Broadway specs

[pc999]

they do. point is, you want low power draw while working at nominal workloads too - remember, wii is a home hub in a sort, not an on-for-a-while-then-off-for-the-rest-of-the-day device. it's a different device paradigm - like, say, you router - it cannot rely that it's gonna be sleeping/be off-line to meet its power budget - it has to be power-efficient while working at full/reasonable loads.

Thanks for the info. Althougth they still have the tech to turn off cores that arent being used, that would usefull .

On a more serius note, this show that they do have tech that could meet that level of power on stand by, and I really doubt that size would be that problematic (wouldnt they sell the Wii if instead of 3DVD cases it had 4 DVD cases (maybe a bit higher to keep the same shape)? I really doubt that would hurt their sales. Also 65nm is right on the conner they could shrink to it before the mass market does have a a change to accept or reject it because of the size (if that is really a problem)) and it this they would still please many "old gamers" that could garante their market more.

I personally think that they are following this path mainlly for "easy and big proffit". (of curse this does have a lot of R&D on the market and follow a well thought plan of action and features, a good proof of this is the channels)

 

[ban25]

Considering Wii is claimed to consume less or as much as a small lightbulb during idle mode, I'd say, that's some pretty good processing for that little power...

The "network backbone" theory may not be far off. This is gonna be interesting to observe.

I replaced all my incandescent bulbs with fluorescent ones.

 

[ban25]

What's keeping the chip sub 1 GHz on 90nm? Does it look like it's not scale friendly or is Nintendo going after the ultra cheap?

Well, it's an ~8-year old architecture with a 4-stage pipeline that's now focusing on low-power. It was never designed to clock very high.

 

[fearsomepirate]

I personally think that they are following this path mainlly for "easy and big proffit".

I think the main reason was for launch. It doesn't look like they were thinking past December of this year when they designed the hardware. My suspicion is that it's a combination of

a) Keeping everything secret for as long as possible. Since this means not sending out devkits, they had to tell devs to just work on Gamecube kits.

b) Not wanting to throw out any of their old graphics engines.

c) Porting Twilight Princess as a launch title. I have a suspicion that this decision was made much, much earlier than was made public.

d) Forcing developers to keep art assets and development costs under control. Nintendo is entering this generation at a significant disadvantage. If they can undercut development costs for 360/PS3 by a significant amount, 3rd parties will be able to crank out a lot more software per dollar spent. They'll also be able to entice less enthusiastic software houses to at least throw them a bone or two.

 

[pc999]

As long as they keep the architeture/BC with GC they could make all of those, just d) would be a bit harder but if things like normal mapping and such arent used and with good tools for the main new fxs then the work/cost wouldnt probably grow anything that would worry someone.

I think that Wii is the home console reflex of DS, cheap and very, very proffitable, althought much more (intentionaly) markted at no gamers (too).

 

[darkblu]

An electric heater radiator sucks about 700-900W on medium. A large window AC unit uses like 1000W. Yah that's a lot of 360s.

and which of the above are toys and which - utility devices?
see, a heating radiatior (of whatever type) cannot be of very low power, neither can be an AC unit. whereas there's no physical limitation that dictates a game console cannot be less than 200W.

your 'how many xboxes is that?' is pretty much like if i claimed that since i get amused by playing with the light switches in my home for hourse a day, i use up N KWh more power per month, which is miniscule compared to my AC's 10*N KWh usage.

would you find something disurbing in the above?

Power usage?!?! 360 doesn't use that much power. It's definitely below a typical PC. I really doubt that brick is running 100% output. Maybe I'll measure what my friend's 360 sucks during a game if I can remember to so do. There are laptops out there with bricks almost as large as 360's, by the way. XPS notes ship with a 120 W brick.

that's great but my 24/7 desktop/server is 35W typical, 80W max (practically never reached).

of course i have couple of more 'typical PC' power-draw machines, but one of them is used for no more than a couple of hourse a day, and the other ~1 day/month cumulative.

I fail to see why a console needs to run all the time anyway. I don't believe the low power excuse as some sort of customer benefit at all. The Wii looks to be designed to be as cheap as possible for several reasons:

one remark here - you're equating low power consumption to low cost - i don't think that's well reasoned. if wii was designed to be as cheap as possible it would not have been as power-efficient as nintendo are claiming it to be. also the size is a factor too - why go through hoops to cram eveything into that tight space when all you want is cheap? you know, tiny and low power do not come cheap - there's a bunch of tiny, low power devices which are anything but cheap.

