Are these rumors new?
Courtesy Wiiudaily.
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The Wii U GPU is made by AMD and is based on a modern Radeon HD design. Nintendo has been working with AMD for two console generations now, and this will be the third time AMD/ATI supplies the graphics processor in a Nintendo console. The Wii U CPU will be made and supplied by IBM. According to reports, the Wii U GPU is based on the Radeon HD 5000 series GPU, which was introduced to the PC gaming market in 2009. However, while the based architecture will be the same, the Wii U GPU will be custom made with additional features. For more on the console hardware, check out the complete Wii U system specs.
Wii U GPU specs
The Wii U GPU specs have yet to be announced, but based on developer comments and on the already available design sheets from AMD, we can estimate the following features for the graphics chip:
Based on Radeon HD 5000 “Evergreen” series
Built on 40nm manufacturing technology
Unified shader architecture
GDDR5 memory support (memory is likely to be shared with CPU and system)
Shader count: 400 unified shaders (rumored)
75 GB/S bandwidth
Low power design, 50W TDP
Full 1080p, 60 frames per second support
The Wii U GPU has been in development since 2010 according to sources, and it’s likely that AMD created a highly specialized chip for Nintendo, with many modern features incorporated into the 3 year old Evergreen design.
Wii U GPU power and performance
While the above specs don’t sound much compared to the current generation graphics chips from AMD, where up to 2000 unified shaders are possible, the specs are feasible for a console. Due to pricing, power, and resource issues, the GPU is estimated to have 400 unified shaders with extra features added. This would still make the Wii U GPU many times faster than what’s found in the Xbox 360, which only has 48 shader units. It has been rumored that the Wii U GPU includes a small amount of RAM (32 MB) embedded with the graphics processor and aside from the main system memory, although this report hasn’t been confirmed. This RAM is supposedly used as a framebuffer and to assist with some of the other GPU features.
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The Wii U CPU is based on IMB’s latest PowerPC technology, the POWER7 architecture. The processor will use most of the modern features from POWER7, including multi-threading and power saving controls. The Wii U CPU speed is estimated to be at 3 GHz by developers who have access to dev kits. The processor is the key part in the Wii U system specs, which include a Wii U GPU from AMD, and an unspecified amount of RAM. According to reports obtained by Wii U Daily, the console will use a processor based on the “IBM 710 Express”, but will be heavily modified to suit the needs of the console and video game software.
Wii U CPU specs
The Wii U CPU uses most of the features from the POWER7 architecture, the rumored and leaked specs so far indicate:
4 CPU Cores and 2 MB shared L3 cache
3 GHz clock speed
Multi-threading: 4 threads per core, 16 threads in total
45 nm process
Advanced power savings features and design
256 KB L2 cache per core
The processor of course includes a whole slew of additional features, but the main attribute is the addition of multi-threading: the Wii U CPU can handle up to 16 threads at the same time. Compared to the older Xbox 360 chip, which can only run 6 threads at a time, the new chip is much more capable when it comes to multi-threading and simultaneous executions of code. Production of the Wii U processor will take place at IBM’s facility in New York, USA, while the final console and components will be assembled in China and shipped worldwide.
Wii U CPU power and performance
The power output of the Wii U CPU is debatable at this point, as no clear technical specifications are available. The IBM Power7 architecture is rated at maximum 33 GFLOPS(Giga FLOPS) per core with the full amount of cache available at max clock speed. Per CPU, the maximum performance output is over 260 GFLOPS, albeit this is based on a fully specced out 8 core chip at 4 GHz. Realistically, the Wii U CPU power output could be at around 50 GFLOPS, with 4 cores at 3 GHz. This would make the Wii U CPU over 20 times faster than the old Wii Broadway processor, and twice as fast as the PlayStation 3 Cell processor, and 2.5X as fast as the Xbox 360 chip.
