Will case size limit Revolution's processing capability?
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Alot of you don't know what your talking about .
First off look at the dual pc chips coming out . The athlon 64 dual chip is faster than the p4 dual chip runs at a lower mhz rating and uses less power and puts out less heat .
With that out of the way you can pipeline the heat away from the cpu and gpu which is alot better than releasing it directly above the chip .
With a normal heatsink fan the cool air is either blown down onto the heatsink or sucked up and pushed away . These both cause problems .
With blowing down the air will come out of all the side of the heatsink heated up and some of it will be recycled back onto the heatsink making it work less efficent .
Sucking out the air pushes the hot air up to the celling of the case and then it is blown over other components of the system the gpu or the ram or the power supply . Thus lessing the power of the global cooling .
Using a watercooler (which is not really likely in a console ) you can move the ot water to another section of the case . You can do this with the liquid metal also .
So if you have a fan at the rear of the case like the ps2 . You can hook up a radiator to the inside of the case behind that fan. This will allow the fan to suck up the hot air around the radiator and push it out directly into the air outside the case .
So not only do you have good cooling on the chip but then the rest of the case is kept cooler as there is heat source dumping the heat through out the case . You also limit the noise in the case .
You can limit the noise in the case because instead of having a fan or two on the heatsink for the cpu and one on the heatsink of the gpu you can now have case fans only . Not only that but because you don't need to wory about the dead spot of the fan being over the heatsink you can now use a bigger fan which uses less rpms to cool and creates less noise .
So you can have one fan in the front of the case slowly spining and one fan in the back of the case and keep it cool
First off look at the dual pc chips coming out . The athlon 64 dual chip is faster than the p4 dual chip runs at a lower mhz rating and uses less power and puts out less heat .
With that out of the way you can pipeline the heat away from the cpu and gpu which is alot better than releasing it directly above the chip .
With a normal heatsink fan the cool air is either blown down onto the heatsink or sucked up and pushed away . These both cause problems .
With blowing down the air will come out of all the side of the heatsink heated up and some of it will be recycled back onto the heatsink making it work less efficent .
Sucking out the air pushes the hot air up to the celling of the case and then it is blown over other components of the system the gpu or the ram or the power supply . Thus lessing the power of the global cooling .
Using a watercooler (which is not really likely in a console ) you can move the ot water to another section of the case . You can do this with the liquid metal also .
So if you have a fan at the rear of the case like the ps2 . You can hook up a radiator to the inside of the case behind that fan. This will allow the fan to suck up the hot air around the radiator and push it out directly into the air outside the case .
So not only do you have good cooling on the chip but then the rest of the case is kept cooler as there is heat source dumping the heat through out the case . You also limit the noise in the case .
You can limit the noise in the case because instead of having a fan or two on the heatsink for the cpu and one on the heatsink of the gpu you can now have case fans only . Not only that but because you don't need to wory about the dead spot of the fan being over the heatsink you can now use a bigger fan which uses less rpms to cool and creates less noise .
So you can have one fan in the front of the case slowly spining and one fan in the back of the case and keep it cool
mckmas8808
Legend
When I think about it I guess that not that hard to believe. If they clock in down to 2 Ghz I could see that being a possibility
Well the 4VMX thingy is silly since pretty much all AltiVec implementations since the 7450/7440 have had 4 execution units anyways...
The PPE style core isn't so bad since it's power efficient, although @2GHz you'd probably have to crank the voltage upwards a bit as it's nominal operating range seems to be from 2.8-4GHz between .9-1.3V... Dunno how much power savings can be made there after ratcheting up the voltage.
The other thing to consider is emulation (since that's a major aspect that Nintendo is touting). I'm not exactly sure how well the PPE style core would handle emulating other processors (R4300i would be the only real concern the older 6502 and ARM (assuming AGB and DS emulation is offered) designs would probably be easy). The 970/970FX would handle it no problem, but that's an entirely different (and more difficult) thermal challenge...
That's not saying much since the Prescott core has been a total turd for Intel anyways...
The PPE style core isn't so bad since it's power efficient, although @2GHz you'd probably have to crank the voltage upwards a bit as it's nominal operating range seems to be from 2.8-4GHz between .9-1.3V... Dunno how much power savings can be made there after ratcheting up the voltage.
The other thing to consider is emulation (since that's a major aspect that Nintendo is touting). I'm not exactly sure how well the PPE style core would handle emulating other processors (R4300i would be the only real concern the older 6502 and ARM (assuming AGB and DS emulation is offered) designs would probably be easy). The 970/970FX would handle it no problem, but that's an entirely different (and more difficult) thermal challenge...
That's not saying much since the Prescott core has been a total turd for Intel anyways...
None are so blind as those who will not see.
All this speculation makes the assumption that Nintendo is trying to match the system performance of the other two consoles.
They've already said publicly that they don't want to do that.
Once you accept the premise that they aren't trying to compete with the other two consoles, you will see that their optimal design strategy is to produce a low cost, low power sytem with ordinary low-end laptop technology and cooling. See the Mac Mini for an example of how this design strategy works in practice.