 

[swaaye]

Wii is a console built with this in mind: Low cost on the primary computational hardware to minimize the cost of the expensive controller on the overall package. That means low performance. Low performance SHOULD mean low power consumption unless something is really, really wrong.

Nintendo has always built consoles with a tilt towards not pushing the limits of tech. Every single system they've developed has had serious curtailments to keep them cheap.

-SNES: pathetic CPU. Many carts use some sort of DSP to help it along. Pass expenses on to devs.
-N64: No sound DSP so the CPU/GPU's advantages are wasted working on audio. The audio of N64 is pretty awful even so. Carts bring in extra revenue for N even though CDs are arguably superior in every way.
-Cube: Hardware generally behind Xbox. Not much RAM. Again relatively weak audio, though a ton better. Better than PS2, but newer too. A tight little machine though, smart engineers made excellent use of their budget.

Wii just takes it to a new extreme. And cheapness for N = low cost for consumers (I ignored that benefit before lol) and that actually looks like it will be a real winner for convincing shoppers. Wii is WAY behind the top-of-the-line hardware of the other competitors so there is no reason for the cost not to be super low. They didn't really use their cost savings as a marketing strategy historically but they sure are now. Before they just used it to rake in more cash at similar price points.

My point about power is that I don't think any of the consoles uses enough power to matter in the long run. Unless you are cheap IMO. There are a lot of things that use a lot more than these little game machines. Still, I do wonder what Wii needs to be in standby for. What's the point? My parents have a TV set that sucks 30W when you turn it "off". I want real off, thanks.

I'm not sure which console I'll eventually pick up. Dunno about Wii though. They went too low on the hardware IMO. It will need to have some killer new gameplay offerings to get $250 out of me. I do think they will win over tons of the mass market though cuz most people just don't give a damn about graphics nit picks.

 

[Fox5]

Variable clock speeds save power, but they don't magically make a power-hungry chip consume as little power as Broadway is said to need. It only keeps power down when the chip isn't doing anything, but Broadway's supposed specs indicate that top power is very low.
If the specs are right, Broadway at full bore may consume less than a lot of desktop CPUs do at idle.

Chips designed for high clock speeds have a lot of extra pipeline stages and leakier high-speed transistors that raise the lower bound of energy consumption for the chip. Being able to reach high speeds means trading off against the ability to run slow.

I think it'd be more interesting to see how Broadway does in performance per watt versus an ultra low voltage P-M at 1ghz.
BTW, why couldn't they have broadway at like 1.2ghz, and then downclock it to say 400mhz when the system is in its power save mode? Or even drop it to maybe 600mhz or possible 700mhz with a half multiplier?

I'm still more of a fan of the idea that they did about the minimal work possible to make this system while maintaining gamecube compatibility and getting good, cheap yields.

Hey, if it means not paying for servers in MUDs and other large online games, and it means lightning fast startup, I'm all for it.

Do consumer connections have the kind of bandwidth to handle that kind of peer to peer interaction?
For that matter, I thought Wii would have a power save mode like normal devices, but could power up to a more useful level (but not fully on) when it received network requests.

If they can undercut development costs for 360/PS3 by a significant amount, 3rd parties will be able to crank out a lot more software per dollar spent. They'll also be able to entice less enthusiastic software houses to at least throw them a bone or two.

I see, so they want to become the McDonald's of consoles while 360 is more like RCA and Sony like Bose. Whoops, I switched analogies midway through and compared MS and Sony to companies they directly compete with in some aspects.

if wii was designed to be as cheap as possible it would not have been as power-efficient as nintendo are claiming it to be.

I don't think it's that power efficient. Look at what some laptops and mini pcs are doing for power efficiency while still maintaining decent performance. I wouldn't be surprised to see if one of the old mac minis was die shrunk to 90nm SOI if it would be in the same ballpark for power consumption, and with barely any additional R&D.

 

[OtakingGX]

My point about power is that I don't think any of the consoles uses enough power to matter in the long run. Unless you are cheap IMO. There are a lot of things that use a lot more than these little game machines. Still, I do wonder what Wii needs to be in standby for. What's the point? My parents have a TV set that sucks 30W when you turn it "off". I want real off, thanks.

We'll see if power in the US stays as cheap as it is if we ever sign the Kyoto Accord. If power companies start paying out the nose for putting CO2 in the atmosphere with coal-fired power plants, they're passing the buck on to their customers.

