the other shoe dropping, "that's why I love my amazing Playstation 3 (tm)". I was literally just waiting for it as I read through your post.
Anyways, you can do what you want, RROD is a dead issue since Jasper what, 3 years ago? I've owned a X360 since launch for 4.5 years, 3 different ones, and had one failure in that time (around a year after launch I think) that was fixed totally free and took less than two weeks turnaround time. Honestly, not that big a deal. That replacement Xbox then worked flawlessly for two years, at which point I voluntarily upgraded to a Jasper elite which has worked flawlessly since then. It's just not even a concern.
Anyways I owned a PS3 (sold it) and that system is just terribly designed in so many ways (small example, I found it super annoying that my PS3 controllers were always out of charge for some reason. Worse, they only give you a exceedingly short recharge cable, another dumb decision, so I had to practically smash my face against the TV glass all the time while charging my PS3 controller. I later randomly read on a forum that the reason is, PS3 by default doesn't shut the controller down with the system, just terrible). I also hate the Ps3 last gen controller, especially for FPS, and PSN and XMB are both just low rent, and I read constant stories of never ending updates and installs and patches on PS3. And PSN download speeds are supposedly terrible, though I really didn't download that much in my time with it.
But in the end it's the games, and I'll take Gears and Halo over Indiana Tomb Raider, I mean Uncharted, etc.
And it never fails that a 360 fanboy has to go into damage control mode and bash the PS3 for reasons that are entirely false. And FYI, I own both consoles currently and will not be selling either one.
The controller DOES shutdown when you turn the system off. USB cables are plenty long and it costs maybe a dollar to buy an extra long cable if you need one at monoprice or something. The charge lasts quite a long time even when its telling you the battery is low, it will still last 30 minutes or more. If your controllers were dying it is possible that you have defective controllers or you're doing it wrong.
Controller preference is a matter of opinion. Some people like the PS3 controller, some like the 360 controller. I'd prefer if sony had similar thumbsticks in that they have more resistance when you rotate them, and that the 360 controller didn't have a d-pad you'd expect to see on a 3rd party controller.
PSN and XMB are fine, in fact MS took a page from XMB when they made NXE except they bloated theirs with Ads and useless items/channels. XMB makes a hell of a lot more sense since it's much easier to find different settings and what not, as well as in-game XMB being identical to out of game XMB. Everything is in the same place no matter where you access XMB.
PSN being free also kills any real advantage XBL has, its just a much better deal altogether. And PSN+ makes XBL look ridiculous since you get more than just the ability to play online (which should be free) and early access to demos.
As for PSN downloads, well, they max out my 5mb connection so I can't complain, but I'm sure people with 10-20mb connections aren't getting speeds they're accustomed to. Valid complaint.
As for the games.. well again up to preference, but there is just so much more variety on PS3. Sadly, Halo has gone downhill in my opinion and I hope Reach is a throwback to the first game that I spent so many hours playing. But Uncharted 2 just takes the cake, there aren't many games that can match it. And I laugh at your Indiana Tomb Raider comment, considering Halo = Alients movies. Next time you're going to bash the PS3, at least get some facts behind you.
And the MS fanboy rush out and claim that the PS3 just suck more than the 360. Please the 360 has been fundamentally flawed up to now, and all it took was 5 freakin years of actual production to make the system work as it should've always been.
Too short an USB charge cable? Get a freakin' longer USB cable. If you're so well versed in gaming and PC as most gamers are, you should know where to get (cheap) usb cable already. And that crap about FPS on 360 being better than PS3? Please both suck compare to KB + mouse, so don't pretend FPS on 360 is just so fun LOLOL(tm) (tm by the fanboys who else).
And those "constant stories" blah blah blah. If you actually owned one, and didn't experience any of the symptoms, what's your point in bringing them up?
Voluntarily upgrade to Jasper? Why bother when you were so happy with the pre Jasper anyway? Don't tell me you did it NOT because you weren't worried your system could go any time. Wow lots of confidence in your fav company there.
Just so you don't go thinking I'm a Sony fanboy(not that I give a crap what some anonymous poster online think), I own all three systems AND PCs for HTPC and gaming, so I got no bias whatsoever. I just HATE fanboys who keep saying HALO is so damn great when the freakin' controller is just a poor choice of input device for playing FPS.
And that thing about TV *glass*? You mean Plasma screen right? WTH still plays games on CRT anyway Ha
This was a great article as always. Why don't you get your ad department to find a sponsor to buy a box that you can destroy by taking the heatspreader off, so we can get some inside pics and measurement of the core(s).
Put their ad on that page of the article.... It will get some views.
I see a potential problem with the power plug waiting to happen. It appears as if the prongs on the power plug are symmetric, though one delivers +12V and the other +5V. The plastic on the case and the plug makes a D-shape that only allows the plug to go in one way. However, someone who's taken their case apart won't have this protection. They might plug it in the wrong way and zap their MB/PS.
Only 17.6W difference between idle and load power for Valhalla? While the idle power is better w/ ea generation, it seems they dropped the ball on this gen. An i5 661 + HD5870 based PC only draws 67-70W AC at idle.
I haven't been able to locate what revision of HDMI the new 360 uses. I believe the original used 1.2 and was curious if MS went to 1.3 or 1.4 with this system.
I'd really loved to have seen some noise level comparisons between the new Slim and the first generation Xbox 360. I have a first-gen and the noise is pretty much why I now prefer my PS3. However I'm thinking about upgrading and would love to see how the new Slim stacks up against what I currently have in the noise department. The power consumption already looks really good compared to what this thing sucks down.
Anand please tell us, I saw a youtube video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwINtoQpyNc ) where Xbox Slim does scratch DVD when you move it a little while PS3 doesn't. What's your personal take on that? Does Slim manual say something about danger of DVD scratching? Any warning labels on the Slim itself?
There's a warning sticker on the DVD drive telling you not to move the console while a disc is in there. I meant to take a picture of it but forgot once I got into the teardown phase.
As long as you're mindful of it it's a non-issue, however I have come very close to accidentally ruining a game or two when I wasn't paying attention. It is silly and MS could easily fix it, but the 360 isn't about high quality hardware, it's about profitability.
Why oh why have they made it a nasty gloss black finish
If it was available in a matt "no scratch, no finger print, no dust" black finish I'd buy one, but from the pics I've seen it just looks cheap and nasty
I will be sticking with my Elite thanks which if you ask me looks 10 times better than this - what were they thinking...
