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Wii U has 2GB of DDR3 RAM, [Up: RAM 43% slower than 360/PS3 RAM]

H

Horse Armour

Member
Correction: As pointed out by Durante, this is the whole RAM amount of the system.


eDRAM amount/speed not yet known.

Thanks to Alstrong on B3D and PCPer who did the teardown:

PCPer did a teardown. Great stuff... they actually read off the RAM chip (SMRT!). There's only 4 chips.

Samsung K4W4G1646B -> DDR3 4Gbit, 1.5V, 800/933/1066 speed bins -> I'm pretty sure that means "DDR3-1600/1866/2133" data rate.

256Mx16 would imply 16-bit I/O per DRAM... So... 17GB/s at most for main memory bandwidth. They didn't mention the rest of the numbers on the DRAM, but they ought to have high res photos later.
Click to expand...

TL:DR: Wii U has 2GB of Samsung DDR3 memory running at a max speed of [12.8 GB/s].

Popstar said:
12.8

17 was a guess based on the maximum speed of the Samsung RAM (1066Mhz vs. 800Mhz). Anandtech unit had slower Hynix RAM.
Click to expand...


Comparison to other systems by Durante:
Durante said:
Comparison:

360: 22.4 GB/s + eDRAM for framebuffer
PS3: 25.6 GB/s main memory BW + 22.4 GB/s graphics memory BW, no eDRAM

GTX 680: 192.2 GB/s :p
Click to expand...
 
cyberheater

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
Great. Now we need more information about the GPU.
 
DonMigs85

DonMigs85

Member
Is that the 1GB used for games or 2GB total?
That's less bandwidth than the 512MB GDDR3 in the 360. The eDRAM/VRAM better be darn fast to compensate.
 
godhandiscen

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
If the rumors of the 360 and PS3 successors are true, the WiiU will be in worse shape than the Wii was in comparison to current consoles.
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
DDR3? That's kinda disappointing. Weren't most people expecting GDDR5?

I don't know much about RAM, but I do know that 5 > 3.

Nintendooooooooooooooooooo!
 
E

Eusis

Member
godhandiscen said:
If the rumors of the 360 and PS3 successors are true, the WiiU will be in worse shape than the Wii was in comparison to current consoles.
Click to expand...
I think that will depend on how much more powerful the other systems are, AND how much that boosted power matters. But yeah, it isn't looking too good for Wii U. :/
 
T

The Abominable Snowman

Member
DonMigs85 said:
Is that the 1GB used for games or 2GB total?
That's less bandwidth than the 512MB GDDR3 in the 360. The eDRAM/VRAM better be darn fast to compensate.
Click to expand...

360 - 22.5GB/s

PS3 uses XDR slightly higher than 360

~25% difference between 360 and WiiU in terms of general purpose RAM speed.

But noone cares about WiiU power anyway. Its about seeing Nintendo games in HD.
 
D

Durante

Member
Comparison:

360: 22.4 GB/s + eDRAM for framebuffer
PS3: 25.6 GB/s main memory BW + 22.4 GB/s graphics memory BW, no eDRAM

GTX 680: 192.2 GB/s :p
 
H

Horse Armour

Member
antonz said:
Samsung site lists it under the GDDR category not DDR
Click to expand...
That might be a mistake as if you go to page 10 of the PDF it says that the 3 value in the serial indicates what type of RAM it is an in this case it's W which stands for SDDR3 SDRAM rather than J which would stand for GDDR3 SDRAM. Also it's listed under gddr3 not Gddr3 as well as having an 800/933/1066 speed which I've never heard GDDR3 of having.
 
DonMigs85

DonMigs85

Member
godhandiscen said:
If the rumors of the 360 and PS3 successors are true, the WiiU will be in worse shape than the Wii was in comparison to current consoles.
Click to expand...

Yeah, really a bit of a Dreamcast to Xbox scenario.
Both machines render most games at the same resolution (480i/p back then, likely still gonna be 720p for the most part this gen) but the gulf in geometry, textures and shader effects will probably be significant. Not to mention CPU-bound stuff like AI, number of characters/units on screen, physics, etc.

But at least Wii U games just won't be as butt-ugly and low-res as Wii anymore. At first glance they should still compare favorably to PS4/Xbox 720 for the masses.
 
E

Eusis

Member
cyberheater said:
Lots of people care.
Click to expand...
I mainly just care so it doesn't get ostracized like last generation. Though maybe being in HD will help some? Depends on where we really are when it comes to diminishing returns I guess, but we're probably not so close that relatively low ram is a non-issue.
Durante said:
Comparison:
Code: 
Wii U: 17 GB/s, separate eDRAM pool
360: 22.4 GB/s, eDRAM for framebuffer
PS3: 25.6 GB/s main memory BW, 22.4 GB/s graphics memory BW, no eDRAM

GTX 680: 192.2 GB/s :P
Click to expand...
Huh, guess a 10x jump really is possible again, in some respects at least.
 
P

Perkel

Banned
ouch...

Seriously. I think adding rendering pipeline for Wii U gamepad was big mistake. Looks like system is not that powerfull.

Let's wait for full spec.
 
DonMigs85

DonMigs85

Member
Durante said:
Comparison:

360: 22.4 GB/s + eDRAM for framebuffer
PS3: 25.6 GB/s main memory BW + 22.4 GB/s graphics memory BW, no eDRAM

GTX 680: 192.2 GB/s :p
Click to expand...

PS3 VRAM may be a bit slower because apparently they reduced the speed to 650MHz in the final spec.
Also, the eDRAM on 360 has a 32GB/sec link to the GPU, but its internal bandwidth is over 250GB/sec.
 
H

Horse Armour

Member
Seance said:
Is 1 GB DDR3 "better" than the 360's memory setup?
Click to expand...
Well it is worse in terms of speed but you have to remember that this is only half of the Wii U's memory and we have no idea what the other half contains as well as there being some eDRAM which we don't know anything about yet.
 
E

Eusis

Member
Seance said:
Is 1 GB DDR3 "better" than the 360's memory setup?
Click to expand...
If it takes up half of it for the OS it's effectively the same, or only slightly better (360 does set aside RAM for the OS, but it's a fairly small amount). But then that'd only be system ram, we don't know the graphics ram situation yet.
 
Y

Ydahs

Member
Durante said:
Comparison:

360: 22.4 GB/s + eDRAM for framebuffer
PS3: 25.6 GB/s main memory BW + 22.4 GB/s graphics memory BW, no eDRAM

GTX 680: 192.2 GB/s :p
Click to expand...

Interesting. Does architecture impact this greatly? Since the GPU and CPU are on the same board, does it in anyway make up for the relatively lower bandwidth?

Also, doesn't the WiiU have two sticks of RAM? Are both sharing the same RAM type?

edit: nvm, posts above explain it. If it's only the OS RAM, it's not really that much of a concern but it probably means we won't see the spare RAM freed up for games down the track.
 
P

Perkel

Banned
Wasn't Wii U supposed to have shared ram ? If yes i don't see how they used something different for second 1GB
 
D

Durante

Member
Horse Armour said:
Well it is worse in terms of speed but you have to remember that this is only half of the Wii U's memory and we have no idea what the other half contains as well as there being some eDRAM which we don't know anything about yet.
Click to expand...
What "other half"? From the quote in the OP, that's it. 4 * 4Gbit = 2 GB.

What we don't know yet is how fast the eDRAM is.

... either I am confused or the majority of people in this thread are. Wii U does not have split memory pools, except for the eDRAM.
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
Wait, this is the main/system RAM? So that means this is the RAM that the OS is using? Not the video RAM that the actual games will utilize?
 
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