And the issue of power is not one of cost. At 6 or 7 cents a kilowatt-hour nobody will ever go broke paying for the electricity to play a console. Of course, at the same time Europe is trying to reduce the power consumption of devices in standby. It is claimed that 10% of their power is consumed by these devices. The same reasoning that leads you to not care about the price of electricity while its cheap was the same that meant people didn't care to own a car that got 50 mpg while gas was $1.50 a gallon. Now that it's twice that, people care.

That said, I still think Nintendo could have fit their power budget, both on and off, with faster clocked hardware. Why does Broadway have to be 20% more efficient than Gekko? Why not make it even, and boost Broadway to an even 1 GHz? I'm not sure what design decisions went into this, but I doubt 729 MHz was the trade-off point.

 

[darkblu]

I wouldn't be surprised to see if one of the old mac minis was die shrunk to 90nm SOI if it would be in the same ballpark for power consumption, and with barely any additional R&D.

even so, it would have likely costed more than a 360 without subsidizing (and still would have been underpowered in comparison) - are you sure you'd have liked that?

likewise with your parallel with the 0.94V dothan - those things are not exactly lucratively priced. last time i heard (ok, it was not recently but still), the 900MHz ULV celeronM was ~$150 - that for the bloody cpu alone in bulk quantities!

 

[darkblu]

My point about power is that I don't think any of the consoles uses enough power to matter in the long run. Unless you are cheap IMO. There are a lot of things that use a lot more than these little game machines.

once again: do you or don't you make a difference between utility power consumption and leisure power consumption?

yes, there're freaking more power hungry devices in a household - so what?
why would people be bothering to change their lightbulbs with flourescent given there may be as many as 5 lightbulbs in their apartments giving a grand total of ~250-300W versus them throwing out their el stoves, refrigerators and ACs @ 900W -to- 2KW each?

still wondering? because you cant save much on some power uses, and while they're essential, the tech advancements to allow savings at those have not been invented yet. or they're out of consumer's reach. OTH, there're other classes of el uses where you can save considerably, even without having to completely give up on those. now try to figure out of which type a game console is.

 

[ban25]

likewise with your parallel with the 0.94V dothan - those things are not exactly lucratively priced. last time i heard (ok, it was not recently but still), the 900MHz ULV celeronM was ~$150 - that for the bloody cpu alone in bulk quantities!

That is pretty expensive, considering a 1.46 GHz Yonah retails for $53 at Newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819111258

 

[Fox5]

even so, it would have likely costed more than a 360 without subsidizing (and still would have been underpowered in comparison) - are you sure you'd have liked that?

likewise with your parallel with the 0.94V dothan - those things are not exactly lucratively priced. last time i heard (ok, it was not recently but still), the 900MHz ULV celeronM was ~$150 - that for the bloody cpu alone in bulk quantities!

True, those are expensive, but you can generally take a normal one and downclock it to around the same level at the same voltage, or perhaps slightly higher. (I think ~1ghz-1.2ghz is one of the steppings on the Pentium Ms and it downclocks to 1.1V) Still can't find them cheap though, since the actual ULV processors are only overpriced when considering clock speed, when considering that they're likely almost the exact same chip and thus cost of production is similar, it makes sense that they're comparable in price. (the ULV processors can probably hit the normal clock speed range of the normal processors if you upped the voltages)
Depending on the time period though, you can find low voltage processors from Intel or AMD well under $100. The Mobile Athlon Xps could be found as low as $60 I believe and got down as low as 4 or 5W when downclocked below the 1ghz range, and that was 130nm without SOI.

 

[Rolf N]

Another thing to consider is how very small chips can be instrumental for Nintendo in achieving the volumes they desire. Two million systems on launch day. How much fab occupation and heart-ache would we be talking about if there were 300mm² worth of ASICs in the box?

 

[swaaye]

once again: do you or don't you make a difference between utility power consumption and leisure power consumption?

yes, there're freaking more power hungry devices in a household - so what?
why would people be bothering to change their lightbulbs with flourescent given there may be as many as 5 lightbulbs in their apartments giving a grand total of ~250-300W versus them throwing out their el stoves, refrigerators and ACs @ 900W -to- 2KW each?

still wondering? because you cant save much on some power uses, and while they're essential, the tech advancements to allow savings at those have not been invented yet. or they're out of consumer's reach. OTH, there're other classes of el uses where you can save considerably, even without having to completely give up on those. now try to figure out of which type a game console is.

jeez, gotta love that bush mentality you can sometimes see on these boards - 'i'm invincible and i don't live on this planet either'.. 'and those who don't think like me are either cheap, or non-democratic, or both'.

