Wii U hardware discussion and investigation *rename
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It is an SoC, but then again, so was Hollywood. Hollywood consisted of the GPU, an ARM core responsible for IO and security, and an audio DSP. The main CPU wasn't part of the SoC (and the ARM core couldn't access the GPU, but that's a different story).
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As large as IBM's? Unlikely - the 1Mb edram macro making that possible is IBM's tech they've been perfecting for a few (power) generations now - power4 already relied on massive (off-die) edram L3. I suppose IBM are the de-facto market leader ATM.
We don't, but I'd expect GPU's access to be at least as 'direct' as Xenos'. For reference, Yamato (Xenos' little cousin in the handheld space) has way more direct access to its sram/edram tile buffer.
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And if it does, how will you look like?
Without hardproof and admittedly being driven by some "anti-spec" bias, you can only go so far to defend your point of view.
This discussion reignites when there's a nail of rumours and repeats itself for about a week. The same people with the same arguments..
It's getting really repetitive...
Wont e3 be grand though? 
I've been believing all along we'll get a real picture of the Wii U BEFORE E3, via some leaks either of game footage or specs, but who knows I guess.
And yeah, if it is 640 SP+, obviously I'll admit I was "wrong" (though, if it's 640 exactly clocked at 400 mhz or less or something, it gets into a gray area whether thats impressive to me).
I guess the other thing I'd worry is even if the GPU is ok, maybe it'll be crippled by slow RAM, considering the leaks point at DDR3.
I've been believing all along we'll get a real picture of the Wii U BEFORE E3, via some leaks either of game footage or specs, but who knows I guess.
And yeah, if it is 640 SP+, obviously I'll admit I was "wrong" (though, if it's 640 exactly clocked at 400 mhz or less or something, it gets into a gray area whether thats impressive to me).
I guess the other thing I'd worry is even if the GPU is ok, maybe it'll be crippled by slow RAM, considering the leaks point at DDR3.
Thanks. I keep thinking about an IBM manufactured CGPU with the edram included on die, even though that's currently an unpopular hypothesis. We know IBM are making the CPU and edram, and that there's currently no GPU fab named, and that AMD are big into their Fusion stuff and worked on the 360S, and putting everything on one chip should be the most power efficient way of combining everything, and so ... ?
This is baseless speculation again, but I could quite imagine the WiiU CPU doing fewer theoretical peak FLOPS than Xenon but being faster in practice and for less developer effort.
No idea. I know a former AMD engineers is referring to the chip as "SoC", and there's once again an ARM core on the GPU die. That's all I know. Someone from IBM's Entertainment Processors division was working on a 32nm VLSI project, which might refer to the Wii U chip, or it might refer to a 360 shrink or Oban.
How's that?, every chip certainly doesn't include a graphics core, a CPU core, an audio DSP and a significant portion of embedded RAM like Hollywood.
The leaks?, you're talking as if all leaks point at DDR3, they don't.
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Maybe the "SoC" term is used for the fact that it has an applications processor, memory controller, embedded memory and GPU - even though the applications processor never gets to be used for applications per se.
Could that be a confirmation that is has a "Starlet 2"?
For the extra dedicated graphics+sound upstream, maybe a Cortex A5?
Could that be a confirmation that is has a "Starlet 2"?
For the extra dedicated graphics+sound upstream, maybe a Cortex A5?
bgassassin
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There was this rumor all the way back in 2010.
The PR I've seen from Marvell in past about the processor makes it sound like something Nintendo would want.
Blazkowicz
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it's too weak, a damn slow CPU won't give you 1.5x an xbox 360.
would you wish to make a console with a four core Atom, I guess not. also comes with a useless GPU.
would you wish to make a console with a four core Atom, I guess not. also comes with a useless GPU.
bgassassin
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It also connects pretty well to AMD's last conference, where we have subtle claims that they're working on interconnecting their GPUs with ARM CPUs. That could be a byproduct of their current efforts with Wii U's "SoC".
How efficient would it be to have a dedicated ARM CPU for running the graphics driver, memory controller and I/O?
Would a very fast interconnect between a slow ARM CPU and the GPU be better than a slower interconnect between a fast PowerPC and the GPU, for some tasks?
Looking at Marvell's portfolio, I can't really find anything that "fits". Armada 500 and 600 are out of question, since they all have 3D GPUs.
Armada 168 is only ARMv5 (though that's just like Starlet, so BC would be maintained), but it does go all the way to 1GHz.
It would be a replacement for the ARM9 in the Wii, not the PowerPC. Besides, main CPU is already confirmed to be coming from IBM.
You might want to google for "Wii Starlet" to see what we're talking about.
This sounds like something Nintendo would do.
bgassassin
Regular
Actually the quad-core being talked about in the rumor article is the Armada XP. This is the one that I saw the PR on and sounded like something Nintendo would want for Wii U.
http://www.marvell.com/embedded-processors/armada-xp/
It also has a dual-core version.
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DeadlyNinja
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I hate to say this, but I think you guys are going to be pretty disappointed this E3. I have a feeling Nintendo is not going to release their specs. They haven't done so for the Wii and even with the fairly respectable hardware like the 3DS, all we can rely on are leaks, vague leaks at that. I don't think Nintendo will give out specs for the Wii-U whether it's 1 billion times the power of current gen or 1 billion times weaker than your calculator.
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