If I wanted a quieter 360 then I would of bought an "arcade" and stuck it in a Lian Li XB-01B
I cannot believe nobody has talked about this yet!? Blu-ray drive anyone? Is the DVD drive plain old SATA/standard form factor? In which case one could theoretically replace it w/ an off-the-shelf SATA blu-ray drive?? Now, OS support and blu-ray playback might be the main issue here...
As it seems, all of the above is inccorect as only certain body parts of yours have to die in order for Valhalla to enter your house:
Needless to say, I wasn’t terribly happy about purchasing a sixth Xbox 360
If I had to imagine a picture that shows over-exaggerated self pity plus stupidity all at once I would make a video with some fat nerd uttering this statement. Seriously...
It is nice to have a smaller form factor, but being one of those people that actually has the money for a stereo w/surround and optical input attached to my HDTV, it would be nice if they considered ME in their form factor.
I HAVE an AV cabinet! I would LIKE a box to be a nicely sized component I can stack in there, complete with internal BR and PS. It could even be slightly LARGER than that original (the horizontal footprint would have to be) so long as I had something that would look like a wicked system component capable of/posessing:
Gaming (duh) Internet Access (limited) and Video Net/Internet Streaming and Custom Codec installation Blue Ray/DVD playback Unlimited USB connectivity Limited video RECORDING (C'mahn! TiVo should not be the only one!) Front LED display
I would like a combo Gamer/Vid/Media center. They could get away with charging slightly more for something that would only cost $400 but take the place of an UNLICENSED HTPC + Proprietary gaming system.
Just a note, it's also likely MS used Global Foundries (since they bought off Chartered, the IBM Xenon CPU fab location MS chose), if the CPU and GPU have indeed been unified into a monolithic IC.
With what is shown here, I would consider getting one of these to replace the Xenon based 360 I purchased in December of '05. Yes, I purchased and original run 360 and it has not to this day RRoD on me. However, it still has only the 20Gb HDD and a lack of HDMI, as well as the external 802.11g wireless adapter a purchased years ago. Not to mention over twice the power consumption of the new model. May be time to upgrade.
"some exciting titles due out later this year and next"
Besides Halo Reach, Gears 3, and an unnamed Crytek exclusive, their E3 showing seemed to be a lot of Kinect casual stuff. If I didn't know better, I would say Microsoft is dialing down on hardcore exclusive titles in favor of multiplat titles and banking a lot of their money on Kinect's ability to take a significant portion of the Wii's marketshare.
is still disappointing imho, at idle. Sure standby power is much lower, but that's just because it is required by law, so if you're surprised by this, don't be, EU regulation requires standby power below 1W nowadays (and less than 0.5W standby power in 2 years). There's no law though requiring to implement reasonable power management when devices are running, and unfortunately it shows. Apparently none of the current consoles have any power management worth speaking of, it's not required by law, it's not a selling argument, so the companies just don't bother at all. Seeing how power management actually takes an effort to get to work (usually riddled with bugs ranging from hardware clock gating issues up to software timers) this isn't terribly surprising, but maybe one day it will be a selling argument, since apparently at least in the pc world all cpus and gpus finally implement it...
#1. Why did Anandtech deliberately hide the fact that they used a very old Power supply to exaggerate the size differences between the newer Vallhalla Slim Kinetic 360 power supply? Most likely embargo from Microsoft??
#2. Why no direct tests vs an newer Elite Jasper running a game from the HDD vs a new slim Kinetic running a game from the HDD. Why? because there is most likely no difference at all.
Way to ruin your rep AnAndtuch
So what embargos or restrictions did Microsoft put on you guys at Anantech?
Or are you guys now taking money in order to leave certain things out of your reviews??
We need to investigate Ananatechs behaviors, looks to me like they are no longer impartial or a credible source of reliable information.
Are you fucking simple? What did you want anand to compare the new PSU to? A kitten? Comparing the new one to the old one is very comprehensive, shut your face.
How can you keep a straight face talking about XBox 360 when 4 of 5 have died. I really can't understand why this isn't the biggest scandal in the tech world. This hardware has the worst track record in the history of electronics. I can see maybe buying a second one to replace the first, but a third, a fourth, a fifth! That's insanity!
I guess MS is using different DVD drives because this article says its using a Lite-on, while the one from the link below says it uses a Panasonic. Both are good drives from good companies.
So I happened to read somewhere that although MS says the console cannot RROD it can RDOD and seems like a home user actually faced the wrath. His console was asked to shut down. :D
i owned a PS3, it's remarkably poorly engineered. Terrible console, terrible controller, terrible games, terrible graphics. Even the much vaunted Uncharted actually looks pretty janky.
There's no real point to having Gig networking on a 360. It all reality, it would just be more expenditures and costs for them to put a Gigabit chip on board. That 2.5inch drive isn't going to be making any impressive read/writes. And 10/100mbps Ethernet does a fine job at HD streaming and for Xbox Live...so you know...
Yes, it would be nice, but no need.
But to answer your question, I don't know if it has 1000mbps Ethernet, but I highly doubt it.
Why would you ever need gigabit ethernet in the 360? Streaming 1080p content is still far far away from saturating a 100Mbit connection, and even file transfers would get bottlenecked elsewhere.
Umm I wanna buy this new 360 because my old one broke but if I buy the new 360 I would waste my hard drive 80$ Wifi 100$ and a second pair controllers 60$ and my harddrive has all my games in it losing all my achivamants so should I get this new 360 or buy a regular one? If you chose one plz tell me a reason why?
Great piece on taking the new XBox apart. I see you show the wi-fi card being removed, which is great. Have you tried to play on it without the wi-fi card plugged in?
I ask because myself and a number of friends get ill from being near wi-fi, and my current 360 is starting to have problems. As such I'll need to get another 360 before my choices are taken away.
I can't find anything about the scratching of the disks. Both of our xboxes, the original, and the 360 elite, have scratched up a few disks each. We do not turn it on it's side, and we don't move the xbox while it is being played. This usually happens within an hour of playing a new game. (HATE paying over 100$ for one game!!!) I was wondering if this was fixed in the new version. I saw that in the old version, a lot of people had to mod their' own. This is our deciding factor in whether we buy an xbox slim or not. All of our other concerns seem to have been addressed. Thankyou!!!
ur logic is flawed big time any type of data is torrent..... before u target 1 thing plz do alittle research PS3 GAMEES ? also ? 0_o moives? music? programs etc do i need to keeping typing dump little kid.... torrents is to lower prices so ur not paying 150 for ur low quality data.... torrents keep prices in check... period.