They will do minor speed bumps on the existing Game Cube CPU and GPU, but probably not add any significant features. I bet they won't even bother implementing pixel or vertex shaders.
The result will play Nintendo games just fine, but will be too wimpy for cross platform games.
But if it's cheap and has Zelda and Mario games then they'll sell just as many units as if it was a significantly more powerful console.
All this speculation makes the assumption that Nintendo is trying to match the system performance of the other two consoles.
They've already said publicly that they don't want to do that.
Once you accept the premise that they aren't trying to compete with the other two consoles, you will see that their optimal design strategy is to produce a low cost, low power sytem with ordinary low-end laptop technology and cooling. See the Mac Mini for an example of how this design strategy works in practice.
They will do minor speed bumps on the existing Game Cube CPU and GPU, but probably not add any significant features. I bet they won't even bother implementing pixel or vertex shaders.
The result will play Nintendo games just fine, but will be too wimpy for cross platform games.
But if it's cheap and has Zelda and Mario games then they'll sell just as many units as if it was a significantly more powerful console.
MechanizedDeath
Regular
Ooh-videogames said:
I know how these cooling designs work. The CPU and GPU in PS3 and 360 are going to be dissipating a lot of heat, and that's with them being parred down already. They cut out a lot of fat. Why would the packaging be so large? To get as much surface area to absorb as much heat and then use a large amount of surface area to dump it through an exhaust.
Do you think one of those little ducted fans is gonna be as efficient? You need to turn more rpms, which tends to mean more noise with these kinda of designs. The shroud helps with some of the dBs, but not enough when you're talking about a tiny little case. The Rev is supposed to be even smaller than what we've seen already. You're packing a lot of electronics in a small area, and thus generating a lot of heat to relatively small amount of surface area. Ducted fans or regular fans, the cfms is what's important to cool. Ducted fans need more rpms to achieve the same cfms as standard fans. RPMs are also one of the largest contributors to noise. With ducting, the air turbulence itself creates noise as well. It's not a matter of using a bigger fan either, b/c then all your ducting gets bigger as well.
I'm sure this is the cooling solution Nintendo will be using. A low-profile solution with a heat exchanger. But I have a hard time believing Nintendo can match the performance of Sony and MS's designs without the solutions I pointed out. You couldn't use one of these designs to cool a Cell @ 3.2GHz for instance. Not without cranking some serious rpms on that fan. So it all comes back to how will Nintendo get similar performance from BOTH chips while dissipating less power? Are they goiing to find a GPU design that idles parts of the circuit to save power? I know ATI's Mobility line is supposed to do this, but only when you crank down the graphics. Keep your laptop GPU at full performance (which you'll want) and it dumps heat like a desktop part. There's just no escaping this. And GPUs are highly paralleled parts intended to run at high efficiency. You want most of your circuit churning away.
If they even equal the 360 @ 90nm and that small form factor, then I will be amazed. AMD/Intel comparisons have nothing to do with it. These chips in the 360 and PS3 have been cut down a lot at 90nm and still run hot. As efficient as they are, they still need powerful cooling solutions.
It seems like the different solutions are being combined together here to solve the cooling problem for the form factor, and the performance is assumed to follow through some magic. I don't buy it. Not one bit. At 65nm for both chips, I'll definitely give them the benefit of the doubt, but only then. That's the only way to effectively lower voltage, and still keep transistor logic high as well as clock speeds in a nominal range. Otherwise, something has to give. BTW...heat comes from *both* sides of a PCB. It's not normally a problem in an ATX case where the GPU is the top card in direct airflow of the exhaust fans, but in a case that's supposed to be "3 DVD cases" thick...hmm. Again, it could well be a modern marvel of engineering. :? PEACE.
MechanizedDeath
Regular
shaderguy said:
Thank you. What I've been trying to say is that they aren't gonna match the other systems in performance. When we assume that, then yes, they can get away with a low-pro design and these low-pro cooling solutions. I'm merely challenging the notion that the Rev will be able to match the PS3 and X360 while keeping a tiny package. All things being equal, something has to give. PEACE.
EDIT: I expect them to get considerable performance though. I expect the next set of mobile GPUs to be rather formidable performers.
Gamecube emulated R4300i fairly well, plus nintendo could always recompile code if need be, I'd imagine they still have the sources for all their old games.
Except the Mac Mini is far from competitive with laptops in hardware.
And if they're just doing minor speed bumps, they could have released revolution years ago. Also, I wouldn't expect gamecube development to slow so much if rev's hardware is going to be essentially 100% compatible. Heck, they could make the games for gamecube, and just give them the option of playing higher res or faster framerate on revolution.
Revolution will be at least 5x as powerful as gamecube, which would still make it the weakest next gen console, but Rev will be at least that much more powerful than gamecube and could be more so.
BTW, how about using slower switching transistors? I believe amd's turion line is supposed to use transistors that can't clock as high as the desktop parts, but in turn the turions require about half as much power as a desktop part at the same speed and seem to only be about 10% lower in max speed.
