Trying to decide whether to upgrade my Xbox 360 Arcade to the CoD Elite bundle

[chuckywang]

Should I do it? My arcade is currently a Jasper chipset and I bought it when they just started releasing the Jaspers, so is there any advantage to upgrading to a newer unit? I've had almost no issues with my current Arcade, but the noise the unit makes while playing a game is kinda annoying. I mean, it's really loud!

If I do upgrade, I will sell the game and my old Arcade unit. I can probably get $45 for MW2 and $100 for my Arcade+wireless controller. That means I will essentially be paying $254 for one more wireless controller, headset, and a 250gb hard drive. Put that way, it doesn't seem like it's worth it, but I do like the black units better.

What do you guys think?

 

[Qbah]

There's nothing newer than Jasper. You would be probably getting a Jasper model, same quality etc. Just a different paint job and a 250GB HDD.

Which noise bothers you? If it's the DVD, get a 120GB drive (or a 60GB) for the Xbox360 (plenty available here and there) and install your games on it - you will need to have the DVD inside to play games, but the console will read all the data from the hard drive and the DVD will spin only for a few seconds when the game launches - the DVD won't be running until you exit the game and start it again.

If the fans are bothering you, there's nothing you can do that won't void your warranty. The CoD special edition has the same guts - the fans will sound the same, the drive will sound the same. The only different is that it has a HDD bundled and has a fancy paint job. The only way to help with fan noise is to get a 3rd party case and move the guts to it - it will void your warranty though.

So, get the special unit only if you really want a fancy paint job on your unit or the widely available 120GB standard Xbox hard disk is too little for you and you really need that special 250GB. Otherwise don't bother.

 

[Queasy]

Well, if you like the black units better.....

Seriously, the only difference will be the color and possible the noise. The noise level of the 360 now seems to be dependent on which factory it came out of because different factories use different DVD drives and fans. And you won't be able to tell that until you get it home and hook it up unless you carry around a handy dandy worksheet of lot and team numbers to get the quieter Benq drives.

 

[Kromis]

I'm assuming you already have a hard drive with that Arcade?

If yes, then don't upgrade. If you don't, well...your Arcade would make a nice backup 360 in case your Elite red rings or something.