XBox 360 to get a Smaller GPU as well?

[Dr.Finger]

From GameDaily (http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=15975) comes word that the 360's CPU may not be the only one going on a diet.
According to a report in DigiTimes (http://www.digitimes.com/bits_chips/a20070430PB208.html), which cites the Chinese paper Commercial Times, Microsoft will manufacture its Xbox 360 with a new 65-nanometer GPU starting this fall. According to the paper, a 65-nm version of the chip has already been sent out for production, which is expected to start in May.

This is the first time we've heard of the 360's GPU getting the 65-nm treatment. It was announced last year that Microsoft would shrink down its 90-nm CPU, but the new 65-nm Xenon chip is not expected until mid-2007. This unfortunately means that Microsoft's newly launched Xbox 360 Elite just missed out on receiving 65-nm chips. GameDaily goes on to note that these new, smaller chips will likely show up in 360 units by the holiday season. Smaller chips cost less to manufacture, use less power and produce less heat.

[Mdot23]

I'd consider buying one of these if they end up being more reliable and quieter.

[51|RandoM]

good!, that is the part that needs the potential benefits of a die shrink in the first place.

Hopefully the 65nm process will be refined enough that the chips actually live up to the less power/less heat billing the masses have been praying for.

[PsychoticVile]

Hmm I was going to buy an elite this week and trade in my premium unit as I have been having a ton of problems with it. Seeing this I want to hold off now but not sure my current 360 will last another 6 to 8 months.

It locks up constantly I get E68 errors at times when booting it up and the CD drive sounds like a jet engine. If it dies before the new chips come out I won't be able to get any trade credit for my current one.

[zyzyx]

Wonder if all this work will be leading toward a redesign of the chassis. It's never gonna be Wii-like but MS might think it will give them something in the Japanese market.

[Pluvious]

All I care about to be honest, is a quieter unit. The current 360 is terribly loud and if a new unit came out that was noticeably more quiet I would replace my current model.

[CaptStu]

All I care about to be honest, is a quieter unit. The current 360 is terribly loud and if a new unit came out that was noticeably more quiet I would replace my current model.

Spoken like a gamer of my own thinking. I'll replace mine instantly if this is the case.

[abso]

Wonder if the lower power consumption and heat will mean getting rid of the power brick as well...

[zyzyx]

The noise is going nowhere til they can come up with something for the DVD-drive.

[KoenigMKII]

Wonder if the lower power consumption and heat will mean getting rid of the power brick as well...

The worst thing they could possibly do is stuff a heat emitting power supply into a 360 case. That would £$%^ it up beyond all recognition.

Far better to keep it outside, make the 360 case much cooler with the new 65nm CPU and GPU. Doing it that way should make the electronics more reliable and allow a lower RPM fan solution i.e. quieter!

The 360 Fan noise cannot be located out of sight, the power brick can be.

[Pluvious]

I agree, building the power brick into the 360 chassis would really be a dumb idea.

[Telefrog]

For my money, it's the DVD drive that sucks butt. All of the 360's I've seen have DVD drives that sound like a jetski. They have to do something about that. How cheap were these drives? No other piece of consumer electronics (including emachines or Dells) have such a noisy optical drive.

[CptTripps]

The 360 Fan noise cannot be located out of sight, the power brick can be.

It's not the fans that make alot of noise to me, it's the DVD drive.

[trip1eX]

The worst thing they could possibly do is stuff a heat emitting power supply into a 360 case. That would £$%^ it up beyond all recognition.

Far better to keep it outside, make the 360 case much cooler with the new 65nm CPU and GPU. Doing it that way should make the electronics more reliable and allow a lower RPM fan solution i.e. quieter!

The 360 Fan noise cannot be located out of sight, the power brick can be.

Yeah after all having an external power supply helped the 360 become quieter than the PS3 which has an internal power supply. :)

It matters how they engineer it not whether they put a power supply inside the case.

I will say I'm likely to buy a 360 if they come out with a quieter, more reliable and cheaper model to go along with my Wii. That is unless DX10 on MS's other platform persuades me to stick with the pc.

