Wii U hardware discussion and investigation *rename

So double confirmed?

 

153 GB/s system RAM? Is this rumour even worth posting?

 

Im trying to figure out how they came up with this.

IFL @ 920MHz? = The Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) is an IBM mainframe processor dedicated to running the Linux operating system. IFLs are not specifically optimized to run Linux faster or better. An IFL is not required to run Linux — Linux runs on general purpose processors (CPs) as well. IFLs simply cost less.


ZIIP @ 262MHz? = System z Integrated Information Processor (zIIP) is a special purpose processor. These processors do not contain microcode or hardware features that accelerate their designated workloads. Instead, by relieving the general CP of particular workloads, they often lead to a higher workload throughput at reduced license fees. Commercial software developers, subject to certain qualification rules, may obtain technical details from IBM on how to take advantage of zIIP under a Non-Disclosure Agreement.

Nintendo using specialty processors to reduce costs?

So where is the the CP (central processors) in all this?
Is this rumor suggesting that IBM took two specialty processors and made them
multi-cores and gave them SMTs without a CP?
If there is a CP, is it a quad core + 2 specialty cores? The z196 processor is implemented in a 45 nanometer copper/silicon-on-insulator process
or six core + 2 specialty cores?

When I read this:

So, from what I understand, Nintendo/IBM could have taken either six z9, z10 or z11 cores, and configure them as specialty cores. So, they could have configured one as a zIIP one as a IFL, and maybe one or two for BROADWAY bc?

At any rate, assuming rumor is true, could all these specialty cores be giving developers initially a hard time?

The rumor also supports the IBM statements of a lot of eDRAM being used by the multi-processor:

So thats all together 72MB of eDRAM

 

I thought we knew it was 32MB of EDRAM, and I thought we knew the CPU was 45nm?

 

Why bother with the how? It's all lies. Someone made some shit up, spending any time whatsoever analyzing it is a waste of your life.

It's also untrue. That tiny CPU die couldn't fit that much eDRAM (unless it was practically all eDRAM). Again, waste of time thinking about it.

 

Well its a thread for speculation.
Whether its based on facts, fantasy, or rumors.

I would like to believe that Nintendo, with its partners, has come up with
an exotic designed console. Not just vanilla PC parts. So I find it more fun discussing
the off the wall and the unexpected. This rumor is definitely off the wall.

 

It's speculation on what's in Wii U, and not Fantasy Console League.

 

Good call, those mainframe CPUs are just special "licensed" versions as per the quotes.

My understanding is those cores are identical, IBM charges you more or less depending on the particular configuration of the hardware. This is like old time mainframe stuff, you could pay $10k or whatever sum, or have your leasing charges increased so an IBM engineer comes to your place and flip a switch to enable something back or make something faster.

Mainframe CPUs are even more useless than full-on Power 7 (which has decimal units, etc.) though like Power7, it's at least a very fast CPU.
There's no relation with any console, and 14nm process is years away (IBM does 32nm and Intel is the only one on Earth with 22nm in commercial production)

 

If it's fake, it's interesting that they managed to incorporate obscure comments from more than 8 months ago by Li Mu Bai and bgassassin (who both would know) about the machine having an ARM processor.

 

Hey folks. I'm very late to the party here, but I just want to say that this thread has been some great reading material over the last year. I've definitely learned a few things from you guys.

As for that latest rumor - it's completely outrageous! It's like the hoaxer threw in all these specs with reckless abandon, not stopping to check if they made any sense or not. Perhaps one last cruel joke to Nintendo fans who are hoping for a more powerful system. Remember what we've learned in this thread and don't give them the satisfaction!

 

Note that the 500 stream processor count doesn't make any sense in the context of this rumor. AMD's VLIW5 architectures always had a granularity of 1 SIMD unit, which contained 80SPs. That would mean the stream processor count would need to be divisible by 80; 480 and 560 would be the closest counts that work.

 

The rumor is just relying off of odd specificity to gain credibility.

 

How about these:

Process Technology: 14 nm SOI


Memory clock: 1GHz
512 GDDR5 SGRAM
Memory Interface: 512-bit
Memory bandwidth: 153GB/s

How does that Memory bandwidth calculation work with those specs BTW?
To be honest I'm almost offended that I have to read that sort of garbage linked by MDX over here.

 

isn't this console meant to be launching like some time around now....... like where the hell is all this 14nm bullshit coming from

 

I didnt link it, I only offered the translation to the article.
And what was your point in bringing my name up?

 

I have to give you an apology, I didn't noticed that it was already linked prior to your post.

 

------456456546

 

It's eDRAM - it's extremely fast.

 

What makes you think it even needs to? The 1MB texture cache of the GC&wii is an outdated design. Current GPUs texture dozens of times more effectively than these crappy old chips (counting low, no doubt.)

 

While it doesn't change your conclusion VLIW5 had shipping configurations with 40 SPs per SIMD.