New 360 motherboard now shipping

Microsoft never officially comments on its ongoing internal redesigns for its Xbox 360 hardware, but online tech-heads are claiming that the latest revision to the console’s innards has arrived on the High Street.

Talk first emerged of the new motherboard’s arrival began earlier in the month, but in recent days the number of reports has increased, along with the posting of photos of the disassembled machine’s innards.

Going under the codename Jasper, the redesigned units see 65nm CPUs and GPUs introduced, resulting in lower operating temperatures and power consumption from the machine – as is demonstrated by the new 150w power brick.

First generation Xbox 360s contained 90nm CPUs and GPUs, and also used 203w power bricks.

Talk has also emerged today claiming that the new units contain 256MB of on-board memory, potentially doing away with the need for an included memory card in the introductory-end Arcade model.