Ooh-videogames
Regular
MechanizedDeath said:
Nintendo isn't packing alot of electronics into there console, have you seen the GC board. Now tell me its design similar to that of the PS2 or Xbox.
Revolution
No internal power supply, one proprietary digital/Analog A/V connnection,
Wifi, Wireless connectivity for controllers , GC controller ports, slot loading DVD disc drive. Excluding the CPU, GPU, Memory, 512MB storage memory. [/img]
shaderguy
Your right there, but in this case that applies to you. Because you just don't understand Nintendo, nor do you know their history. Before GameCube was released they said the same things as they're saying now. In fact I seem to remember some comments from someone at Nintendo saying that they weren't going to try to make a system as powerful as PS2. They just wanted to make a "small quiet system", sound familiar?
Your right there, but in this case that applies to you. Because you just don't understand Nintendo, nor do you know their history. Before GameCube was released they said the same things as they're saying now. In fact I seem to remember some comments from someone at Nintendo saying that they weren't going to try to make a system as powerful as PS2. They just wanted to make a "small quiet system", sound familiar?
MechanizedDeath
Regular
Ooh-videogames said:
It didn't match the Xbox (hey, point me to a game that matches/beats the best on the Xbox). RE4 is arguably the best thing going on the system, and there are better looking games on the Xbox. The PS3 also packs a considerable wallop, but falls behind due to a weaker GPU design. That's the difference between a GPU designed in 1997 and one designed...whenever Flipper was finalized). Not taking anything away from the design, but let's be real here. Besides which, internal volume of the GC wasn't that much smaller than that of the PS2. I'm guesstimating now though. I only have a GC to measure, threw the PS2 out. But the two times I had the PS2 apart, I don't remember the mobo being that big. Bigger than the GC's, but weren't the EE and GS on a larger process too? PEACE.
MechanizedDeath said:
Gamecube did come close to the xbox, it surpassed it in some areas and lost to it in others.(sometimes by a significant amount for both)
How about Rogue Leader 2: Reebel Strike? It looked pretty good and ran at 60 fps. And I can't recall any other 60 fps console first person shooters that look as good as the metroid prime games.
Starfox Adventures still looks really good too. Despite being released early in the gamecube's lifecycle, it looks nearly as good as Conker which is being released at the end, and is one of the better looking xbox games.(though it's sad that games that came out in the first year of the gamecube's life look better than games released years later on it)
And the volume of the gamecube is way smaller than the ps2, and slightly smaller than the dreamcast.
Hmm, gamecube came out 3 years after dreamcast, was slightly smaller, and about 4x as powerful. Revolution is coming out 5-6 years after gamecube(when has nintendo ever released a console on time?), is slightly larger than gamecube, and cpus and gpus have seen significant advancements from what the gamecube had, beyond simple linear advancement of power. But that really only contradicts the "rev will be 3-4x the power of gamecube" statement, it shouldn't be a problem for the rev's graphics chip to match or exceed that of ps3 and x360, but it seems less possible for them to compete with multicore cpu designs.(sure they could do more lower clocked cores, but that costs more and I don't think nintendo would go for a $300+ price)
Ooh-videogames
Regular
MechanizedDeath said:
What are you talking about, I wasn't posting about the technical capabilities of the Xbox and GC. This is about the boards for which the processors are placed on. The Xbox is a console made of off the shelf PC parts, not much R&D behind its development on MS part.
And I'm not pointing to the size, but clean design. Its not cluttered like most PCB that I have seen.
Let's consider the fact there are constent advances in PCB board manufacturing and design, or is it limited to what knowledge you have.
randycat99
Veteran
Fox5 said:
Just for the record, the Mac Mini is essentially the iBook G4 hardware reshuffled into a different profile, IIRC.
randycat99 said:Fox5 said:
Just for the record, the Mac Mini is essentially the iBook G4 hardware reshuffled into a different profile, IIRC.
The iBooks aren't competitive in hardware either.
A top of the line PC laptop probably has around 3x the cpu performance, and probably like 16x the graphical performance.
randycat99
Veteran
It's still a laptop, and horses for courses. "Competitive" lies entirely in what kind of laptop you are looking for.
randycat99 said:
The kind with high end performance hardware stuffed into a small box.
Yes, revolution could go mac mini style and be severely underpowered and small, but it doesn't have to be.
Err, you mean limit it from being as high as xbox 360? Because honestly, I don't think high end performance parts are going to get cooler as the years go on, if rev launched in 2008 with xbox 360 graphics, well that'd be pretty pathetic, especially since ps4 and xbox 720 would be unveiled around that time.
Fox5 said:
Yes the x360 was the mental comparison, you have to admit by looking at that pic there is not much room left. GC atleast had room vertically. I don't think it matters much, Gekko was argueably the weakest CPU this gen and that didn't hinder the GC this gen from some great games. I don't think we've seen anything yet. I'm expecting the big cost of the system to be in the input device.
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