N
NV55
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Jasper Is Here: A Look at the New Xbox 360
Date: December 10th, 2008
Author: Anand Lal Shimpi
And I thought the reason people bought consoles was to avoid dealing
with the hardware nitty-gritty.
http://www.anandtech.com/gadgets/showdoc.aspx?i=3472
http://i33.tinypic.com/2rrwajk.jpg
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.
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/gadgets/microsoft/jasper/xboxen.jpg
From top to bottom: Jasper (Arcade so no chrome on the DVD drive),
Xenon, Falcon, Xenon. Can you tell them apart? I'll show you how.
In 2007 the 2nd generation Xbox 360 came out, codenamed Falcon. Falcon
featured a 65nm CPU, 80nm GPU and 80nm eDRAM. Falcon came with HDMI by
default, but Microsoft eventually made a revision without HDMI called
Opus (opus we built a console that fails a lot! sorry, couldn't
resist).
Finally, after much speculation, the 3rd generation Xbox 360 started
popping up in stores right around the holiday buying season and it's
called Jasper. Jasper keeps the same 65nm CPU from Falcon/Opus, but
shrinks the GPU down to 65nm as well. The eDRAM remains at 80nm.
When Xenon came out, we bought one and took it apart. The same for
Falcon, and naturally, the same for Jasper. The stakes are a lot
higher with Jasper however; this may very well be the Xbox 360 to get,
not only is it a lot cooler and cheaper for Microsoft to manufacture,
but it may finally solve the 360's biggest issue to date.
A Cure for the Red Ring of Death?
The infamous Red Ring of Death (RRoD) has plagued Microsoft since the
launch of the Xbox 360. The symptoms are pretty simple: you go to turn
on your console and three of the four lights in a circle on your Xbox
360 turn red. I've personally had it happen to two consoles and every
single one of my friends who has owned a 360 for longer than a year
has had to send it in at least once. By no means is this the largest
sample size, but it's a problem that impacts enough Xbox 360 owners
for it to be a real issue.
While Microsoft has yet to publicly state the root cause of the
problem, we finally have a Microsoft that's willing to admit that its
consoles had an unacceptably high rate of failure in the field. The
Microsoft solution was to extend all Xbox 360 warranties for the RRoD
to 3 years, a solution that managed to help most users but not all.
No one ever got to the bottom of what caused the RRoD. Many suspected
that it was the lead-free solder balls between the CPU and/or GPU and
the motherboard losing contact. The clamps that Microsoft used to
attach the heatsinks to the CPU and GPU put a lot of pressure on the
chips; it's possible that the combination of the lead-free solder, a
lot of heat from the GPU, inadequate cooling and the heatsink clamps
resulted in the RRoD. The CPU and/or GPU would get very hot, the
solder would either begin to melt or otherwise dislodge, resulting in
a bad connection and an irrecoverable failure. That's where the
infamous "towel trick" came into play, wrap your console in a towel so
its internals heat up a lot and potentially reseat the misbehaving
solder balls.
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/gadgets/microsoft/jasper/glue2.jpg
The glue between the GPU and the motherboard started appearing with
the Falcon revision
With the Falcon revision Microsoft seemed to admit to this as being a
problem by putting glue between the CPU/GPU and the motherboard
itself, presumably to keep the chips in place should the solder
weaken. We all suspected that Falcon might reduce the likelihood of
the RRoD because shrinking the CPU down to 65nm and the GPU down to
80nm would reduce power consumption, thermal output and hopefully put
less stress on the solder balls - if that was indeed the problem.
Unfortunately with Falcon Microsoft didn't appear to eliminate RRoD,
although anecdotally it seemed to have gotten better.
How About Some Wild Speculation?
This year NVIDIA fell victim to its own set of GPU failures resulting
in a smaller-scale replacement strategy than what Microsoft had to
implement with the Xbox 360. The NVIDIA GPU problem was well
documented by Charlie over at The Inquirer, but in short the issue
here was the solder bumps between the GPU die and the GPU package
substrate (whereas the problem I just finished explaining is between
the GPU package substrate and the motherboard itself).
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/gadgets/microsoft/jasper/layers.jpg
The anatomy of a GPU, the Falcon Xbox 360 addressed a failure in the
solder balls, but perhaps the problem resides in the bumps between the
die and substrate?
Traditionally GPUs had used high-lead bumps between the GPU die and
the chip package, these bumps can carry a lot of current but are quite
rigid, and rigid materials tend to break in a high stress environment.
