How to Get a Jasper Xbox 360

I've always had a super-geeky fascination with the redesigns a console goes through over its lifespan. You've got the obvious external makeovers, a la the PSOne and PS2 Slimline, but even when the outside stays the same, the internals typically go through multiple refinements over a period of years. Sometimes you gain or lose some ports on the back, sometimes the new console runs cooler or quieter. The changes don't often affect the end user and are usually just a point of nerdy interest for me.

Keeping up with revisions of the Xbox 360's guts, on the other hand, has taken on a whole new urgency in the face of that thing's piss-poor reliability. Your best--perhaps only--bet for getting a 360 that won't melt if you look at it funny is to educate yourself on the latest version of the hardware. Sadly, the previous Zephyr and Falcon updates haven't done much to stave off the dreaded red ring of death, but this new Jasper model, with its smaller, cooler GPU, offers renewed hope. (Overheating GPUs have been blamed for the lion's share of the system failures so far.)

But how do you know if the Xbox 360 you're buying is a Jasper or not? Anandtech has a quick guide up detailing the telltale signs to look for on the packaging and the unit itself.

Unlike the Falcon transition, the move to Jasper isn't very clean cut. You can't rely on a lot number or manufacturing date to tell you whether or not you've got a Jasper, there are some hints and only one sure-fire way to determine if you're holding a box with a Jasper inside without actually opening the packaging...

If you want full confirmation [of a Jasper unit] you'll need to look at the current rating on the 12V rail which, believe it or not, you can do without ever opening the box.

Check out the full guide for more photos of the box and unit, and a handy table running down all the lot numbers, label markings, and 12-volt ratings you need to know about.

While we're rapping about Jasper, Engadget has posted an exhaustive guide to the internals of the new model, if you're into circuit-board porn. The article is written by none other than Ben Heckendorn, who built all those wild portable Xbox 360 laptop-style units with his own skilled hands. So that dude probably knows what he's talking about here.

I'm still rocking a launch-era 360, which is bound to fail sooner or later, but seeing all this makes me want to run out and locate a Jasper now, if only to finally hook it up on an HDMI connection.

How about you? Are you ready to trust the Jasper to cut down the Xbox 360's abysmal failure rate, or taking a wait-and-see?