Wednesday, August 15th 2007
New HDMI Xbox 360 Premium Still 90nm
Gamers have been hoping for a while now that Microsoft would introduce a 65nm chip into the new HDMI Xbox 360 Premium's, but a recent dissection of one proves it hasn't happened yet. The recently released photographs show the same 90nm Zephyr Xenon CPU and motherboard layout as in the Xbox 360 Elite, instead of the 65nm Falcon so many had been hopefully anticipating. The Falcon is still expected to emerge sometime this fall.Pictures courtesy of NeoGAF
Source:
DailyTech.com
24 Comments on New HDMI Xbox 360 Premium Still 90nm
I'm hoping they fixed that problem with this release though...
Lets ignore history, smaller is better! YAYZ!
:wtf:
Yes its cheaper.
That doesn't always mean its doing better.
Everyone forgets you have to re-cast the die, and redo bits of it because of the shrink. Its not like you can pop open autocad, and go to edit->Process size->65nm. LOL
We have a mature 90nm process, and an infant 65nm process still.
The Cell was designed for the process size its being made for.
Designing a CPU for an advanced process size is one thing, but shrinking and already existing, and working die, is more involved than just hitting the shrink button in photoshop.
It'll be cheaper(once it works), but its likely the early yield numbers from wafers are worse than the 90nm dies.
Not only must they maintain a very high clockspeed, but they have to remain fully functional on all of the cores.
How many 3Ghz 65nm CPU's did AMD toss out? :p
Yes, I agree, this is foolish.
However, I think at this point MS should be looking for any way to reduce the heat output that has been frying 1 in 3 Xbox 360's, even if that includes a 65nm or 45nm chip, that could have other potential problems. Just from a business and consumer PR stand point.... just my opinion :)
Changes things a bit now, doesn't it?
I tried an Elite plugged to a Viewsonic 3751w HDMI with HDMI in from the El. I have an older dvd of a two hour MP3 streamed radio broadcast which has no copyright markings. The first time through all was ok. Later the audio could not be heard but all indicators were on as if the disk was being read but the audio was turned off. I played the disk on a 360 no problem. When I returned the El I asked the techies to test it with my disk. They refused and gave me my money back. The El did not produce any noticable quality increase over the 360. The HDCP issue is not looking good. What are the Displayport schedules? Any testing?
That $10k is a development cost.
the $1b is unavoidable no matter what they do at this point. Shipping 65nm units is going to only add to that bill.
With AMD only begining to introduce 65nm stuff, I doubt they're just having a "happy time" with 65nm production.
They are going to move to 65nm eventually anyway, we already know that, so the $10k is going to happen regardless too, so you might as well get it over with early and stop sending out problem units that are just going to come back to bite you in the ass.