Recently Microsoft announced the release of the sexy 360 slim. Black and shiny (hmmm sounds like the original PS3….), more reliable and quieter than the original WHOOOOOOOOSH version. At this point I’d like to remind everyone that I am platform neutral so let there be no console wars here.
To make the console slimmer (and probably to save money too) Microsoft combined the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) and the Central Processing Unit (CPU) in to one super chip. That’s fine…… if you’ve got enough power and cooling to allow it to run efficiently.
Anyone who has ever built their own computer, especially one for gaming, will be familiar with the pitfalls and trade offs when choosing processors, cooling implements, air flow and optimisation. So for Microsoft to opt for an integrated CPU/GPU seems like a serious case of logic failure. Especially if they’ve done away with the WHOOOOOOSH that makes the Xbox such a pleasure to play using headphones.
But already there is a vid on YouTube apparently showing the new slim Xbox360 overheating. I say ‘apparently’ as there is no real info on the circumstances and although there are definitely lines on the screen, it is not clear that they have actually been caused by the Xbox rather than some other cause such as crappy connections, interference or maybe even some sort of subterfuge to denigrate the new slim Xbox.
If we take the video author at their word (and we have little other choice) then it looks like Microsoft have replaced one design flaw with another.
Peas and loaves.
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Ouch! I’m tempted to give MS the benefit of the doubt.
They’ve reduced the size of the chips, using a 45nm process rather than I think 95nm in the original Xbox 360. There’s one huge fan on top of that instead of two and the system as a whole takes less power than previous iterations!
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