Modders have xbox 360s already(56kers be warned)

[jvd]

http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/sep/EEkVEuupVAhBWJPUsL.php


Quote:
Team Smartxx managed to get their hands on several XeXDKs (Xbox 360 (http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=369053#) Development Kits). They opened the box and removed the heatsink to show you the full motherboard with over 40 High-Res pictures

30megs of pictures (http://www.smartxx.com/news/XBox_360_EXPOSED.zip)

http://dwl.xbox-scene.com/pictures/XeDK-smartxx/smartxx-xbx360-21.JPG
http://dwl.xbox-scene.com/pictures/XeDK-smartxx/smartxx-xbx360-45.JPG
http://dwl.xbox-scene.com/pictures/XeDK-smartxx/smartxx-xbx360-15.JPG

[jvd]

I don't care for the fact that the head phones come out of the bottom of the controller . looks akward

[J_Saint]

I'm just glad the volume/mute controls are still located by the controller for easy adjustment. I was thinking there was some inline controls dangling down with the cord.

[Qroach]

Having the head phone jack at the top of the controller would be a bad idea. putting it at the bottom prevents the cord from touching your hands. It would be more akward the other way around.

[jvd]

Having the head phone jack at the top of the controller would be a bad idea. putting it at the bottom prevents the cord from touching your hands. It would be more akward the other way around.

you think so ? I dunno i'm used to the head phones coming from the top like on my old discman and my ipod .

Mabye your right .

Anyway i figured the pics of the mobo and chips would be interesting to everyone here

[one]

Is this an external AC adapter?

http://dwl.xbox-scene.com/pictures/XeDK-smartxx/smartxx-xbx360-01.JPG

[J_Saint]

Whatever helps get us the next gen XBMC sooner. :grin:

[McHuj]

The real question is: Will they have a mod chip ready for launch?

This is too funny. I cannot believe how bad MS is at controlling leaks. There's not a peep about either Sony or Nintendo.

[m4trix]

The real question is: Will they have a mod chip ready for launch?

This is too funny. I cannot believe how bad MS is at controlling leaks. There's not a peep about either Sony or Nintendo.

Maybe they want it to leak....:)

[Alpha_Spartan]

Is this an external AC adapter?

http://dwl.xbox-scene.com/pictures/XeDK-smartxx/smartxx-xbx360-01.JPG
External power supply like the GCN. Help keeps the console smaller and cooler and it has a built in fail safe for the people afraid that the Xbox 360 might burn down their house.

[BRiT]

This is too funny. I cannot believe how bad MS is at controlling leaks. There's not a peep about either Sony or Nintendo.

:roll:

That's because Sony and Nintendo are still in the vaporware category of being at least 9 months away from launch. Lets see how they leak when they're less than 3 months from widespread product availability.

[Guden Oden]

External power supply like the GCN. Help keeps the console smaller and cooler and it has a built in fail safe for the people afraid that the Xbox 360 might burn down their house.
Except, 360 has an internal power supply, as evidenced by the 3-prong PC-style power connector on the lower back of the (standard production) unit... Also, power supplies - correctly designed - are not a major source of heat.

[Pete]

Is this an external AC adapter?

http://dwl.xbox-scene.com/pictures/XeDK-smartxx/smartxx-xbx360-01.JPG213W, eh? 'S more than I thought, but maybe the dev kits have extra bits.

[scooby_dooby]

nice. check out the samsung drive!

finally a console that will be a reliable long lasting DVD player.

[dskneo]

nice. check out the samsung drive!

finally a console that will be a reliable long lasting DVD player.

mine as 3 months and already makes noises and fails to read sometimes. And yes, it worked perfectly in the first 2 months.

[Alpha_Spartan]

Except, 360 has an internal power supply, as evidenced by the 3-prong PC-style power connector on the lower back of the (standard production) unit... Also, power supplies - correctly designed - are not a major source of heat.
I've never seen a standard PSU that wasn't a major source of heat. Even the external laptop PSU's burn to the touch.

