Hardware Test: Xbox 360 Elite @ Eurogamer

Vikingod

Source: Eurogamer
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The Xbox 360 Elite is the first hardware revision of Microsoft's multi-million-selling console, a chance for the Xbox team to revisit the classic hardware, add additional high-definition functionality and hopefully address some of the reliability and noise issues.

That being the case, we decided to source an NTSC retail model and put it to the test - the only challenges there being finding an unsold unit, and then having customs and excise sitting on it for a month.

Tipstaff

"The only other major change under the bonnet is the new HANA video display chip, replacing the old ANA version in the classic 360. This chip has erroneously been described as the silicon that deals with the 360's inbuilt hardware scaling. In truth, Microsoft has now confirmed to us that it's merely a video output chip - a means of transferring the framebuffer into all of the different signals: composite, s-video, RGB SCART, component, VGA and - the key addition with HANA - HDMI. Scaling itself is actually performed by the Xenos GPU (most likely using a variation of Lanczos resizing) so in that respect the Elite performs identically to the original Xbox 360."

It's about time! At least now we can put that argument to rest.

Erroneus

Hoping they are releasing a new elite version in Q1 2008 with a 65nm CPU and maybe even HD-DVD drive, because I plan on buying a xbox360 around there