Inside a 60 gig Xbox 360

Well of course I couldn’t resist grabbing one of these, and since I need parts anyway for an upcoming contest, why not?

This is about the 10th Xbox 360 I've bought, but I've probably lost count
“60 GIGA PRO-GEAR SPEC” would be a lot catchier.

The big question of course is whether or not this unit has the new 65nm GPU… check out the photos below to see!


The box. They stuck on a sticker, but the box print has 60 on it as well. I would have put an exclamation point after “hard drive!” but that’s just me…

FYI this unit was built on 6-20-08 and is lot # 825.

Wow!
There it is. Now your Xbox can have the same size hard drive as a 4 year old laptop. Personally I don’t see why the Xbox & Ps3 are so hung up on hard drive space, you either have one, or you don’t (ahem Wii) I never even filled up my old 20 gig’er, personally…

So far so normal...
Looks normals so far. Current 65nm CPU & heatsink… same old “super” GPU heatsink. I bet a lot of the cost reduction on the 360 was getting rid of the old heatpipe/copper CPU… copper is pretty costly these days!


A close-up of the DVD drive specs, for those who care.

One less thing to worry about.
Ah, I have found a difference! This is the first Xbox 360 I have seen that does not have the bottom-mounted memory chips. I had heard on the interwebs these have been a heat problem in the past (or moreso that people fixed problems by improving their heat sink to the case) so I’m sure this will help performance as well as aid cost reduction.


And here’s the GPU… and it’s the same. Can’t say I’m surprized… the first Elites didn’t even have the improved GPU heatsink, and the 65nm CPU’s didn’t roll out (or rather because easily obtainable) until about 4 months after they were of supposed to have appeared.


The power supply is the real kicker for new Xbox 360 owners to check. The old model was 203 watt… the new ones with a 65nm CPU are 175 watt (as shown)… and likely any model with a 65nm GPU will be around 140-150 watts.

Well, there it is, the insides of a new Xbox 360 60 gig unit. Take it for what you will.

120 thoughts on “Inside a 60 gig Xbox 360”

  1. damn amygrrl knows neo geo? holy crap. you should give me yer fone# so i can call ye and ye can buy me a drink or 2… maybe 3, that is if yer at least 21 and live in southern cali that is. haha
    i still have my pristine neo geo advanced entertainment system (aka the most bad arse home arcade system of it’s time) and yes it cost as much as a the current overpriced console back when it first launched and each of it’s games cost as much as a new wii. it was the last time i played a console game and ’twas also the last of my hardcore gaming days. no other system since convinced me that to even try and play video games until the birth of the xbox. however, i gave up my hardcore gaming habits and i’m just content to be a casual gamer, in terms of times spent gaming, but my hardcore habits kick in every now and then to still be somewhat competitive. snk’s neo geo was pure badarseness and samurai showdown is the best fighting game of that era. street fighter is crap and it copied a lot from snk’s fighting games. they all did but i don’t wanna list the features. i’ve already typed too much. neo geo and xbox sitting in a tree…… lol

  2. More info on the contest as it becomes available. But basically it’s through another company and you can win a Benheck Xbox 360 laptop.

  3. “Keep an eye out, and spread the word as the Xbox 360 gets better and better!” What a CROCK!!

    Are we supposed to keep buying the same system over and over until microsoft gets it “right”, After knickel and diming us to death with the “wireless adapter” and every damm part they imagined in their wisdom ie…360high def player.. How about properly designing a unit that works and has the accessories necessary for expansion built in. Just imagine if microsoft would have thought in advance all of the features that the ps3 has? built in HD DVD, wireless adapter, hard drive 60gig, HDMI”.

    I honestly feel cheated and it completely pisses me off that they keep updating the 360 design, whilst i am still afraid of playing games on the system due to the stupid RROD that the early systems had?? nevermind having HDMI or a built in wireless adapter. Oh and the 50 bucks per year for online play…

    360 does keep getting better and better….AT OUR COST. So…spread the word- maybe microsoft will get their act together and stop thinking about profit…how about some costumer appriciation. How about giving us all early adapters free online play? or next time around lets see how many people buy your first generation of CRAPSYSTEM….

    Enjoy

  4. Call me a noob if you want, but what does all of this mean? All I care about is whether this new sku will fall victim to the dreaded RRoD because that is all that’s holding be back from purchasing a 360. So, is this new sku free of the hardware problem or not?

