I'm not saying you fabricated any email.
I'm saying that the person who sent you the email isn't conceivably privy to this sort of information.
No "trusty person" has ever deemed the E6760 likely - if you're referring to bg, I believe he just thought it may be somewhat similar.
GAF -> Tech Support -> GAF
Quite true, whatever the chip is, might be similar in efficiency as the e6760, but will have different features in the architecture designed and customised for wii u.
Placeholder chips in devkits serve to simulate the final environment of the retail system but are only there as a workaround until final retail chips are released in the devkits which happened only a couple of months ago.
There is a possibility that a 4850 and an e6760 may have been used in an early devkit at one stage of the console development cycle as a placeholder so maybe thats where the rumours come from, but the final silicon will be customised optimised and more efficient. However, customisation and optimisation does not mean the final chips will be faster or slower or the same performance as the placeholder cards, as that is determined by the final clocks nintendo will use to balance heat and stability of system.
We get confused with TFLOP ratings but if we go on the rating used originally based on the r700 series in 2008 then we are looking at something around 1TFLOP as the maximum you can expect from the gpu.
If you look at the rating by 2012 standards then it will be something around the 540-600 GFLOP mark. Those who might want to compare the gpu to console perspectives can say the gpu might be 5x xenon as the HD4850 is around that ballpark when taking the more advanced architecture and gflop rating into consideration compared to the 2005 xenon chip at 240GFLOP
Having 5x the gpu processing is balanced out however because the wii u cpu will be clocked lower than the ps3 or xbox 360 cpu's and perform at most 2x faster as it will be helped by having coprocessors such as a dsp and an arm chip for i/o as well as the gpgpu functions of the GPU. Coupled with having OoOE, 2GB of ram and having a large cache and edram the system synergystically could perform between 3x-4x faster than the xbox 360 while also taking the gamepad into consideration. Which means in realistic terms 720p at 60fps with 4x AA and twice the number of effects compared to last generation. but not much more than that or 1080p with slightly more effects compared to last gen at 30fps. What this might mean subjectively depending on how you see things may not be such a large visual jump but it would be joy to play console games in these settings i can assure you of that.
It can be said that the wii u can be seen by comparing it to be a gamecube to wii progression in relation to the ps360. But if wii was a full generational leap by gamecube standards when it released in 2006 it still would have only been around half the power of the 360 if it released at a $249 price point and maling profit. Going from there it is natural to see the progression that the wii u is now starting to reveal itself to be.
Compared to a mythical full graphical generational leap original wii which would have been around 120GFLOPS in 2006, we are probably looking at a gpu slightly faster than a 4850 in speed for a full generational leap for the wii u while also taking an extra year into consideration and the additional evolution in effects that modern gpu's now provide. All while maintaining the price under 300 when taking the gamepad into consoderation and at least breaking even on launch day.