Unlike the bumps between the GPU package and a motherboard (or video
card PCB), the solder bumps between a GPU die and the GPU package are
connecting two different materials, each with its own rate of thermal
expansion. The GPU die itself gets hotter much quicker than the GPU
package, which puts additional stress on the bumps themselves. The
type of stress also mattered, while simply maintaining high
temperatures for a period of time provided one sort of stress, power
cycling the GPUs provided a different one entirely - one that
eventually resulted in these bumps, and the GPU as a whole, failing.
The GPU failures ended up being most pronounced in notebooks because
of the usage model. With notebooks the number of times you turn them
on and off in a day is much greater than a desktop, which puts a
unique type of thermal stress on the aforementioned solder bumps,
causing the sorts of failures that plagued NVIDIA GPUs.
In 2005, ATI switched from high-lead bumps (90% lead, 10% tin) to
eutectic bumps (37% lead, 63% tin). These eutectic bumps can't carry
as much current as high-lead bumps, they have a lower melting point
but most importantly, they are not as rigid as high-lead bumps. So in
those high stress situations caused by many power cycles, they don't
crack, and thus you don't get the same GPU failure rates in notebooks
as you do with NVIDIA hardware.
http://www.anandtech.com/Gallery.aspx?id=291
Gallery: AMD Manufacturing Presentation
What does all of this have to do with the Xbox 360 and its RRoD
problems? Although ATI made the switch to eutectic bumps with its GPUs
in 2005, Microsoft was in charge of manufacturing the Xenos GPU and it
was still built with high-lead bumps, just like the failed NVIDIA
GPUs. Granted NVIDIA's GPUs back in 2005 and 2006 didn't have these
problems, but the Microsoft Xenos design was a bit ahead of its time.
It is possible, although difficult to prove given the lack of publicly
available documentation, that a similar problem to what plagued
NVIDIA's GPUs also plagued the Xbox 360's GPU.
If this is indeed true, then it would mean that the RRoD failures
would be caused by the number of power cycles (number of times you
turn the box on and off) and not just heat alone. It's a temperature
and materials problem, one that (if true) would eventually affect all
consoles. It would also mean that in order to solve the problem
Microsoft would have to switch to eutectic bumps, similar to what ATI
did back in 2005, which would require fairly major changes to the GPU
in order to fix. ATI's eutectic designs actually required an
additional metal layer, meaning a new spin of the silicon, something
that would have to be reserved for a fairly major GPU change.
With Falcon, the GPU definitely got smaller - the new die was around
85% the size of the old die. I surmised that the slight reduction in
die size corresponded to either a further optimized GPU design (it's
possible to get more area-efficient at the same process node) or a
half-node shrink to 80nm; the latter seemed most likely. If Falcon
truly only brought a move to 80nm, chances are that Microsoft didn't
have enough time to truly re-work the design to include a move to
eutectic bumps, they would most likely save that for the transition to
65nm.
Which brings us to Jasper today, a noticeably smaller GPU die thanks
to the move to 65nm and a potentially complete fix to the dreaded
RRoD. There are a lot of assumptions being made here and it's just as
likely that none of this is correct, but given that Falcon and its
glue-supported substrates didn't solve RRoD I'm wondering if part of
the problem was actually not correctable without a significant
redesign of the GPU, something I'm guessing had to happen with the
move to 65nm anyways.
It took about a year for RRoD to really hit a critical mass with Xenon
and it's only now been about a year for Falcon, so only time will tell
if Jasper owners suffer the same fate. One thing is for sure, if it's
a GPU design flaw, then Jasper was Microsoft's chance to correct it.
And if it's a heat issue, Jasper should reduce the likelihood as well.
Who knows, after three years of production you may finally be able to
buy an Xbox 360 that won't die on you.
Identifying a Jasper
Unlike the Falcon transition, the move to Jasper isn't very clean cut.
You can't rely on a lot number or manufacturing date to tell you
whether or not you've got a Jasper, there are some hints and only one
sure-fire way to determine if you're holding a box with a Jasper
inside without actually opening the packaging.
The hints are pretty basic: the Xbox 360 Arcade bundles appear to be
the best chance at getting a Jasper right now, although there have
been reports of some Xbox 360 Pro systems featuring Jasper. As of now
there haven't been any confirmed Elites that have the Jasper boards in
them. Remember that Jasper is not only a potential fix for the RRoD,
but is also a cost reduction for Microsoft - the GPU die is smaller
and the power supply is less powerful, which means lower overall costs
- something that makes the most sense in the most price constrained of
the three Xbox 360s available today: the $199 Arcade.