As the article shows, there are minor improvements in power consumption and noise levels with the larger single fan, but I don't care about noise levels. The issue I have is does this fan provide sufficient cooling? With lots of people complaining on amazon.com that their brand new Xbox 360 S is already red-lighting and breaking down, I wonder whether microsoft have messed up again by focusing too hard on lowering noise levels by using a larger fan and lowering fan speeds and not providing sufficient cooling for the singular, larger heatsink.
I'd like to see some comparison data on the operating temperatures of the valhalla and jasper and if the new xbox is indeed still running hot, a step by step tutorial of how users can simply mod their new 360s so that the fan is always at max speed
AFAIK the failure rates of the new slims are below 1% (don't remember the source) vs above 30 for the original. All electronics have a certain failure rate, below 1% is good enough for me.
1st off why argue over a shitie disk? dvd n blue-ray both fucking suck peroid. MY HARD DRIVE..... yea i said it..... the hard drive loads and stores way more than both of those n are both garbage. my hard drive loads a million times fast than both of them : P so any type of dvd isnt the future its ur hard drive......... 1 it loads a million times faster. 2 . it holds way more... uhhh terabyte hard drives.... come on.... why would i want a dvd or a blue ray disk?? yup i wouldnt..... they shouldnt even make disks anymore..... when u can dl the game to the hard drive n be done with it n never ever have to buy the game again..... or movie or even music..... enought is said, if u dont get it...sigh.... than u will never know how close to the future u truely are, n should go back into ur cave. ty. peace !
Was looking at the new X-Box S. The guy in the shop said it outputs 720p/1080p. Afterwards I'm thinking how does it do this if it does not have a blu-ray dvd drive and it got me thinking, are x-box games not HD(blu-ray) alla PS3 games. I understand you can run DLC at HD(1080p ect) but how does it work with games bought in the shop on DVD.
It would cost more per gigabyte. The PS Vita is sort of using them - if you count SD-like memory cards - but that can get away with less storage per game, most likely.
Absolutely awesome. XBOX360 + Strawberry milkshake = f**ked? NO - thanks to this guide, I have just fixed the unfixable :) Thank you sooooo much :):):):)
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ajp_anton - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Any reason not to use a slim DVD drive?jeremyshaw - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
For your sound comparison, you listed crysis warhead!!Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
ha! that's funny. That's what I get for not paying attention to what I was copying, the load tests were done with a spinning disc in the drive (Halo 3).Take care,
Anand
MonkeyPaw - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Honestly, the drive noise on my Jasper isn't an issue for me, as I install my games to the HDD. It's a feature I love because it kills most of the noise, AND it boosts load times significantly. Really, putting the game data on the HDD is the only way I could fill up the drive--I don't use that space for anything else except a demo or two and the game saves.I do wish the fans were better though. I don't mind the noise; it's the pitch that gets me.
quiksilvr - Friday, July 2, 2010 - link
Doesn't that seem a bit sad, though? They couldn't even utilize a proper DVD drive so they just make users dump the game onto their HDDs?This is why they should have gone with Blu rays.. The higher density of the discs would:
1) Decrease load times
2) Decrease the spin speed of the drive, which would in turn
3) Decrease noise
And thanks to the epic coating on Bu Rays, would make the games discs a hellova lot longer without having to resort to d skins.
ck1984 - Monday, July 5, 2010 - link
Dumb comment because you didn't check FACTS and you contradicted yourself for a start the facts are blu ray is SLOWER than dvd at load times because it spins the disk slower than dvd's e.g all blu rays spin at 2x speed dvd's go up to 24x i think. This is the reason PS3 has to install parts of all games to hard drive to decrease load times. You contradicted yourself when you said 1) decrease load times then said for your 2nd point decreased spin speed also, as mentioned before decreased spin speed means decreased load times as it doesn't read the data off the disk as fast. The only advantages it has is storage space (on that point hard drives are quickly becoming the future with online downloads as the the HDD is faster and holds enormous amounts of data way faster than blu ray and holds more data) and decreased noise thats it blu ray isnt the future for gaming its way too slow a very good example of how slow it is is to time how long it takes to put a small amount of game data to hard drive on the ps3, the load times you talk about are the ps3's hard drive running partially installed parts of the game compare the install time of the ps3 which only installs parts of a game, compare that to the 360 when you dump the ENTIRE dvd to the hard drive.Xentropy - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
You seem to be forgetting that increased density counters the slower spin speed in this regard. Just because a smaller arc of the disk is read in the same period of time doesn't mean more bits aren't in that smaller arc than in the larger arc of a DVD.To answer in more detail, 1X on a DVD refers to 1.32MB/s. Equivalent to a 9X CD speed. 1X Blu-Ray refers to 36MB/s. So about the same as a 27x DVD drive. Yes, despite slower rotational speed, a 1x Blu-Ray drive (and most are 2x since at least 1.5x is required to play a movie at Blu-Ray quality) reads data at a far faster rate than even a 16x DVD drive.
The reason the entire Blu-Ray isn't installed to the hard drive in the PS3's case is the sheer amount of data involved. Two games would completely fill a drive.
Xentropy - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
Meh, to correct myself, my sources mixed up bytes and bits. A 2X Blu-Ray drive is about as fast as 7X DVD, at least at the outer edges of the DVD. DVD's read inside-out, though, and the Blu-Ray is actually faster than the first half or so of a 12X DVD drive's first layer of data, but slower than the last half. Functionally, the difference is small in the overall bits read per time between the two formats at 2X BR vs 12X DVD.CrimsonFury - Saturday, July 31, 2010 - link
The speeds you quoted are not in the same format. The Blu Ray speed you quoted is in megabits while the DVD speed you quoted is in megabytes (also 1x DVD speed is 1.38MB not 1.32MB)To convert from megabits to megabytes you divide by 8. So 1x BluRay = 4.5MB (Megabytes).
So a 2x BD drive like the one in the PS3 has a speed of 9MB.
