The 360 has 8 chips? somehow I thought it was only 4 there as well. So that means it's using 16bit chips as well?
How much of gain in transfer speeds can you actually get from having more chips in a real life situation?
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Wii U has 2GB of DDR3 RAM, [Up: RAM 43% slower than 360/PS3 RAM]
- Thread starter Horse Armour
- Start date
The 360 has 8 chips? somehow I thought it was only 4 there as well. So that means it's using 16bit chips as well?
How much of gain in transfer speeds can you actually get from having more chips in a real life situation?
shinra-bansho
Member
From what I can find the 360 has 10MB of eDRAM with 32GB/s bandwidth?
What are expectations of the Wii U's eDRAM. I've seen 32MB floated a lot. Any mooted speed?
What are expectations of the Wii U's eDRAM. I've seen 32MB floated a lot. Any mooted speed?
The eDRAM on the 360 was on a separate die, whereas the rumour is the Wii U's isn't. So as well as there being more of it it also has much more bandwidth.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
I'm thinking I mussed something up there.
No it started at 8 RAM chips, capacity doubled in a few years time and newer models only feature 4 chips.
You'll probably get a much better answer from someone else on speed differences.
Apophis2036
Banned
Ah ok, thanks for the reply.
Huh.
Well, that would explain the slow load times seen throughout the Giant Bomb stream.
So...I understand some of this stuff floating around in this thread, but with memory AND processing power being weaker than the current HD twins this really is just a Wii HD but with a tablet controller.
I was expecting at least a console that can stand up to the current consoles, not barely meet neck and neck. This is kinda disheartening. I'm not a specs whore in the slightest bit, but even this is making the nintendo fanboy in me is slowly die. Maybe Smash Bros or 3D Mario or Zelda or whatever Retro is cooking can revive that
What is Nintendo thinking nowadays?
I was expecting at least a console that can stand up to the current consoles, not barely meet neck and neck. This is kinda disheartening. I'm not a specs whore in the slightest bit, but even this is making the nintendo fanboy in me is slowly die. Maybe Smash Bros or 3D Mario or Zelda or whatever Retro is cooking can revive that
What is Nintendo thinking nowadays?
I think it's 8x? Don't quote me on it, but it was stated as being a lot quicker a while back.
stupidvillager
Neo Member
Is it common to use different vendors for the ram when building a console? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but in the 2 teardowns that I have seen, one has had Samsung memory and one has had Hynix memory. Are they the same?
At the time, PCPer didn't give the complete chip model number. 800/933/1066MHz were the listed available products in the manufacturer's document.
Now that PCPer's article is up, the photos indicate that their Samsung chips are HC12 speed grade i.e. 800MHz.
Yep. It's par for the course (PC graphics cards and DIMMs, of course).
And yes, they have the same specs.
I thought with the other impressions from before the release stated that the CPU would be a little slower? Even then...just damn. I guess I wasn't expecting the RAM to be this slow :/
I might wait til after Jan to pick a Wii U up tbh.
Cause that's what crazy people do. Nintendo is CRAAAAAAZY.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
Check that box seems to be tonight's magic answer.
Well, it still gives you more space to work with.
If you design your technology such that you are mostly bulk loading your games (like say a Zelda dungeon or platformer level) this could still work fine.
So, if you had a very particular use case for how you tended to make your games, you might feel this is a fine solution even if it doesn't work that great for everyone.
becuz.
and why does the wii u OS need a 1GB of RAM, anyway? It's really inexplicable. The Wii U is starting to look like some really terrible hardware design. And according to Nintendo they're not even profiting on it.
a Master Ninja
Member
RAM from a 2012 console is 43% slower than RAM from a 2005 console? That can't be right...
Thunder Monkey
Banned
It's also cheap and low latency.
Things Nintendo values.
It's seeming more and more that the system is just like every other Nintendo system. First and foremost designed around what they want and need.
No, I think he has the backing of Yamauchi.
TheGreatDivide
Banned
An OS with less features than the Xbox and PS3's OS' takes up more RAM than those systems had for everything.
Process shrinks allow higher density chips, but you're ultimately limited by the physical I/O ports of each chip. "Half-the-speed" is just a symptom of Nintendo choosing a 64-bit memory channel.
And ultimately, a larger bus just increases board complexity via increased trace wiring.
In 2005, GDDR3 had a max density of 512Mb, and each chip used an x16 bus (and clocks, but GDDR3 and DDR3 have the same throughput per clock anyway). In 2009, 1Gbit density chips were available for GDDR3, and each of those sported an x32 bus width.
