New 360 chipset on the way?

With Microsoft’s new Falcon motherboard already making its way inside some new Xbox 360 consoles, The Mercury News’ Dean Takahashi has

claimed

that the platform holder is already planning the fourth revision to the Xbox 360’s architecture.

The newest current version, the Falcon chipset, boasts a 65nm CPU which pumps out less heat that the launch model’s 90-nm version – and excessive heat has been cited by some sources as the cause for the 360’s reliability problems. The previous chipset build, the Zephyr, included a larger heat sink than the first models.

Currently, the only Xbox 360 models that are guaranteed to arrive with the Falcon motherboard are the Limited Edition Halo 3 consoles.

However, Jasper will also allegedly sport 65-nm graphics chips and memory, significantly reducing the manufacturing costs of the device and possibly a further price cut.

I’m sure that Jasper will carry lower costs than Falcon,” Takahashi claims. That’s because it will have a smaller graphics chip and smaller memory chips as well. That translates into material savings, which means lower costs.

Certainly, Microsoft will be in a position to cut prices again by next August. If you recall, after it got Falcon out the door, Microsoft cut $50 off the price of the Xbox 360.”