I'm not really sure where you're going here. Apparently we who want to own leisure products that use, what, >100W, are Bush supporting ego maniac fools? (Nice childish retort, friend) Or are you actually saying that I can buy whatever console I want (and you will be ok with that) as long as I worry about how much my 10 yr old fridge is suckin down?

Does the Wii meet with your approval because it uses probably half of what 360 uses? I doubt that is even the case if the Wii doesn't really turn off. Wii could even turn out worse because of a standby mode.

Actually I do run only fluorescent bulbs at home. There's something neato about knowing that the 60W equiv uses 18W and that it'll last a lot longer too (I've yet to replace one in 10 months). At work we recently switched a store full of old power saving bulbs (not sure what variety they were right now) to new fluorescents that are also a much warmer color and quite nice. They save over a hundred $$ a month in electricity usage I believe. I also find it fascinating that the HP Laserjet all-in-one can sit there on 24/7 (faxes) and only use 6W idle while needing 400W to print. That's some decent power management. It has 64MB RAM and a 243 MHz CPU! Man that printer is not all that far behind Wii in processing power!!! (jk)

I just don't think my console buying decisions are going to become based around power usage. Sorry.

 

[crystall]

Well, it's an ~8-year old architecture with a 4-stage pipeline that's now focusing on low-power. It was never designed to clock very high.

But it can hit 1 GHz, in fact it was able to reach 1.1 GHz @130nm. The problem is obviously power. The 750CL datasheet has some info which is very interesting in that regard: @500MHz the 750CL consumes 2W on average, it consumes 6W @900MHz and 9.8W @1GHz. That's almost five times the power for twice the clock, i.e. less than twice the performance. That's a pretty huge drop in the performance/W ratio. Also notice that the power consumption numbers are absent for the 733 to 800MHz range, exactly the range in which Broadway is going to fall. I doubt that there isn't a relation between the two.

 

[theafu]

The reason the broadway is clocked what it is 729mhz, is due to heat the problems that arise after they up the speed at the point.

 

[Teasy]

The reason the broadway is clocked what it is 729mhz, is due to heat the problems that arise after they up the speed at the point.

Who told you that?

 

[darkblu]

Or are you actually saying that I can buy whatever console I want (and you will be ok with that) as long as I worry about how much my 10 yr old fridge is suckin down?

nice how you have to revert to 10 yr old power hogs to justify kilowatts-hours per month of excess power for self-indulgence. how non-childish of you. as about you buying this or that - i don't remember me trying to coerce you into anything.

Does the Wii meet with your approval because it uses probably half of what 360 uses?

half? do you believe wii uses half of what something like the 360 would use? no, wii 'meets my apporval' because i expect it to use notably less than my 35W-nominal desktop. but that's just me here.

I doubt that is even the case if the Wii doesn't really turn off. Wii could even turn out worse because of a standby mode.

too much terminator movies at childhood? contrary to common belief, wii is not skynet and it _can_ be turned off at will. despite what nintendo do or do not expect of their customers.

Actually I do run only fluorescent bulbs at home. There's something neato about knowing that the 60W equiv uses 18W and that it'll last a lot longer too (I've yet to replace one in 10 months). At work we recently switched a store full of old power saving bulbs (not sure what variety they were right now) to new fluorescents that are also a much warmer color and quite nice. They save over a hundred $$ a month in electricity usage I believe. I also find it fascinating that the HP Laserjet all-in-one can sit there on 24/7 (faxes) and only use 6W idle while needing 400W to print. That's some decent power management. It has 64MB RAM and a 243 MHz CPU! Man that printer is not all that far behind Wii in processing power!!! (jk)

well, what can i say, good for you - that shows that you're not so unaware of the cost of power as you tried to appear. of course saving from self-indulgence can be tough (no sarcasm here - just self experience), i realize that.

I just don't think my console buying decisions are going to become based around power usage. Sorry.

no problem. you're entitled to your decisions. and everything that follows from them too.

 

[fearsomepirate]

We'll see if power in the US stays as cheap as it is if we ever sign the Kyoto Accord.

Since signing a piece of paper didn't seem to affect power consumption in the signing countries all that much, I think it's safe to say that if US politicians took this opportunity to do a little grandstanding, it won't really affect power prices a whole lot.

"The real purpose is for politicians to brandish their environmental credentials." -- Robert Samuelson, Washington Post