Eurogamer has just upped a staggeringly comprehensive look at the load times of Xbox 360 games, comparing traditional DVD loading with the thrilling new install-to-HD option that'll arrive alongside the imminent New Xbox Experience dash update.

The differences? Massive. And also small. And some games are worse. Halo 3 actually manages to load slower when copied to the hard drive, with load times rocketing from 59 seconds to 70 seconds when booting one mission. But most games show around a 30-50% improvement in load times when booting off the Xbox 360's HD instead of a battered old DVD...

Mass Effect drops its initial boot period from 25 seconds to 20, Gotham 4 loads a race off HD in 17 seconds instead of the average 25, while CoD 4 shows a similar speed boost throughout. It is probably going to be worth doing, basically, especially if you count how much time you've got left before you die in seconds rather than years.

Head over to Eurogamer for the full, epic comparison series. There's more numerical data in that report than there is in the code that runs most video games. The new dash, featuring the HD install option, arrives for download next Wednesday.

(Via EG)

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