Shopping for Elite...

spd9075 · 23-09-2007, 09:54 PM

Ok, well, I'm getting ready to upgrade to an elite probably the first week of October. I know there has been talk about the new chipset and all...with lot numbers and such. I havn't seen a recent thread on the elites, so I thought I'd ask for any updates before I buy. Anything I shoud look for?

Thanks.

Kona Palangi · 23-09-2007, 10:36 PM

The Elites are quality 360's and I have heard very little about these being defective or prone to the RRoD in any way. As far as the inclusion of the new chip set, I haven't seen any official MS statement which details what manufacturing dates will have these new improvements. However, I have heard rumors that all Elite 360's with a manufacturing date of July will have the 65nm chip set along with the new HDMI Premiums.

Vernon48 · 24-09-2007, 02:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MalohiTafataha

July will have the 65nm chip set along with the new HDMI Premiums.

I dont think that is true, maybe some, but i dont think mine has and that was made in July. Still, they are a hell of a lot quieter than the original 360's, and mine has been a treat to me for a couple of months now.

Kona Palangi · 24-09-2007, 03:47 PM

That's why I said I heard rumors Verny! Until MS comes out with a statement I don't know how else to confirm this unless engadget gets one and busts it open.

Boost King · 25-09-2007, 10:35 PM

I am also going to now buy the Elite. My premium unit is starting to slow down alot, and I am fearing failure soon enough. I can list it on ebay, and can comfortably assure buyers that its never been sent back, or RROD ever, and its a great working unit. Also, I want the bigger HDD as well, as I like to keep my demos etc.

The question I have is actually about the hard drive. How can I transfer whats on my 20GB unit over to the Elite unit, ie all my game saves etc. My profile I am not worried about cause I can simply redownload it. What about all my extra content, such as themes and profiles etc, what do I do about those?
I have heard about a transfer cable, but the guy said this only comes with the actual Hard drive standalone, and not with say the new elite? Shall I just call MS? Will they issue me one?

Also, the unit I saw in the store today had a manufacturing date of 28-06-07? Can we confirm what dates I should avoid?

Thankyou as always.
Boost

Kona Palangi · 25-09-2007, 11:20 PM

As far as dates Boosty the newer the better. **** I'd shoot for an August one if at all possible. With the HDD, MS will provide you with a data transfer cable, at your request, which will **** everything that was on your 20GB to the 120GB. It can only be done once and from what I heard is fairly simple and easy. The ****ty thing is having to wait for MS to ship it to you.

spd9075 · 26-09-2007, 12:09 AM

Thanks for the advice, guys. Hey, I thought the Elites came with a transfer cable, but the 120G HD add on did not- or do I have that backwards?

Kona Palangi · 26-09-2007, 08:22 AM

It comes with a 120GB HDD and to my knowledge, or at the very least during the first few months, MS had to send you the data transfer cable.

Boost King · 26-09-2007, 06:39 PM

Yeah but who owns 2 360's! The whole point of upgrading was to sell my 360, then as I got the cash, run out to a store and get the elite, its seems I have to cough up the cash, then order a cable, and blah, its all too hard!

Boost

Boost King · 26-09-2007, 07:03 PM

I also rang Microsft, the add on hard drive comes with the transfer cable. The elite console, does not.

Also, all my stores are pretty much sold out, but I found one today. It has a manufacture date of 27-06-07, its only 3 days before the 1st of July. I dont care if it has these65nm chips, but I read the other forum and it pretty much said the elites have the better drives in them, and different GPU and heat syncs.

Basically by buying a Elite, I am pretty much getting a far better console than a launch model, and will be less likely to be proned to failure.

Shall I buy peoples?

Boost

FLANKER 5 · 26-09-2007, 07:16 PM

It's your money man

Boost King · 26-09-2007, 08:54 PM

yep, bugger it, I'm going to buy this unit today.
The guy who disected the 360 Elite and said it was all sweet inside, essentially bought his elite in July, but it was built like in May sometime.
So this one is production dated 27-6-07, so its even newer than his, and besides, I dont think MS would do the elite with launch quality components inside anyways.

Also, I will order the HDD transfer cable from MS tonight, but for now, I will just detach the 120GB HDD and replace the Elite with my Current 20GB HDD, so I can just play as per normal.

This is fine to do I hope, can anyone advise if I should not swap the hard drives for the time being?

Thanks.

Boost King

Boost King · 27-09-2007, 09:48 PM

I got it! My new spanking Elite.

Some people may be saying, why buy a elite blah blah blah.
Well in Australia, the regular Premium cost me $650 Aussie Dollars. Now its been discounted with the recent price cut to $579. The Elite costs $729. So essentially its now $150 more. I was just wanting a bigger hard drive given I have filled it up, but essentially, a stand alone hard drive is $229!!!!!

It therefore made complete sense to upgrade to the Elite, as for the extra $150 I essentially received a 120gb HD, HDMI, as well as the most important thing, a better built console than my launch unit.

Hence in summary, the Elite is a greatunit, and I am happy with my purchase. Also, I am somewhat proud my original 360 premium is still going, and has been some 18 months worth of hard use.
The elite certainly is much quieter than before, and the Drive makes no grinding or crunching noises as did my premium unit.
Personally black looks rather boring, and I still love the original color. But I quickly removed the plain faceplate and replaced it with my PGR3 plate, looks great actually given its 3/4 black anyway and it did stand out on my original Premium.

