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Wii U Speculation Thread of Brains Beware: Wii U Re-Unveiling At E3 2012

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D

DCKing

Member
BurntPork said:
A higher-clocked Xenon fits that description...
Click to expand...
True. But IBM and even brain_stew seem to have implied otherwise.

If it turns out to be in-order it's probably an evolution of Xenon. They could probably clock it near 4 GHz, give it more cache and then it would do pretty well, even at low power. brain_stew said that if the POWER7 architecture was used in the Wii U CPU, it had diverged from it a lot. If it derives from Xenon then he probably would have recognized that it is not remotely related to POWER7. Also IBM's PR would have been full of shit. The asymmetrical caches suggested by lherre also indicate that there's more going on than just three simple fast cores.

If it's out-of-order, it's more mysterious. Considering Nintendo saying it is 'like' PowerPC means they are either referring to POWER as PowerPC in general (which is wrong but understandable) or that it is somehow an evolution of the PowerPC G5 / 970 chips used in the last PowerPC Macs. Those chips were based on POWER4 and did not support SMT, though they would be considerably more powerful clock-for-clock compared to Xenon.

Another possibility is that they're based on the PowerPC 700 series like the GameCube and Wii, but I consider that very unlikely. Nintendo has ordered a new high end chip design from IBM, and it would make little sense to use an outdated chip architecture that has been out of production (except for Broadway) for years. A PowerPC 970 or POWER7 based design would not have problems delivering backwards compatibility either.

The last possibility, which I consider most likely, is that IBM made a new small design based on some of the techniques used in POWER7. Basically a new CPU with the same level of sophistication as the POWER7, but designed from the ground up to be small and lean. It would feature SMT, fast SIMD units, and a fairly high clock speed. I also think the next Xbox and/or Playstation will use the same IBM design in their CPUs.

We've been assuming the Wii U to have an SMT-capable CPU. Although I'd be surprised if it didn't, have we had any confirmation of that fact?

Shin Johnpv said:
Is it still a possibility that it's a 4 core chip, and one is just completely dedicated to the OS? I know llhere (spelling?) has talked about it just being 3 cores, but could they only be talking about the 3 available to the gaming side of things in the dev kits and in the manuals that came with them?
Click to expand...
I think it's highly unlikely that Nintendo will reserve an entire powerful 3+ GHz Power-based core for an OS and background tasks. I think it's more likely Nintendo has an ARM chip in there to do some background stuff like they did in the Wii.
 
S

StevieP

Banned
DCKing said:
I think it's highly unlikely that Nintendo will reserve an entire powerful 3+ GHz Power-based core for an OS and background tasks. I think it's more likely Nintendo has an ARM chip in there to do some background stuff like they did in the Wii.
Click to expand...

Or Broadway+Hollywood on an SoC if the WiiU uses an in-order PPE.
 
B

bgassassin

Member
AceBandage said:
I love the PowerPC. It's so... bad.
Click to expand...

Just like that joke. ^_^

DCKing said:
True. But IBM and even brain_stew seem to have implied otherwise.

If it turns out to be in-order it's probably an evolution of Xenon. They could probably clock it near 4 GHz, give it more cache and then it would do pretty well, even at low power. brain_stew said that if the POWER7 architecture was used in the Wii U CPU, it had diverged from it a lot. If it derives from Xenon then he probably would have recognized that it is not remotely related to POWER7. Also IBM's PR would have been full of shit. The asymmetrical caches suggested by lherre also indicate that there's more going on than just three simple fast cores.

If it's out-of-order, it's more mysterious. Considering Nintendo saying it is 'like' PowerPC means they are either referring to POWER as PowerPC in general (which is wrong but understandable) or that it is somehow an evolution of the PowerPC G5 / 970 chips used in the last PowerPC Macs. Those chips were based on POWER4 and did not support SMT, though they would be considerably more powerful clock-for-clock compared to Xenon.

Another possibility is that they're based on the PowerPC 700 series like the GameCube and Wii, but I consider that very unlikely. Nintendo has ordered a new high end chip design from IBM, and it would make little sense to use an outdated chip architecture that has been out of production (except for Broadway) for years. A PowerPC 970 or POWER7 based design would not have problems delivering backwards compatibility either.

