Ben Heck tests Xbox 360 Falcon: cooler than 2007 Zephyr model

Microsoft‘s been under a lot of heat because of the Xbox 360 overheating issue (pun intended). To address this, Microsoft came out with Project Falcon, a new Xbox 360 model sporting the 65nm chip, which will offer a significant reduction in heat. Ben Heck, modder extraordinaire, got the new Falcon model Xbox 360 and tested it against the older Zephyr model in a laptop-type environment. He found that the Falcon runs much cooler than the Zephyr. Details in the full article.

Benjamin Heckendorn (Ben Heck) has been at it again. He wanted to see whether the new Falcon-type Xbox 360 still has overheating issues so he tinkered with a brand new Falcon and tested it against a Zephyr Xbox 360 in a laptop-type environment.

The Zephyr he used is a 2007 model of the Xbox 360 Elite. It’s the model that sports HDMI support and a new heatsink. Taking apart the Falcon, he found that, aside from the 65nm CPU, the motherboard also sports a much simpler aluminum heatsink than the Zephyr.

He took out the Falcon’s motherboard and played Gears of War on it while taking a temperature scan. The pictures above show the minimum heat levels Heck was able to record with the GPU and CPU, respectively. But as for peak heat levels, he found that the GPU still shoots up to as high as 140 degrees Fahrenheit, while the CPU is cooler, peaking at 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Zephyr’s CPU can shoot up to 150 degrees, so the Falcon (shooting up to a maximum of 110) is a significant improvement. As for the GPU, Heck believes that it still sports the 90nm chip, so the heat’s still rather high so basically it’s only the CPU that’s generating less heat than the previous model.

Still, as Ben Heck remarks, “it’s a great step forward,” and “once the GPU goes 65nm (hopefully this year) the thing will be so cool it will no longer double as a space heater.”

Via Ben Heck