The first thing you'll want to do is look at the sticker on the
outside of the box, this will have the lot number, team and some other
potentially useful information. The lot numbers you're looking for are
0842X or newer, although unlike Falcon-hunting, the lot number won't
guarantee you a Jasper. The lot number refers to the year and week
that the console was built, 08 being the year, 42 being the 42nd week
of the year. The X is there for, well, good luck I guess. The team
isn't as important as it was in the Falcon days either, Xbox 360
Arcade bundles marked lot 0842X from team CSON and FDOU have been both
Jasper or Falcons.
If you can't rely on the lot number and manufacturing team, then what
can you? The sticker on the side of the box holds the first clues,
while you can find the lot number here that's just a quick way of
determining the likelihood of you having found a Jasper (e.g. if your
lot number is really old, like 0830 then it's not a Jasper). There are
two lines that right now appear to be good indications that you may
have found a Jasper, I've highlighted them in the picture below:
If you see this XGX-00019 line below the top barcode, chances are that
you've got a Jasper. And if you see this Xbox 360 Arcade System Value
Bundle 2008 E line (exactly like that, note that this only applies to
Arcade units) then you most likely have a Jasper as well. If you want
full confirmation though you'll need to look at the current rating on
the 12V rail which, believe it or not, you can do without ever opening
the box.
Microsoft cut out a little window in the Xbox 360 packaging to allow
the barcode/serial number to be scanned. Looking through this window
the information you want is most likely obstructed by the cardboard
cutout and it's to the left of the opening. The least destructive way
to get access to this information is to push down on the Xbox 360
itself through the window on the right side, which will hopefully
reveal the information you're looking for. A quicker, easier and
potentially get-you-kicked-out-of-the-store way is to push the
cardboard itself to the left a bit, possibly even tearing it slightly,
to reveal the text you're interested in. The line you're looking for
is this:
12.1A on the 12V rail nets you a Jasper
The important text is the current rating on the 12V line, which is
immediately to the left of the current rating on the 5V rail. The
three options here are 16,5A, 14,2A and 12,1A. All that really matters
is the last digit, if you see a 5 then you've got a Zephyr, if you see
a 2 you've got a Falcon (most likely) or if you see a 1 you've got a
Jasper (take it and run).
Now some Jaspers have been mislabeled as 14,2A, but no Zephyr or
Falcon has been mislabeled as 12,1A. The explanation is simple, this
rating indicates what sort of power supply you'll need to use with the
machine. Zephyr and Falcon boxes can't run with only 12.1A on the 12V
rail, you'd end up with a box that either crashed a lot, rebooted or
had other undesirable behavior (assuming it would even start, assuming
you could even find a power supply that you could plug into it).
There's only one Xbox 360 power supply that can deliver a max of 12.1A
on the 12V rail, that is the 150W power supply that is keyed to only
work on Jaspers. Find a machine with 12,1A written on the back of it
and you've got yourself a Jasper.
Sneaky Microsoft: Still Shipping Zephyrs
In my Jasper hunting I came across a strange beast, I found an Xbox
360 Pro with lot number 0843X. I figured it was new enough that it
could be a Jasper, but looking at the 12V current rating I found that
it was a 16.5A unit. I thought perhaps it was mislabeled and I'd heard
about some newer systems having a 16.5A 12V rating, so I thought I'd
buy it and take a closer look.
Once I got it home I confirmed: the machine was a Zephyr, that's the
original Xbox 360 hardware with HDMI support, meaning a 90nm CPU, 90nm
GPU and 90nm eDRAM - the very configuration most likely to Red Ring.
I'm guessing it's a reworked Xbox 360 that never made it out of the
factory in the first place due to an instant failure; something
Microsoft fixed and sent out at a much later date.
Even if you don't care about getting a Jasper, it may be worth looking
into what it is you are getting to make sure that you're not stuck
with a box that's more likely to fail.
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.
Jasper Dissection
Taking apart a Jasper is no different than taking apart any other Xbox
360 console, despite the internal changes our original guide still
rings true. Remove the HDD, pop off the front faceplate, then the
sides, separate the top and bottom of the clamshell, unscrew the
motherboard and you're off. Doing so obviously voids your warranty,
but given that it's possible to identify your console as a Jasper
without ever opening it, you shouldn't have to do any of this.