  5. cool. are you able to give us an idea of when “as it becomes available” will happen

  6. they just keep making more and more addons of consoles of this generation dont they? what ever happened to you just play games?

    oh yeah the ps2 and xbox came out!

    i know that other consoles before than had non game related add ons as well i.e. PS1 and other systems but the ps2 and xbox were really the ones to get it started!
    because unlike music players very few people had dvd players then.
    (Okay i did but thats beside the point!)
    And a lot of people got the PS2 because of the DVD feature.

    sony are trying to copy their sucsess with the ps3 blue ray but it isnt going as well as its predesser

  7. You say pass on the word as the Xbox 360 gets better……WHEN is it supposed to get better?
    Its made by SATAN aka Micro$oft!
    You know BLUE SCREEN of DEATH Operating System…..and in the other corner RED RING OF DEATH for the Xbox’s.
    IS it me or does this just sound so permanent?
    I’ll stick with the PS3 thanks.

  8. @ Tim : Sony is very successful with the PS3 actually.

    PS3 sold as much as PS2 at the same time, and it sold much faster than the Xbox 360 is you look at weekly sales worldwide from their respective launch… So if anything, that’s MS who still lags behind with Xbox.

  9. Ben, does this mean that you could screw things up if you plug in an old power supply into a new 360 or vice-versa?

    My brother bought an Elite from Canada and moved to Dubai (he visits often so he can get NTSC games)– he had to order a European 360 power supply off of ebay because there was no reliable power converter he could find (he actually fried one, but it was under warranty from Best Buy), and the third party xbox 360 power supplies that are sold around the world are said to melt and could start a fire. Now that they are releasing different power supplies for different consoles, I guess even MS wouldn’t be able to sell extra power supplies in stores even if they wanted to.

  10. RE Microsoft haters, yes the 360 has had its problems, but unlike the rock-solid PS3 it actually has GAMES people want.

    Plus in my and anyone I know’s experience, if you do send it in the tech support is pretty good, I mean, you don’t even have to CALL anybody. Compared to a recent incident I had with UNNAMED CEL PHONE COMPANY it was like rock-star treatment.

    Regardless, since I gut a lot of game systems in what I do, I like to keep people up to date with hardware changes I find. It seems several “360 fixes” involved the solder-side SMT memory chips, and with those gone (the size of the parts-side ones obviously have doubled) we can assume an improvement.

  11. Señor Ben Heck admiro su trabajo a pesar de que soy programmer, pero siempre he considerado que Microsoft se le ha ido la mano con tantas versiones de la consola y depués de varios años hayan podido tener una consola estable en lo que arquitectura tiene que ver. Espero que no sea el mismo fracaso que ha sido en últimos años. Gracias por su atención. Slaudos de la republica de Colombia

  12. I’m so tired of that same old bs argument that the PS3 has no games. People who say that really need to wake up and realize that the 360 has been out a year longer so of course it has more games. And last I checked, at this years E3 MS only showed 2 exclusives and a bunch of multiplatform games while Sony talked about nothing but exclusives for the PS3.

    Games in the 1st 21 months:

    PS3
    MGS4
    Ninja Gaiden Sigma
    Resistance
    MLB 08
    Warhawk
    Tekken 5
    MLB 07
    Uncharted
    Ratchet and Clank
    Heavenly Sword
    Motorstorm
    GT5 Prologue

    360
    Kameo
    Condemned (also on PC)
    PGR3
    CoD2 (also on PC)
    Perfect Dark Zero
    Dead Rising (coming to Wii)
    Saints Row
    Gears
    Viva Pinata
    Crackdown
    Forza 2

    And don’t say what about Halo and Mass Effect because those didn’t come out in the 1st 21 months of the 360. C’mon benheck, I expect a more intelligent argument from you.

  13. Nice update, Ben.

    You haters need to run on back to whatever crappy forums you spawned on, there isn’t any “argument” to be had here for or against any platform. Ben is simply a hacking wizard trying to provide information for those who might find it useful, and there is nothing false about him saying the 360 hdw continues to improve.

  14. From everyone at assemblergames.com Go to Hell Ben! I Parris represent the best site online. I live, eat, breath, assemblergames. I have no bollocks due to my ex wife taking them from me, but that doesn’t stop me from living on those forums.

  15. @RAW You don’t have all of the exclusives for either box… off the top of my head I can think of Amped 3, Blue Dragon, Lair, Chromehounds, Earth Defense Force, ridge racer 6 and 7

  16. @Abdul:

    Effectively, having two different power supply is a problem. If you use the old one on a new 360 it should work because the load is lower, but sometime, switching power supply work better around a specific load.

    On the other side, using the new power supply will more than likely not work with the heavier load of a old 360. Sure enough, in the design, they have some extra reserve power, but the difference is also pretty big.

    Definitively a problem in the future, because like you, I have a friend who also had a blown power supply, went with a very cheap third party (the thing had heatshrink tubing and obviously a new plug added) which also blew up, and now using an official one. So sure enough, people will have to be careful when ordering them in the future.