The last possibility, which I consider most likely, is that IBM made a new small design based on some of the techniques used in POWER7. Basically a new CPU with the same level of sophistication as the POWER7, but designed from the ground up to be small and lean. It would feature SMT, fast SIMD units, and a fairly high clock speed. I also think the next Xbox and/or Playstation will use the same IBM design in their CPUs.

We've been assuming the Wii U to have an SMT-capable CPU. Although I'd be surprised if it didn't, have we had any confirmation of that fact?
Click to expand...

Actually there wasn't a "like". It was specifically PowerPC.

Also we know the CPU has 2-way SMT. That was info given directly to us.

As for the other consoles, rumors from a few months ago have MS using a Cell CPU (probably Xenon with more cores and maybe a higher clock). And Sony going with either AMD or Cell again.
 
D

DCKing

Member
Egh. I just realized it. IBM has a CPU architecture that is both modern and called a PowerPC. It's the PowerPC A2.

OK. The Wii U CPU is either Xenon or based on/similar in some ways to PowerPC A2. Just one that isn't as multicore and clocked much faster.

EDIT: It has SMT too, apparently. It all fits well: the individual A2 cores are small and simple (sensible to use in a console, moreso than cutting down a POWER7), their L2 caches are EDRAM ('lots of EDRAM' there), it is a PowerPC, and my guess it could be clocked quite high in small configurations. My prediction: 3x PowerPC A2 like cores @ ~3.5 GHz w/ 2-way SMT. One core has twice (1.5-2MB) the cache of the others, and is the primary core, running OS as well as game logic. The chip has modifications for improved gaming performance, mainly advanced SIMD units like VMX128. Moreover, the chip will be suprisingly small.
 
Ü

Übermatik

Member
BY2K said:
Lights deems out, a trailer starts.

The screen is black, all you can hear is the faint sound of engine's roar with the flash of a few racing cars passing by, but it's too blurry and fast to tell exactly what they are.

Produced by:
KwmcG.jpg


Another shot of the racing cars, engines blasting.

Developed by:
7XF0W.jpg


We then get a clear shot of the Blue Falcon along with the other 3 original racers not far behind (Golden Fox, Wild Goose and the Fire Stingray) with this music fading in.

Another black screen with the (tentative) title: F-Zero HD

And EVERYBODY in the audience loose their goddamn mind.

So yeah, that was my crazy post of I have nothing more to do for tonight.

EDIT: AND LOOK AT THAT! Just as I finish this post, Nintendo reveals that the 3DS Ambassadors are getting F-Zero Maximum Velocity. It's a sign people! It's gonna happen! Bookmark this post! E3 2012, F-Zero for Wii U!
Click to expand...

I so want you to be right, I really do.

But I'd prefer this track instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLE24vQrncg&t=0m33s

OR, this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xphkxxvNCZQ
 
blu

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
DCKing said:
Egh. I just realized it. IBM has a CPU architecture that is both modern and called a PowerPC. It's the PowerPC A2.

OK. The Wii U CPU is either Xenon or based on/similar in some ways to PowerPC A2. Just one that isn't as multicore and clocked much faster.

EDIT: It has SMT too, apparently. It all fits well: the individual A2 cores are small and simple (sensible to use in a console, moreso than cutting down a POWER7), their L2 caches are EDRAM ('lots of EDRAM' there), it is a PowerPC, and my guess it could be clocked quite high in small configurations. My prediction: 3x PowerPC A2 like cores @ ~3.5 GHz w/ 2-way SMT. One core has twice (1.5-2MB) the cache of the others, and is the primary core, running OS as well as game logic. The chip has modifications for improved gaming performance, mainly advanced SIMD units like VMX128. Moreover, the chip will be suprisingly small.
Click to expand...
I think you're paying to much attention to a marketing moniker. At the end of the day it will be called WiiUCPU, or 'Mocha' or god knows what. But it will be an implementation of a power ISA. And that ISA is best known in the consumer space as PowerPC. Ergo everybody calling it PPC. Heck, the end silicon could be a verbatim power7 and people would still refer to it as 'the PPC in the WiiU'.
 
