Rumor: Quieter Xbox 360s Incoming
by Roly Reyes on May 9, 2008
A rumor has surfaced that quieter Xbox 360s are on the way, as IBM and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. have been assigned to manufacture new chips for the system.
Said chips, codenamed Valhalla, which we’ve previously heard rumblings of, are to combine the GPU and CPU together on one board. The result? A quieter, cooler 360 for your enjoyment.
Microsoft has yet to issue any comment, response, or acknowledgments of any fashion, so this remains very much a rumor. If it does come to fruition as sources claim, expect to see them on shelves around August.
Source: X-bit Labs
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on May 10, 2008 9:49 am
Using Falcon Elite here, no noise issues. But it’s good to hear that they’re continuing to improve the system.
on May 10, 2008 2:42 pm
The 360 is the loudest system I have ever owned. You must be delusional or sitting fifty feet away from your 360 because I have owned two falcons and my brother has one and the damn fans are loud as hell.
on May 11, 2008 1:47 am
I sit about… 3-ish feet from it. No issues here.
on May 11, 2008 3:56 am
so your xbox 360 doesn’t have fans?
on May 11, 2008 11:30 am
It does.
on May 11, 2008 11:36 am
did yours comes special with magic or did you add that yourself? lol
on May 11, 2008 2:01 pm
It’s a Falcon Elite.. other than that, I couldn’t say. Not nearly as quiet as the Wii, but it’s nowhere near the jet-engine horror stories I sometimes hear about.
on May 11, 2008 2:56 pm
I have to disagree, they are loud at no point when playing games do I not hear the fans. Jet engine is obviously an exaggeration but that doesn’t excuse the poorly designed cooling system. At the very least microsoft could have invested in quieter fans and even with the 65nm gpu I’m certain these crappy fans will still blow more noise then air.
on May 12, 2008 12:12 am
I don’t think you get to disagree about my system when you’ve never actually HEARD it. It’s not loud. Period. If yours is then.. I don’t know what to tell you. Mine isn’t.
on May 12, 2008 3:29 am
I don’t think you get to disagree with my disagreement, your a liar. All xboxes have the same crappy fans. In the land of david crappy design is heralded as incredible and all are deaf and dumb.
No matter, you may suspend reality and spew bias all you like but deep down beneath the thick veil of ignorance your subconscious detects the feint, no its growing louder, hum of jet turbines and some where your inner girl cries and dies a little more each time you take off flying your privately owned elitist airline.
on May 12, 2008 6:03 am
Mine’s not loud, if yours is then.. taking your anger out on me won’t fix it.
1-800-4-my-xbox
on May 12, 2008 6:43 am
What’s loud and what isn’t loud is subjective…so to a jet a 360 will be very quiet, but compared to a mouse, it would be very loud. So perhaps what David thinks is quiet, is what LC thinks is loud.
on May 12, 2008 7:21 am
Personally I’ve never had a problem with my launch 360. It doesn’t seem that loud and even if it is, it’s soon overshadowed by the surround sound :)
on May 12, 2008 12:47 pm
Gotta say that the two premiums i have owned were very loud, loud enough to have turn up the TV to attempt to drown it out. I have never heard an elite but i had assumed they would be an improvement. Its unfair that they don’t seem good enough, and if you are lucky enough to have a launch sysytem that still works, what if the fans start to crap out? If you mod them, you risk the might of Bills banhammer on live. That don’t seem right to me…
on May 12, 2008 3:19 pm
Its the same exact console with the same exact falcon motherboard and fans. I’m certain the sound of air which is obnoxious, is normal, especially with dual 60mm fans trying to exhaust a system that was strapped with a last minute cooling solution.
I know what defective dvd drives sound like. I know what end of life fans sound like. I know what noise a hard drive makes when it eats itself and from personal 360 experience, I know what a defective power supply eliciting a high pitch wine sounds like too.
Call xbox support? Whats the non speaking indian dude gonna do for me? Re-engineer my console over the phone? Will that void my warranty? Because if so I could mod it my damn self.
