Should I swap it out for the Pro? Really what am I getting for an extra $100?

How much did you pay for it is the question. You can get an Elite for as cheap as $254 shipped from Dell.

How much did you pay for it is the question. You can get an Elite for as cheap as $254 shipped from Dell.

75 in BB GC's so 250 out the door. Pro would be a hundred cheaper.

Elite is sold out at Dell but at least now it shows up on the product page. If you talk to them, they will take an order for it with a ship date of on or before Oct 1 or 2nd.

Thanks for reminding me to check again Daekwan!

75 in BB GC's so 250 out the door. Pro would be a hundred cheaper.

I honestly believe 60gigs is enough storage for now. Granted you are talking to someone who pretty much only plays 2 games (Madden & COD4), both installed to the harddrive (They take up about 6 gigs each), and downloads a few demos here and there. Im simply not a heavy harddrive user and dont bother with the movie rental service. I have had an Elite since Apr'07 and still have 80+ gigs of free storage left.

My main reason for getting the Elite was the HDMI port and black console. Considering the HDMI port is on every 360 now.. that point is moot. So it really comes down to:

1) Are you a heavy harddrive user?
2) Do you care if your 360 is white or black?
3) Is either of the above worth $100 bucks?

Only you can make that decision.

Now what I can tell you would make the decision for me is can you find a Elite or a Pro thats a Jasper. Look for the 12.1A power rating on the box. Having a 360 that runs cooler and quieter, and is much more reliable is more important than additional storage or colours. Or if you can find an Elite that is Jasper.. then JACKPOT!! Keep it!

Now what I can tell you would make the decision for me is can you find a Elite or a Pro thats a Jasper. Look for the 12.1A power rating on the box. Having a 360 that runs cooler and quieter, and is much more reliable is more important than additional storage or colours. Or if you can find an Elite that is Jasper.. then JACKPOT!! Keep it!

Unless you're a heavy HD user, I'd be more concerned with the above. I'd actually go out and get an Arcade that's a Jasper, and pop on your old 20 GB hard drive until the 60/120 GB come down in price (which should be soon with the rumors of a 250 GB drive). The Arcade would cost you $125 out the door.

Excellent advice Ballen!

The Arcade would cost you $125 out the door.

Where?

He has $75 in BB gift cards.

I think Dell has/had the best deal on Arcades.

How much space do RB/GH downloads take up? That would be my only concern.

How much space do RB/GH downloads take up? That would be my only concern.

A 20GB should be enough space to download every song out there. Those files aren't that large. Do you still have you're old 360 drive?

I think the Jasper is the most valuable option out there - seems fairly reliable so far, and hopefully won't put you into this situation again 3 years from now. Drive prices will come down.

Yeah, I still have the 20g.

You can always buy a used 120gig drive off Ebay, Then sell your 20 gig. Your probably going to pay about $80 for the 120.. and sell your 20 for about $25-30 bucks.

Not a bad way to upgrade for $50 or so bones..

It's a Jasper Elite. I guess I'll keep it.

I take the other position, who cares if the chip set is a jasper or not. you will be covered by 3 year RRoD warrentee anyways. In 3 years, the Xbox 360 will be 7 years old, and very likely the next box will be comming out soon. In 3 years chances are that you will end up using more than 20-60G of space. I have a 120G hard drive, and 60G are used. hardly any demo's but i have loaded 6-7 games (Orange Box, L4D, GoW2, C&C (both games), Mass Effect), and will soon load Fallout 3, as well as games like CoD:MW2, Halo3 :ODST (assuming its not worse like Halo 3), L4D2, etc, etc. I play all these games regularly, and year after year, I will end up keeping more games on the hard drive.

The only question I have is where is the Pro $100 cheaper than the elite, as current Elite's are the same price as the Pro. For the Pro to be $100 less, that would make it the same price as an Arcade, and if that was the case, then I would buy a Pro over an Elite as $100 = 33% of cost of hardware of an elite (or 50% additional cost over Pro).

I think I confused everyone (myself too) with the GCs being involved. I'm hooking up the Elite now.

Thanks for the input everyone.

Unless you're a heavy HD user, I'd be more concerned with the above. I'd actually go out and get an Arcade that's a Jasper, and pop on your old 20 GB hard drive until the 60/120 GB come down in price (which should be soon with the rumors of a 250 GB drive). The Arcade would cost you $125 out the door.

I posted this in another thread but I think it bears repeating here. I just picked up an Arcade over the weekend to replace a dead Elite; it's definitely a Jasper as it has the 256mb of internal storage and the 12.1A power supply.

While the console seems to run cool, the DVD drive is by far the noisiest I have ever heard (and this is my 4th 360). I tried playing Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 today and as that game apparently streams data from the DVD constantly, the noise the console produced made the game all but unplayable for me. I also spent some time with Arkham Asylum and while not as bad as M:UA2, it was still plenty noisy and quite distracting (especially as there are many quiet stretches in the game). Also, in both cases, when I took the CDs out, the fans continued to spin and they were also quite noisy.

In the interest of balance, I should also point out that I played Dead Space for several hours and the console was very well behaved with that game; but for games that do a lot of streaming off the DVD, my Arcade is, quite frankly, a dud.

Now I may have just gotten one from a bad batch and I know I could just install the games to the hard drive, but if my experience is anything to go by, the Jaspers my run cooler but the quality of the DVD drives and fans is suspect. It's so bad that I'm seriously thinking about exchanging it.

So my advice to the original OP would be this: fire up some games, give the console a good workout and if its sufficiently quiet, keep it because the next one you get may end up being a noisy buzzsaw, Jasper chipset notwithstanding.

Just my experience over the past few days.

Should I swap it out for the Pro? Really what am I getting for an extra $100?

I would take it bake and pre-order the MW2 elite with the 250 GB hard drive.

While the console seems to run cool, the DVD drive is by far the noisiest I have ever heard (and this is my 4th 360).

Bring that bad boy back. I don't think they'll ever be whisper quiet, but mine is as close as it gets for a 360. It night and day difference from my old 'Pro' where it sounded like a jet engine firing up.

I think you got a bad egg.

1) Dont be a cheapazz. Even if you get a Jasper.. still get a harddrive.

2) Games that play off the harddrive play much quieter, cooler, and even give you better performance in the game. I noticed my maps load much quicker in COD4 from the harddrive install.

Return it Get a Pro 60Gigs is plenty

the Elite you are paying for 120GB you won't use and its black thats it thats wasting $100 cash