[galactic empire]

When I play Gears online, the last thing I hear is the DVD drive. Sure I would like a quieter one during boot up, but I am not going to replace my 360 based on this. What we are all missing is the potential price drop these new chips could mean. Again, I already have a 360, but those who don't may soon will, if it becomes $100 cheaper. If MS releases Halo 3 along with a price drop this fall, how many units do you think they will sell?

[Disgustipated]

Poor Elite owners... They STILL don't have the "best" 360 after this news.

[Philonious]

If MS releases Halo 3 along with a price drop this fall, how many units do you think they will sell?

I'm kind of curious to see how big of an impact Halo has. I have been assuming that the Halo faithful have already converted to the 360. Still had Sony better start gaining some momentum because Halo will hurt them.

[KoenigMKII]

Yeah after all having an external power supply helped the 360 become quieter than the PS3 which has an internal power supply. :)

It matters how they engineer it not whether they put a power supply inside the case.

I will say I'm likely to buy a 360 if they come out with a quieter, more reliable and cheaper model to go along with my Wii. That is unless DX10 on MS's other platform persuades me to stick with the pc.

Really its the slower RPM of the Blu ray drive (thats where those painful slow loads come from) that helps the PS3 stay quieter than the 360.

It also matters that Microsoft's outsourced wonders can't be trusted to design anything as good as the heat sink engineering on the PS3, not for the pricing that MS wants.

Therefore K.I.S.S is a good idea, and far more in keeping with the price sensitivity of the console market - that meens the brick is the lower cost/low risk solution.

If it were an Apple notebook or something, then the price of the beast could allow more elegant case designs. ;)

Vista is experiencing quite unpleasant driver problems, as the Graphics and Sound card makers realise their preparations for Vista were pathetic.

Nvidia keeps trying to hack that same giant bit of cross platform code to cover all possible bases for the nth time. Didn't work this time. That moldy old crap needs to be retired.

Creative sucked at writing drivers well before Vista.

[EyesNoMore]

I can handle the current fan noise of my 360, it's just the stupid whirring of the dvd drive. Sony really showed up MS in that department. The PS3 drive is barely audible.

[Pluvious]

I can handle the current fan noise of my 360, it's just the stupid whirring of the dvd drive. Sony really showed up MS in that department. The PS3 drive is barely audible.

But at a cost of slow load times?.. no thanks.

[Zanzibar]

I'm kind of curious to see how big of an impact Halo has. I have been assuming that the Halo faithful have already converted to the 360. Still had Sony better start gaining some momentum because Halo will hurt them.
I can't remember where I heard this from, maybe from one of the Bungie Weekly Updates a month or two ago, but apparently half the Halo 2 online players are still doing so on their original Xbox systems.

[KingGorilla]

I'd consider buying one of these if they end up being more reliable and quieter.
A big part of the noise is that the fans become unbalanced with dust, and unlike a PC fan, you cannot take it apart to clean them when this happens. One of the major drawbacks of using what are, essentially, PC components accross the board in your consoles. In a year or two all of those whisper quiet PS3 units will suffer the same fates.

[Morratut]

I'll be happy if MS can produce a more quiet and reliable unit with the new smaller 65nm chipset.

I was floored when I turned my PS3 on to hear virtually nothing from it.

Two things MS can improve on...

1) More reliable, cooler, quiter 360 unit.
2) Dedicated servers for multiplay if over a certain player size.

[trip1eX]

Really its the slower RPM of the Blu ray drive (thats where those painful slow loads come from) that helps the PS3 stay quieter than the 360.

Yeah it's more than that though. I know what kind of gpu they have on the 360 and it must take some major cooling. Same with the cpu. And they need to get that air flowing throughout the case. And the case is small.



And btw, BR doesn't mean slower load times. I know folks quote specs that say the 360s' drive is faster. I'm skeptical. I'm sure those specs are peak transfer rates. The thing is the same 9 gb of data found from outer to inner edge on a 360 disc will be more on the outer edge of the BR disc where transfer rates are higher. And so I"m betting BR could easly maintain a high average transfer rate than the 360. Also data can be duplicated throughout a BR disc which can cut down on load times too.

They say Oblivion loads much faster on the PS3 than on the 360. I think longer load times (of the PS3) are just a result of poor optimization most likely related to half-ass 3rd party ports which didn't get alot of love because the PS3's install base is quite low yet.