A 12x DVD drive like the one in the Xbox 360 has a speed of 16.5MB, almost twice the speed of the PS3s drive.
pieterjan - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Excactly! Takes less space, makes less noise, leaves more space for a bigger heatsink and fan, which make even less noise.Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
I'm guessing cost more than anything else, this thing has to be as cheap as possible in order to turn a profit.Take care,
Anand
landerf - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Slim DVD drive's cost more and are slower to read discs. Having engineered a HTPC that fits into a 360 case with a full size drive, psu, and real gfx card (90 degree pci-e riser) I can tell you it's all about engineering smartly. If there's plenty of room for something bigger but cheaper then that's just what makes sense to use.Guspaz - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
The 360 uses a 12x DVD drive, so at least the rotational speed of the drive isn't hard to match (slim drives also go up to 12x). I'm not sure if the average seek time would be fast enough in a slim drive, though.Another consideration is that a slim drive would have required Microsoft to switch to a slot loading system like Nintendo and Sony use; a slim tray would be too flimsy for a console, and requiring the user to snap the disk onto the central spindle might have been a bit awkward.
To be honest, though, I'd rather have had the new xbox use a slot-loading slim drive and an internal power supply.
adam92682 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
The Saturn, Playstation, and Gamecube required the user to snap the disc onto the central spindle.nubie - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Ha, you forgot the Dreamcast and Sega CD.Seriously, that doesn't look like a full-size drive to me (I could be wrong). Not a slmiline drive, but doesn't seem full-size to me. Since they are using custom drives all they need be concerned with is the size of the actual electro-mechanical bits and circuit boards.
I like the HS design, looks like an OEM bundled PC HS/Fan, maybe we will see some heatpipe versions.
I like the HDD tray, looks like with a simple plastic carrier you can slot in any laptop style HDD. (Or just stuff newspapers around it if you don't care about fire.)
sprockkets - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Limited to 8x. Unless you can show me a 12x drive. They've been stuck on 8x for years.NaMcOJR - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - link
It's the only thing that's missing there, yeah...rorrim180 - Sunday, November 28, 2010 - link
I would guess that they could not implement a mechanism to close the tray if they used a slim drive.arnavvdesai - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
While power has increased considerably for the PC counterparts, I still dont see any better cooling methods introduced. Even if were to assume that Microsoft would stick a 5870 into their box I dont see how they can cool such a beast in a small form factor. We would need to move to a lower die size in order to be able to adequately cool the device. Also, we need to remember that TVs have a hit the 1080p mark and will not move to a higher resolution anytime soon, so console makers will have to push technology in different area of improvements. Also, what about buffers for the GPU? While CPUs can make do with 12 MB of L3 cache what about GPUs. With higher textures we need the ability to feed the beast and consoles will need to somehow figure that out.Also game developers have not really demanded higher capabilities from the consoles. I have a 5870 in my PC and having played the same games on PC and my 360 I dont see much difference in fidelity .
We must also remember that software for this generation cost a lot more to develop for. This means that if a new technology was introduced they would have to optimize for it at an even higher cost and most devs are not ready for it.
The only reason I see in the future which would demand more power from consoles is 3D. If significant market penetration is achieved (which is a long way IMHO) then and only then will we demand more from our consoles. Also, Microsoft will have a tough choice when it comes to the media they want their games to be on. Blu-Ray seems to be the only alternative at the moment and I am sure Microsoft would prefer something more( them getting that is a different thing altogether)
Earthmonger - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
I'll state here what I stated elsewhere: This thing looks like a fat woman sat on a DVD player. What were they thinking? I don't want it anywhere near my EC.Hopefully someone will put out some decent-looking aftermarket cases. And at just $300, warranty isn't really a concern.
bill4 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Hugely disappointed you didnt tear the heatspreader off and measure the chips. That's my favorite part of these teardowns besides maybe the power draw numbers.Also disagree we'll see X360 power in a phone in three years. Heck you dont even see PSP power in a phone now, which is way less than a PS2. And PSP is like 6 years old!
Also, the reason high end PC market isn't tapped anymore is piracy. That's obvious. The same piracy your affiliate over at Dailytech Jason Mick supports so strongly.
bill4 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Oh and forgot, the asthetics is a matter of opinion. I tend to think that while the lure of the shiny and new is overpowering here, objectively if I were honest the old X360 matte Elite looks better imo. The old X360 Elite is the best looking console ever imo.Also, it's pretty funny how 360 and PS3 have switched positions in regard to capacitive buttons and glossy finishes.
Personally I dont like capacitive buttons, I have them on my samsung blu ray player and dont care for it. I prefer the tactile feedback of knowing yes, I pushed the button. I find myself wanting to jam on capacitive buttons all the time to make sure I pressed it, or maybe because I'm used to regular buttons.
It's good to see MS is thinking about end user experience in a bit of an Apple way here and including some rubber bits to dampen sound though.
Also, I disagree that MS is waiting on 40nm volumes to pick up to drop prices. As I posted in the other article, I think Kinect has totally screwed up their pricing. For now they are just in a pricing hold while they figure out what theyre going to do with kinect regarding bundling and the like, and Kinect may in fact be bundled with a price raise raise, or a steady price, thereby negating the cut that would have occurred had kinect not existed. Because I still think an argument can be made Kinect and Move will have to be bundled with every new SKU sold to avoid an uncertain fate that has befallen past optional add ons.
tim851 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
The high end PC market is still tapped sufficiently. The (in my view) most important titles are all released there, that is why I don't bother getting a console. And that is despite MS and Sony trying their a$$ off to convince developers to go system exclusive.bill4 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
What important titles are released only on PC? Besides the upcoming Starcraft 2 maybe, one really major title in three years.It's all just console ports now. Even Crytek (Id, Epic, Valve) has now gone that way. How is this even arguable?
Guspaz - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
I think the OP meant the opposite of what you understood. He's saying that he doesn't need a console because most games are *also* released on the PC, not *only* released.coburn_c - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
"Heck you dont even see PSP power in a phone now..."I... don't think you know what you're talking about.
bill4 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
What phone games look better than top PSP games? I'll be waiting...Guspaz - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
The PowerVR SGX535, as used in most current smartphones (with the snapdragon being an exception), is roughly equivalent to the graphical power of the PSP. Without knowing more about the architectures, the 535 has does 28MPolys/sec, while the PSP's does 33. The 545, which doesn't appear to be in any shipping devices yet, should be slightly faster than the PSP's.Of more note is that the PSP has a very limited amount of VRAM available. In general, a smartphone can expect to have 16 to 32 times more usable RAM than the PSP, and likely at significantly faster speeds (the PSP's is DDR, while smartphones these days are using DDR2)
In terms of processing power, any modern smartphone should take the PSP to task, as the PSP's 333Mhz MIPS R400 is pretty dated. These days, smartphones are shipping with ARM Cortex A8 chips at up to 1GHz, usually on a much smaller manufacturing process (the PSP is still at 90nm). Dual-core Cortex A9 chips at 1GHz or higher should make it to market before the PSP's successor is released. It was rumoured that the Nintendo 3DS would use an nVidia Tegra 2 featuring an A9, but these rumours haven't been confirmed.
