Revolution specs leaked?

[Clashman]

The yields on such a chip would be pretty terrible IMO.

Would they be that much worse than a tri-core at 3.2ghz, which has to be realeased 9 months to a year earlier?

 

[Teasy]

Does anyone know the answer to my earlier question? Are IBM's 65nm fabs starting full production in early to mid 2006?

 

[Mordecaii]

Two things... first of all, if you watch the Nintendo Press conference, it is CLEARLY stated that the system will be the size of 3 DVD cases stacked together. They don't say "Only in width", but the same size as 3 DVD cases PERIOD. Also, this is a quite from IGN:

IGNcube: Coming back to power. We apologize, but if we don't get some answers our readers are going to go insane. What are the tech specs for Revolution? Or, to put it another way, is Revolution as powerful as Xbox 360?

Shigeru Miyamoto: You know, in regard to the power of the Nintendo Revolution versus, say, the Xbox 360, we're looking at making a small, quiet, affordable console. If you look at trying to incorporate all that, of course we might not have the horsepower that some other companies have, but if you look at the numbers that they're throwing out, are those numbers going to be used in-game? I mean, those are just numbers that somebody just crunched up on a calculator. We could throw out a bunch of numbers, too, but what we're going to do is wait until our chips are done and we're going to find out how everything in the game is running, what its peak performance is, and those are the numbers that we're going to release because those are the numbers that really count.

http://cube.ign.com/articles/617/617000p2.html

 

[Nightz]

It would be an incredible feat of engineering for anything that size to have any decent power.

 

[Teasy]

I can't remember exactly what was said in the E3 conference but I remember that it wasn't specific. The first comments that mentioned DVD cases were from Perrin Kaplan. She said it would be the height of 3 DVD cases, no other dimensions were mentioned.

That quote from Miyamoto is the same kind of things they were saying about GameCube as far as power goes.

 

[Mordecaii]

In the conference, he held up the system and said (paraphrased) that it was the smallest console they've ever built, and that it was going to be even smaller by the time it was done so that it would be the size of 3 DVD cases stacked together. The console already looked to be the width of the 3 DVD cases, so how is it going to get smaller? Hmmmm, he must have meant the other dimensions... And even if the system doesn't get any smaller, it isn't possible to get something with the same brute strength as XBOX 360 into a box that small, especially considering the fact that part of the space will be taken up by the drive, and part by things like WiFi and the flash memory... You can argue all you want, but as it was stated by someone else before, it would take a miracle to get hardware as powerful as what's going into the other 2 systems into that little box.

 

[SoVos20]

In the conference, he held up the system and said (paraphrased) that it was the smallest console they've ever built, and that it was going to be even smaller by the time it was done so that it would be the size of 3 DVD cases stacked together. The console already looked to be the width of the 3 DVD cases, so how is it going to get smaller? Hmmmm, he must have meant the other dimensions... And even if the system doesn't get any smaller, it isn't possible to get something with the same brute strength as XBOX 360 into a box that small, especially considering the fact that part of the space will be taken up by the drive, and part by things like WiFi and the flash memory... You can argue all you want, but as it was stated by someone else before, it would take a miracle to get hardware as powerful as what's going into the other 2 systems into that little box.

Or it would take years longer of R&D which Revolution has. Again you can't ignore the years of greater R&D. One their is theoretical numbers and realistic in game numbers. The realistic ingame numbers are the only ones that count.

 

[Nightz]

That quote from Miyamoto is the same kind of things they were saying about GameCube as far as power goes.

Nintendo have pretty much changed their tune. Going back to when they announced the GC, they clearly said it would be very powerful. Now they're saying power isnt their what they looking for, its not powerful etc blah blah.

This what they said when they anounced the Gamecube E3, they clearly said it will exceed the competiton.