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  18. What is it about Sony fanboys being so insecure about their purchase that they have to turn everything into another stupid 360 vs PS3 argument? Do you morons actually think any of the rhetorical, half-truth arguments you make will actually convince a 360 owner to dump their machines and run out to buy a PS3 (or vice versa)? Do you think you’ll “win” become some complete stranger on the internet goes out and buys a PS3 too? Grow up!, if you’re more concerned about what console other people own versus what you own then maybe you simply bought the wrong one. Idiots!

  19. lololol now xbox are copying off the ps3 AGAIN now with the 60GB models, anything else you want to copy off microshit xrot

  20. @Abdul,

    The actual plugs of the power supplies should be different and won’t be interchangable.

  21. To all those who say that MS is improving the Xbox 360 at your cost, at least your not an Apple fanboy, I hope! Apple always improves their consumer electronics (ipod, iphone, macbook, etc) at their customers expense, thats why you never buy the first gen Apple anything. So you could be in worse places. I mean, how much is having fun worth to you?

  22. few quick questions on this, as i repair a lot of rrods i dont often see new systems, do you know when they started putting glue on the gpu? i also heard they may have changed the ana chip, ive also noticed a lot of the smaller components (fets and transistors etc) seem to have moved and several gone, i assume its more for cost saving but i suppose some may have changed to accomodate the new lower power requirements

  23. Thank you for that. Can you confirm something for me, please? What shape is the plug that goes into the 360? Is it the same plastic moulded shape as the current consoles use, or is metal like the original? Or is it something new? I will be buying one of these when I go on holiday and bringing it back to the UK so, if possible, I’d like to use my current UK Elite power supply. Would you be able to take a picture of both the back of the console and the PSU lead, please? Thanks

  24. Even though i think the ps3 is a better system because it is more reliable i still love the 360. It is alot more user friendly and has very fresh and creative games. Ive had 2 360’s and they both died on me (second one died two days ago and only had it for a month). The Ps3 is a tank while the 360 is a boy in a bubble. Once you open it it’s bound to die. But i will still be picking up the 60gb later today because it is a great but shitt system. My point being you have to buy both because they both offer great exclusives.

  25. nice job hacking apart the new 60GB 360. having suffered a bunch of RRODs (i’m on my fifth console; thank goodness for that warranty), i’m pretty much resigned to the fact that I will have to buy another console at the end of the three year warranty. I know there’s no way to tell if the underlying hardware problems have indeed been addressed with this build, but given the side-by-side comparison of the guts of the original 360 and this one, it seems to me that at least some re-engineering went into their manufacture.

    Here’s hoping that my 360 lasts beyond Nov 2008, hopefully until the final rev of the console that will includes a BD player!

    Great write-up, Ben.

  26. the REASON why MS and Sony are hung up on getting bigger HDD’s is because (well in the fall for the 360 anyways) you can install games to the HDD’s to lower loading times. DU DUN DUNNNNNNNNNN!!!

  27. The whole “installing games to lower load times” isn’t a major problem with the 360. The reason they have to install them on the PS3 is because of the piss-poor transfer rates and seek times of the blue ray disc drive. I’ve played devil may cry on both systems and its virtually identical even with the “Mighty” PS3 and its 4+ GB installation is just a hair faster than the Xbox’s. At this point its just a pissing contest for PS3 owners to claim superiority over the 20GB drive. MGS4 has by far the worst loading times of any current gen game. Those “intermissions” are no excuse!

  28. Well, it’s nice to know the new reliability changes made to the 60gb unit… but I feel bad for that new unit you took apart. My own 60 gb unit was made 2 days before yours and was lot 824… I hope it never learns what happened to it’s younger brother. 😀

  29. I went scrolling the stores today and found some 60gb models with the manufacturing dates of :

    7-4-2008
    7-11-2008
    7-14-2008

    The elites were :
    3-6-2008
    4-5-2008

    All arcades were :
    5-15-2008

    As far as the 60gb models go, maybe the falcon boards are coming to a close..

  30. hey john u ben reading 8-bit theater……the fanboy shit is annoying but ofcourse if they dont think about this or that they have 2 face the real world…good job on the tear down..u usaly manage to avoid flame wars im wagging my finger at u on that lol

  31. hi im interested in buying an xbox 360, iv got an lcd hd t.v but my freind said that a 20 gig xbox looks the same on a h.d telly and the normal telly. does the xbox 60 gig have better quality on a h.d t.v than the 20 gig xbox.reply back asap . thanks

  32. I just found one at Future Shop, that was manufactured on either September 11, or November 9, and is listed as Lot#0834. I haven’t opened the box yet, as I can’t return it if I do. This seemed to be the newest one I could find…the others were built in July and August.

    Is there any way to figure out if it’s a Jasper vs. Falcon?

    Banshee

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