So, on a hardware level, the PSP is outclassed by modern smartphones in every category except the GPU (where it may have a small advantage). Ultimately, however, it has an enormous advantage in one specific place that makes everything else moot; OS overhead. While smartphones are much faster on paper, they're constrained by large amounts of OS overhead that bring down their real-world performance significantly. There's still going to be more RAM and CPU power available after overhead, but the demands of the underlying OS can introduce enough latency to cause issues.
Ultimately, we're seeing a lot of convergence. The hardware in smartphones and handheld consoles is pretty analogous, and in the case of Nintendo's products, probably the same. Even if the 3DS doesn't use the nVidia Tegra, we know it's still using some sort of ARM processor, and that's going to be either a Cortex A8 or A9, just like smartphones are using. From Sony's perspective, the PSP2 is rumoured to use some sort of multi-GPU PowerVR SGX product.
I should probably bring this back to the original topic and say, modern smartphones do have the power of a PSP (and then some), so you should really re-examine the hardware going into modern devices. Of course, as I said, OS overhead hurts, but even that won't matter much if the PSP doesn't get a successor soon.
At the risk of rambling on a bit, the iPod Touch 3rd gen was a pretty direct competitor to the PSP Go. They had similar size and resolution screens, similar capabilities in terms of graphical quality, they're both gaming handhelds (even Apple doesn't claim that the iTouch products are music devices anymore, they now consider them gaming devices), they both get their content via DLC, and they have similar costs (the iTouch 8G costing $199, the PSP Go costing $250).
mczak - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
smartphones today are actually still using lpddr (on a 32bit bus, I believe) at fairly low clocks, I don't think the typical Cortex A8 they use supports lpddr2 (maybe the A4 used in the iphone 4 being an exception?) but next gen should be lpddr2. I'm not sure at all about the memory interface of the psp, but in any case this also had (fairly small) embedded dram which likely offers more bandwidth than todays smartphones. That said, the tile based deferred renderer sgx family used on smartphones shouldn't really need that much bandwidth.Macha - Saturday, June 26, 2010 - link
Actually, price wise, you need to compare the 32Gb model to the PSP. The 8GB model doesn't have the increased power of the other third generation models.Visual - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
does the wifi module work on a PC?does another type of wifi module that was ment for PCs work with the xbox?
are you able to open the hdd case and replace the hdd inside?
Ganesh_balan - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Anand,Could you please give us an insight into the fan details? Is that a Coolermaster make as it came out in the initial batch of leaked pics from the Chinese website? What size/rpm?
jigglywiggly - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Uhm, I am going to be the first to say this...It's hardly any smaller! (Not that the 360 is big)
Also it looks like a normal 360 and someone got a heatgun on the faceplate and it bent inwards.
michal1980 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
You need a special port for this add on?biohazard75 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Yes and no. The Kinect connects to the 360 via a USB port, however it also requires more power than can be supplied by the USB port.So the 'new' Kinect port on the new 360 allows the Kinect to be connected via a single wire.
Connecting the Kinect to an old 360 requires an additional power lead (probably a power injected USB connector will be supplied).
(I never want to type Kinect/Connect again...)
can - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
With both chips being proprietary items (ATI and PowerPC) Who integrated them on one die? I guess I find it hard to believe that each company would give up it's design specs so that someone could engineer it for a single chip.piroroadkill - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
We need that heatspread off.bill4 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
From what I know it's unlikely the EDRAM was integrated. That's another reason it'd be nice to see the heatspreader off.But as for who would do it, Microsoft?
The deal for X360 was such that MS owned the CPU and GPU IP, to a point anyway, so they can go fab it wherever. That was a big difference to the original Xbox, where Ms was forced to pay Intel and Nvidia whatever they wanted.
can - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
I wasn't aware of that, thank you. Makes me wonder how much info (specs, design) was given to whom and by whom? Still leaves me with questions, but it's a useful answer.xboxknow - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - link
IBM did the design and IBM and Chartered build the CGPU chips, mostly IBM at this point. It's indeed 45nmThere are 2 chips underneath, a large die containing the CPU /
GPU function and a smaller EDRAM, procured elsewhere
xboxknow - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - link
Also -- you can see Canada written on the lid -- the early parts are being assembled at IBM's Canadian assembly facility.teknomusik - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Does the slim still have an infrared signal receiver? I read somewhere that it doesn't, and I wasn't able to tell after looking at all of the pictures here.CityZ - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
It does. You can see it on the motherboard next to the front USB ports.F3N1X85 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
This is killing me because I cant find an answer to this ANYWHERE so since u looked at it's guts I assume you can answer it.Did they remove the IR receiver?
I use my current xbox as a media device more than an game system. I use a logitech harmony one to turn on my xbox, tv and receiver with one button and control my xbox itself. Now if, god forbid, my 360 red rings I will probably want to get the newer one. But if this new one no longer has an IR sensor then it puts a slight kink in my normal operation methods.
Drakino - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
"I own a total of five Xbox 360s. Four of them have died. Three because of the Red Ring of Death, all out of warranty. Many have had serial Xbox 360 failures, I had them in parallel."Yep. I'm only on my second XBox, with the launch day unit replaced under their extended "oh crap, we built a turd" coverage. While the new system looks slick, I'm not interested in rewarding Microsoft with any more of my money. If my current system fails, I'm going to sell off the games I have. I'll never understand the attraction people have to the 360 with the repeated and widespread failures. I already made an effort to pick up any cross platform game on the PS3 a number of years ago, so the 360 has been seeing less and less use as time goes on. I don't have the time to play every game that comes out, so having just the selection available to the PS3 doesn't bother me.
Vote with your dollar, thats all companies really pay attention to. Stop rewarding Microsoft for failure.
bill4 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Yup. It figures, any hate filled rant against the 360 is almost always accompanied by the other shoe dropping, "that's why I love my amazing Playstation 3 (tm)". I was literally just waiting for it as I read through your post.Anyways, you can do what you want, RROD is a dead issue since Jasper what, 3 years ago? I've owned a X360 since launch for 4.5 years, 3 different ones, and had one failure in that time (around a year after launch I think) that was fixed totally free and took less than two weeks turnaround time. Honestly, not that big a deal. That replacement Xbox then worked flawlessly for two years, at which point I voluntarily upgraded to a Jasper elite which has worked flawlessly since then. It's just not even a concern.