Say Hello to Jasper
Obviously I did, because I wanted to look at the new die-shrunk chips
and also to measure die sizes. While I used a ruler to measure the
Xenon and Falcon die sizes last year, I wanted to be a bit more
accurate this year (after much pleading by Mike Andrawes, our resident
Jasper expert) so I used a set of vernier calipers (which is why some
of my die measurements are a bit off from the ones I did last year if
you're comparing).
The new GPU is around 77% of the die area of the old GPU, but the
eDRAM appears to be unchanged at 80nm (chalk up the difference of 4mm
to differences in measuring the die with a ruler vs. calipers).
Compared to the Xenon platform, the GPU is now 66% of the original GPU
die size, meaning the GPU actually shrunk more than the CPU in the
move to 65nm.
Here's a picture that should put things in perspective though, the
chip below is a NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, it's the same IGP that's found
in the new MacBooks. It's a 65nm IGP that's got a GPU and North Bridge
in it, much like the Xenos GPU in the Xbox 360. Now this is an
important comparison because the 9400M is hardly a high end GPU by
today's standards yet look at how it dwarfs the Xenos GPU.
Remember that when it was released, the Xbox 360 had a bit more
graphics power than a Radeon X800 XT; today's high end GPUs are around
4x the speed of that.
Microsoft doesn't want to replace the Xbox 360 with a new console
until 2011 or 2012, meaning high end PCs will probably have more than
six times the graphics horsepower of what's in the Xbox 360. It's
possible that once this performance gap gets wide enough we'll see
more developers take advantage of the raw horsepower available on PCs,
which has traditionally been the case whenever a console got far into
its lifespan.
I'm actually a bit surprised that we haven't seen more focus on
delivering incredible visuals on PC games given the existing
performance gap, but the Xbox 360 as a platform is attractive enough
to keep developers primarily focused there.
Added Bonus: 256MB of NAND Flash Standard on Jasper Arcades
An unexpected bonus is that all Jasper based Xbox 360 Arcade systems
come with 256MB of NAND Flash on board:
All Xbox 360 Arcade bundles will now come with 256MB of Flash, if you
get a non-Jasper you simply get the Flash in the form of a Xbox 360
Memory Unit. The on-board flash is another mild advantage for Jasper
systems, if you don't do any downloading then it's sufficient for save
game storage. While I would've preferred more flash on-board, for a
business losing money it makes sense to try and cut costs wherever
possible.
Power Consumption
The beauty of a console is that the specs never change, so while AMD,
Intel and NVIDIA have to try to add new features or increase clock
speeds with each die shrink, Microsoft gets to sit back and reap the
benefits of cooler running hardware that's cheaper to manufacture. The
move from Xenon to Falcon resulted in a pretty significant reduction
in power consumption; under full load a Falcon Xbox 360 drew less
power than a Xenon unit at idle.
The Falcon to Jasper transition isn't quite as dramatic unfortunately.
I ran five power tests, I looked at power consumption at the NXE
dashboard at idle, power consumption at the main menu of Rockband 2,
Halo 3 and Gears of War 2, and finally if you don't own any of these
games but want a comparison point I looked at power consumption of the
Xbox 360 while running the BioShock demo (at the very start of the
demo when you find yourself in the water surrounded by fire). Power
consumption during actual gameplay doesn't go up much, if at all,
compared to the start screens for these games - the main menu screens
are all rendered in 3D and are apparently just as stressful as the
games themselves, plus they're a very consistent way of measuring
power consumption.
Overall you're looking at a 12% reduction in total system power under
load and under 8% at idle, definitely not the ~50% drop we saw with
the Xenon to Falcon transition, but not insignificant either. Remember
that the smaller your transistors get, the more leakage current
becomes a problem; while your transistors use less power, they also
tend to use more power when they are in a logical off state than they
should. There have also been a number of advancements in architecting
for low power designs over the past couple of years that Microsoft
hasn't taken advantage of as they would require a redesign of the
360's CPU/GPU. Microsoft is in full blown cost savings mode with the
Xbox 360, the only things that will be done to that console before it
dies are things to improve the Xbox division's bottom line.
Final Words
There you have it. Jasper is out and now we play the waiting game to
see if the dreaded RRoD is finally solved with the latest batch of
hardware changes. Even if it's not, if you are buying an Xbox 360
today you might as well opt for the cooler running, newly redesigned
Jasper model rather than the year-old Falcon. Why pay the same amount
for old hardware, it's just not the AnandTech way.
And once again, to those of you with Jaspers: congrats, after 3 years
you may have just bought an Xbox 360 that won't die.
