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Play4Fun on 08 January 2012
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zarx said:
Play4Fun said:

I see. I suspected as much.

Well, like I said, a couple of reliable guys who have had access to the  dev kits and have given hints and a bit of info in the GAF Wii-U speculation thread about eDRAM, memory range that was in the devkits and bit of info on the CPU like there being a master core . Too much to dig through to link to but this is their speculation on how the console could end up.

CPU
Tri-core (POWER7-based cores) @ 3+Ghz
3MB L2 cache (split 1.5MB:768KB:768KB; may  increase this before launch)

GPU
600-800Mhz
640-800 SPUs
( Nintendo may be trying for a 32nm GPU)

Memory
32MB of embedded 1T-SRAM-Q
1GB - 1.5GB of GDDR5 memory

The memory in the final system and how the custom-built GPU ends up will determine the size of the jump .

Yea that sounds about what I know which means it's arround 2-3 times the X360 but with a 32MB frame buffer should be able to handle 1080p native without the performance loss like you get when you run over the 360s 10MB embedded framebuffer. 

Then there is the first highly sketchy  rumours of early dev kitts Xbox Next have specs of 

6 core IBM 

2GB DDR3

2GB GDDR5

Current dev kits have dual curent generation GPUs likely to simulate the GPU that AMD is still tapping out, they did this with the 360 as well where they had 2 x600s (and later a single x800) in dev kits until the Xenos was finalised. But this means that whatever GPU they are planning to use is more powerful than current single GPUs AMD make at the time and AMD make single GPUs that are more than 8x more powerful than the 360s GPU. 

And just like Nintendo they are still tweaking the hardware so you can see why I think that a Dreamcast to Gamecube (~2-3x) style leap would be very conservative for Wii U to Xbox Next/PS4. With an even bigger leap (up to 8x the GPU) is more than possible and that will mean Samaritan level tech (not at 60fps and with slightly toned down tessellation tho,) Early 360 dev kitts were far less powerful than final hardware (dual core CPU, x800 GPU, 256MB RAM). And the PS4 is said to be more powerful again.

The Xbox next rumour said 6 cores, 2 GB DDR3 and unknown V-RAM.

From what I've been told, 4GB would require 8 memory chips at minimum, and those are not going to be cheap memory chips. Furthermore they add to the complexity and cost of the motherboard and cooling system.

360 was originally meant to have 256 MB of memory but Epic convinced them to add another 256 MB which ended costing them a billion in losses. And I can't remember where I read this but it was said Sony was pushed to 512 MB because of MS adding more to their system.

I'm expecting 6850/6950 GPu levels of performance with 2 GB system RAM and 512MB-1GB V-RAM from 2013 consoles. So 2.5 - 3 GB in total.

I don't see  Sony and MS repeating this gen with big, hot and unreliable hardware and taking big losses.

MS is investing in kinect and broadening their appeal to not just core gamers but the more casual ones as well which plays well into their goal of becoming people's home entertainment center.

Sony has said that they don't plan to take huge losses with PS4.

I expect both to launch no higher than $399 and with those specs will put out games that are a huge jump over PS360 and blow the likes of BF3 out of the water.