The details of the Nintendo chip, code-named Broadway, are being kept under wraps.
"The first chips are in our possession," said Genyo Takeda, senior managing director for Nintendo's Integrated Research and Development Division. "Today's milestone marks the final stage of our drive to reach both core and nontraditional gamers with an inviting, inclusive and remarkable gaming experience."
IBM only says the chip is 20 percent more power-efficient than the first game chip it began making for Nintendo in 1999, which was called Gekko.
IBM said the chips use technology that will substantially
boost the processing power in the Wii while using 20 percent
less energy and throwing off less heat.
Yes, the technology dubbed "90nm process with higher operating frequency" that boosts processing power by nearly 100% over existing GameCube CPU, while keeping the power usage low.IBM said the chips use technology that will substantially boost the processing power in the Wii while using 20 percent less energy and throwing off less heat.
Yes, the technology dubbed "90nm process with higher operating frequency" that boosts processing power by nearly 100% over existing GameCube CPU, while keeping the power usage low.
Yes, the technology dubbed "90nm process with higher operating frequency" that boosts processing power by nearly 100% over existing GameCube CPU, while keeping the power usage low.
Yes, the technology dubbed "90nm process with higher operating frequency" that boosts processing power by nearly 100% over existing GameCube CPU, while keeping the power usage low.
Quantifying "power efficiency" for something as complex as a general purpose CPU is pretty mean. Bad IBM! Sit! No cookies!
Actually I thought I remembered multiplier was more then 1.5 - hence I was just "rounding up" like any good marketting person wouldTeasy said:Since when does a 50% higher operating frequency boost processing power by nearly 100%?
Well, they had bolt on a power-save mode as well, as Wii supposed to be always powered-on , according to Nintendo.
http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=468997
There is a video from IBM fabs doing the CPU.
Plus a nice theory (well if the chip is indeed 25mm^ at 90nm then it should have quite a few more tech wonder the wood, unless they go for 1Mg of L2 but then the CPU is like Gekko and what is the point of so much cache(?)).
The other minor note is that is that L1 cache of Broadway is equal to the L2 Cache of gecko.
That's pretty large L1 cache for what Broadway is.
I'm not speculating on the size I'm saying as fact that's what it is.
Well if it draws 20% less power, while "substantially boosting processing power", it'll obviously be more then 20% more "power efficient" than Gekko. Besides, they'll probably have the most brainiac cpu this gen, which, if your propa...aeh marketing department isn't all gung ho about silly spec wars, is a good thing, imho.
Gecko wasn't that brainy. Anyhow, at 700-800mhz, I doubt broadway is going to performance competitive in anything with xenon or cell. From what's been done on xbox 360 so far, I'd estimate each core to be about the performance of a 2ghz to 2.4ghz pentium 4 (or at least that's the currently realized performance, it could do better as games become better optimized) though I'm also assuming current games are only single threaded. Most people would probably consider that estimation on the low side though, but it's way beyond what a sub 1ghz g3 should be capable of.