M

MDX

Member
bgassassin said:
Just like that joke. ^_^



Actually there wasn't a "like". It was specifically PowerPC.

Also we know the CPU has 2-way SMT. That was info given directly to us.

As for the other consoles, rumors from a few months ago have MS using a Cell CPU (probably Xenon with more cores and maybe a higher clock). And Sony going with either AMD or Cell again.
Click to expand...

I think you guys are taking rumors waaaay to seriously.
Treating them as fact, when they should be used for speculation.
I dont see anywhere in Nintendo's press release stating PowerPC.

I do see evidence pointing to Power7.
 
D

DCKing

Member
blu said:
I think you're paying to much attention to a marketing moniker. At the end of the day it will be called WiiUCPU, or 'Mocha' or god knows what. But it will be an implementation of a power ISA. And that ISA is best known in the consumer space as PowerPC. Ergo everybody calling it PPC. Heck, the end silicon could be a verbatim power7 and people would still refer to it as 'the PPC in the WiiU'.
Click to expand...
You're probably right. It's kind of weird IBM has used the PowerPC name for a network chip. It's not similar to previous PPC chips.

In an IBM presentation about the chip they seem to say it's in-order. So scratch what I said before, Nintendo would probably be better off using Xenon or POWER6.
 
S

StevieP

Banned
DCKing said:
You're probably right. It's kind of weird IBM has used the PowerPC name for a network chip. It's not similar to previous PPC chips.

In an IBM presentation about the chip they seem to say it's in-order. So scratch what I said before, Nintendo would probably be better off using Xenon or POWER6.
Click to expand...

Not if they want any form of backwards compatibility. An out-of-order chip makes more sense from a lot of perspectives. Honestly, I'm not sure why Sony and MS chose in-order chips. Well... there's the fact that back in 2005 people cared about "ghz" I guess.
 
D

DCKing

Member
StevieP said:
Not if they want any form of backwards compatibility. An out-of-order chip makes more sense from a lot of perspectives. Honestly, I'm not sure why Sony and MS chose in-order chips. Well... there's the fact that back in 2005 people cared about "ghz" I guess.
Click to expand...
Don't know if it matters much. The Power-based in-order 360 CPU can emulate the out-of-order x86 Xbox 1 just fine in most cases. I'm not sure the things it can't emulate are due to execution order or the use of a completely different ISA or completely different GPU.
 
B

bgassassin

Member
MDX said:
I think you guys are taking rumors waaaay to seriously.
Treating them as fact, when they should be used for speculation.
I dont see anywhere in Nintendo's press release stating PowerPC.
Click to expand...

It's not a rumor. It's what Nintendo told devs directly.

Paraphrasing - Three-core PPC, 2-way SMT, and 3MB L2 Cache


But in the end it will most likely be as Thraktor and blu have said in that it's based on the ISA.
 
blu

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
bgassassin said:
It's not a rumor. It's what Nintendo told devs directly.

Paraphrasing - Three-core PPC, 2-way SMT, and 3MB L2 Cache


But in the end it will most likely be as Thraktor and blu have said in that it's based on the ISA.
Click to expand...
Just consider that 95% of the world thinks of Xenon as of a PPC while IBM themselves have always referred to the PPE as a '64bit POWER (tm) (r) (c) processing element'.
 
B

bgassassin

Member
blu said:
Just consider that 95% of the world thinks of Xenon as of a PPC while IBM themselves have always referred to the PPE as a '64bit POWER (tm) (r) (c) processing element'.
Click to expand...

Yeah. Here is an official IBM site and it doesn't list it as PowerPC or POWER.

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-linuxps3-1/

The main processing element is a fairly standard general-purpose processor. It is a dual-thread Power Architecture™ element, called the Power Processing Element, or PPE for short.
Click to expand...
 
blu

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
bgassassin said:
IBM: Our naming conventions are so confusing, even we don't know how to use them correctly.
Click to expand...
Technically, PPE is a POWER (tm). And the latter is a member of the Power Architecture (tm). I just wanted to illustrate how the rest of the world did not give a flying figment (tm) - for them it was 'the PPC in the Xbox/PS3'.
 
