February 16, 2008Next Xbox 360 Designs are ‘Jasper’, ‘Opus’ and ‘Valhalla’
Posted by The Ori
Currently there are three more Xbox 360 motherboards in the works right now. They are Jasper (heard of that before), Opus and Valhalla.
It’s well known that the next Xbox 360 motherboard is going to be Jasper and it going to have both a 65 nm CPU and a 65 nm GPU. Jasper is going to be a major advancement in reliability since it is going to run much quieter than previous Xbox 360 systems. Jasper’s reliability is in part to the fact that there is no place on the motherboard that is going to be running as hot or as much power as previous Xbox 360 systems, also it might run a lot quieter since it will not need as much power. Jasper is very real and they are testing prototypes right now. Word from Redmond is that progress on Jasper is going well and on schedule and you can expect it fall of 2008.
The Opus project is a “Falcon” generation motherboard designed to fit in a Xenon case. You can expect an 90 nm GPU but a 65 nm CPU. Opus solves a major hardware recycling and a huge inventory problem, since Microsoft currently has millions of used Xenon cases from 3-LODed “dead” systems; and, this lets them use most of the good parts from the millions of dead Xenons but with a newer tested more reliable motherboard. There would still be no HDMI on Opus since the Xenon cases don’t have openings for the port. Opus is basically going to be a third generation Xbox 360, in the case of a first generation system.
Now they are also in the very early stages of designing the fourth generation Xbox 360 called Valhalla. At the heart of a Valhalla Xbox 360 is a combined 65nm CPU and 65nm GPU on a unified (single) super chip. This also would only need one cooling system and be much quieter and hopefully more reliable than previous Xbox systems (if they include hardware JTAG testing reporting into the design). It is really early in the design process but there are engineers at Microsoft working on it as you are reading this.
Microsoft has planned on near annual changes to the Xbox 360 motherboard generation designs. First was the Xenon motherboard from 2005-06, then followed by the Zephyr motherboard 2006-2007, then the Falcon Motherboard 2007 to now. Probably later on this year we will see the Jasper Motherboard 2008-2009. Then then comes Valhalla the year four motherboard in late 2009 or mid 2010.
Wooo 1st comment XD
Sounds Good =]
great so now there going to force us to buy another xbox after we all just got new ones yea thnx microsoft for making me waste money
no, all their doing is redesigning the motherboard for the system, every console has had this happen. go open up a launch xbox or ps2 and then compare it with a model from a few years later, there are many visible changes, and many many changes that your not going to see either.
their not doing anything but putting the cpu and gpu on one chip, this wont increase the output or yeilds of either the components or the system as a whole by any signifant amount (and by signifant i mean if there is any difference it wont be anything that matters to anyone, not even developers). its purpose is easier cooling (potentially) as they only have to have one heatsink instead of 2, thus they could fit a much better heatsink in the same area as opposed to 2 on 2 seperate chips. but this means nothing for the gamer, it really doesent.
Wait wait wait…let me get this straight. They have SO many broken processors from the 3 ROD systems that have been sent in…that they are just going to re-use them and put them in newer, more expensive systems. Am I the only one who thinks this is a grossly awful idea!?
no, all their doing is reusing the cases, disc drives, etc. but putting in brand new motherboards into the old, still working, shell of the system.
I think that sick for M$ TO DO and if they want to make more money they would cheng the coler of the case but that low get the Elit
and of course another idiot that has no clue whats actually going on.
lol- melting motherboards should have been fixed long ago. but its gud that they are fixing the problem FINALLY. (Dont judge me by my name, im being serious)
im sorry but your wrong, it shouldnt have been fixed long ago, its an issue that never should have arisen in the first place. their testing SHOULD have consisted of stressing the system for hours on end the whole time monitoring heat output and how effectivly the cooling solution was. now of course there are certain cases where a specific system will have problems, but for it to be as widespread a problem as it is just proves lazy testing fo the system hardware and and cooling.
Yes, this should not have happened at all. A failure rate above 10% in most assembly lines is unacceptable! That usually means that line should be scrapped (they used to be sold to a 2nd party company). M$ has a whopping 33% overall failure rate, so they should have been called TandyVision360, not Xbox360. If you know how this used to work, RADIO SHACK used to buy up those scrapped lines, and sell them at a discount, which is why RADIO SHACK used to get a bad rap with failures.
This has damaged Microsoft, don’t think it hasn’t. When the next system comes out in 2010, you can bet there will be some scrutiny… It’s just a shame the people had to test their product this time.