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Jasper Is Here: A Look at the New Xbox 360
Date: December 10th, 2008
Author: Anand Lal Shimpi
And I thought the reason people bought consoles was to avoid dealing
with the hardware nitty-gritty.
http://www.anandtech.com/gadgets/showdoc.aspx?i=3472
http://i33.tinypic.com/2rrwajk.jpg
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.
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/gadgets/microsoft/jasper/xboxen.jpg
From top to bottom: Jasper (Arcade so no chrome on the DVD drive),
Xenon, Falcon, Xenon. Can you tell them apart? I'll show you how.
In 2007 the 2nd generation Xbox 360 came out, codenamed Falcon. Falcon
featured a 65nm CPU, 80nm GPU and 80nm eDRAM. Falcon came with HDMI by
default, but Microsoft eventually made a revision without HDMI called
Opus (opus we built a console that fails a lot! sorry, couldn't
resist).
Finally, after much speculation, the 3rd generation Xbox 360 started
popping up in stores right around the holiday buying season and it's
called Jasper. Jasper keeps the same 65nm CPU from Falcon/Opus, but
shrinks the GPU down to 65nm as well. The eDRAM remains at 80nm.
When Xenon came out, we bought one and took it apart. The same for
Falcon, and naturally, the same for Jasper. The stakes are a lot
higher with Jasper however; this may very well be the Xbox 360 to get,
not only is it a lot cooler and cheaper for Microsoft to manufacture,
but it may finally solve the 360's biggest issue to date.
A Cure for the Red Ring of Death?
The infamous Red Ring of Death (RRoD) has plagued Microsoft since the
launch of the Xbox 360. The symptoms are pretty simple: you go to turn
on your console and three of the four lights in a circle on your Xbox
360 turn red. I've personally had it happen to two consoles and every
single one of my friends who has owned a 360 for longer than a year
has had to send it in at least once. By no means is this the largest
sample size, but it's a problem that impacts enough Xbox 360 owners
for it to be a real issue.
While Microsoft has yet to publicly state the root cause of the
problem, we finally have a Microsoft that's willing to admit that its
consoles had an unacceptably high rate of failure in the field. The
Microsoft solution was to extend all Xbox 360 warranties for the RRoD
to 3 years, a solution that managed to help most users but not all.
No one ever got to the bottom of what caused the RRoD. Many suspected
that it was the lead-free solder balls between the CPU and/or GPU and
the motherboard losing contact. The clamps that Microsoft used to
attach the heatsinks to the CPU and GPU put a lot of pressure on the
chips; it's possible that the combination of the lead-free solder, a
lot of heat from the GPU, inadequate cooling and the heatsink clamps
resulted in the RRoD. The CPU and/or GPU would get very hot, the
solder would either begin to melt or otherwise dislodge, resulting in
a bad connection and an irrecoverable failure. That's where the
infamous "towel trick" came into play, wrap your console in a towel so
its internals heat up a lot and potentially reseat the misbehaving
solder balls.
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/gadgets/microsoft/jasper/glue2.jpg
The glue between the GPU and the motherboard started appearing with
the Falcon revision
With the Falcon revision Microsoft seemed to admit to this as being a
problem by putting glue between the CPU/GPU and the motherboard
itself, presumably to keep the chips in place should the solder
weaken. We all suspected that Falcon might reduce the likelihood of
the RRoD because shrinking the CPU down to 65nm and the GPU down to
80nm would reduce power consumption, thermal output and hopefully put
less stress on the solder balls - if that was indeed the problem.
Unfortunately with Falcon Microsoft didn't appear to eliminate RRoD,
although anecdotally it seemed to have gotten better.
How About Some Wild Speculation?
This year NVIDIA fell victim to its own set of GPU failures resulting
in a smaller-scale replacement strategy than what Microsoft had to
implement with the Xbox 360. The NVIDIA GPU problem was well
documented by Charlie over at The Inquirer, but in short the issue
here was the solder bumps between the GPU die and the GPU package
substrate (whereas the problem I just finished explaining is between
the GPU package substrate and the motherboard itself).
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/gadgets/microsoft/jasper/layers.jpg
The anatomy of a GPU, the Falcon Xbox 360 addressed a failure in the
solder balls, but perhaps the problem resides in the bumps between the
die and substrate?
Traditionally GPUs had used high-lead bumps between the GPU die and
the chip package, these bumps can carry a lot of current but are quite
rigid, and rigid materials tend to break in a high stress environment.
