SmartXX Xbox 360 Dissection

[c64_d0c]

SmartXX, manufacturer of Xbox mod-chips have completely dissected a Xbox 360 Development Kit. They really tore the machine apart even removing the heatsink from the CPU. I am sure some of you are screaming blasphemy but this was in the quest of science and making the perfect mod chip. They released over 40 images in a directory off their website.

Go to site HERE...

:banana:
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BODY SCIENCE

[kd7ota]

yea, ive seen that news for awhile now. It's been on xbox-scene.  Hope they dont get a knock on their door anytime soon.  :-)

[Turambar]

Interesting. If my assumption that this is the fabled "xenon" cpu is correct then it looks like the L2 cache is "on chip" rather than "on die"...

[Nickman]

Ehh ?? more like a soft opening of the box and a easy parts removale.

When the retail 360 hits the store it will be dissected in components. And they will probobly do what was done to the first xbox when that came out. SAW it in half to studie the diffrent layers on the PCB.

Removing the heatsink is childs play. They even hade permisson from MS to upload the pics.

My guess is that the 360 retail unit this time will be more diffrent from this devbox then with the xbox 1 vs. xbox 1 devkit.

[MskoDestny]

Turambar wrote:
Interesting. If my assumption that this is the fabled "xenon" cpu is correct then it looks like the L2 cache is "on chip" rather than "on die"...

I think that's the GPU. The second block of silicon is probably the integrated framebuffer.

Whatever it is, it would appear to have an integrated memory controller (which is one of the reasons I think it's the GPU). It's unclear what the other two chips are for though. One presumably has the role of Southbridge. Given it's proximity to the GPU and the relatively high number of traces between it and the GPU running on the underside of the board, I suspect the chip labeled "Ana" is serving that role.

Of course one has to wonder what that other IC is for. I don't remember any mention of the 360 having a physics processor. Could be a sound DSP I suppose, but it's awfully big for that.