Which are those embedded AMD parts with 2-3 SKUs?
Actually 2 years is considered fairly short-lived in embedded. Most embedded parts, particularly those by large vendors, have lifespan of 3+ years.
The E6760/E6460 case could indeed be a binned pair, but if they are indeed binned, they are binned by good functions, not performance. Just check their respective briefs - the two parts have different capabilities:
I don't have experience with AMD's embedded APUs. But AMD's entire E GPU lineup, save for potentially those two (E6760/6460) are not binned. You can take it or leave it.
You know guys. It all dosen't matter anymore! I haven't really talked much for quite some time in this thread or other threads about how capable Wii U is. For a simple reason...
176 gflops? 352 gflops? It dosen't matter!
Anything being discussed in here dosen't matter to me anymore since E3.
Wii U could have 1 gflop and it wouldn't matter.
Wii U since E3 IMO showerd exactly what i (and several others) expected Wii U to do. Being a good step up above PS360.
If you look at "X" you have to keep in mind that Nintendos games get the really good visual bling bling at the end of the development cycle. Now imagine how this game will look a year from now. Cause if its really coming in 2014, its propably a holiday title. So comparing games that are out or coming in the next weeks to "X" makes no sense. Remember that Pikmin 3 and The Wonderful 101 both improved alot in their last year of development! Also a game like GTA 5 does look incredible because they propably spent over 100 million on it and have a far bigger team on it than any Wii U game will ever see. "X" is propably done with a fraction of GTA 5s budget. A huge budget can make quite a difference that has nothing to do with technical capabilities of the hardware.
Also Wind Waker HD looks incredible on the latest footage. Full 1080p + really awesome lighting effects and higher res textures and proper widescreen. IMO All that was needed to bring this game to 2013 was done.
Mario Kart 8 looks absolutely amazing. Great textures, awesome character/kart models and effects. All in 60 frames/sec. Not buyin the 1080p everyone is speaking of until its official though.
Smash is 1080p60 and looks really amazing. N'uff said
Bayonetta 2 looks alot better than Bayonetta 1. And i don't buy the "Bayonetta is a 2010 game so it dosen't count" excuse. Bayonetta 1 came 2010 and was developed on a mature Xbox 360 dev kit from a team with good technical abilities. So the Bayo1/2 comparison is valid. Also both games are propably utilising a comparable budget since i can't see Nintendo "wasting" as much cash on a game as other developers. Especially not on a "B" franchise like Bayonetta wich only appeals to a niche audience. IMO Bayo 1 vs. Bayo 2 is the most exact comparison we have right now if you also use the budget as a factor (And you should)
3D World looks really great and super clean and i wouldn't be surprised if it was 1080p60. (Yet i would be ok woth 720p60 too and wouldn't whine or laugh about it like some people on here would)
The people who still try to push the "Wii U = 360" agenda in terms of capabilities are the same people coming to every Wii U thread to trashtalk so their opinions and statements have absolutely no value to me. Im not calling those people out, you know who you are.
Thats just my 2 cents to the Wii U capabilities talk.
You know guys. It all dosen't matter anymore! I haven't really talked much for quite some time in this thread or other threads about how capable Wii U is. For a simple reason...
176 gflops? 352 gflops? It dosen't matter!
Anything being discussed in here dosen't matter to me anymore since E3.
Wii U could have 1 gflop and it wouldn't matter.
Wii U since E3 IMO showerd exactly what i (and several others) expected Wii U to do. Being a good step up above PS360.
If you look at "X" you have to keep in mind that Nintendos games get the really good visual bling bling at the end of the development cycle. Now imagine how this game will look a year from now. Cause if its really coming in 2014, its propably a holiday title. So comparing games that are out or coming in the next weeks to "X" makes no sense. Remember that Pikmin 3 and The Wonderful 101 both improved alot in their last year of development! Also a game like GTA 5 does look incredible because they propably spent over 100 million on it and have a far bigger team on it than any Wii U game will ever see. "X" is propably done with a fraction of GTA 5s budget. A huge budget can make quite a difference that has nothing to do with technical capabilities of the hardware.
Also Wind Waker HD looks incredible on the latest footage. Full 1080p + really awesome lighting effects and higher res textures and proper widescreen. IMO All that was needed to bring this game to 2013 was done.
