schatten529

It all depends on which DVD drive you have. I have a Hitachi and personally think it is really loud (but have not been able to compare). Fortunately it's 15 feet away from where I sit and I hardly notice it when playing games at a normal volume level.

People who have had both (of the drives in newer units) or heard both claim the BenQ drive being more quiet than the Hitachi. You can go to 360drives.com if you want to know what you have.

I am a mid-core gamer. Being married, owning a new house and pursuing my career path leaves far too little time to dedicate to gaming. I used to have the time and the extra money to be a hard core gamer...but no longer.

Being able to play 8 to 12 hours a week is enough to scratch my gaming itch.

Not either necessarily. Click the "Read" link above to look at MRCUR's guide. You could very well have a Falcon depending on which team made it and when it was made (lot #).

A 203w PS would power either mobo revision whereas a 175w would only power the Falcon (65nm needs less power).

I...sadly, was quite involved in the official xbox forum discussion on Falcons back when they first were discovered in the wild. The team FDOU with a lot date of 734 or later being a Falcon is extremely misleading.

Using data reported from visual tests, it was discovered that suspected non-Falcon units (failing the visual test) were still showing up in later lot #s. After all, M$ isn't going to scrap all the older mobos just because a new one is being produced.

In December, it was widely accepted that looking at the wattage on the label outside the box was about as good of an indicator as one could find.

Then there is the whole debate whether a 65nm CPU fixes the RROD problem at all since it's the GPU that is the real culprit. Enter Jasper mobos sometime in the next year (reduced nm GPUs).

IMO, all later units should be just as reliable and where you keep your 360 is the most important...specifically NOT inside an enclosed area.

Gimme.

Mulletard?

And if Gamer B is unscrupulous and acquires games via torrents; they will spend even less, albeit miss out on online play.

It's all about what games you want to play and when you want to play them in the case of porting games to a PC (or Mac). My opinion is that FPS games are far superior with a keyboard and mouse, yet I opted to get COD4 for the 360 because my rig will only run COD4 with low quality (that's a "me" problem).

If all 360 games (well, all 360 games I want to play) came out for the PC, then I wouldn't have purchased a 360 in the first place. M$ (or Sony) won't allow this on a broad scale because they wouldn't be making money on their systems if people could just play them on their PC right away.

Exclusive games drive sales.

Brilliantly summarized LaughingTarget.

You forgot basing one off of the Texas Revolution...the developer makes the demo, then realizes that there really isn't any other level designs or storyline that'll pan out besides the Alamo.

What's there not to approve about that beauty?

Here here! Burnout Paradise from Gamefly should be arriving and more COD4 multiplayer for me.

Wasn't too excited about Undertow after playing it the other day...but must admit I didn't play it long enough to give it a fighting chance. Just too many other great titles to spend my precious gaming time on!