We haven't seen a production Xbox 360 in the wild yet. I'm willing to bet that it has the same PSU hardware as the dev kits.

[Acert93]

:roll:

That's because Sony and Nintendo are still in the vaporware category of being at least 9 months away from launch. Lets see how they leak when they're less than 3 months from widespread product availability.

MS has had a lot of problems with leaks, and not just recently:

- System target specs/plans were leaked
- The 360 name was leaked
- Pictures of the system were leaked before its official announcement
- The price was leaked
- Multiple SKU information was leaked (btw, the original leak was a Non-HDD, HDD, and a PC version...)
- HDD not being standard was leaked
- Etc.

A lot has been leaked from the MS camp. Why? I don't know. But they definately do not have very good control on information.

[london-boy]

I've never seen a standard PSU that wasn't a major source of heat. Even the external laptop PSU's burn to the touch.

We haven't seen a production Xbox 360 in the wild yet. I'm willing to bet that it has the same PSU hardware as the dev kits.

Burn to the touch?? I think if you have an external PSU that gets that hot, you should have it checked cause that's not right. It should be warm, not burning hot.

[max-pain]

800MHz GDDR 3 SDRAM

wow

[Pete]

Though I only had it for a few days, I don't recall the external PSU on a Shuttle Zen going beyond warm into hot territory.

I've met my share of AC adapters that got hot, but I suspect that's more cheap parts than a rule of the design. The Xbox probably has a fairly narrow range of expected power draw, too, which I expect translates into higher efficiency than typical PSUs. Fanless PSUs can be over 90% efficient, AFAIK, and that's with active PFC. Translated to that 213W Xbox PSU, that means as little as 20W waste heat.

[-NakedZ-]

nice. check out the samsung drive!

finally a console that will be a reliable long lasting DVD player.

From what I read, the drive is a joint venture between Samsung and Toshiba. Not sure if that's a good thing or not.

Perhaps the final production 360 would be slightly different than the kits, but it'll be sad for MS if the modders crack it before launch, or if not, soon after.

- Z

[Acert93]

800MHz GDDR 3 SDRAM

wow

Where are you seeing that? That is interesting.

Btw, on the site I see

the aircooled heatsinks of CPU (left) and GPU (right)

Air cooled eh? They note the final retail version of the CPU will be water cooled but this DOES make me scratch my head some. If they are able to hit 500MHz with Xenos air cooled, would it not be possible to hit 550-600+ with a small fan? That is a 10-20% increase in performance. Maybe they are passively cooled because they are the underclocked chips... or maybe they trust devs not to use them in a house that is 95 degrees or to leave them in direct sunlight while in use?

I know there were some complaints about the noise with Xbox1... but me, personally... I would take an extra 20% in performance and a little fan noise than no fan noise and a little less performance. Although I have a quite PSU, Quiet CPU Fan, and Quite GPU Fan on my PC... of course that is because I cannot stand the noise when I am working. Never bothered me when I gamed when I had the loud junk in there.

[Alpha_Spartan]

Burn to the touch?? I think if you have an external PSU that gets that hot, you should have it checked cause that's not right. It should be warm, not burning hot.
It's not warm, it's hot to the touch. It's normal operating temps. The same goes for your run of the mill PC PSU.

[gokickrocks]

800MHz GDDR 3 SDRAM

wow
Where are you seeing that? That is interesting.

2nd pic posted above shows memory part# and if you go to http://www.samsung.com/Products/Semiconductor/GraphicsMemory/ , you will see that its 16x32 gddr3 800mhz

[Acert93]

2nd pic posted above shows memory part# and if you go to http://www.samsung.com/Products/Semiconductor/GraphicsMemory/ , you will see that its 16x32 gddr3 800mhz

It would sure be nice if they bumped the memory and GPU frequencies up. I say stick a snow blower on the puppy and overclock it out of the box. Quick, someone get BFG on the horn and tell them to help MS out :lol:

Xbox 360 Core System
Xbox 360 Premium
Xbox 360 OC (faster memory, OC GPU, larger HDD -- for the hardcore gamer!)

