Microsoft Quietly Slips Out The 65 nm Xbox 360?

[Kunaak]

Seems theres a hidden advantage to the Special Halo 3 Edition of the Xbox 360.

its got the falcon core that lots of people been waiting for.

regular Xbox 360 and Elites = 90 nm.
Halo 3 Edition of the 360 = 65 nm??

not 100% sure, but alot of the guys over at xbox.com forums seem 100% sure this is the new falcon core.
atleast, its nothing like the normal xbox 360, that can be said for certain.

Among the Things observed with the new halo 3 edition of the 360 - very low noise fan, heatsink seems cool to the touch, and barely producing any heat...

supposedly.

although, alot of this is from the people on the xbox forums grilling the few halo 3 edition owners that were willing to take thier new 360's apart to do these pics.

all credit and such goes to the guys on the xbox forums.
pics and all.

[SafeFire]

Neat, that might actually be a reason to buy halo with an xbox :P

[Metroid]

Well "The secret updated" I think Halo 3 is the reason. They do no want problems bundled with it. lol

[FischOderAal]

seems like Turok was 7 mins faster

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=160559

but finally 65 nm. what is the smaller DIE beneath the 90 nm Core?

[onewingedangel]

Have you just posted pics of a 65nm update of the cpu and a 90nm version of the gpu as a comparison?

The new consoles still have a 90nm gpu I believe so If they were posted to show the new edition thats one thing, but the wording makes it out to be a comparison.

[FischOderAal]

the gpu remained the same afaik

[Turok]

Kunaak, the pic that has "Regular Xbox360 90nm core" written on it is the ATi r500 GPU, and AFAIK the die shrink is just for the 3 core IBM CPU. Just letting you know (No flaming intentions)

[vudoodoodoo]

Too bad it's the GPU that overheats lol.

[NapalmV5]

LOL @ halo3 core

i want DOA core!

[Turok]

Too bad it's the GPU that overheats lol.

Well, the original heatsink was just a thin, rectangular block of aluminum with short fins, but the new GPU heatsink is simmilar, but a bit denser over the GPU and with a copper heatpipe (don't know if the contact base is copper, though), and the reduced CPU heat should help bringing the inner ambient temp. down.

Before


After

[DilTech]

This won't help too much....

I REALLY don't understand what microsoft is doing. The gpu is the problem child of the system, not the CPU. Yet, they shrink the CPU to 65nm and leave the gpu at 90nm, and ontop of that leave the cpu with the nice heatsink and the gpu with the little low-rider dinky thing that could probably barely manage a stock clocked yonah.

In short, I really don't see this stopping dead systems, since the problem isn't the cpu but instead is the gpu.

[mikenam]

This won't help too much....

I REALLY don't understand what microsoft is doing. The gpu is the problem child of the system, not the CPU. Yet, they shrink the CPU to 65nm and leave the gpu at 90nm, and ontop of that leave the cpu with the nice heatsink and the gpu with the little low-rider dinky thing that could probably barely manage a stock clocked yonah.

In short, I really don't see this stopping dead systems, since the problem isn't the cpu but instead is the gpu.

can't remember but, isn't 65nm cheaper to produce?

[DilTech]

Yes, and generally produces less heat and uses less power. Thus, the reason I say I don't understand wtf microsoft is doing by only shrinking the cpu when the gpu IS the problem child.

[onewingedangel]

the gpu's due a shrink as well, but as the gpu is the more complex part its inevitable that the cpu would be producable at acceptable yields first.

[Zytek_Fan]

Maybe they are waiting for ATi to get 55nm in gear?

[xlink]

uhh ins't the core in the first picture the GPU? the smaller die in the first picture is cache. Maybe they integrated cache and GPU this time around? just a thought...

[Kingcarcas]

Yup, that looks like a comparison between the GPU and the CPU ^ Also is it not up to ATI to shrink the GPU??

[strange|ife]

did they increase the frequency at all with this die shrink?

if not that is still cool for xbox owners i guess. hear they have some heat issues

[Piotrsama]

Maybe they are waiting for ATi to get 55nm in gear?

Didn't MS buy the design to ATI? so now they deal directly with TSMC or whoever is fabbing those chips.

[onewingedangel]

Didn't MS buy the design to ATI? so now they deal directly with TSMC or whoever is fabbing those chips.

yep, they learnt from their mistake with nvidia - when production cost go down microsoft will see the savings - wheras nvidia saw increased profits on the original xbox.