XBox innards; process refresh?

[Carl B]

I know that Microsoft has had a pretty storied time with NVidia throughout the XBox's life, and disagreements between the two have basically ruled out any cost-cuts or other improvements to that piece of the XBox equation.

I'm curious though how Microsoft's relationship with Intel has been in contrast. Has the price for the CPU been dropped at all during XBox's life? Has the manufacturing process been improved from the original 180nm? Is the chip built on a seperate line or on the same line as other chips? I can't imagine Intel is too pleased abotu MS's move to IBM either.

 

[Megadrive1988]

good question. we have seen all the process shrinks for PS2's main chipset, eventually resulting in the combined EE&GS @ 90nm (some parts are 13 nm from what I recall)

it would be interesting to see how the Intel CPU and Nvidia GPU and MCPX have shrunk over the last 3+, almost 4 years.

 

[Carl B]

good question. we have seen all the process shrinks for PS2's main chipset, eventually resulting in the combined EE&GS @ 90nm (some parts are 13 nm from what I recall)

it would be interesting to see how the Intel CPU and Nvidia GPU and MCPX have shrunk over the last 3+, almost 4 years.

Well, that's just it - I don't think the NVidia parts have shrunk at all; and what I'm asking is if the Intel chip has or has not.

So, you're asking to see HOW they've shrunk, I'm just asking to see IF they've shrunk!

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Well all we need is Xbox 1.0 and 1.6 and some detective work.

 

[jvd]

i think that the xbox chips all of them have been shrunk down including the nvidia gpu. THe problem is nvidia wasn't passing on the savings to ms and instead kept the savings and made more money per chip and the recent lawsuits and court cases resulted in a split of that savings with ms .

 

[AlNom]

so.... anyone at Xbox Scene willing to help out with this?

THe problem is nvidia wasn't passing on the savings to ms and instead kept the savings and made more money per chip and the recent lawsuits and court cases resulted in a split of that savings with ms .

 

[Carl B]

i think that the xbox chips all of them have been shrunk down including the nvidia gpu. THe problem is nvidia wasn't passing on the savings to ms and instead kept the savings and made more money per chip and the recent lawsuits and court cases resulted in a split of that savings with ms .

Well, that is DEFINITELY the case that NVidia has not passed any savings on to MS. I guess they ay have goen ahead with a process shrink for their own prurposes though. While we're here if anyone has information on that, that'd be great.

Still though, it's the Intel CPU I'm most interested in in terms of shrinks.

 

[jvd]

I don't see why nvidia wouldn't have gone through process hrinks , they would save them lots of money in the long run

 

[Carl B]

I don't see why nvidia wouldn't have gone through process hrinks , they would save them lots of money in the long run

Well I don't disagree with that - I just wonder if the chipset was high volume enough until recently to justify the retooling with their fab partners considering they have their usual GPU wars to fight. But I guess you're right though - it probably was justifiable to shrink it down at least once during it's life.

 

[BOOMEXPLODE]

I'd be interested to know how much the whole system costs to produce, and how much MS sells them to distributors for in quantity. It's hard to believe that they're still losing money making the system, that's some pretty poor planning!

 

[Carl B]

I'd be interested to know how much the whole system costs to produce, and how much MS sells them to distributors for in quantity. It's hard to believe that they're still losing money making the system, that's some pretty poor planning!

I think it's even worse than that - I think they may be losing more money then at launch even, especially when you consider the price drops in contrast to the parts of their console that are basically fixed-price.

C'mon, someone here has to know something about Microsoft's deal with Intel.

 

[BrynS]

Apologies for the >18 months thread revival -- just wondering if there's been some further discovery on this question at all?

I picked up a brand new Xbox (manufactured in July 2005) last week for a steal and was wondering whether there were any signficant changes (CPU/GPU die shrinks, more simplified board circuitry/cooling, etc) compared to the version that launched in 2001?

I don't want to hack open the unit to measure die sizes, but should have perhaps picked up a second for this purpose given the price. :smile:

Cheers,

BrynS

 

[sunscar]

AFAICR, nope, it's the same as it ever was in there.