Finally, I now have 3 fresh years of warranty as well to enjoy with 1 year of that being full warranty.

Also, the elite comes preloaded with some cool stuff as well, demos, arcade titles and movies. I have heard also when you copy your HDD over it also keeps the new content as well, I surely hope so, some good movies and demos I thinks.

Also in the box you get a HDMI cable too, plus a HDMI Audio adaptor thingy. Thats great news as well, given when I do get a LCD that has HDMI, its all ready to go. My LCD now has DVI and Component/VGA inputs and I just use Component.

Also, till my Cable arrives, I just plugged my 20GB HDD into the Elite for now until I can transfer the data over. The 360 did do a quick security update as well, not sure what it did but essentially everything works ok.

All in all, very happy indeed.

Well worth the purcahse if your considering the need for a larger hard drive.

Finally, EB Games offer only $250 trade in. All used premiums on Ebay were fetching $400-$450 on average.

EB are crooks, no news or shocks there.
But, at least I got some free advice yesterday!
Boost

FLANKER 5 · 27-09-2007, 10:01 PM

Congrats sounds pretty cool

Boost King · 01-10-2007, 02:20 AM

Actually, I'll add one negative point about the premium, no Media Remote included!!!!

Not happy there.

Boost

Kona Palangi · 01-10-2007, 08:41 AM

Where is my Elite Boost? Huh? What's up with that ****?

Boost King · 17-10-2007, 08:59 PM

Well, given its a few weeks after my purchase of the Elite I thought I'd share my impressions as well as the complaints and issues my premium was having and whether these were going away.

Firstly the Elite itself.
A great machine, quieter in operation, disc drive is much quieter, HDMI option is nice, the bigger hard drive is fantastic.
The color black I dont like, all my white accessories dont match, like the battery charge packs, my headsets dont match, nor does my chatpad either. The HD DVD Drive I can live with cause its totally away from the elite in another component of my component cabinet. So its not noticable.

Speed.
As many may have read in another thread, my premium was really starting to slow down. The hard drive was about 80% full so by now means completely spaceless, but with a gig or so to spare. When pressing the guide button, it took a good few seconds to launch the guide. Then to create a message, or view acheivements, it just took ages. In terms of gameplay, while playing Bioshock, it was taking donks to load the textures. I know this is a problem for everyone accross the board, but mine was even worse. I uncovered this when I took my copy of Bioshock to my bro's house and he did not have those problems.
Figuring this was the premium 360's issue I have gone up to the elite. However, for the first week while waiting for my migration cable to arrive, I simply connected the old Hard Disk to my new Elite. Funny enough, it was still quite slow for navigating. It wasn't until I copied my data over to my new elite Hard drive that I realised that it wasn't the actual premium itself that was slow, but more the hard drive causing the issues. So I have concluded it was the old 20GB HDD that was causing my slowness issues.
The new HDD is so fast, no lag, instant menus and Bioshock runs like a dream.
I know looking back its not to do with how full the HDD is because out of the box, like 7GB out of 20GB is unusable which is reserved for game caches and other stuff etc. So technically you can fill her right up to 20GB and stuff should run fine. But much like a PC Hard Disk, if you get that guy up to capacity it will slow down. Also, over time, (1.5 years) I've been downloading stuff, deleting, downloading, deleting etc, this leaves pieces behind. Proof of this is demonstrated below.
While waiting for my migration cable, I had listed my Premium on ebay. Anyway, the cable was supposed to take 3-5 days. I waited 10 days and called MS saying no cable guys? They said they were out of stock and apologised and it would be 3 weeks. Angry as I was, I said I sold my Premium on ebay and now its awaiting shipment. Beause I have no cable, I cant get my data off. So I bought a 64MB memory card to painstakeingly move data from one 360 to another. It took 3 hours to do it, and I basically only moved themes, gamerpics, arcade games (most less than 50MB) and my game saves. So now demos, movies, etc, or DL content greater than 50MB.
My point is, the memory card started with 52MB free space. By the end of the night, with all the back and forth, the memory card only read as 48MB free. But there was nothing on the Memory card. So a quick reformat and she was back up to 52MB. So my point is, theres no option to reformat your 360's hard disk drive so as to "refresh it". Also, like a PC drive, you need to defrag it every so often, so as to ensure data is appropriately categorised on the hard disk. Essentially to improve a hard disks performance you should defrag it also.
I really think microsoft should in their next update put some tools to allow you to perform a degrag on your portion of usable space to clean up your drive, or even a restore to factory mode or something to clear it all in 1 foul swoop.

The Elite is a great machine, and I am happy with the purchase. I just thought I'd share my story with you all to provide something to read in your lunch break.

Boost

Boost King · 17-10-2007, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MalohiTafataha

Where is my Elite Boost? Huh? What's up with that ****?

You guys had one there and decided to give it away!

Sheesh!

Boost

Kona Palangi · 17-10-2007, 10:15 PM

That was about a 8.9 on the tangent scale but any who, my buddy just bought an Elite and holy **** is that sum mu mu packed full of garbage. 120? Try 103. It took me over 20 minutes just to delete all the worthless **** on his HDD.