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IBM: WiiU running on Watson's brain. 45nm MultiCore CPU with "lots" of embedded DRAM.

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
JWong said:
Then show me the console announcement.

Go to joystiq, kotaku, IGN, etc. They all have pics up of the console itself.
 
brochiller said:
Well the rumors are that it will be a triple core CPU. And I also hear a rumor recently that said that dev kits have 1GB RAM, but the final console will have 1.5GB.
Power7 doesn't come in a triple-core version, at least according to Wikipedia (only 4, 6, or 8 cores). The chip is also massive at 45nm.
 
guldakot said:
Well if it is a triple core variation 1.5 gb of unified ram would be just about perfect for a closed box system.
Im still VERY reserved because we dont know what the hell is in the rest of the system (You can EASILY bottleneck a cpu that powerful with subpar video) but my hype level is much higher then it was based on those tech demos alone.

Btw, curious about this comment from mark rein. He almost implies that the bird demo was running on unreal 3 tech.

MarkRein Mark Rein
RT @Michael_French @MarkRein So that means you're supporting Wii U? ;) <--No announcement to make today but let's just way "Water meet fish"


First thing I thought when the demo started. Looked exactly like a better version of UE3.
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
Zombie James said:
Power7 doesn't come in a triple-core version, at least according to Wikipedia (only 4, 6, or 8 cores). The chip is also massive at 45nm.

Power7 will come in whatever configuration Nintendo wants. It'll be a custom chip.

Anyway, how does a single core perform? Are there paper figures out there, for floating point performance etc? I'm not very in the loop on Power7.
 

Krowley

Member
And just to be clear in case there is any more confusion. Here is a pic of the console...

2rdjkwn.jpg
 

Lonely1

Unconfirmed Member
Zombie James said:
Power7 doesn't come in a triple-core version, at least according to Wikipedia (only 4, 6, or 8 cores). The chip is also massive at 45nm.
They could do the same as Sony and use only 3 cores to increase yields and reduce heat.
 

JWong

Banned
Plinko said:
Go to joystiq, kotaku, IGN, etc. They all have pics up of the console itself.
I've seen the Nintendo conference. They announced the controller, not the console.

That is my point.

Nintendo has said nothing about the console that the controller is streaming off of.
 
EVH said:
UE3 is confirmed because Arkham City comes to WiiU and runs on UE3.


Right, of course UE3 runs on the system.
I think the bigger news would be Epic created a tech demo for the WiiU.
JWong said:
I've seen the Nintendo conference. They announced the controller, not the console.

That is my point.

Nintendo has said nothing about the console that the controller is streaming off of.


They did... several times....
Did you people watch this conference at all???
 

Thraktor

Member
Damn you AceBandage, getting your thread in 2 minutes before me! Anyway, might as well repost what I had in my thread:

The processor used in Watson is IBM's Power7, their most advanced architecture. The spec goes from 4-cores (each capable of running 4 threads) at 3Ghz up to 8-core chips at 4Ghz. Even at the lower end of the scale (which we can assume Nintendo will be using), the processor craps all over the XBox360 CPU and (for almost all uses) PS3's CELL CPU.

I'll admit I'm not an expert on modern CPU architecture (hopefully some of the GAFfers who are will chime in), but I think this should safely put to rest the "only slightly more powerful than PS360" rumours.

Nintendo might go with a 3-core design (although, given the architecture and current manufacturing processes, I don't know if they'd save that much money by doing so), and will almost certainly be on the low end of the gigahertz spectrum. Still, with 4 threads per core, out-of-order execution and lots of eDRAM cache, this is most of the way to being a proper generational leap, CPU-wise.
 

Jive Turkey

Unconfirmed Member
JWong said:
I've seen the Nintendo conference. They announced the controller, not the console.

That is my point.

Nintendo has said nothing about the console that the controller is streaming off of.
They announced the console and focused on the key feature and selling point: the controller.
 

Jangocube

Banned
JWong said:
I've seen the Nintendo conference. They announced the controller, not the console.

That is my point.

Nintendo has said nothing about the console that the controller is streaming off of.

Yes they have, just not during the conference.

Go to some video game sites and see for yourself, stop being lazy.
 

Zeal

Banned
whatever.

at this point, i'm not believing anything anymore until i get my hands on it. nintendo's e3 conference was a total disappointment.
 

Randomizer

Member
Lol at the people who thought it was underpowered. Being presumptuous and pre judging the Wii-U's power based on 360 footage and on Nintendo's footage (which keeping in mind comes is from a developer inexperienced with modern graphics technology) was silly.
 

linko9

Member
AceBandage said:
Because that wasn't their focus. And people really don't seem to be getting this.
Their focus, just like in 2006, was to show off the new way to play games with their new controller.

They claimed that their focus was to attract both hardcore gamers AND casuals (their words, not mine). If they really wanted to attract hardcore gamers, they should have played up the graphics.
 

1-D_FTW

Member
Brettison said:
Fuck if you look at some GAF posts as of late even if some GAFers had 2 of their brain's duct tapped together they wouldn't be able to make an accurate coherent thought in post form.

Why? Because they don't suck down at the alter of Nintendo's dick? Guys making comments like yours are the same people who used to bitch at people who said DS/Wii would be a huge success. An inability to think for yourself and judge evidence that is new is the real problem. We've got too many Pachter's who are only capable of judging what happened the very last cycle and base all their opinions on that. Things change. Evaluate evidence and think for yourself. Sometimes you can "see the future" if it's obvious enough.

P.S. Watson was running 2880 cores. WiiU will be just as stupid as many of the comments here.
 
linko9 said:
They claimed that their focus was to attract both hardcore gamers AND casuals (their words, not mine). If they really wanted to attract hardcore gamers, they should have played up the graphics.