Unlike the bumps between the GPU package and a motherboard (or video
card PCB), the solder bumps between a GPU die and the GPU package are
connecting two different materials, each with its own rate of thermal
expansion. The GPU die itself gets hotter much quicker than the GPU
package, which puts additional stress on the bumps themselves. The
type of stress also mattered, while simply maintaining high
temperatures for a period of time provided one sort of stress, power
cycling the GPUs provided a different one entirely - one that
eventually resulted in these bumps, and the GPU as a whole, failing.
The GPU failures ended up being most pronounced in notebooks because
of the usage model. With notebooks the number of times you turn them
on and off in a day is much greater than a desktop, which puts a
unique type of thermal stress on the aforementioned solder bumps,
causing the sorts of failures that plagued NVIDIA GPUs.
In 2005, ATI switched from high-lead bumps (90% lead, 10% tin) to
eutectic bumps (37% lead, 63% tin). These eutectic bumps can't carry
as much current as high-lead bumps, they have a lower melting point
but most importantly, they are not as rigid as high-lead bumps. So in
those high stress situations caused by many power cycles, they don't
crack, and thus you don't get the same GPU failure rates in notebooks
as you do with NVIDIA hardware.
http://www.anandtech.com/Gallery.aspx?id=291
Gallery: AMD Manufacturing Presentation
What does all of this have to do with the Xbox 360 and its RRoD
problems? Although ATI made the switch to eutectic bumps with its GPUs
in 2005, Microsoft was in charge of manufacturing the Xenos GPU and it
was still built with high-lead bumps, just like the failed NVIDIA
GPUs. Granted NVIDIA's GPUs back in 2005 and 2006 didn't have these
problems, but the Microsoft Xenos design was a bit ahead of its time.
It is possible, although difficult to prove given the lack of publicly
available documentation, that a similar problem to what plagued
NVIDIA's GPUs also plagued the Xbox 360's GPU.
If this is indeed true, then it would mean that the RRoD failures
would be caused by the number of power cycles (number of times you
turn the box on and off) and not just heat alone. It's a temperature
and materials problem, one that (if true) would eventually affect all
consoles. It would also mean that in order to solve the problem
Microsoft would have to switch to eutectic bumps, similar to what ATI
did back in 2005, which would require fairly major changes to the GPU
in order to fix. ATI's eutectic designs actually required an
additional metal layer, meaning a new spin of the silicon, something
that would have to be reserved for a fairly major GPU change.
With Falcon, the GPU definitely got smaller - the new die was around
85% the size of the old die. I surmised that the slight reduction in
die size corresponded to either a further optimized GPU design (it's
possible to get more area-efficient at the same process node) or a
half-node shrink to 80nm; the latter seemed most likely. If Falcon
truly only brought a move to 80nm, chances are that Microsoft didn't
have enough time to truly re-work the design to include a move to
eutectic bumps, they would most likely save that for the transition to
65nm.
Which brings us to Jasper today, a noticeably smaller GPU die thanks
to the move to 65nm and a potentially complete fix to the dreaded
RRoD. There are a lot of assumptions being made here and it's just as
likely that none of this is correct, but given that Falcon and its
glue-supported substrates didn't solve RRoD I'm wondering if part of
the problem was actually not correctable without a significant
redesign of the GPU, something I'm guessing had to happen with the
move to 65nm anyways.
It took about a year for RRoD to really hit a critical mass with Xenon
and it's only now been about a year for Falcon, so only time will tell
if Jasper owners suffer the same fate. One thing is for sure, if it's
a GPU design flaw, then Jasper was Microsoft's chance to correct it.
And if it's a heat issue, Jasper should reduce the likelihood as well.
Who knows, after three years of production you may finally be able to
buy an Xbox 360 that won't die on you.
Identifying a Jasper
Unlike the Falcon transition, the move to Jasper isn't very clean cut.
You can't rely on a lot number or manufacturing date to tell you
whether or not you've got a Jasper, there are some hints and only one
sure-fire way to determine if you're holding a box with a Jasper
inside without actually opening the packaging.
The hints are pretty basic: the Xbox 360 Arcade bundles appear to be
the best chance at getting a Jasper right now, although there have
been reports of some Xbox 360 Pro systems featuring Jasper. As of now
there haven't been any confirmed Elites that have the Jasper boards in
them. Remember that Jasper is not only a potential fix for the RRoD,
but is also a cost reduction for Microsoft - the GPU die is smaller
and the power supply is less powerful, which means lower overall costs
- something that makes the most sense in the most price constrained of
the three Xbox 360s available today: the $199 Arcade.