Use little fan to cool and they have to spin faster to move enough air to dissipate heat, it doesn’t matter what brand of product it is if you use fans like these they are noisy.
It’s not that big a leap to compare it to jet turbines since its a similar noise with compressed air being jetted through tiny hole and that’s an intrusive noise.
You shouldn’t have to crank your volume whether you have surround sound or just your stereo speakers to drown out your console noise.
Indicating your 360 is the only one free from the noise of air being sucked through tiny holes is ridiculous.
As Ridiculous as this articles headline that suggest microsoft actually cares about the cooling solution that consists of jimmy rigged heat sinks and epoxy being the primary target for improvement, which its not.
The jasper revision is a motherboard redesign and a 65nm gpu shrink to further improve reliability and lower cost. All that means is the 360 will use less power and produce less heat leaving people who can’t or wont blast there 360 aural defect with even more obnoxious soundtracks the hope that as a result the fans will spin slower.
on May 13, 2008 4:14 am
…cry about it, I guess. I don’t know what to tell you. Mine isn’t loud.
on May 13, 2008 4:24 am
Right, you have a special 360 and you don’t know what all this made up stuff about your favorite console being loud is about, whatever.
on May 13, 2008 9:01 am
Like I said, cry about it. Whatever makes you feel better. My 360 isn’t loud.
on May 13, 2008 9:13 am
You two are turning into quite the double act lol…the title image is starting to become even more relevant…
on May 13, 2008 1:45 pm
your 360 is loud, your deluded and you deserve a red ring.
on May 13, 2008 2:38 pm
That jumped up a notch. I wouldn’t wish a red ring on anyone. If you get one LC, I’ll be a believer in karma. If David does, then I’ll be a believer in Voodoo. If both of you do, I’ll just laugh.
on May 13, 2008 2:38 pm
That’s not very nice LC :(
on May 13, 2008 3:29 pm
You don’t have to believe in the power of karma or voodoo, just in microsoft ability.
on May 14, 2008 12:13 am
My Falcon Elite 360 isn’t loud. I asked my sister about her 360, which is a standard first edition (aka: old unreliable) and hers isn’t loud either. I don’t know what’s wrong with your 360 but you might want to call microsoft and see about a repair/replacement.
on May 14, 2008 3:14 am
Well David, I think what LC is working on is the wide reports of the Xbox 360 being loud in comparison to other consoles. What’s important is the “in comparison”. The PS3 contains a liquid cooling system, and one fan - and is most of the time silent. What also helps is that the Blu-ray drive is only 2x, meaning it needn’t spin anywhere near as fast as the Xbox 360’s 12x DVD drive.
Thus, in comparison, the Xbox 360 is generally louder. In fact, most believe it is louder than the PS2, the Wii, the Xbox and many consoles before it.
All LC needed have done to support his case is to provide some sources: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,2066860,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532
http://www.joystiq.com/2006/12/04/shutting-up-your-xbox-360/
And if you were to search the internet you would find many forum topics exclaiming that the Xbox 360 is loud.
So it might not be loud, but it is reported to be louder.
on May 14, 2008 4:19 am
60db is not quiet that’s for damn sure.
on May 14, 2008 5:00 am
That’s just great, but my 360 isn’t loud. And neither is my sisters. You might want to get a hearing exam.
on May 14, 2008 5:46 am
that’s funny, your the one who can’t hear his console taking off.
on May 14, 2008 6:15 am
I’m not saying all 360s aren’t loud.. I’m saying mine isn’t, my sister says hers isn’t (and I’ve heard it so I’d agree). And as a bonus, while talking about the subject on ventrilo with a friend of mine earlier I asked him if he thought his 360 was loud.. nope.