 

[BrynS]

Ok, thanks. Not having spent much time with the original Xbox before, one notices that it's a fair bit bulkier than the Xbox 360, but doesn't quite appear to match one's perception from user descriptions of it being a real brick.

 

[AlNom]

Best info I could find was at a certain Xbox-HQ site.

Other sources just indicated how to identify them.

XBOX VERSION DIFFERENCES
1.0 - CONNEXANT - LPC filled with solder, GPU has fan, Extra USB board behind Controllers, AT PSU
1.1 - CONNEXANT - LPC is clean, No more fans, No extra USB board, AT PSU
1.2 - CONNEXANT - Power Supply Change (ATX), D0 point moved slightly
1.3 - CONNEXANT - Ideally same as 1.2 but slightly moved D0, less memory area on TSOP (256k)
1.4 - FOCUS - 1st focus to be seen
1.5 - FOCUS - GND and 3.3v removed from LPC
1.6A - XCALIBUR - LPC needs rebuilding, No TSOP - Samsung Memory
1.6B - XCALIBUR - LPC needs rebuilding, No TSOP - Hynix Memory, Brown Power/Eject wires (Usually, may still be yellow)

DevKit GREEN - The basic XDK kit, 128MB memory by default
DevKit CLEAR - Same as above but with a SCSII Port for Disc Emulation

The only way to tell the difference with 1.2 & 1.3 is to check the serial numbers.
The only way to tell the difference with 1.4 & 1.5 is to check the GND & 3.3v
(some of the 1.5's were flakey, and M$ actually reverted thier production back to 1.4's, so that's probably what you've got)
The only way to tell the difference with 1.6 & 1.6b is to check the Memory (1.6Bs use Hynix whereas the normal 1.6 uses Samsung), some also refer to Brown Eject & Eject wires, although this is not always the case.

-Check GND by using a multimeter to check for a connection between Pin2 and the Ground Screw
-Check 3.3v by checking Pin9, although the XBOX must be ON to get a voltage

There are some pictures at this particular source with a nice write-up on other hardware changes too: http://www.quepublishing.com/articles/article.asp?p=367210&rl=1

Apparently the video chip got changed too.

 

[Rangers]

Ok, thanks. Not having spent much time with the original Xbox before, one notices that it's a fair bit bulkier than the Xbox 360, but doesn't quite appear to match one's perception from user descriptions of it being a real brick.

The funny thing it's size is comperable to the PS3, yet because of the curved lines the PS3 "seems" smaller, and, cooler.

It's hard to believe microsoft didn't realize what a bad economic deal they were getting into though. Here's a multi-billion dollar corporation an they couldn't think it through a little bit and go hey, at some point we're gonna want to cost reduce this thing! Ridiculous.
________
Avandia Lawsuit Information

 

[INKster]

The funny thing it's size is comperable to the PS3, yet because of the curved lines the PS3 "seems" smaller, and, cooler.

Add to that the Xbox's design for horizontal orientation only.
PS3 was built, like its PS2 predecessor, the Xbox 360 and the Wii, for either horizontal or vertical placement.

 

[Dave Glue]

The funny thing it's size is comperable to the PS3, yet because of the curved lines the PS3 "seems" smaller, and, cooler.

It's hard to believe microsoft didn't realize what a bad economic deal they were getting into though. Here's a multi-billion dollar corporation an they couldn't think it through a little bit and go hey, at some point we're gonna want to cost reduce this thing! Ridiculous.

You really think they didn't know? The Xbox was rushed out to market to meet the emerging threat from Sony, I'm sure MS knew they would lose a bundle. It was purely to get a competitive console out there, establish the Xbox name and developer relations.

 

[swaaye]

As per NVIDIA standards of the time, the little fan on the GPU of my 1.0 Xbox died years ago. I recently modded the thing and found that. Amazing that the box worked fine without it. Its cheap crap bearings had seized solid. For extra fun irony, I attached a little Radeon 9700 fan.