*UPDATE* Llama decided to do a Part 2 to their little anatomy discussion. The new pics come from the back of the Elite motherboard, but by comparing these with the launch 360 motherboards, they've strengthened their suspicions that the Elite isn't using (yet) 65-nm technology.

The interesting part to most is the area under where the CPU connects we see lots of changes around here but its mostly just smaller components in a tighter space. The Ball Grid Array size has of course not changed so although we see a denser arrangement of smaller components we should not take this to mean that it is necessarily the 65nm core.

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Llama.com takes an Xbox 360 Elite and takes the stuffing out of it. Hey, it's all in the name of "being able to repair - or mod - the Xbox 360 Elite in the future (no matter what Microsoft's EULA may say)." Here are the bare essentials of what they found:

• It uses the Hitachi GDR-3120L FK78 DVD drive, meaning "extracting the drive key and flashing the firmware of this unit won't be a problem!"
• Llama's amused at "Microsoft's most creative measures to minimize the dreaded Xbox 360 3 flashing red lights 'Ring of Death' error caused by poor BGA connections of the CPU and GPU": ""The good ol' a dab (of glue) will do ya methodology"
• The 120GB HDD uses a Fujitsu MHW2120BH drive. "Our initial attempts at dumping Sector 16 using The Specialist's hdhacker application was not a success... Without the Sector 16 you will not be able to upgrade your stock 20GB drive to 120GB the cheap way." Oh well, for now, you have to buy Microsoft.
• The fan header's been switched from the 4-pin Molex to a standard 3-pin fan header connection. For those who're using the Talismoon Whisper Fan, Llama's now offering 3-4 pin adaptors.

More at the Full article.

Is the Microsoft-branded 120 GB HDD worth only a hundred bucks? That seems to be the assertion over at the Shindakun blog, which points to some interesting facts about Microsoft's Elite add-on and asks readers whether or not the sum of the parts is equal to its current value.

When the Xbox 360 Elite was recently dissected, the Elite 120GB HDD was revealed to be a Fujitsu MHW2120BH drive with a special Microsoft-issued casing. Shindakun notes that the actual drive-in question costs around US$ 100. As you can see, there's a big 80 dollar difference between the Fujitsu drive and HDD, so what justifies the increase in price?

Well, one of the original draws of this new device was how it was comparable to a self-powered external drive. Shindakun asserts that the Elite drive isn't actually self-powered, since you have to turn off the 360 before you can plug it in. As noted in the blog entry,

What Microsoft has created is simply a proprietary SATA to 360 connector, which is housed in a plastic shell with the hard drive. They then tried to convinced everyone that it’s the equivalent of an actual external hard drive. Which it’s not.

So, we leave it up to you to make a decision: Does the sum of the parts equal the price of this new-fangled gadgetry? We suppose the public will choose for themselves once the Elite goes live in stores everywhere. Still, for the hardcore gamers out there who really want to know more about what they're getting into, this does make one pause and think.