B

bgassassin

Member
blu said:
Technically, PPE is a POWER (tm). And the latter is a member of the Power Architecture (tm). I just wanted to illustrate how the rest of the world did not give a flying figment (tm) - for them it was 'the PPC in the Xbox/PS3'.
Click to expand...

No. I just don't think IBM knew how to classify it.

http://www.ibm.com/ibm100/us/en/icons/cellengine/

The Cell/B.E. processor features a configuration of nine independent cores: one IBM ® PowerPC ® processing element (PPE) and eight synergistic processing elements (SPEs).
Click to expand...

That might explain why I've seen it referred to as it's own line.
 
blu

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
bgassassin said:
No. I just don't think IBM knew how to classify it.

http://www.ibm.com/ibm100/us/en/icons/cellengine/

That might explain why I've seen it referred to as it's own line.
Click to expand...

Fair enough. Then again, its 'own line' is a direct power5 descendant, developed simultaneously with power6. At the time PPE work supposedly started, IBM had exactly zero PowerPC products in that category (power5/6-like Power Architecture designs). Surely they can dub it anyway they feel like (and your link does supersede mine), but it actually may lean with either power's of PPC's sides of the family based on some quirks in the ISA. Or it may even have started out as one and ended up as the other (or neither) - the differences are really minor. For me, it will always remain 'that commissioned design they sold twice (tm)'.
 
A

AceBandage

Banned
I don't mind friend's codes per system/account.
What I do mind is that each person has to add eachother.
It should notify you when someone adds you and you can either accept or reject.

methodman said:
I'm going to buy a wii-u on day 1 and take TEBOW.

Everyone will worship me from then on.
Click to expand...


You'll only be able to buy good games in the fourth quarter, though.
 
M

methodman

Banned
AceBandage said:
I don't mind friend's codes per system/account.
What I do mind is that each person has to add eachother.
It should notify you when someone adds you and you can either accept or reject.
Click to expand...

Or, they can make it very un-Nintendo-like. Instead of allowing us a choice, fuck it. Just make everyone our friend. One extreme to the other.
 
A

AceBandage

Banned
methodman said:
Or, they can make it very un-Nintendo-like. Instead of allowing us a choice, fuck it. Just make everyone our friend. One extreme to the other.
Click to expand...

Well, honestly, if Communities were system wide and allowed us to message people within that community, I wouldn't mind that either.
 
F

Fourth Storm

Member
Screw gamertags! All the good ones are taken! I'll be happier setting up communities where my friends and I can dub ourselves whatever we wish without worrying about some guy in Korea already having taken it.
 
B

bgassassin

Member
blu said:
Fair enough. Then again, its 'own line' is a direct power5 descendant, developed simultaneously with power6. At the time PPE work supposedly started, IBM had exactly zero PowerPC products in that category (power5/6-like Power Architecture designs). Surely they can dub it anyway they feel like (and your link does supersede mine), but it actually may lean with either power's of PPC's sides of the family based on some quirks in the ISA. Or it may even have started out as one and ended up as the other (or neither) - the differences are really minor. For me, it will always remain 'that commissioned design they sold twice (tm)'.
Click to expand...

Well looking briefly at the history of POWER and PowerPC, maybe the "PC" part of it is the key. "Power" is an acronym that means the same for both, and the "PC" stands for Performance Computing. Maybe the CPU for Wii U gains the PowerPC label because of its use, even though it comes from what we believe to be POWER7 which is used for commercial purposes? I say that since it seems the main divergence at the beginning was due to the way the chips were initially used. Since Wii U isn't a server, they wouldn't call it a POWER CPU. That's my take on it so far.
 
S

Shanadeus

Banned
When you guys have your tech discussions that probably fly over the head of most users, could you be so kind and end every post with the current rating of the hypothetical hardware in the Wii U from a scale of 1 to 10?

1 is awful, Wii equivalent, and 10 is awesome, capable of running Samaritan without any compromises.

Thanks!
 
S

Shin Johnpv

Member
bgassassin said:
Be careful. I hope you haven't been doing that for too many days straight. It's been a year since I reduced my work schedule from looking like that and I still have problems with memory, speech, and writing/typing. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
Click to expand...

Friday should be the last day of long ass hours. Ohh sleep how I've missed you.
 
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