The first thing you'll want to do is look at the sticker on the
outside of the box, this will have the lot number, team and some other
potentially useful information. The lot numbers you're looking for are
0842X or newer, although unlike Falcon-hunting, the lot number won't
guarantee you a Jasper. The lot number refers to the year and week
that the console was built, 08 being the year, 42 being the 42nd week
of the year. The X is there for, well, good luck I guess. The team
isn't as important as it was in the Falcon days either, Xbox 360
Arcade bundles marked lot 0842X from team CSON and FDOU have been both
Jasper or Falcons.
If you can't rely on the lot number and manufacturing team, then what
can you? The sticker on the side of the box holds the first clues,
while you can find the lot number here that's just a quick way of
determining the likelihood of you having found a Jasper (e.g. if your
lot number is really old, like 0830 then it's not a Jasper). There are
two lines that right now appear to be good indications that you may
have found a Jasper, I've highlighted them in the picture below:
If you see this XGX-00019 line below the top barcode, chances are that
you've got a Jasper. And if you see this Xbox 360 Arcade System Value
Bundle 2008 E line (exactly like that, note that this only applies to
Arcade units) then you most likely have a Jasper as well. If you want
full confirmation though you'll need to look at the current rating on
the 12V rail which, believe it or not, you can do without ever opening
the box.
Microsoft cut out a little window in the Xbox 360 packaging to allow
the barcode/serial number to be scanned. Looking through this window
the information you want is most likely obstructed by the cardboard
cutout and it's to the left of the opening. The least destructive way
to get access to this information is to push down on the Xbox 360
itself through the window on the right side, which will hopefully
reveal the information you're looking for. A quicker, easier and
potentially get-you-kicked-out-of-the-store way is to push the
cardboard itself to the left a bit, possibly even tearing it slightly,
to reveal the text you're interested in. The line you're looking for
is this:
12.1A on the 12V rail nets you a Jasper
The important text is the current rating on the 12V line, which is
immediately to the left of the current rating on the 5V rail. The
three options here are 16,5A, 14,2A and 12,1A. All that really matters
is the last digit, if you see a 5 then you've got a Zephyr, if you see
a 2 you've got a Falcon (most likely) or if you see a 1 you've got a
Jasper (take it and run).
Now some Jaspers have been mislabeled as 14,2A, but no Zephyr or
Falcon has been mislabeled as 12,1A. The explanation is simple, this
rating indicates what sort of power supply you'll need to use with the
machine. Zephyr and Falcon boxes can't run with only 12.1A on the 12V
rail, you'd end up with a box that either crashed a lot, rebooted or
had other undesirable behavior (assuming it would even start, assuming
you could even find a power supply that you could plug into it).
There's only one Xbox 360 power supply that can deliver a max of 12.1A
on the 12V rail, that is the 150W power supply that is keyed to only
work on Jaspers. Find a machine with 12,1A written on the back of it
and you've got yourself a Jasper.
Sneaky Microsoft: Still Shipping Zephyrs
In my Jasper hunting I came across a strange beast, I found an Xbox
360 Pro with lot number 0843X. I figured it was new enough that it
could be a Jasper, but looking at the 12V current rating I found that
it was a 16.5A unit. I thought perhaps it was mislabeled and I'd heard
about some newer systems having a 16.5A 12V rating, so I thought I'd
buy it and take a closer look.
Once I got it home I confirmed: the machine was a Zephyr, that's the
original Xbox 360 hardware with HDMI support, meaning a 90nm CPU, 90nm
GPU and 90nm eDRAM - the very configuration most likely to Red Ring.
I'm guessing it's a reworked Xbox 360 that never made it out of the
factory in the first place due to an instant failure; something
Microsoft fixed and sent out at a much later date.
Even if you don't care about getting a Jasper, it may be worth looking
into what it is you are getting to make sure that you're not stuck
with a box that's more likely to fail.
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.
Jasper Dissection
Taking apart a Jasper is no different than taking apart any other Xbox
360 console, despite the internal changes our original guide still
rings true. Remove the HDD, pop off the front faceplate, then the
sides, separate the top and bottom of the clamshell, unscrew the
motherboard and you're off. Doing so obviously voids your warranty,
but given that it's possible to identify your console as a Jasper
without ever opening it, you shouldn't have to do any of this.