Anyways I owned a PS3 (sold it) and that system is just terribly designed in so many ways (small example, I found it super annoying that my PS3 controllers were always out of charge for some reason. Worse, they only give you a exceedingly short recharge cable, another dumb decision, so I had to practically smash my face against the TV glass all the time while charging my PS3 controller. I later randomly read on a forum that the reason is, PS3 by default doesn't shut the controller down with the system, just terrible). I also hate the Ps3 last gen controller, especially for FPS, and PSN and XMB are both just low rent, and I read constant stories of never ending updates and installs and patches on PS3. And PSN download speeds are supposedly terrible, though I really didn't download that much in my time with it.
But in the end it's the games, and I'll take Gears and Halo over Indiana Tomb Raider, I mean Uncharted, etc.
wicko - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
And it never fails that a 360 fanboy has to go into damage control mode and bash the PS3 for reasons that are entirely false. And FYI, I own both consoles currently and will not be selling either one.The controller DOES shutdown when you turn the system off. USB cables are plenty long and it costs maybe a dollar to buy an extra long cable if you need one at monoprice or something. The charge lasts quite a long time even when its telling you the battery is low, it will still last 30 minutes or more. If your controllers were dying it is possible that you have defective controllers or you're doing it wrong.
Controller preference is a matter of opinion. Some people like the PS3 controller, some like the 360 controller. I'd prefer if sony had similar thumbsticks in that they have more resistance when you rotate them, and that the 360 controller didn't have a d-pad you'd expect to see on a 3rd party controller.
PSN and XMB are fine, in fact MS took a page from XMB when they made NXE except they bloated theirs with Ads and useless items/channels. XMB makes a hell of a lot more sense since it's much easier to find different settings and what not, as well as in-game XMB being identical to out of game XMB. Everything is in the same place no matter where you access XMB.
PSN being free also kills any real advantage XBL has, its just a much better deal altogether. And PSN+ makes XBL look ridiculous since you get more than just the ability to play online (which should be free) and early access to demos.
As for PSN downloads, well, they max out my 5mb connection so I can't complain, but I'm sure people with 10-20mb connections aren't getting speeds they're accustomed to. Valid complaint.
As for the games.. well again up to preference, but there is just so much more variety on PS3. Sadly, Halo has gone downhill in my opinion and I hope Reach is a throwback to the first game that I spent so many hours playing. But Uncharted 2 just takes the cake, there aren't many games that can match it. And I laugh at your Indiana Tomb Raider comment, considering Halo = Alients movies. Next time you're going to bash the PS3, at least get some facts behind you.
wicko - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Sorry, *Aliens movies.chrnochime - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
And the MS fanboy rush out and claim that the PS3 just suck more than the 360. Please the 360 has been fundamentally flawed up to now, and all it took was 5 freakin years of actual production to make the system work as it should've always been.Too short an USB charge cable? Get a freakin' longer USB cable. If you're so well versed in gaming and PC as most gamers are, you should know where to get (cheap) usb cable already. And that crap about FPS on 360 being better than PS3? Please both suck compare to KB + mouse, so don't pretend FPS on 360 is just so fun LOLOL(tm) (tm by the fanboys who else).
And those "constant stories" blah blah blah. If you actually owned one, and didn't experience any of the symptoms, what's your point in bringing them up?
Voluntarily upgrade to Jasper? Why bother when you were so happy with the pre Jasper anyway? Don't tell me you did it NOT because you weren't worried your system could go any time. Wow lots of confidence in your fav company there.
Just so you don't go thinking I'm a Sony fanboy(not that I give a crap what some anonymous poster online think), I own all three systems AND PCs for HTPC and gaming, so I got no bias whatsoever. I just HATE fanboys who keep saying HALO is so damn great when the freakin' controller is just a poor choice of input device for playing FPS.
And that thing about TV *glass*? You mean Plasma screen right? WTH still plays games on CRT anyway Ha
cditty - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
This was a great article as always. Why don't you get your ad department to find a sponsor to buy a box that you can destroy by taking the heatspreader off, so we can get some inside pics and measurement of the core(s).Put their ad on that page of the article.... It will get some views.
CityZ - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
I see a potential problem with the power plug waiting to happen. It appears as if the prongs on the power plug are symmetric, though one delivers +12V and the other +5V. The plastic on the case and the plug makes a D-shape that only allows the plug to go in one way. However, someone who's taken their case apart won't have this protection. They might plug it in the wrong way and zap their MB/PS.adam92682 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
One of the many reasons you aren't supposed to open the system.casteve - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Only 17.6W difference between idle and load power for Valhalla? While the idle power is better w/ ea generation, it seems they dropped the ball on this gen. An i5 661 + HD5870 based PC only draws 67-70W AC at idle.logikil1 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
I haven't been able to locate what revision of HDMI the new 360 uses. I believe the original used 1.2 and was curious if MS went to 1.3 or 1.4 with this system.aforty - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
I'd really loved to have seen some noise level comparisons between the new Slim and the first generation Xbox 360. I have a first-gen and the noise is pretty much why I now prefer my PS3. However I'm thinking about upgrading and would love to see how the new Slim stacks up against what I currently have in the noise department. The power consumption already looks really good compared to what this thing sucks down.Thanks for the breakdown!
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Unfortunately my first gen 360 is now dead otherwise I could've provided more data :-PTake care,
Anand
Pirks - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Anand please tell us, I saw a youtube video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwINtoQpyNc ) where Xbox Slim does scratch DVD when you move it a little while PS3 doesn't. What's your personal take on that? Does Slim manual say something about danger of DVD scratching? Any warning labels on the Slim itself?Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
There's a warning sticker on the DVD drive telling you not to move the console while a disc is in there. I meant to take a picture of it but forgot once I got into the teardown phase.As long as you're mindful of it it's a non-issue, however I have come very close to accidentally ruining a game or two when I wasn't paying attention. It is silly and MS could easily fix it, but the 360 isn't about high quality hardware, it's about profitability.
Take care,
Anand
Pirks - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Fuck Ballmer.Rob100 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Why oh why have they made it a nasty gloss black finishIf it was available in a matt "no scratch, no finger print, no dust" black finish I'd buy one, but from the pics I've seen it just looks cheap and nasty
I will be sticking with my Elite thanks which if you ask me looks 10 times better than this - what were they thinking...