Mario Kart 8 looks absolutely amazing. Great textures, awesome character/kart models and effects. All in 60 frames/sec. Not buyin the 1080p everyone is speaking of until its official though.
Smash is 1080p60 and looks really amazing. N'uff said
Bayonetta 2 looks alot better than Bayonetta 1. And i don't buy the "Bayonetta is a 2010 game so it dosen't count" excuse. Bayonetta 1 came 2010 and was developed on a mature Xbox 360 dev kit from a team with good technical abilities. So the Bayo1/2 comparison is valid. Also both games are propably utilising a comparable budget since i can't see Nintendo "wasting" as much cash on a game as other developers. Especially not on a "B" franchise like Bayonetta wich only appeals to a niche audience. IMO Bayo 1 vs. Bayo 2 is the most exact comparison we have right now if you also use the budget as a factor (And you should)
3D World looks really great and super clean and i wouldn't be surprised if it was 1080p60. (Yet i would be ok woth 720p60 too and wouldn't whine or laugh about it like some people on here would)
The people who still try to push the "Wii U = 360" agenda in terms of capabilities are the same people coming to every Wii U thread to trashtalk so their opinions and statements have absolutely no value to me. Im not calling those people out, you know who you are.
Thats just my 2 cents to the Wii U capabilities talk.
Cost? Isn't a low-end 320 GB HDD about as much as a 32 GB SDD?
Oh, right, it has flash, sorry, got them mixed up.
That's the point - embedded parts are never at the cutting edge of the given architecture lineup (i.e. never the quantitative flagmen, clock- or transistor-wise), nor fab node leaders - basically they are released at a stable design point, and start their life from there. You could say they are branched off of a consumer part, but that's about it. Embedded (particularly AMD's GPUs) are usually "binned" by 'good' / 'no-good' - the yields are good enough so that the rest can be covered by the unit pricing. Basically, there is no need for performance-rated bins.
No no, by lifespan I'm referring to the product availability lifespan (for the parts we're discussing here it's 5 years). As re the life expectancy of the end product - it's the other way round to what you suggest above - embedded parts are often subjected to much harsher conditions than most laptop components could ever be. Trust me, some of the equipment those little parts end up being used in is supposed to live for years on though conditions most laptops would not survive even a month.
"Good functionality" as in functioning blocks. E6460 could be an E6760 with disabled blocks. Both parts are specced at the exact same clocks, though. I.e. each and every proto-E6x60, assuming they start life as one die, has to hit the specced clocks, at the specced TDP. Surely disabling blocks could help 'half-good' protos live a 'full life' as E6460s at a relaxed TDP, but that's about it - there are no half-clocked E6760s, and those which don't meet the E6460 criteria (2 functional SIMD units at 800MHz, at least 4 functional Eyefinity pipelines, etc) are disposed of. Even if binned that way, that's some quite rigid binning - millions upon millions of parts make it though that not because of some fine-grained discrimination process (which is what normally clock grades do), but because of the maturity of the production itself.
It didn't matter in the end. I just wanted to point out the rampant paranoia. I probably could have done that without your post (but I saw it as influential).
I thought you had everything figured out many WUSTs ago by the solidly estimated TDP measured via a reliable Kill-O-Watt and the fact non-console embedded GPUs (in contrast to console embedded GPUs) are binned to hell and back.. Foolish me.
It still sounds like you're making the yield issue bigger than it should be especially when looking at the potential capability range of Latte. After all we aren't talking about a 1000+ ALU part on a 28nm fab. Also we still don't know for sure how much, if any, extra silicon is dedicated to Wii components as I took their comment to mean there was none (eMemory excluded). I don't see how the change in the layout is going to cause a dramatic enough change with any interconnects as if they were going to become something so unique that it would lead to issues of manufacturing a high amount of quality chips. The MCM shouldn't have a high amount of impact on what to make the GPU. Seemed to me the bigger issue with the MCM was that two different companies were involved with the CPU and GPU. The eDRAM IMO would be the primary concern for yields and they aren't doing anything special with that either in regards to the layout.
But I could make a sales joke along the lines of needing yield issues after up to this point.
And just a reminder I'm only discussion the validity of TDP and binning to draw a final conclusion. Not to say it isn't a 160-part.
I'll just leave that quoted here, for posterity : )
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