The new Falcon chipset has been spotted in a new Halo 3 Special Edition 360.
The Xbox 360 has had a troubled history and for a long time it has seemed like Microsoft has been on the defensive as they try to please customers and improve the 360 hardware.
Microsoft has coped quite admirably with the continued hardware failings of the Xbox 360,
issuing out a new heatsink,
extending the warranty and
adding HDMI. However, reliability is still seen by many as a weakness for the console.
Well, the new update should fix that. Falcon has landed.
The new 65nm CPU, codenamed Falcon, has been spotted on a new version of the
Halo 3 SKU. Microsoft has always refused to tell anyone what the cause of overheating in the Xbox 360 is, but it's commonly thought to be the fault of the CPU and this new update is inteded to address that.
A new owner of the
Halo 3 SKU, known only as 'JWSpeed',
dissected his console recently and found not only a new CPU, with a 'CANADA' label on it and a new simplified heatsink. The new heatsink design has no heatpipe, indicating that the cooling requirements of the new chip are less than the old version.
For reference, the console examined to have the new hardware was built on August 24, 2007 from team “FDOU” and lot number 734.
The Xbox forums are currently hosting a
guide detailing how to find out what hardware is in your 360, so with that in mind why not let us know just what you're Xbox is packing? Drop your specs in
the forums.
18 Comments
Discuss in the forums Replybut maybe they should have left in the "better" hsf just to be sure.
agree, these components can never be cool enough
EDIT: Bah I see a heatpipe, oh well.
I was thinking the exact same thing aswell.
So, if the CPU is smaller, that means it uses less power, does that mean the Power Adapter is smaller, or am i getting my hopes up?
Sam
that would be a problem.... imagine an old 360 user plugging his 360 with a new power adapter.... i think it would not last long.
as for the news.... hurra for MS for finally getting the message... i am waiting for someone to review it in terms of overheating problems.
Nope, the PSU is still the same size. The only difference is it's not grounded for some reason anymore, and there isn't any locking buttons on the connector.
I <3 my new Halo 3 360. =)
My bit of experience with water cooling seemed to back it up - While the cpu experienced perhaps a 20-30% drop in temperature the overall change wasn't that drastic and there is still a somewhat noticeable change between idle and load temps, while for the GPU the temperate dropped by something like 60% and the previous variance between idle and load temps almost dissapeared - which seems to suggest that the water setup was far more than sufficient to keep the GPU temp down as low as the water temperature runs, but the CPU is putting out a lot more heat and thus requiring quite a bit more work to cool down.
I can't be entirely sure if this all holds true for the 360, but from what I have seen it has poor overall ventilation .. so reducing the heat coming out of the CPU would probably help keep the overall internal temp down quite a bit, which would in turn help the GPU.
Ahem, stopping my rambling now :)
Small HSF, high heat generation = failure
Also, as the new HS was attached to the GPU ....
My point, such as it was, was that improving the cooling in a similar fashion for both cpu and gpu pretty much completely removed the heat build-up on the GPU, with idle and load temps barely moving whilst the cpu was still capable of pushing its temps up, the figures aren't too important, though if you must know ..
From memory the cpu went from something like 45 idle, 55 load to 35 idle, 40 load and the gpu went from something like 40 idle, 85 load to something like 35 at both idle and load ;) (I went on to overclock both, the gpu temp still barely changed and the CPU temp went up another 6 degrees or so under load)
My theory on why they have fairly equally large coolers on PC's has to do with the cpu being in the middle of case airflow and needing all the airflow over its heat sink it can get just to remove heat from it, whilst GPU's tend to be off down in there own pocket of poor airflow, so need a decent sized fan more to get some air moving past than to actually remove heat from the card.
I believe I've read that the 360 does have a GPU heat sink, though not a particularly large one.
Though you could fill the entire case with the heatsink and it wouldn't help at all if the heat being moved to the air is greater than the heat moving out of the case - We know the 360 has a single small, undervolted (for quietness sake apparently) exhaust fan which probably doesn't help. Thus, even regardless of how much heat the cpu/gpu put out individually, reducing the total case heat build up should help both.
if it's output voltage is the same, it will.
I am most interested if power consumption is lowered from the 90nm, man-killing, house-burning, environmentally-disastrous 16.5 Amperes...
I have to say, my old Nyko cooler made a massive difference to the amount of heat shifted out of my 360, unfortunately they started "grinding" (like all fans do eventually) after only a few weeks so I chucked it out. I could tolerate the high noise of the fans, but a vibrating fan just annoys the hell out of me. I might have to buy one of the new, improved black ones for my elite, and if it starts getting annoying again, I can try and swap out the fans for some decent ones.