If I wanted a quieter 360 then I would of bought an "arcade" and stuck it in a Lian Li XB-01B
Huggy_Bear - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
I cannot believe nobody has talked about this yet!?Blu-ray drive anyone?
Is the DVD drive plain old SATA/standard form factor? In which case one could theoretically replace it w/ an off-the-shelf SATA blu-ray drive?? Now, OS support and blu-ray playback might be the main issue here...
tipoo - Sunday, June 20, 2010 - link
You answered your own question there, even if it uses standard connecters the OS probably would not recognize the new drive.Gamerguy1020 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Does anyone know if this new 360 has gigabit ethernet, as opposed to the 10/100 on older xboxes?Finally - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
If Valhalla is the place where Vikings get to when they die,does that mean that this new XBOX will die once it gets to you?
Finally - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Or does it mean that this new XBOX represents Valhalla and YOU have to die to get one?Finally - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
As it seems, all of the above is inccorect as only certain body parts of yours have to die in order for Valhalla to enter your house:If I had to imagine a picture that shows over-exaggerated self pity plus stupidity all at once I would make a video with some fat nerd uttering this statement. Seriously...
Ninjahedge - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
It is nice to have a smaller form factor, but being one of those people that actually has the money for a stereo w/surround and optical input attached to my HDTV, it would be nice if they considered ME in their form factor.I HAVE an AV cabinet! I would LIKE a box to be a nicely sized component I can stack in there, complete with internal BR and PS. It could even be slightly LARGER than that original (the horizontal footprint would have to be) so long as I had something that would look like a wicked system component capable of/posessing:
Gaming (duh)
Internet Access (limited) and Video
Net/Internet Streaming and Custom Codec installation
Blue Ray/DVD playback
Unlimited USB connectivity
Limited video RECORDING (C'mahn! TiVo should not be the only one!)
Front LED display
I would like a combo Gamer/Vid/Media center. They could get away with charging slightly more for something that would only cost $400 but take the place of an UNLICENSED HTPC + Proprietary gaming system.
But no. We all know adults do not play games.
jeremyshaw - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Just a note, it's also likely MS used Global Foundries (since they bought off Chartered, the IBM Xenon CPU fab location MS chose), if the CPU and GPU have indeed been unified into a monolithic IC.ajlueke - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
With what is shown here, I would consider getting one of these to replace the Xenon based 360 I purchased in December of '05. Yes, I purchased and original run 360 and it has not to this day RRoD on me.However, it still has only the 20Gb HDD and a lack of HDMI, as well as the external 802.11g wireless adapter a purchased years ago. Not to mention over twice the power consumption of the new model. May be time to upgrade.
Krakn3Dfx - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
"some exciting titles due out later this year and next"Besides Halo Reach, Gears 3, and an unnamed Crytek exclusive, their E3 showing seemed to be a lot of Kinect casual stuff. If I didn't know better, I would say Microsoft is dialing down on hardcore exclusive titles in favor of multiplat titles and banking a lot of their money on Kinect's ability to take a significant portion of the Wii's marketshare.
mczak - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
is still disappointing imho, at idle. Sure standby power is much lower, but that's just because it is required by law, so if you're surprised by this, don't be, EU regulation requires standby power below 1W nowadays (and less than 0.5W standby power in 2 years). There's no law though requiring to implement reasonable power management when devices are running, and unfortunately it shows. Apparently none of the current consoles have any power management worth speaking of, it's not required by law, it's not a selling argument, so the companies just don't bother at all. Seeing how power management actually takes an effort to get to work (usually riddled with bugs ranging from hardware clock gating issues up to software timers) this isn't terribly surprising, but maybe one day it will be a selling argument, since apparently at least in the pc world all cpus and gpus finally implement it...jigglywiggly - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - link
No you cannot connect any random dvd drive, they are tied to the motherboard.You can spoof them though.
IceCold12 - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - link
#1. Why did Anandtech deliberately hide the fact that they used a very old Power supply to exaggerate the size differences between the newer Vallhalla Slim Kinetic 360 power supply? Most likely embargo from Microsoft??#2. Why no direct tests vs an newer Elite Jasper running a game from the HDD vs a new slim Kinetic running a game from the HDD. Why? because there is most likely no difference at all.
Way to ruin your rep AnAndtuch
So what embargos or restrictions did Microsoft put on you guys at Anantech?
Or are you guys now taking money in order to leave certain things out of your reviews??
We need to investigate Ananatechs behaviors, looks to me like they are no longer impartial or a credible source of reliable information.
This story goes deeper.
bigben - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - link
yeah. and anand is illuminati.NWO.
watch out.
seriously, though, nice article.
XboxMySocks - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - link
Are you fucking simple? What did you want anand to compare the new PSU to? A kitten? Comparing the new one to the old one is very comprehensive, shut your face.sdfdsfs - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - link
I'm guessing cost more than anything else, this thing has to be as cheap as possible in order to turn a profit.sdfdsfs - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - link
sing cost more than anything else, this thing has to be as cheap as possible in order to turn a profit.sdfdsfs - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - link
on not to use a slim DVDsdfdsfs - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - link
d tests were done with a spinning discTEAMSWITCHER - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - link
How can you keep a straight face talking about XBox 360 when 4 of 5 have died. I really can't understand why this isn't the biggest scandal in the tech world. This hardware has the worst track record in the history of electronics. I can see maybe buying a second one to replace the first, but a third, a fourth, a fifth! That's insanity!HellcatM - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - link
I guess MS is using different DVD drives because this article says its using a Lite-on, while the one from the link below says it uses a Panasonic. Both are good drives from good companies.http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/06/17/someone-has-a...
Ganesh_balan - Sunday, June 20, 2010 - link
So I happened to read somewhere that although MS says the console cannot RROD it can RDOD and seems like a home user actually faced the wrath. His console was asked to shut down. :DTake that MS!
kratos4u - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - link
xbox 360s slim = "no RROD" its RDOD (red dot of death ) this time . 299$ worthless . xbox 360 sales high reason pirated games.sorry xbox 360 fanboys
PS3 godz console
bill4 - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
i owned a PS3, it's remarkably poorly engineered. Terrible console, terrible controller, terrible games, terrible graphics. Even the much vaunted Uncharted actually looks pretty janky.TreDawg - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - link
Does the new 360 still use a 100mbit ethernet port? I was really hoping for them to make the move to gigabit.TheLaw5 - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
There's no real point to having Gig networking on a 360. It all reality, it would just be more expenditures and costs for them to put a Gigabit chip on board. That 2.5inch drive isn't going to be making any impressive read/writes. And 10/100mbps Ethernet does a fine job at HD streaming and for Xbox Live...so you know...Yes, it would be nice, but no need.