Woot! ;)

[Guden Oden]

They note the final retail version of the CPU will be water cooled
This is complete and utter bunk. It's not going to be water cooled.

If they are able to hit 500MHz with Xenos air cooled, would it not be possible to hit 550-600+ with a small fan?
This makes me scratch my head, because the thing IS already cooled by small fans! There's two fans sitting right at the back of the unit, you can even see one of them in the pictures, the one focusing on the power connector.

Maybe they are passively cooled
It's not passively cooled. Just because there's not a fan strapped straight onto the heatsink doesn't mean it's passively cooled. The sink sits in a channel of forced airflow = active cooling.

I know there were some complaints about the noise with Xbox1... but me, personally... I would take an extra 20% in performance and a little fan noise than no fan noise and a little less performance.
There's absolutely nothing that says you can get a magic 20% performance out of the hardware. That's just something you grabbed out of thin air.

You want 20% higher performance, you're going to pay MORE than 20% higher price. MS lowered GPU performance of the original box by only 6.3% because the faster speed would have been too expensive, and here you're speculating wildly about raising it 20% just by adding a fan... :lol:

Besides, if you've had to listen to a god damn PS2 whirring away for hours upon end while watching movies with quiet dialog scenes, I'm not sure you'd maintain your position that more noise = not so bad. It can be quite distracting, because not all games make a ton of noise, and some may want to use their 360s for listening to music too, and then you simply can't have dustbuster fans in it.

[AlStrong]

2nd pic posted above shows memory part# and if you go to http://www.samsung.com/Products/Semiconductor/GraphicsMemory/ , you will see that its 16x32 gddr3 800mhz


hm....25.6GB/s....

[µCOM-4]

DVD drives from TSST are fine. They've been available for PCs for years and work like any other drive.

[Tap In]

snip... and some may want to use their 360s for listening to music too, and then you simply can't have dustbuster fans in it.


the Xenon CPU cores are designed to sleep during operations (like movies) where they are not necessary. That might help. :)

[DeathKnight]

DVD drives from TSST are fine. They've been available for PCs for years and work like any other drive.
Yep. They're among the higher quality drives out there. I have a couple in my system and they work flawlessly. They're fairly quiet too.

[Acert93]

This is complete and utter bunk. It's not going to be water cooled.

The CPU HeatSink will have a water block of some type, this was confirmed in the "OurColony" video. Something similar to the DreamCast heatsink that also had liquid inside. No one is saying it is going to have a water pump and circulate water to an externally cooled water tank.

MS has not demoed or explained exactly what they are implimenting but they have indicated something more than just a solid block with some water inside. My guess is that it is a heatpipe design of some type. Either way, in their opinion it was significant enough to mention.

Anyhow, it is passively cooled (with the case fans used to remove excess heat from the case).

This makes me scratch my head, because the thing IS already cooled by small fans! There's two fans sitting right at the back of the unit, you can even see one of them in the pictures, the one focusing on the power connector.

It's not passively cooled. Just because there's not a fan strapped straight onto the heatsink doesn't mean it's passively cooled. The sink sits in a channel of forced airflow = active cooling.

1. Having a case fan and having a fan directly attached to a heatsink result in TOTALLY different cooling performance.

2. It is commonly accepted that a video card with a heatsink and no fan is considered "passively cooled" even if the PC case has fans. COMMON SENSE tells you that even in passively cooled systems--especially in a small form factor--that there is a need to remove the excess heat from the case.

If it makes you feel any better (since you obviously want to argue about the technicalities):

"If Xenos can comfortably attain 500MHz and run at acceptible temperatures with a heat sink that has NO fan and has air flow from two small case fans, it would seem plausible that with a moderately fast fan ON THE HEAT SINK would improve the cooling properties of the heatsink enough to possibly attain higher frequencies".

There is serious talk of the R520 being clocked at 650-700MHz on the 90nm process. So the process seems capable.

Anyhow: A heatsink with a fan is going to cool better than a heatsink without a fan.