8 chips x 16 = 4 chips x 32 = 128-bit bus connected to the GPU (512MB)
Actually, for dev kits, MS kept the same RAM config until the 1Gbit chips rolled around, so post-2010 kits were using 1Gbit GDDR3 with x16 width (1GB, 8 chips x16 = 128-bit)
Bus size does impose a minimum physical chip perimeter though (both DRAM and the IC it's connecting to). They could technically create higher density GDDR3, but keep in mind for consoles that you're staying to a fixed memory size in the end. A single 4Gbit GDDR3 chip would satisfy the 512MB of 360, but then the chip itself would need a 128-bit bus (lots of wiring in small area). The technology roadmap for GDDR3 ended ages ago anyway.
---
Oh, you were talking about purpose. Nevermind.
ah thanks. at least there won't be a whole lot of 'why doesn't the wii u get watch dogs/bge2/half-life3/mirror's edge 2/star wars 1313/bioshock infinite/atelier ayesha' threads.
So...I understand some of this stuff floating around in this thread, but with memory AND processing power being weaker than the current HD twins this really is just a Wii HD but with a tablet controller.
I was expecting at least a console that can stand up to the current consoles, not barely meet neck and neck. This is kinda disheartening. I'm not a specs whore in the slightest bit, but even this is making the nintendo fanboy in me is slowly die. Maybe Smash Bros or 3D Mario or Zelda or whatever Retro is cooking can revive that
What is Nintendo thinking nowadays?
There was a good post about this yesterday, but it sounds like Nintendo conceded way back in the GC days that the hardware arms race between Microsoft and Sony could only end in disaster for Nintendo, so they decided to do their own thing separate from the competition. Honestly from a financial stand-point it was and still is a good idea, I don't know how Sony is going to fare if they put out another high end money sink.
Honey Bunny
Member
Well, and the PS1.
Hey the PS1 and 2 were pretty good, maybe there's some logic to this. 2/3 ain't bad.
The OS footprint needs to be cut down. It would help performance for newer games.
Zoramon089
Banned
But that's factually incorrect
TheGreatDivide
Banned
Take away the whole sending video to the controller thing and I'm not seeing any major selling points over the 360. Custom soundtracks? Party chat? On screen notifications? Streaming video and audio from your PC? Can I connect to the console with my iPhone or iPad? Can I queue up game downloads on the web?
Ah well I guess I heard wrong then. I'm letting all these specs get to me I guess. It will still have great 1st party games as usual and a few great 3rd party ones like Rayman and Bayonetta 2 and etc.
I've had this thought that this is where they've been going since the Wii, which is like you said smart, but I don't think the success will be as easy as "woo Wii Sports!" like it was at launch 6 years ago. I've always had this thought that maybe Nextbox or PS4 would be too high-end systems for the regular gamer to buy that it would be better off anyway to get a PC since it'll surpass them by the time they come out anyway. I'm not sure, but It'll be interesting to see.
airmangataosenai
Member
GAF seems pretty down on the system, what's it look like on the rest of the Internet right now?
Don't forget achievements! And working multimedia apps!
And I don't think there's a photo viewer or MP3 player, either. Could be wrong though!
PC, plus a console of your choice depending on whose first-party titles you favour, is a pretty great combination to go with.
TheGreatDivide
Banned
Hope you weren't planning on watching a DVD.
Actually, he's not. I mean, there are certainly a few new things here such as Miiverse that don't quite have an equivalent on the other two HD consoles, but other than those, Wii U isn't at parity with either one of them.
TheGreatDivide
Banned
Xbox used to be at parity with Miiverse but they removed the Twitter client. Although IE can go to Twitter.com I suppose.
Just a few months ago I was thinking of going Wii U/PC for the next gen of gaming, but ever since getting Halo 4 and seeing how well 343i handled that, I may just get the Nextbox after all. Damn decisions! lol
My verdict is that unless you're a super duper hardcore Nintendo fanboy the Wii U cannot be your standalone system for the next gen, but I'm sure most of us knew that.
Umm, that is not how it works.
This is RAM to CPU/GPU bandwidth, data has to be loaded to the CPU and GPU many times a frame. This have nothing to do with loading data into RAM from the disc drive and being able to load more things into RAM does not make up for bandwidth.
That's good to hear. And honestly, if it doesn't hamper the next Zelda, 3D Mario and SSB, that's all I really care about, personally. Third party games are cool and all, but what's the point if they'll wind up being compromised?
Thunder Monkey
Banned
If I'm remembering the last Fafa smackdown I received correctly you get an A+ in retention D!
Yeah. I'll get first party games and the random third party games that interest me. (Like Monster Hunter) but I'll have two consoles anyways .
ChosenPredator
Banned
same here once the next console come out i'll be rocking just first party nintendo titles most likely
Thunder Monkey
Banned
Nintendo designed this system around their wants.
If any games are going to play to the systems strengths and hide deficiencies it is theirs.
Full stop, simply put.