Anandtech 2nd article: A Tour of the 360's Motherboard Options

[XanTium]

Anandtech 2nd article: A Tour of the 360's Motherboard -- Posted by XanTium on November 18 13:30 EST
As a follow-up to their previously article where they disassembled the retail Xbox 360 hardware, Anandtech has posted a more in-depth look at the Xbox 360 motherboard:
[QUOTE]
The original Xbox featured a 4-layer Intel motherboard, but given the incredible power requirements of the CPU and GPU on the Xbox 360's motherboard we would be astonished if the same were true today. Luckily with any console, especially early on in their life, you are getting a true bargain when it comes to the cost of hardware - so the number of layers on this PCB doesn't matter much to the end user, as Microsoft will absorb all costs above and beyond the core system's $299 price tag.
[/QUOTE]

They show all the main chips (CPU, GPU, RAM, 128Mbit Flash, ...) and ports (power, usbs, analog AV cable port, SATA, ..) in detail, check it out on anandtech.com

[HSDEMONZ]

They definitely got some great pictures in there. is it just me.. or are the two memory ports just re-shaped USB's ?

Time will tell.

[twistedsymphony]

good article... lots of great close-up pictures

[Avenger 2.0]

16MB flash... Would that contain the kernel and dashboard? Guess there is no other place where it could be (if they want to update dashboard over xbox live).

[Bizquick]

If this is true about the dash being in the Flash chip only. then this system would be kind of easy to hack depending on some things. Mostly getting a mod chip on this thing I think is going to be the easy part. the hard part will be making the chip work with the rest of the hardware. I bet the CPU does and algrimth test to make sure the flash is good and valid. problely a small check thing. after passing that I would only guess it would then need some sort of check to use the video encoder sense the video encoder is now part of the Graphix chip. this is going to be very intresting. I think I see why M$ said by building the security inside the unit this time. but the part that has be puzzled is why MS would make a statement saying what works for one unit may not work for others. that has be puzzled unless its many diffrent Motherboard Revisions released at one time.

[tyraen]

They definitely got some great pictures in there. is it just me.. or are the two memory ports just re-shaped USB's ?

Time will tell.

Well, I thought I had seen some pics a while back of the memory sticks actually having USB on the end, so it would be possible to plug them into the computer... that sounds kind of out there though, hmm.

Edit: Guess I was wrong--http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-17526-2647-x-x-x

Nick

This post has been edited by tyraen: Nov 18 2005, 11:17 PM

[thax]

Originally we assumed the chip below was a TV encoder, but we've since found out that the TV encoder on ATI's Xenos GPU is identical to what is on the ATI Radeon X1000 series of PC graphics cards - meaning the Xbox 360's TV encoder is located on the Xenos GPU itself and makes use of ATI's Xilleon display engine.

I think that AnandTech is wrong about the encoder being onboard the GPU, I think that the external chip that they show is the encoder.

Generally speaking we are used to the graphics processors being responsible for the display output capabilities, however in the case of the XBOX 360 that is not the case. Xenos itself outputs the frame-buffer digitally to another display device of MS's choosing.
http://www.beyond3d.com/articles/xenos/index.php?p=10

TH: Quality always takes precedent in what we do. We have a great experience in both high definition and in standard definition. It's a very high quality signal, we meet all the specifications that are out there worldwide. Many of the people on the team we had working on the product came from the WebTV space where they spent a lot of time developing TV encoders and they understand that space very well. We also spent a lot of time working with ATI, and ATI is a leader in developing technology for high definition TV sets. You take that group of people, the expertise that they have. A lot of that is our internal technology. You take our people and the ATI people and you put them together, and you develop a very efficient, effective, high-quality TV encoder.
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1817024,00.asp

FiringSquad: Onto the video processor, is it an on-die TV encoder or something like a Rage Theater-type chip? Would that be a third chip?
ATI: It is a third tiny chip and actually MS did that. MS if you recall acquired, about five or six years ago, acquired WebTV. So the people in Mountain View, CA that were a part of that group, and of course, it’s not just those people anymore, but they did that chip, and they’ve done a good job.
http://www.firingsquad.com/features/xbox_3...rview/page6.asp

This post has been edited by thax: Nov 18 2005, 11:20 PM

[Twister22]

#thax

You got a point... nice found

[Avenger 2.0]

If this is true about the dash being in the Flash chip only. then this system would be kind of easy to hack depending on some things. Mostly getting a mod chip on this thing I think is going to be the easy part. the hard part will be making the chip work with the rest of the hardware. I bet the CPU does and algrimth test to make sure the flash is good and valid. problely a small check thing. after passing that I would only guess it would then need some sort of check to use the video encoder sense the video encoder is now part of the Graphix chip. this is going to be very intresting. I think I see why M$ said by building the security inside the unit this time. but the part that has be puzzled is why MS would make a statement saying what works for one unit may not work for others. that has be puzzled unless its many diffrent Motherboard Revisions released at one time.

The bios is probably signed (and verified with the public key inside the cpu), so it won't be possible to upload a modified one like on the Xbox.

[cja100]

The bios is probably signed (and verified with the public key inside the cpu), so it won't be possible to upload a modified one like on the Xbox.

so what are the consequences of this security?

could security inside the cpu make it impossible to modify the x360 the same way the xbox 1 is.

[bucko]

so what are the consequences of this security?

could security inside the cpu make it impossible to modify the x360 the same way the xbox 1 is.

Nothing is impossible, you just have to bypass were the security is. I'm sure bunnie will tap into the hyper transport bus and catch all the security goings on then you simply find another route.

[cja100]

well bunnie says hes not going to try to crack the x360, but i bet he wont be able to resist. on the other hand the scene is a lot bigger than it was when bunnie made history.

i bet the modchip men like the xecuter team are more likely to do it this time as they have the time, money and incentive.

[Avenger 2.0]

so what are the consequences of this security?

could security inside the cpu make it impossible to modify the x360 the same way the xbox 1 is.

The Xbox 1 had a kind of bios checking too, but since the implementation was badly done, it was cracked rapidly. So if they did it right this time, it may be very difficult to hack the Xbox 360.

You can compare it a bit like WEP and WPA...

[deadparrot]

WPA...

WPA was easily cracked. Except on Vista, so far. I don't really think it is comparable to what we are dealing with here. WEP is closer.

[Avenger 2.0]

WPA was easily cracked.  Except on Vista, so far.  I don't really think it is comparable to what we are dealing with here.  WEP is closer.

I actually mean WEP and WPA from Wifi.
In WEP they made implementation mistakes with rc4 encryption, and in WPA they fixed it (and it's still uncrackable).
But that's of course a different story. Was just a small example that came to mind.