Shhh….Quieter Xbox 360 Coming In August May 09, 2008
Read more Consoles , Entertainment , Gadgets , Games , Gizmodo UK , PS3 , Wii , Xbox
As you may well know, the Xbox 360 is not a discreet console. If it was human, it’d be Janet Street Porter going at it hammer and tongs with Gordon Ramsay in the corner of your room. I know, because I have all the consoles side by side and the 360 shouts down the Wii and PS3 every time.
But now, rumours of a new chipset arriving at the end of the summer could make the next wave of Xbox 360s come across all demure and quiet. The 65nm Falcon CPU went some way to dropping the decibels but that larger graphics processing unit (GPU) has kept things too loud.
Now from Asia are reports that Microsoft has sourced the companies it needs to produce a 65nm GPU, codenamed Jasper, for release in August. The result will be cooler and quieter Xbox 360s – a very good thing indeed. There’s also unconfirmed talk that TSMC will also be sourced to build the oft-speculated Valhalla super-chip, which will see both CPU and GPU combined on a single 65nm chip by later next year.
Still, with the PS3 having just overtaken the 360 in Europe, will anyone really care by then? More extreme voices argue that the 360 is on its way – slowly but surely - to the console dustbin.
I think that’s a little harsh, since the games are much better than those for the PS3 so far, but what’s your take?-Martin Lynch
[Joystiq]
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
Contributor | Tamlin Magee
