The XBox 360 Elite was released recently to much fanfare from Microsoft. Other than the newer 120GB hard drive and HDMI video, Microsoft asserts that the XBox 360 Elite is no different then the previous ‘white’ version of the XBox 360.
The kind folks over at llamma.com had the grapes to actually take their new XBox 360 Elite and pull it apart exposing the internal components. In their article they were able to identify a couple small differences between the two, one such change being the CPU having less resistors meaning a change to the voltage regulation to the CPU.
While comparing the boards I thought I’d make note of a difference that the article didn’t cover. At least I thought was interesting enough to at least make note of: The Transition to Solid-State Capacitors
It’s known in the computer industry that solid-state capacitors offer stability over time due to the fact that they don’t rely on electrolytic chemicals to hold the charge. Motherboard manufactures have realized that most hardware failure is caused by bad capacitors that leak or explode after long or high temperature use. Gigabyte for example has released a motherboard that uses all solid-state capacitors.
It seems Microsoft is making the same move, as in the XBox 360 Elite, they have replaced a couple capacitors that were previously electrolytic based with newer solid-state capacitors. They are pictures below:
It’s actually interesting to note that the “K” outline on the electrolytic based capacitors is there so if (or when) the capacitors do reach critical pressure on the inside, they ‘open’ on those seems. This prevents the pressure inside from building up and actually making the capacitor explode, or “pop”.
Did Microsoft identify these caps as a failure point in the original XBox 360 and revised the design? We’re not entirely sure as Microsoft has never released statistics on failure causes for XBox 360 units that have been sent back for repair or replacement.
I do believe though that this is at least a sign that the XBox 360 elite is a newer hardware revision of the XBox 360 (aside from the new HDMI capable video scaler) and anyone in the market for a 360 right now would do themselves well to purchase the new Elite (if you can find one, that is) as it seems to offer better stability, at least from a hardware level.