You’ve never heard these 360s, I don’t see how you think you know how they sound.
on May 14, 2008 6:28 am
Also, the guy I asked about this on ventrilo says his PS3 is louder than this 360.
on May 14, 2008 7:06 am
Of course it is, sony sucks… The only people who think the xbox isn’t noisy are either deaf or microsoft tools. Every single xbox is loud, its annoying and the community at large is in agreement.
on May 14, 2008 10:50 am
IT doesn’t matter how many people agree. It doesn’t affect my system, my sisters system or my friends system. Three different systems, three different owners, three different people saying their 360s aren’t loud.
And as far as the ps3 goes, I’m simply passing along what he said. I couldn’t comment on that as I don’t own a PS3. He works for a company that does tech support for playstation so he’d know a hell of a lot more on the subject than you do.
Your opinion of the matter doesn’t effect my console, I’m afraid.
on May 14, 2008 1:11 pm
Wow, I’ve been a reader of this site one day and I already know DavidGX is a troll. Your 360 isn’t loud? Your a liar. Friend with a PS3 louder than an Xbox 360? Your a liar and using anecdotal evidence so people can only call you liar.
You live in world where all the ‘coincidences’ seem to a make you look like a forum warrior. Play the new Conan MMO if you want to be an internet hero.
The 360 is loud. Its whiney. And if it could type it would probably hit the ‘Submit Comment’ a lot more than you too. If that was possible. My PS3 I am sitting 2 feet in front of and its dead silent except for 10 seconds of boot up process.
The only time it will ever get loud is if you are upscaling DVD’s to 1080i/p and then it is only moderately louder than normal. Every Xbox 360 I’ve been around was a noisy devil and one of the reasons, the RRoD being the primary reason, I didn’t buy one. Forces Unleashed and Resident Evil 5 were the only games I cared about for next gen… and the Xbox was cheaper. PS3 won the day because of build quality.
on May 14, 2008 3:19 pm
“The only time it will ever get loud is if you are upscaling DVD’s to 1080i/p and then it is only moderately louder than normal.”
It’s interesting you mention that. The reason is because the PS3 will have to spin at 8x, as opposed to the blu-ray 2x - hence it will be louder. The drive is meant to be the main contention for the loud 360 - a 12x DVD drive is louder than 2x. It is necessarily louder, unless there’s extenssive padding, which isn’t possible.
I don’t think anyone is saying the 360 is loud when it’s on the dashboard. Anyway, I’m out of this convo, since it seems to be one of those never-ending ones.
on May 14, 2008 4:03 pm
the dashboard isn’t loud? are you serious? 48db is ear shattering, come on…lol
on May 15, 2008 12:30 am
What a troll I am, my playstation/nintendo/xbox/pc owning self. Such fanboyism towards.. uh.. everything.
My 360 has a BenQ drive, maybe that accounts for it, maybe it doesn’t. You can keep arguing with me about a system you’ve never heard, I’ve got nothing but time.
My 360 isn’t loud ^_^
on May 15, 2008 1:53 am
I’m not sure why you think the benq drive has anything to do with it, they are only slightly quieter then the others.
All of the 360 drives are loud. All the fans are loud, including the benq drive (which I also have), you can hear the damn thing spin. Every cd/dvd rom drive that spins that fast is audible and tiny 60mm fans are loud, your 360 isn’t special. You are.
This article also ignores that fact, even if the fans spin slower, it does nothing to alleviate the drive noise and what does upgrading the gpu to a 65nm process gonna do to make the drives quieter?
* Near total silence - 0 dB
* A whisper - 15 dB
* Normal conversation - 60 dB
* A lawnmower - 90 dB
* A car horn - 110 dB
* A rock concert or a jet engine - 120 dB
* A gunshot or firecracker - 140 dB
If the 360 produces 60db (according to the article patrick linked) and you can’t hear it then your deaf and should get your ears checked.
Anything over 85db can cause hearing loss, so how much louder does the 360 need to be to be considered loud? Since your already hearing impaired, its irrelevant.
on May 15, 2008 3:14 am
Whether the BenQ drive has anything to do with it or not, I don’t know. But mine’s not loud.