“While our new Dolphin hardware will be extremely powerful, it will not be expensive. It will retail at a mass market price for home video game systems.â€￾
"I am absolutely confident Dolphin will equal or exceed anything that our friends over at Sony can come up with with PlayStation 2," says Howard Lincoln with confidence. "It will be fast, powerful and inexpensive."
http://www.n-sider.com/articleview.php?articleid=268
http://www.totalgames.net/pma/10145

 

[SoVos20]

You must not understand that technology advances overtime in both speed and size.

FYI A 2.13 GHZ Pentium-M is smaller, uses less power, and is faster than a 3.0 GHZ P4, even when both are 90nm. Smaller does not mean slower, and less power does not mean slower.

No need to be condescending to me. I understand that.

And the 2.13GHz isn't always faster -- in fact, for things like multimedia rendering, the Pentium Ms are still slower.

And you seem to get the wrong idea that Nintendo's timeframe gives it an advantage. Power5-derived chips are the flavor for the next couple years. Nintendo isn't getting IBM to do a completely custom chip (I can say this with absolute certainty), it'll be a modified version of an existing core. They're not going to get a Power6-derived core or a brand new core. You shouldn't expect something magically more efficient and powerful.

You should understand that IBM has been working with nintendo on its CPU for YEARS and they are still working on it.

I find it amazing how so many of you can IGNORE YEARS AND YEARS of extra research and development going into Revolution over Xbox360.

 

[SoVos20]

That quote from Miyamoto is the same kind of things they were saying about GameCube as far as power goes.

Nintendo have pretty much changed their tune. Going back to when they announced the GC, they clearly said it would be very powerful. Now they're saying power isnt their what they looking for, its not powerful etc blah blah.

This what they said when they anounced the Gamecube, they clearly said it will exceed the competiton.

“While our new Dolphin hardware will be extremely powerful, it will not be expensive. It will retail at a mass market price for home video game systems.â€￾
"I am absolutely confident Dolphin will equal or exceed anything that our friends over at Sony can come up with with PlayStation 2," says Howard Lincoln with confidence. "It will be fast, powerful and inexpensive."
http://www.n-sider.com/articleview.php?articleid=268
http://www.totalgames.net/pma/10145

You are taking what they said wrong. He said theoretical numbers don't matter, only the ingame numbers actually matters. Which is the same thing they said about GameCube.

 

[SoVos20]

Nintendo also says they haven't even measured the system specs they don't know how powerfull it is. They couldn't know they are still in R&D for the CPU and GPU.

 

[SsP45]

Someone said the GC faired well.

Yes it did.

But the PPC chip it has was a fairly cool running chip at the time. I expect the ATI chip was also. There is still a fan in it and its reasonably noisy.

Given that IBM made a tri-core chip for MS that requires water cooling, tells me these cutting edge chips have pretty high thermal characteristics. We are not sure what the Cell has but I think its safe to say the PS3 will have a similar cooling solution.

So unless IBM has magically worked up a thermal wonder chip for Nintendo, me thinks its going to be rather crippled.

That "watercooling" MS has been spouting is just their buzz word for integrated heatpipes, nothing beyond that. They're just using the word watercooling because it sounds fancy and exotic.

 

[SoVos20]

In the END it is comfirmed that Nintendo will spend MORE money on R&D for its GPU then M$ did for Xbox360 GPU and nintendo has the better team. You can't ingnore the extra time and money going into Revolution over Xbox360.

 

[SsP45]

Nintendo also says they haven't even measured the system specs they don't know how powerfull it is. They couldn't know they are still in R&D for the CPU and GPU.

The Cell chip and the PS3 have apparently been in development for 5 YEARS, and yet the PS3 is still a relatively large system.

 

[SsP45]

In the END it is comfirmed that Nintendo will spend MORE money on R&D for its GPU then M$ did for Xbox360 GPU and nintendo has the better team. You can't ingnore the extra time and money going into Revolution over Xbox360.