All my years of computing tells me that sticking a fan directly on the heatsink (even in a system with good air flow) is going to significantly increase the cooling properties of the heatsink. Heat output does not necessarily scale linearly with clockspeed, but a stable 10% overlock (which was the low end of my figures BTW) with a change in cooling method seems possible. I never said for certain, but at least something to ponder.

You want 20% higher performance, you're going to pay MORE than 20% higher price. MS lowered GPU performance of the original box by only 6.3% because the faster speed would have been too expensive, and here you're speculating wildly about raising it 20% just by adding a fan... :lol:

Yets, lets go back over our history.

Xbox1 was going to have a 300MHz processor.

But this got revised all the way down to 250MHz and finally 233MHz when MS realized that 1) they were not going to hit the 150nm process and 2) when yields stunk at the larger process and there was a lot of heat due to the large die size.

The end result: a HUGE Xbox case with loud fans.

Fast forward to today. We have not heard of any yield problems with Xenos (which had working silicone in November of 2004 according to ATI).

Further, it is cool enough to 1) be in the smaller Xbox 360 case and 2) can be effectivelly cooled without a fan directly on the heatsink. The GPU only draws 25W of power according to ATI.

So your analogy to the NV2a 6% in speed is not relevant. Heck, I would argue that the higher clock speeds on the R520 and the fact the GPU does not have a fan indicate that if one were to stick one on the heatstink is a much more persuasive stance. Drawing lines to the Xbox1 is really irrelevant IMO because they are totally different situations (and the end result, loud fans and a large form factor) are obviously not visible with the Xbox 360. This indicates some wiggle room to me.

As for what I said: Of course it is speculation. I never made any claims otherwise.

Besides, if you've had to listen to a god damn PS2 whirring away for hours upon end while watching movies with quiet dialog scenes, I'm not sure you'd maintain your position that more noise = not so bad. It can be quite distracting, because not all games make a ton of noise,

And yet that did not prevent over 90M PS2s from selling did it?

and some may want to use their 360s for listening to music too, and then you simply can't have dustbuster fans in it.

As Tap-In noted MS already noted that when the load is low 2 of the cores poweroff.

[Pete]

That's marketing bunk. Heat pipes may have liquid inside them, but the terminal heatsink is still air-cooled. And I consider a fan to be active, not passive, cooling.

[aaronspink]

1. Having a case fan and having a fan directly attached to a heatsink result in TOTALLY different cooling performance.

Needing a fan on the heatsink is a byproduct of having a chassis with very poor thermal design. All a fan directly attached to the heatsink does is move around air.

2. It is commonly accepted that a video card with a heatsink and no fan is considered "passively cooled" even if the PC case has fans. COMMON SENSE tells you that even in passively cooled systems--especially in a small form factor--that there is a need to remove the excess heat from the case.

This isn't a video card and PC terminology is generally flawed.


"If Xenos can comfortably attain 500MHz and run at acceptible temperatures with a heat sink that has NO fan and has air flow from two small case fans, it would seem plausible that with a moderately fast fan ON THE HEAT SINK would improve the cooling properties of the heatsink enough to possibly attain higher frequencies".

Your description of the design is incorrect. The design involved a ducted fan design and if anything has better thermal properties then your general PC fan and heatsink design. ie, the ducted fan design should have a much lower pressure/flow curve than a non-ducted design.


Anyhow: A heatsink with a fan is going to cool better than a heatsink without a fan.

While one would hope, this is not always the case. In addition, this quote is not applicable to the x360 situation.

All my years of computing tells me that sticking a fan directly on the heatsink (even in a system with good air flow) is going to significantly increase the cooling properties of the heatsink. Heat output does not necessarily scale linearly with clockspeed, but a stable 10% overlock (which was the low end of my figures BTW) with a change in cooling method seems possible. I never said for certain, but at least something to ponder.

your years of computing obviously don't include any years of thermal analysis. Just as an FYI, a wind tunnel effect is the better cooling methodology than the designs generally employed on PCs. The primary reason wind tunnels/ducts aren't employed in PCs is because of the need to design the ducting to the system which is difficult in the PC market do to the fractured nature.


Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.