Say Hello to Jasper
Obviously I did, because I wanted to look at the new die-shrunk chips
and also to measure die sizes. While I used a ruler to measure the
Xenon and Falcon die sizes last year, I wanted to be a bit more
accurate this year (after much pleading by Mike Andrawes, our resident
Jasper expert) so I used a set of vernier calipers (which is why some
of my die measurements are a bit off from the ones I did last year if
you're comparing).
The new GPU is around 77% of the die area of the old GPU, but the
eDRAM appears to be unchanged at 80nm (chalk up the difference of 4mm
to differences in measuring the die with a ruler vs. calipers).
Compared to the Xenon platform, the GPU is now 66% of the original GPU
die size, meaning the GPU actually shrunk more than the CPU in the
move to 65nm.
Here's a picture that should put things in perspective though, the
chip below is a NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, it's the same IGP that's found
in the new MacBooks. It's a 65nm IGP that's got a GPU and North Bridge
in it, much like the Xenos GPU in the Xbox 360. Now this is an
important comparison because the 9400M is hardly a high end GPU by
today's standards yet look at how it dwarfs the Xenos GPU.
Remember that when it was released, the Xbox 360 had a bit more
graphics power than a Radeon X800 XT; today's high end GPUs are around
4x the speed of that.
Microsoft doesn't want to replace the Xbox 360 with a new console
until 2011 or 2012, meaning high end PCs will probably have more than
six times the graphics horsepower of what's in the Xbox 360. It's
possible that once this performance gap gets wide enough we'll see
more developers take advantage of the raw horsepower available on PCs,
which has traditionally been the case whenever a console got far into
its lifespan.
I'm actually a bit surprised that we haven't seen more focus on
delivering incredible visuals on PC games given the existing
performance gap, but the Xbox 360 as a platform is attractive enough
to keep developers primarily focused there.
Added Bonus: 256MB of NAND Flash Standard on Jasper Arcades
An unexpected bonus is that all Jasper based Xbox 360 Arcade systems
come with 256MB of NAND Flash on board:
All Xbox 360 Arcade bundles will now come with 256MB of Flash, if you
get a non-Jasper you simply get the Flash in the form of a Xbox 360
Memory Unit. The on-board flash is another mild advantage for Jasper
systems, if you don't do any downloading then it's sufficient for save
game storage. While I would've preferred more flash on-board, for a
business losing money it makes sense to try and cut costs wherever
possible.
Power Consumption
The beauty of a console is that the specs never change, so while AMD,
Intel and NVIDIA have to try to add new features or increase clock
speeds with each die shrink, Microsoft gets to sit back and reap the
benefits of cooler running hardware that's cheaper to manufacture. The
move from Xenon to Falcon resulted in a pretty significant reduction
in power consumption; under full load a Falcon Xbox 360 drew less
power than a Xenon unit at idle.
The Falcon to Jasper transition isn't quite as dramatic unfortunately.
I ran five power tests, I looked at power consumption at the NXE
dashboard at idle, power consumption at the main menu of Rockband 2,
Halo 3 and Gears of War 2, and finally if you don't own any of these
games but want a comparison point I looked at power consumption of the
Xbox 360 while running the BioShock demo (at the very start of the
demo when you find yourself in the water surrounded by fire). Power
consumption during actual gameplay doesn't go up much, if at all,
compared to the start screens for these games - the main menu screens
are all rendered in 3D and are apparently just as stressful as the
games themselves, plus they're a very consistent way of measuring
power consumption.
Overall you're looking at a 12% reduction in total system power under
load and under 8% at idle, definitely not the ~50% drop we saw with
the Xenon to Falcon transition, but not insignificant either. Remember
that the smaller your transistors get, the more leakage current
becomes a problem; while your transistors use less power, they also
tend to use more power when they are in a logical off state than they
should. There have also been a number of advancements in architecting
for low power designs over the past couple of years that Microsoft
hasn't taken advantage of as they would require a redesign of the
360's CPU/GPU. Microsoft is in full blown cost savings mode with the
Xbox 360, the only things that will be done to that console before it
dies are things to improve the Xbox division's bottom line.
Final Words
There you have it. Jasper is out and now we play the waiting game to
see if the dreaded RRoD is finally solved with the latest batch of
hardware changes. Even if it's not, if you are buying an Xbox 360
today you might as well opt for the cooler running, newly redesigned
Jasper model rather than the year-old Falcon. Why pay the same amount
for old hardware, it's just not the AnandTech way.
And once again, to those of you with Jaspers: congrats, after 3 years
you may have just bought an Xbox 360 that won't die.