New Xbox 360 S Uses Less Power, Makes Less Noise

Vigile writes "Microsoft unveiled a new Xbox 360 S console at E3 this month, and without delay the new machine has been dissected and tested. The most dramatic change is the move to a single-chip CPU/GPU hybrid processor that is apparently being built on the 45nm process technology from GlobalFoundries, AMD's spun-off production facilities. With the inclusion of the new processor, the Xbox 360 S uses much less power (about 30-40%) compared to previous generation machines, and also turns out to be much quieter as a result of a single, larger fan. This article has photographic evidence of the teardown, with comparisons between this Valhalla platform and the older Falcon system, along with videos of the reconstruction process and noise comparisons." The new console also takes measures to protect itself from overheating, so RRoDs shouldn't be a problem with this revision.

Re:Scratches disc and improved dpads

[Sockatume]

It scratches DVDs if you move the console while it's operating, which we all learned not to do at the start of this console generation.

Re:AdDot

[Eraesr]

I don't understand the problem of your rant. If you want to play XBox software, then you buy an XBox. If you want to play XBox 360 software, then you buy an XBox 360. I understand that people can be a bit disappointed in the fact that the backwards compatibility of the XBox 360 isn't all that MS made it out to be, but since you already appear to have a bunch of old XBoxes lying around, I really don't see the relevance of your rant in the context of this article. MS ain't exactly hurting you with the release of the 360 S.

Re:Shouldn't?

[Anonymous Coward]

The dot actually turns red when a malfunction occurs, not green...

Citation Needed (mod troll)

[cbhacking]

I've seen absolutely no indication whatsoever of anything that backs up your claims (in fact, the game you mention came out before the 360 S, and the Wikipedia article on the topic doesn't contain any instances of the word "Slim"). Older revisions of the 360 are more prone to overheating, don't have built-in WiFi, and may have different ports - for example, the oldest models lack an HDMI port - but their CPUs and GPUs execute the same code at the same speed, they have the same amount of RAM, and they run the same OS* as the new Slim model. Kinect works just fine on older consoles. The new console may look different, but it runs exactly the same games.

  * I'm assuming you keep your console's OS up to date, typically done via the Internet but I believe it's possible with a DVD as well. Unless you've modded your console, the update process is completely trivial. If you *have* modded it, they *you* are the one with the XBox 365 (or perhaps 355), not "Microcrap" (as you so very maturely refer to the company whose product you chose to purchase).

To teach people how to code for Cell

[tepples]

If by strategy you mean "trying to get tax discounts in the EU and failing," then yes.

You're confusing Other OS on the PS3 with Basic on the PS2. As I understand it, Other OS was there to get developers familiar with the Cell architecture, which Sony planned to use in all sorts of consumer electronics devices. Cell's seven integrated DSPs were supposed to be the future of signal processing until someone figured out how to "abuse" the GPU to act as a generic DSP [wikipedia.org]. This led to CUDA and eventually OpenCL, the decline of Cell, and no more need for Other OS.

Re:AdDot

[danomac]

I've owned my XBox 360 for almost 3 years now and I've never had it fail on me or so much as even crash.

I've had mine for over four years and about a month and a half ago I got the dreaded RROD. The only thing I've noticed I do differently as compared to friends is I never had it sit vertically. It was always sitting flat.

A friend of mine is on his twentieth xbox. All RROD. Of course, he plays it a hell of a lot more than I do, but still... that's getting ridiculous.