Hacking the Xbox

Chapter 2 - Thinking Inside the Box 49
Comparison: Xbox Versus the PC
The similarity of an Xbox to a PC is a boon to hackers, since the PC
platform is very well documented. Every part in an Xbox has an analog
in a typical PC, so almost any high-level question can be answered by just
reading about a similar PC part. Thus, it pays to take a closer look at the
similarities between the Xbox motherboard and a standard PC
motherboard. Another benefit is that much of the information in this
book will apply directly to PCs, so you can easily apply what you will
learn from hacking the Xbox to a large number of situations.
The Xbox’s closest relatives are systems based on chipsets that use a
unified memory architecture, such as nVidia’s nForce or Via
Technology’s ProSavageDDR. The architectural diagram presented in the
previous section was derived by reading the published specifications of
the Xbox and material available on nVidia’s website about the nForce
chipset. In this section, we will compare the Xbox to the Via Technology
ProSavageDDR-based P4M266 motherboard. The Xbox is compared
here with a non-nVidia chipset motherboard to emphasize the broad
similarities of the Xbox to PCs.
Figure 2-7 shows a picture of a PC motherboard, the Via P4M266. Even
though the chipset is manufactured by a different vendor, the similarities
Figure 2-7: Via P4M266 motherboard with integrated graphics.