Wii U CPU said to support 8 threads, is 20X faster than Wii

A report obtained by Wii U Daily suggests that the Nintendo Wii U CPU is based on the IBM 710 Express chip, but is underclocked at 3 GHz and comes with 4 cores and 8 threads. The new CPU is said to be 20X faster than the chip found in the original Wii console.

Wii U Daily?s Japanese source, which originally leaked theWii U system specs, now elaborates on the main processor. The Wii U CPU, as we know from Nintendo, is made by IBM and is based on their POWER 7 architecture, and will be built on 45nm. The new details reveal that the Wii U CPU is modeled after the 710 Express IBM server processor, which as standard has 6 cores and runs at speeds of up to 3.7 GHz. The 710 Express chip can also execute 4 threads per core at the same.

In order to save on production costs, Nintendo has scaled down the processor for the console. The Wii U version of the CPU will scale down the cores to 4, the clock frequency to 3 GHz, and threads per core will go down from 4 to 2. This means theWii U CPUwill be able to execute 8 threads at the same time. The current Xbox 360 CPU, also made by IBM, can execute 6 threads at the same time.

On paper it looks like the Wii U is ?around 50% more powerful than current gen systems? as analysts suggested last year, but in reality, the console is likely to be much faster than the raw numbers suggest. This is due to the new features and the architectural improvements of the POWER 7 design. Overall, the Wii U CPU is said to be 20X faster than the IBM Broadway chip found in the Wii.

While Nintendo isn?t expected to reveal any CPU or hardware details at E3, the NDAs developers signed will likely expire after E3. This could pave the way for developers to share some of the specific hardware design features of the Wii U, including the CPU, GPU, RAM, etc. We?ll have to wait until then to see whether this rumor holds true.

Link: http://wiiudaily.com/2012/05/wii-u-cpu-said-to-support-8-threads-is-20x-faster-than-wii/

Been posted before, but still, a 20X faster CPU is catching up to the 360/PS3.

Been posted before, but still, a 20X faster CPU is catching up to the 360/PS3.

dream431ca

Yeah.

The 360 was like 15-20x more powerful than the Xbox and the Wii is roughly the same strength as an Xbox.

20x faster is just some number that looks impressive. 20x faster than a console developed in 2001 isn't really saying much in 2012.

Oh goodie it's 20.5 times more powerful than the Gamecube!

So? The only thing that truly matters for video games is GPUs.

I hope this means Nintendo will put more effort into physics and ai of their games, because the Wiis CPU has been wasted.

So? The only thing that truly matters for video games is GPUs.

airshocker

Maybe on the PC with a CPU made after 2008, but the consoles are still running some pretty weak CPUs.

Oh goodie it's 20.5 times more powerful than the Gamecube!

eyebrows

[QUOTE="dream431ca"]

Been posted before, but still, a 20X faster CPU is catching up to the 360/PS3.

Wasdie

Yeah.

The 360 was like 15-20x more powerful than the Xbox and the Wii is roughly the same strength as an Xbox.

20x faster is just some number that looks impressive. 20x faster than a console developed in 2001 isn't really saying much in 2012.

BUT CAN IT DEFEAT MY I7-3770kprinceofshapeir

Can your 3770k beat my 2500k?

So? The only thing that truly matters for video games is GPUs.

airshocker

CPU's have been coming into play much more often lately. BF3 among other games are a good representation of this.

[QUOTE="Wasdie"]

[QUOTE="dream431ca"]

Been posted before, but still, a 20X faster CPU is catching up to the 360/PS3.

Phazevariance

Yeah.

The 360 was like 15-20x more powerful than the Xbox and the Wii is roughly the same strength as an Xbox.

20x faster is just some number that looks impressive. 20x faster than a console developed in 2001 isn't really saying much in 2012.

The Wii could if they wanted it to, they just didn't want it to.

The games weren't rendered in 1280x720 on the Xbox, that's just what the final video was output at. The game would be streatched to fit that resolution. There's a difference between rendering a resolution and outputting the resolution. Since the hardware isn't powerful enough in the Wii to render 720p without some major sacrifices to graphics, it's kind of pointless to put an output that allows that resolution.

[QUOTE="princeofshapeir"]BUT CAN IT DEFEAT MY I7-3770kmrfrosty151986

Can your 3770k beat my 2500k?

[spoiler] [/spoiler]

[QUOTE="mrfrosty151986"]

[QUOTE="princeofshapeir"]BUT CAN IT DEFEAT MY I7-3770kprinceofshapeir

Can your 3770k beat my 2500k?

[spoiler] [/spoiler]

lmao, I always reference that scene. Man I love that movie and Jack :).

PS - I just noticed how similar he looks to my barbarian sig :P.

[QUOTE="princeofshapeir"]BUT CAN IT DEFEAT MY I7-3770kmrfrosty151986

Can your 3770k beat my 2500k?

[QUOTE="airshocker"]

So? The only thing that truly matters for video games is GPUs.

