New Xbox 360 S Uses Less Power, Makes Less Noise

Vigile writes "Microsoft unveiled a new Xbox 360 S console at E3 this month, and without delay the new machine has been dissected and tested. The most dramatic change is the move to a single-chip CPU/GPU hybrid processor that is apparently being built on the 45nm process technology from GlobalFoundries, AMD's spun-off production facilities. With the inclusion of the new processor, the Xbox 360 S uses much less power (about 30-40%) compared to previous generation machines, and also turns out to be much quieter as a result of a single, larger fan. This article has photographic evidence of the teardown, with comparisons between this Valhalla platform and the older Falcon system, along with videos of the reconstruction process and noise comparisons." The new console also takes measures to protect itself from overheating, so RRoDs shouldn't be a problem with this revision.

Comments

Re:Scratches disc and improved dpads

[Sockatume]

It scratches DVDs if you move the console while it's operating, which we all learned not to do at the start of this console generation.

To teach people how to code for Cell

[tepples]

If by strategy you mean "trying to get tax discounts in the EU and failing," then yes.

You're confusing Other OS on the PS3 with Basic on the PS2. As I understand it, Other OS was there to get developers familiar with the Cell architecture, which Sony planned to use in all sorts of consumer electronics devices. Cell's seven integrated DSPs were supposed to be the future of signal processing until someone figured out how to "abuse" the GPU to act as a generic DSP. This led to CUDA and eventually OpenCL, the decline of Cell, and no more need for Other OS.