They attracted the hardcore gamers by showing off big named third party titles... Which, at the end of the day, is what people want.
 

Luigiv

Member
scy said:
Remember, Watson didn't win due to outsmarting Ken or Brad, it won by virtue of reacting faster than either of them. In truth, it probably "knew" less than either of them.
That's the very definition of a computer. Computers are very stupid devices that, at an architecture level, can only do very simple things. However their strength lies in being able to perform billions of these simple tasks every second.
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
Wikipedia says this re. raw fp performance:

This gives the following theoretical performance figures (based on a 4.04 GHz 8 core implementation):

max 33.12 GFLOPS per core

So 4 cores at 3Ghz = ~98Gflops?

3 at 3Ghz = 73.5Gflops?

I guess it is a shit-tonne easier to work with than the CPUs in the other systems, though.
 
claviertekky said:
I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't let you do that.

So if it's from IBM, will that mean it's similar to the architecture of the 360?
Only in the same way an Atom is similar to a Sandy Bridge chip.
 

Chiggs

Member
itxaka said:
Doesn't the 360 has 10Mb? 16 doesn't seem like lots compared to that.

I actually think 16mb is sufficient. I'm far more interesting in what the GPU is like.
 

LCGeek

formerly sane
linko9 said:
They claimed that their focus was to attract both hardcore gamers AND casuals (their words, not mine). If they really wanted to attract hardcore gamers, they should have played up the graphics.

attraction is not a booty call.

Too much hype is ruining people perception of all 3 conferences, though ms easily was the worst. I had fun with sony and ms especially with the meltdowns coming out now that details like this are out.
 

linko9

Member
AceBandage said:
They attracted the hardcore gamers by showing off big named third party titles... Which, at the end of the day, is what people want.

Not if they look the same as they do on PS3 and 360. Why would you buy a new system to have the exact same experience you can already have with something you already own (except maybe worse, with those slide pads instead of sticks)? The addition of some hud elements on the screen is not going to do it for the dudebro crowd.
 

itxaka

Defeatist
BeeDog said:
16 Mb on-board RAM is a lot.


Yeah but the xbox launched in 2006 and IIRC there was some complaints for the latests games because the edram was not enough?

Wasn't even Itagaky proud of using 9,98Mb out of the total 10Mb? Like is way too important for the framebuffer and such*


*Disclaimer: I don't understand shit about this so Im sorry if what Im saying is stupid, don't be too harsh :p


That's CPU EDRam.

Isn't this one the same? CPU with lots of embedded ram?
 

Log4Girlz

Member
So someone give me numbers. How much more powerful would this be than Wii's CPU? Do this for the lulz. And if you're really tech savy, take into account that Wii U should only have 3 cpu cores, not 4.
 
I guess Wii U's CPU won't match the raw floating point performance of PS3's CELL (218 GFLOPs) but should be a much better overall CPU to use and develop games on.
 

JWong

Banned
Jangocube said:
Yes they have, just not during the conference.

Go to some video game sites and see for yourself, stop being lazy.
Uuuuh thanks for confirming that they didn't announce it in the conference?
 

Luigiv

Member
itxaka said:
Doesn't the 360 has 10Mb? 16 doesn't seem like lots compared to that.
The 360 has 10MB in it's GPU. In it's CPU, it only has 1216KB. 16MB is huge for a CPU cache.
 

MisterHero

Super Member
1-D_FTW said:
Why? Because they don't suck down at the alter of Nintendo's dick? Guys making comments like yours are the same people who used to bitch at people who said DS/Wii would be a huge success. An inability to think for yourself and judge evidence that is new is the real problem. We've got too many Pachter's who are only capable of judging what happened the very last cycle and base all their opinions on that. Things change. Evaluate evidence and think for yourself. Sometimes you can "see the future" if it's obvious enough.

P.S. Watson was running 2880 cores. WiiU will be just as stupid as many of the comments here.
It was a joke. Calm down.
 
AceBandage said:
They attracted the hardcore gamers by showing off big named third party titles... Which, at the end of the day, is what people want.

They showed games that were already announced/coming to a console that most hardcore gamers already have. They needed to come out and say that all multiplatform games coming out will be better on the U.
 

antonz

Member
itxaka said:
Yeah but the xbox launched in 2006 and IIRC there was some complaints for the latests games because the edram was not enough?

Wasn't even Itagaky proud of using 9,98Mb out of the total 10Mb? Like is way too important for the framebuffer and such*


*Disclaimer: I don't understand shit about this so Im sorry if what Im saying is stupid, don't be too harsh :p




Isn't this one the same? CPU with lots of embedded ram?
360s 10MB of eDRAM is on the GPU is it not?
 

lherre

Accurate
mrklaw said:
edram is for frame buffer. Someone else can come along and do the maths, but you want enough ideally for a 1080p screen. Gives you huge fillrate and performance advantages. 360 had 10MB I think and thats not quite enough.

Exactly, no tiling, all rendered in a single pass.
 

guldakot

Member
Im tempering my expectations until we get the rest of the picture interms of the complete system, Obviously you cant make any huge assumptions here based on just the cpu.

If you put it in terms of just the cpu, WiiU will be a generational leap in computing power, if not higher then the 360 or ps3. But in terms of actual gaming performence we wont know the complete story until we have the complete picture of what the system is.

Hyped for everything involving gameplay right now that DOESNT rely on graphics until we know what kind of gpuj is in this thing. But in terms of physics AI etc, the WiiU will be able to do much more then what the ps3 and 360 can do. This cpu should be a monster.
 
snoopeasystreet said:
They showed games that were already announced/coming to a console that most hardcore gamers already have. They needed to come out and say that all multiplatform games coming out will be better on the U.


Both EA and Vigil said just that, though...
 
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