NaveedLife

CPU's have been coming into play much more often lately. BF3 among other games are a good representation of this.

Modern graphics cards can do everything a CPU can and more.

I find it funny when people are buying the latest CPUs to get only a marginal increase in performance over an old quad core Q6600 (which is six years old now).

[QUOTE="NaveedLife"]

[QUOTE="airshocker"]

So? The only thing that truly matters for video games is GPUs.

nameless12345

CPU's have been coming into play much more often lately. BF3 among other games are a good representation of this.

Modern graphics cards can do everything a CPU can and more.

I find it funny when people are buying the latest CPUs to get only a marginal increase in performance over an old quad core Q6600 (which is six years old now).

DAT POWAH!!!

[QUOTE="NaveedLife"]

[QUOTE="airshocker"]

So? The only thing that truly matters for video games is GPUs.

nameless12345

CPU's have been coming into play much more often lately. BF3 among other games are a good representation of this.

Modern graphics cards can do everything a CPU can and more.

I find it funny when people are buying the latest CPUs to get only a marginal increase in performance over an old quad core Q6600 (which is six years old now).

Not 100% true. Modern GPUs don't have general purpose processing cores. The processors on a GPU are focused on floating point operations for graphical processing. Lots of numbers getting processed really really fast. That's what computer graphics are.

They don't have the more robust instruction sets that general CPUs do. This makes them ideal for lots of doing math in parallel but they'll still need a general CPU to do the organization and logic.

[QUOTE="mrfrosty151986"]

[QUOTE="princeofshapeir"]BUT CAN IT DEFEAT MY I7-3770kGrey_Eyed_Elf

Can your 3770k beat my 2500k?

I can show you a video showing a 2500k giving twice the FPS... in battlefiled online...

[QUOTE="mrfrosty151986"]

[QUOTE="princeofshapeir"]BUT CAN IT DEFEAT MY I7-3770kprinceofshapeir

Can your 3770k beat my 2500k?

[spoiler] [/spoiler]

Even with my 2500k at 5.5Ghz?

[QUOTE="nameless12345"]

[QUOTE="NaveedLife"]

CPU's have been coming into play much more often lately. BF3 among other games are a good representation of this.

Wasdie

Modern graphics cards can do everything a CPU can and more.

I find it funny when people are buying the latest CPUs to get only a marginal increase in performance over an old quad core Q6600 (which is six years old now).

Not 100% true. Modern GPUs don't have general purpose processing cores. The processors on a GPU are focused on floating point operations for graphical processing. Lots of numbers getting processed really really fast. That's what computer graphics are.

They don't have the more robust instruction sets that general CPUs do. This makes them ideal for lots of doing math in parallel but they'll still need a general CPU to do the organization and logic.

I believe in a few years time a CPU will be almost insignificant and everything will be done on the graphics chipset alone (GPGPU).

Modern GPU have already surpassed CPUs in FLOPS performance and can do everything a CPU can (like physics and AI calculations and the like).

[QUOTE="Wasdie"]

[QUOTE="nameless12345"]

Modern graphics cards can do everything a CPU can and more.

I find it funny when people are buying the latest CPUs to get only a marginal increase in performance over an old quad core Q6600 (which is six years old now).

nameless12345

Not 100% true. Modern GPUs don't have general purpose processing cores. The processors on a GPU are focused on floating point operations for graphical processing. Lots of numbers getting processed really really fast. That's what computer graphics are.

They don't have the more robust instruction sets that general CPUs do. This makes them ideal for lots of doing math in parallel but they'll still need a general CPU to do the organization and logic.

I believe in a few years time a CPU will be almost insignificant and everything will be done on the graphics chipset alone (GPGPU).

Modern GPU have already surpassed CPUs in FLOPS performance and can do everything a CPU can (like physics and AI calculations and the like).

Did you just ignore what I posted?

You're also ignoring the trend of the APU and the integrated GPU onto a CPU. It's not the other way around.

[QUOTE="Grey_Eyed_Elf"][QUOTE="mrfrosty151986"]

Can your 3770k beat my 2500k?

mrfrosty151986

I can show you a video showing a 2500k giving twice the FPS... in battlefiled online...

BUT CAN IT DEFEAT MY I7-3770kprinceofshapeir

It's a Power7 so yeah

[QUOTE="mrfrosty151986"]

[QUOTE="Grey_Eyed_Elf"] Is there point to upgrading to a 2500K if you have a Q9650 at 3.9GHz... TEH answer is nay. Gaming with a CPU from 2009 with the same GPU compared to a CPU from 2012 = 5-10FPS at best. Unless your running on the lowest settings and sub HD resolutions.Grey_Eyed_Elf

I can show you a video showing a 2500k giving twice the FPS... in battlefiled online...

Q9650 is old hat, CPU limited FTW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiqS341ibbc

[QUOTE="nameless12345"]

[QUOTE="Wasdie"]

Not 100% true. Modern GPUs don't have general purpose processing cores. The processors on a GPU are focused on floating point operations for graphical processing. Lots of numbers getting processed really really fast. That's what computer graphics are.