But to answer your question, I don't know if it has 1000mbps Ethernet, but I highly doubt it.
tipoo - Sunday, December 5, 2010 - link
Why would you ever need gigabit ethernet in the 360? Streaming 1080p content is still far far away from saturating a 100Mbit connection, and even file transfers would get bottlenecked elsewhere.victor2585222 - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
Umm I wanna buy this new 360 because my old one broke but if I buy the new 360 I would waste my hard drive 80$ Wifi 100$ and a second pair controllers 60$ and my harddrive has all my games in it losing all my achivamants so should I get this new 360 or buy a regular one? If you chose one plz tell me a reason why?Diddy Dave - Thursday, July 1, 2010 - link
Great piece on taking the new XBox apart.I see you show the wi-fi card being removed, which is great. Have you tried to play on it without the wi-fi card plugged in?
I ask because myself and a number of friends get ill from being near wi-fi, and my current 360 is starting to have problems. As such I'll need to get another 360 before my choices are taken away.
thanks.
lazzydragon - Saturday, July 3, 2010 - link
I can't find anything about the scratching of the disks. Both of our xboxes, the original, and the 360 elite, have scratched up a few disks each. We do not turn it on it's side, and we don't move the xbox while it is being played. This usually happens within an hour of playing a new game. (HATE paying over 100$ for one game!!!) I was wondering if this was fixed in the new version. I saw that in the old version, a lot of people had to mod their' own. This is our deciding factor in whether we buy an xbox slim or not. All of our other concerns seem to have been addressed. Thankyou!!!Monica
kratos4u - Saturday, July 3, 2010 - link
xbox 360 console sells high = pirated copiesif MS take measures to stops piracy 100% = sales down
torrent = xbox 360 sales.
any 1 agree
sorry xbox 360 fanboys
evilowner - Tuesday, August 17, 2010 - link
ur logic is flawed big time any type of data is torrent..... before u target 1 thing plz do alittle research PS3 GAMEES ? also ? 0_o moives? music? programs etc do i need to keeping typing dump little kid.... torrents is to lower prices so ur not paying 150 for ur low quality data.... torrents keep prices in check... period.viocosi - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
In the new xbox 360 slim is possible to use the iXtreme firmware?fiftey - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
As the article shows, there are minor improvements in power consumption and noise levels with the larger single fan, but I don't care about noise levels. The issue I have is does this fan provide sufficient cooling? With lots of people complaining on amazon.com that their brand new Xbox 360 S is already red-lighting and breaking down, I wonder whether microsoft have messed up again by focusing too hard on lowering noise levels by using a larger fan and lowering fan speeds and not providing sufficient cooling for the singular, larger heatsink.I'd like to see some comparison data on the operating temperatures of the valhalla and jasper and if the new xbox is indeed still running hot, a step by step tutorial of how users can simply mod their new 360s so that the fan is always at max speed
tipoo - Thursday, July 14, 2011 - link
AFAIK the failure rates of the new slims are below 1% (don't remember the source) vs above 30 for the original. All electronics have a certain failure rate, below 1% is good enough for me.draco2210 - Saturday, July 17, 2010 - link
anyone heard any news or updates about flashing the new DG-16D4S drives yet?pfeifer220 - Tuesday, July 27, 2010 - link
I lost the connector and power brick to my new 360 slim, does anybody know where or how I can purchase just these 2 items alone?butanebob - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
"Needless to say, I wasn’t terribly happy about purchasing a sixth Xbox 360, but here it is:"People like you are the reason the RROD was even an issue. No wonder microsoft didn't bother sorting it out 5 years ago....
walkerfsu18 - Monday, August 2, 2010 - link
i have the 360 slim but on it i hate how its the same as ps3,there are these white spots i just cant get off,i tried everything,any ideas?evilowner - Tuesday, August 17, 2010 - link
1st off why argue over a shitie disk? dvd n blue-ray both fucking suck peroid. MY HARD DRIVE..... yea i said it..... the hard drive loads and stores way more than both of those n are both garbage. my hard drive loads a million times fast than both of them : P so any type of dvd isnt the future its ur hard drive......... 1 it loads a million times faster. 2 . it holds way more... uhhh terabyte hard drives.... come on.... why would i want a dvd or a blue ray disk?? yup i wouldnt..... they shouldnt even make disks anymore..... when u can dl the game to the hard drive n be done with it n never ever have to buy the game again..... or movie or even music..... enought is said, if u dont get it...sigh.... than u will never know how close to the future u truely are, n should go back into ur cave. ty. peace !Rafterman - Saturday, September 25, 2010 - link
Was looking at the new X-Box S. The guy in the shop said it outputs 720p/1080p. Afterwards I'm thinking how does it do this if it does not have a blu-ray dvd drive and it got me thinking, are x-box games not HD(blu-ray) alla PS3 games. I understand you can run DLC at HD(1080p ect) but how does it work with games bought in the shop on DVD.xboxer - Monday, November 1, 2010 - link
Does anyone know if there is any speed difference in the CPU in the new slim versus the original?tipoo - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
Its the same speed. Same architecture, same frequency, same buses. Just smaller.ordine - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - link
Bring back the old Cartridge was nice and fast,wonder if it would work these days .tipoo - Sunday, January 15, 2012 - link
It would cost more per gigabyte. The PS Vita is sort of using them - if you count SD-like memory cards - but that can get away with less storage per game, most likely.jigglywiggly - Sunday, October 9, 2011 - link
It's uglier, why does everyone think it's prettier?Second, you could have done the x clamp fix to fix your old xboxes or just give them to me :P
VenomousTBag - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
Absolutely awesome. XBOX360 + Strawberry milkshake = f**ked? NO - thanks to this guide, I have just fixed the unfixable :) Thank you sooooo much :):):):)justammad - Monday, December 16, 2013 - link
So the best xbox 360 console is jasper? To enjoy longtime gaming?justammad - Monday, December 16, 2013 - link
And whats about The gaming and problems experience of the 2013 xbox 360 e slim?