News New 360 chips on their way

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/08/28/new_360_chips_on_their_way/1

Reports are surfacing that the new Falcon chipsets for the Xbox 360 are now being shipped but that only the CPU is changed to 65nm.

 

but why? Especially as i thought it was the GPU that was the main culprit for the overheating problems. Sill M$ no sweetie for you. So i'm still not buying a 360 until the GPU slims down a bit, about 25nm should do.

 

Honestly, I think the GPU is to blame for most of the overheating issues.....the reason why I say this is that my friend's 360 started making crazy lines and also hickuping just like my old video did before it zonked.....also if the any one of the cores died you'd think it would've shown the Red Ring of Death rather than just a error # or whatever it was and a message saying contact M$ Customer Support....so I don't see this shifting too many consumers......including me on the side of reliability being increased....but we'll have to see what the "thermal analysts" say.....since they are the so-called professionals.....

 

i agree that it is most likely the GPU that is making the most heat, but call me crazy, im sure a smaller more efficient CPU could handle the excess heat produced by the gpu, so maybe sliming down the cpu was the most cost efficient/timely way of improving the consoles heat problems (after the heatsink of course)

 

That is a question for the "professionals" to answer.....hehe...

 

it's more the fact that the GPU, which has always historically produced more heat, has a smaller heatsink and poor airflow and is stuffed under a big metal box.

 

[hint] MS USE THIS OPPORTUNITY AND REDESIGN THE HS!!!![/hint]

 

What surprises me more than anything, is the number of people who have bought the console despite all the problems. every purchase is telling M$ that the public are prepared to accept a flawed designed.
I would love to own an Xbox360 (I have the means to buy one tomorrow if I wished), but I'll be damned if I'm gonna support something which clearly is trouble, due to bad thermal design. Lets hope they get it right in the end.

 

These new 360 chips have been on the way for a quite a while now. I'm guessing in another 3-4 months we'll get an update that they are on the way and making progress.

 

P.S. You forgot to link to this thread in the article.

 

+1

The 360 is getting crazy, it has more revisions then *insert funny anecdote here*

 

I have a 360. First one broke on me so MS replaced it, after a year of working fine. New one's been working fine since. As long as it continues to do so I won't be complaining

I remember having to turn my PS1 upside down or on it's end for it to work

Anyway: good that new chips are on the way but it's the GPU that needs to lose those nm

 

I know a lot of people have had trouble with their 360s, but how many people have had trouble with their PS2s, they were always breaking aswell. My friend got his 360 on release day and he's never had a single problem with it. I have no hesitation about buying one and I fully intend to when I have some spare money.

 

It depends on how much you use it and how long it stays on & running.....so your friend's may not be the same situation as yours, but keep that in mind.

For example, my friend had his housed in the basement with the AC on, a Nyko air cooler running at all times, an external fan also cooling it as well & had it by itself in the middle of the floor and it still gave out and I can tell you it wasn't the CPU cores, but the GPU. I can tell you that no matter what else they did to cool it, for as much as they played it, it still would've zonked and of course it was past the 1 year warranty and it wasn't the Red Ring so they are now without a console for approx 2 months & $100 for S+H.....so this is the other side of someone who also thought highly of the 360 and how great it was and how only a small % of people were affected and also how if only used casually it would last through the years it needed to and that it wouldn't affect anyone or my friend for that matter...but in the end it was almost inevitable...it was going to zonk out sometime.....so as long you know that there are people out there who own the exact same setup as what you will be (except for the revised CPU Core die-shrink & heatsink if you wait) and are having/had problems.....then you understand the risk....hope this helps......

 

Don't use any of the coolers that fix on the back! They damage it.

 

How can you tell when buying a 360 if it is the new model? Is there a serial number difference that can be spotted from outside the box?

 

Nope. If its HDMI capable then it'll say it on the box, but I don't think theres any difference regarding the new chips...

 

What the hell. They just release the Elite and now they say they're doing a new version with the 65nm chip AND THEN releasing ANOTHER version with a smaller GPU. I have no idea what is going through M$' brains

 

make you buy x amount of versions instead of a smaller number of versions?

they introduced hdd's to consoles so games can be patched (i.e. no more need to release working ones)

they revamp the consoles regularly so you buy a new one more often....

hey... somehow they have to make money....

*hugs the pc*

 

This isn't a new procedure. The original xbox had eight different version updates. The first edition was a POS compared to the final revision, but when the first version came out the xbox was considered a joke. Very few people bought the first rev, so the crappyness wasn't known. It wasn't until Xbox Live took off that people started buying the Xbox, and by then they had worked out most of the hardware flaws.

Conversely, the first rev Xbox 360 had high interest from the moment of release, and it's flaws were immediately obvious. If it wasn't for the tech sites like this one following it so closely, you wouldn't even know this updates were happening.

Microsoft isn't the only company that does this either. Nintendo did it with the original NES, the gameboy, the gamecube, and the Gameboy DS. Sony has done it with both the PSO and the PS2. These revisions usually were coupled with price drops.

This is why I've been waiting to buy a 360. I knew that by the time I was ready to get one (when Halo 3 comes out), they would have improved on it. Not to mention that the price would drop. :/