I don't think ATI would purposefully make one GPU design better than the other for its 2 clients (MS and Nintendo). If anything, I would suspect they'd give more to MS since it's doubtful the Revolution will sell in as large a numbers as the X360.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

In the conference, he held up the system and said (paraphrased) that it was the smallest console they've ever built, and that it was going to be even smaller by the time it was done so that it would be the size of 3 DVD cases stacked together. The console already looked to be the width of the 3 DVD cases, so how is it going to get smaller? Hmmmm, he must have meant the other dimensions... And even if the system doesn't get any smaller, it isn't possible to get something with the same brute strength as XBOX 360 into a box that small, especially considering the fact that part of the space will be taken up by the drive, and part by things like WiFi and the flash memory... You can argue all you want, but as it was stated by someone else before, it would take a miracle to get hardware as powerful as what's going into the other 2 systems into that little box.

Or it would take years longer of R&D which Revolution has. Again you can't ignore the years of greater R&D. One their is theoretical numbers and realistic in game numbers. The realistic ingame numbers are the only ones that count.

Why do you say that Nintendo has many years longer R&D, that's sounds bit weird IMO, It's not like the xcpu is some really old stuff, atleast on the form it's going to be in X360. You are right that the extra year is going to help Nintendo, but it's not enough, I mean X360 has much bigger case with water cooling, you just can't get the same power in the size of Revolution when the time difference is still quite small. I think Nintendo has stated that they are not going for the performance crown and I think that sums up the situation quite well.

 

[SoVos20]

Nintendo also says they haven't even measured the system specs they don't know how powerfull it is. They couldn't know they are still in R&D for the CPU and GPU.

The Cell chip and the PS3 have apparently been in development for 5 YEARS, and yet the PS3 is still a relatively large system.

That doesn't mean Revolution CPU can't be smaller, and Sony is including things like extra ports, a harddrive, all of which will enlarge the system. The reason PS3 is so big is because of its GPU which will be in development less than half of the time Revolution GPU has been.

 

[jvd]

The Cell chip and the PS3 have apparently been in development for 5 YEARS, and yet the PS3 is still a relatively large system.

the cell chip came from bluegene so cell it self wasn't in developement that long .

However remember its a 1x8 design with only 1x7 used . So its bigger for better yields


I don't think nintendo will have the most powerfull console . But they can easily have a system with performance close to the x360 / ps3 and do somehting like add in more ram to make up the diffrence .

 

[SoVos20]

In the conference, he held up the system and said (paraphrased) that it was the smallest console they've ever built, and that it was going to be even smaller by the time it was done so that it would be the size of 3 DVD cases stacked together. The console already looked to be the width of the 3 DVD cases, so how is it going to get smaller? Hmmmm, he must have meant the other dimensions... And even if the system doesn't get any smaller, it isn't possible to get something with the same brute strength as XBOX 360 into a box that small, especially considering the fact that part of the space will be taken up by the drive, and part by things like WiFi and the flash memory... You can argue all you want, but as it was stated by someone else before, it would take a miracle to get hardware as powerful as what's going into the other 2 systems into that little box.

Or it would take years longer of R&D which Revolution has. Again you can't ignore the years of greater R&D. One their is theoretical numbers and realistic in game numbers. The realistic ingame numbers are the only ones that count.

Why do you say that Nintendo has many years longer R&D, that's sounds bit weird IMO, It's not like the xcpu is some really old stuff, atleast on the form it's going to be in X360. You are right that the extra year is going to help Nintendo, but it's not enough, I mean X360 has much bigger case with water cooling, you just can't get the same power in the size of Revolution when the time difference is still quite small. I think Nintendo has stated that they are not going for the performance crown and I think that sums up the situation quite well.

Research for Revolution GPU started atleast a year before Xbox and it will end around 1 year after. That is 2 Years more.

 

[SsP45]

Research for Revolution GPU started atleast a year before Xbox and it will end around 1 year after. That is 2 Years more.

May I ask where you're getting these numbers?