Inside Microsoft's Xbox 360
by Anand Lal Shimpi, Kristopher Kubicki & Tuan Nguyen on November 16, 2005 5:09 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Storage Devices
The Xbox 360 ships with a standard dual layer DVD-ROM drive, our unit had a drive manufactured by Hitachi-LG.
The drive features a standard SATA interface, but like the DVD-ROM drive in the original Xbox, the 360's DVD drive also features a proprietary power connector as you can see from the picture below:
Since we're still dealing with a dual layer DVD drive, disc capacity hasn't grown since the release of the original Xbox, which may serve as a limitation for future games (potentially forcing them to multi-disc releases). Generally speaking, original Xbox titles used less than half of the 9GB DL-DVD capacity, leaving some room for growth for Xbox 360 games.
Microsoft has also reduced the size of the data that is required to be on each disc by a few hundred megabytes, combine that with the fact that larger game data can be compressed further thanks to more powerful hardware and game developers shouldn't run into capacity limitations on Xbox 360 discs anytime soon.
The $399 Xbox 360 system ships with a removable hard drive by default, which can be used by game developers to enable disk caching to reduce subsequent load times, as well as for content to be downloaded onto from Xbox Live. If you wish to play any original Xbox games, you will need to have a hard drive present, as that is where the emulation data is stored since original Xbox games are not directly compatible with the Xbox 360's hardware.
Final Words
And there you have it, four years since the original Xbox launch, Microsoft is back with part 2 (or 360 if you prefer). While many doubted that they would last beyond the first installment, Microsoft has proven its worth and credibility in the console gaming industry.
While we do have tons of long term questions about the architecture and platform of the Xbox 360, only time will answer them. Until then, the Xbox 360 launch is less than a week away so if you're eagerly awaiting one to be delivered, at least now you don't have to worry about taking yours apart - happy gaming!
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DrZoidberg - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link
Aww.. u guys shouldnt say that. Now it doesnt sound that amazing anymore.
24 pipe x800 doesnt sound as good as 48 pipe x1800xt.
Still great work disassembling console. It looks like it takes a while to disassemble it. Would this mean it would be hard to mod xbox360?
jkostans - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link
Well if a 700MHz P3 with 64mb ram and a geforce 4 can run doom 3 then imagine what you can do with mid-range hardware today. There is a lot of processing power in that box, especially for the price. I mean yeah a high-end PC is more powerful, but that's the way it's always been. I'm not a console person, mostly because I like shooters and a mouse/keyboard is completely necessary. Did microsoft change their policy towards keyboards and mice? I would love to lay the smack down on my friends in halo, but gamepads suck! Also whatever happened to the console being able to play with a pc over the internet? Didn't dreamcast have something like that?coldpower27 - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link
Heh, they should say that if the computational power of each pipeline is inferior to the dedicated Pixel/Vertex Pipes used in the R520. They are more versatile in the fact that they can execute both pixel/vertex shaders, but in exchange for that versatility each pipe is made more simple, and there are more of them over conventional GPU's.CZroe - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link
Why didn't they take apart the HDD unit's enclosure? Wouldn't be any less interesting. I'd sure like to know what brand, size and interface it uses. True capacity?DRavisher - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link
Have I understood correctly that the GPU and CPU share a 22.4GB/s 512MiB memory? Isn't that kind of low compared to PC graphics?Pythias - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link
Nope. Its on par with low/midrange. But they be making games with it for years to come. Unlike the current flavor of the month gpu.
Slaimus - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link
The article says the chip has the processing power of a 24-pipeline R420, but only about 1/3 of its memory bandwith. Although you do have to keep in mind the bandwith that does not get wasted on AA thanks to the daughter chip.lexmark - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link
with the tedious security features, i wonder how many people will bother modding with the new $399 version...BigandSlimey - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link
Looking at the internal shots it highlights the huge area taken up by the DVD drive, I wonder if they used laptop DVD drive tech, they could've made the console much smaller.tuteja1986 - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link
yeah... but then we would get a crappy laser that would die !