Jasper Is Here: A Look at the New Xbox 360
by Anand Lal Shimpi on December 10, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
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Confirming Your Jasper
If you can physically open the box, there's another way of confirming that you have a Jasper without even opening the plastic bag that the console comes in: look at the power connector on the Xbox 360 itself. Each Xbox 360 generation has a power connector that's keyed differently so you can't use a lower powered power supply on a console that requires more power. Now all Xbox 360 power supplies will work on newer consoles, but you can't use newer power supplies on older consoles. Make sense? Let me explain:
The first Xbox 360 (Xenon) needs a 203W power supply. Falcon needs a 175W power supply but can also work with the 203W unit (it just doesn't need to draw that much power so the 203W unit is overkill, but it'll work). Jasper needs 150W but can work with a 203W and a 175W. In other words, the Xbox 360 power supplies are forwards but not backwards compatible.
If you get a Jasper it's not guaranteed that you'll get a 150W power supply, Microsoft still has a lot of Falcons and Falcon-parts in its distribution system so some Jaspers have been sighted with 175W power supplies. If you end up with a 175W unit it's not a big deal, it's going to be slightly less efficient than the 150W unit and your system may end up drawing an extra few watts but it's not a big deal at all - you'll still be far cooler/more power efficient than a Falcon (and possibly be red-ring-free).
To prevent an under powered power supply from being used in the wrong Xbox, Microsoft keyed each of the three Xbox 360 generations differently. The chart below explains it all:
If you see one flat bar on top and a square peg in the middle of the power connector on the console itself you've got a 1st generation Xenon or Zephyr board, these machines use 90nm CPUs and GPUs. If you've just got a flat bar on top with no square peg in the middle, you've got a 2nd generation Opus or Falcon board, these things use 65nm CPUs and 80nm GPUs. Finally if you've got a flat bar split in two on top with no square peg you've got a Jasper, that's a board with a 65nm CPU and a 65nm GPU.
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Dinsdale1 - Thursday, December 11, 2008 - link
When sending a Elite on to repair for RROD, do they put in a Japer board? I mean why put in an old board that will cause a new RROD in a year? Anybody?Frallan - Thursday, December 11, 2008 - link
Is it as loud as it was before? That is what has kept me from buying 1 so far.
/F
Roy2001 - Wednesday, December 10, 2008 - link
Anand, could you put some noise benchmarks? I have 2 original xbox's and they are very noisy. I am thinking to get a 360, but I really hate the noise...Thanks,
Roy
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, December 11, 2008 - link
Unfortunately the loudest thing in the 360 is still the DVD drive, I didn't notice a audible difference between the Falcon and the Jasper.-A
gohepcat - Wednesday, December 10, 2008 - link
Ohh god yes. Please give some noise comparisonsSuckRaven - Wednesday, December 10, 2008 - link
"First let's get the codenames right. The first Xbox 360 was released in 2005 and used a motherboard codenamed Xenon. The Xenon platform featured a 90nm Xenon CPU (clever naming there), a 90nm Xenos GPU and a 90nm eDRAM. Microsoft added HDMI support to Xenon and called it Zephyr, the big three chips were still all 90nm designs."Just thought I'd make the observation that Intel's server and workstation CPUs are called Xeon, not Xenon.
Xenon is the noble gas used in car headlights.
Anyways...
James5mith - Thursday, December 11, 2008 - link
"Just thought I'd make the observation that Intel's server and workstation CPUs are called Xeon, not Xenon.Xenon is the noble gas used in car headlights.
Anyways... "
You do know that the tri-core CPU within the Xbox360 isn't made by Intel, right?
It's a PowerPC chip, codenamed Xenon. Thus his comment about Xenon being a clever naming scheme for the entire original platform. (Just name it after the CPU's codename.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360
js01 - Wednesday, December 10, 2008 - link
It's kind of pathetic the amount of money some of us spend on our pc just to play console ports that run worse then 4 year old hardware.bill3 - Thursday, December 11, 2008 - link
See my post on page 1.It isnt an X800, thats an inaccuracy by Anand. It's more of a X1800/1900 class card, just as PS3 uses a 500 mhz 7800/7900GTX.
I think your point is pretty valid though. PC's today just mostly get console ports that dont take advantage of the superior PC hardware. The only game in the last few years built to take advatage of PC really is Crysis.
coldpower27 - Thursday, December 11, 2008 - link
I would say Fallout 3 was one of them that got a good PC version.