I’m not sure how the rumor started (my guess is that someone on some forum just made the assumption), that the new XBOX 360 Premiums with HDMI output would be using the much-anticipated 65nm “Falcon” processor, but here is some proof that it doesn’t:
Courtesy of “wonderkins” from the NeoGAF forum comes this photo of his disassembled 360 Premium. Still a Zephyr 90nm processor. Ah, the lengths fanboys will go to, to get to the bottom of things ;)
He discovered that the new version does have improved heatsinks (with heatpipes!) so should be less prone to the Red Ring of Death.
I’m not sure why anyone was surprised by this. They just started putting together Premiums using the Elite motherboard. They probably discontinued production of the non-hdmi version when the first began manufacturing the Elite and are now starting to run out of stock. It’s much cheaper to only produce on circuit board design for the 360 at once.