Gamertell

Last weekend I became another statistic of the ever-growing epidemic that has been plaguing Xbox 360 owners for some time: My Xbox 360 finally red ringed.

Maybe I didn’t knock on wood enough times during my many conversations about the hardware failure or maybe the introduction of the New Xbox Experience (by which I mean Netflix) was too much of a demand on my old really-close to launch system. Whatever caused it doesn’t matter now as I dread the inevitable customer service call I have to make to get my console replaced. We’ve all heard the horror stories of impossible to deal with customer service reps and of course that infamous tale of one owner’s multiple rounds with Xbox 360s.

I will be sure to update you readers if anything like that happens to me.

With Christmas right around the corner, there was no way I was going to be 360-less on the holiday all about throwing big piles of money on material possessions that make you happy and games just happen to be one of the things that makes me happy.

So I ventured out two days before Christmas trying to find a Nintendo Wii err, I mean, an Xbox 360.

It should be noted that I was after no ordinary Xbox 360. No I was after one of the fabled red-ring immune Jasper-chipped Xbox 360s.

The newest iteration on the Xbox 360 has a 65-nanometer graphics chip that supposedly uses less power thus theoretically slowing down, if not hopefully all-together ridding, the Red Ring of Death epidemic.

The time was around 8:00 a.m. and my girlfriend and I, armed with two trusty cups of caffeine pumping coffee, set out to our local GameStop for stop number one. We were disappointed to find out that the store sold out of their stock of Xbox 360 Arcade bundles (as of right now, the only known source of the Jaspers). So onward we went to our next destination, across the street to the local WalMart.

We were in luck. The store just unloaded a shipment with only two Xbox 360 Arcade bundles, both without memory cards, one of the clues your purchase may be a Jasper.

Since I couldn’t tear open the box in the store to check out the system, I paid for it and made haste back to our car where I proceeded to literally rip open the box (seriously, what is up with that packaging?).

I pressed the plastic wrap down onto the Xbox 360 to reveal its specs:

• Manufacturing date: 2008-11-01
• Voltage: 12v – 12.1A

12.1 amps of voltage equals Jasper!

Now, the manufacturing date and serial number will not exactly point to a Jasper-equipped console, the best thing people have found to go on is the voltage. The previous generation of 360s use a Falcon chip that runs at 14.2 amps and the one I was running outputted a shocking 16.5 amps.

After arriving back home, I proceeded to un-box everything. I wasn’t expecting too much of a difference in the hardware (outside of chips of course), but actually there are a few things of note.

For starters, this could just be me, but the Jasper-console felt a bit lighter than my previous one. While this could be a trick of my own perception, I believe I felt a noticeable difference in the weight between the two, unfortunately though, I don’t own a scale to test my theory.

Second and this is the major difference, the power brick has been lightened tremendously. Now this one isn’t a trick of perception, there really is an actually difference in weight here. While the pre-Jasper power brick had the proper heft for a paper weight, the Jasper-equipped power brick hardly weighs anything at all.

The Jasper-power brick also has gone from three connectors to just two. The brick also outputs only 150 watts compared to the Falcon’s 175 watts and the launch’s 203 watts. In other words, by using a Jasper-equipped console, I’m saving 53 watts or more on my energy bill, which is nothing to sneeze at (especially in these times).

The final important thing of note is the 256 megabytes of onboard flash memory which has been named “MU” (I’m guessing “Memory Unit”). This is upgrade from the 16MBs of memory previous Xbox 360s had. This move has actually caused sort of a debate in the gaming community. On one hand, you have more memory onboard that allows all Xbox 360 owners to use the NXE. On the other hand, you will not be getting the full 256MB of memory once NXE is installed (you really get about 214MB) and you lose a portable means of game data.

Whatever side of the argument you may be on, the fact is certain games keep prompting me to pick a device when saving and it grows a tad annoying after awhile. Other than that, there really isn’t notable about the system’s performance. It shuts down a tad bit faster but that’s all.

For those of you who are wanting to see the guts of this thing, sorry, but this is going to become my main console and I am not gutting this one quite yet. However, Xbox-modder extraordinaire, Ben Heck, did a nasty little autopsy over at Engadget you should check out though.

With that, we are at the close of this look at Microsoft’s “silent” attempt to cure the red ring system illness. Remember kids, if you are searching for a Jasper-equipped system, look at the voltage.

If it reads 12.1A, you my friend, have discovered the fabled Jasper.

Read [Engadget] Also [Gamertell]