They don't have the more robust instruction sets that general CPUs do. This makes them ideal for lots of doing math in parallel but they'll still need a general CPU to do the organization and logic.

Wasdie

I believe in a few years time a CPU will be almost insignificant and everything will be done on the graphics chipset alone (GPGPU).

Modern GPU have already surpassed CPUs in FLOPS performance and can do everything a CPU can (like physics and AI calculations and the like).

Did you just ignore what I posted?

You're also ignoring the trend of the APU and the integrated GPU onto a CPU. It's not the other way around.

APUs target a different market segment, namely the price/performance "all-in-one" market. No doubt APUs will keep developing but so will "concrete" GPUs.

You can already run things without a CPU on a GPU alone (see "Froblins" RV770 demo) and a dual Fermi (GTX 690) destroys any CPU in FLOPS performance and could run games without the CPU if they designed them for it.

Also, future AMD sollutions are indicating unified hardware design.

lets just wait for e3......wii u will pown! ;)

[QUOTE="Grey_Eyed_Elf"][QUOTE="mrfrosty151986"]

I can show you a video showing a 2500k giving twice the FPS... in battlefiled online...

mrfrosty151986

Q9650 is old hat, CPU limited FTW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiqS341ibbc

[QUOTE="mrfrosty151986"]

[QUOTE="Grey_Eyed_Elf"] Battlefield online... Just my Q9650 and HD 4890 got 180FPS on CSS benchmark and then my i5 2500K got 230FPS with the same GPU. BF3 on the same settings(medium) got 2-3 FPS by going from the Q9650 to 2500K. Maybe you should show me 2500K doing 1000FPS on Quake 2 and the Q9650 doing 500... ooh double. The older the game the more likely anything will give a crazy boost even the slight overclock will gain a boost in old games. More and more new games just don't give a s*** what quad you have as long as its a quad with l3 cache and runs at 3.0GHz.Grey_Eyed_Elf

Q9650 is old hat, CPU limited FTW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiqS341ibbc

There's no action on screen.... Still beleive what you want... you'll get a massive boost with a 2500k

[QUOTE="Grey_Eyed_Elf"][QUOTE="mrfrosty151986"]

Q9650 is old hat, CPU limited FTW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiqS341ibbc

mrfrosty151986

There's no action on screen.... Still beleive what you want... you'll get a massive boost with a 2500k

[QUOTE="mrfrosty151986"]

[QUOTE="Grey_Eyed_Elf"] Video shows a 85FPS with a Q9650 and 115FPS with a 2500K on the same scene then nowhere near double... unless you have the guy looking at rocks/sky and getting 160FPS. I never said its not better, I said its just not worth it, especially when you compare the performance to new games. a Q9650/955 is MORE than enough.Grey_Eyed_Elf

There's no action on screen.... Still beleive what you want... you'll get a massive boost with a 2500k

Many PC games don't even make use of more than two cores. For example Crysis only makes use of only 2 cores. And Arma 2 uses, like, 20% of the whole CPU cores potential.

APUs target a different market segment, namely the price/performance "all-in-one" market. No doubt APUs will keep developing but so will "concrete" GPUs.

You can already run things without a CPU on a GPU alone (see "Froblins" RV770 demo) and a dual Fermi (GTX 690) destroys any CPU in FLOPS performance and could run games without the CPU if they designed them for it.

Also, future AMD sollutions are indicating unified hardware design.

nameless12345

Considering the direction that PC markets are going, APUs aren't just a phase. GPUs will always be improved upon, that I don't doubt.

Also, just because you can run everything on a GPU doesn't mean it's the most efficient way. FLOPS do not translate to real world performance. Sure it can crunch math, that's what floating point operations are, but having a machine running a dozen apps and an OS at the same time while handling network communications and disk IO, a modern GPU isn't going to cut it.

You also have to consider legacy support. A GPU doesn't run an X86 instruction set, they don't have the hardware for that. You can't just abandon that kind of support and won't be able to even 30 years from now.

Unified hardware designs are probably the future because of efficiency for mobile computing. APUs are that unification.

However for gaming, we'll see a split between GPU and CPU for the foreseeable future.

[QUOTE="princeofshapeir"]BUT CAN IT DEFEAT MY I7-3770kmrfrosty151986

Can your 3770k beat my 2500k?

[QUOTE="Wasdie"]

[QUOTE="dream431ca"]

Been posted before, but still, a 20X faster CPU is catching up to the 360/PS3.

Phazevariance

Yeah.

The 360 was like 15-20x more powerful than the Xbox and the Wii is roughly the same strength as an Xbox.

20x faster is just some number that looks impressive. 20x faster than a console developed in 2001 isn't really saying much in 2012.

lol talk about clueless talk :lol:,the xbox didn't do jack,it was just the upscaler / adapter doing all the job.

20x faster than the original Wii is awful. Sheep are going to be really butt hurt when they realize Nintendo is catering to casuals again.