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Badassbab said:
lilbroex said:
Badassbab said:
lilbroex said:
Badassbab said:
Judging by the dev kit specs leaked, the Wii U should be able to handle current gen ports with ease mainly thanks to the ram and edram. I'm curious as to why they went with the 360 type tri-core CPU set up when quad core have been around for a number of years. Must be a cost thing.

I suspect Nintendo is satisfied with simply having similar yet superior graphics to current gen consoles. So wheras ACIII may feature slowdown and tearing on PS360, the Wii U version should be able to run at a rock solid 30fps and fully v-synced plus nicer textures due to more ram.


What aspect of them both being 3 core points to similarity in power and capability?

That is kind of like saying that the NES has the same level of power as the PS2 since they are both single core. I'm confused.

I guess I'm out of the loop. I didn't know that core count became a static representation of power. I guess that is why the 4 core sandy bridges outperform the 6 core phenom 2s.

IBM have made one tri core processor and that was for the 360 Xenon which was derived from the Cell PPE.

Now judging by the similarities between the Gamecube and Wii CPU (Wii version being twice as fast), my guess is the Wii U will follow a similar path and adopt a version of 360 tri core CPU albeit a more efficient version. This will of course keep cost down significantly for reasons I guess I need not point out.

Your right to point out more cores don't necessarily mean more power. But your wrong to compare Intel and AMD CPU's from a strictly number of cores point of view. Both companies take different approaches on how they maximise CPU power. What you should've done is look to IBM's family of CPU for the comparisons.

I only found it curious because IBM only make one type of tri core CPU and that is the 360 Xenon. Personally I would've preferred an off the shelf solution like at least a 4 core Power7 cpu but I understand cost is an issue.


Exept, we know that the Wii U processor is based on the Power7 which outperforms not only the 360's Power5 but the Cell Broadband as well in all benchmarks. This was the first factual information we leared about the Wii U's hardware last year and it came from IBM themselves.

To my knowledge, there has been no record of this changing so it is still a Power7 derived processor.


Xenon is a custom CPU derived from the Cell not Power 5.

Plus the Wii U is a small console. There's only so much power Nintendo can cram in.  But I hope your right about the Power 7 part so can expect at least a 4 core.


...what? The cell was in developerment when the 360 hit the market...and it was codeveloped under Sony, with them holding the copyright...

I'm fairly certain Sony didn't license their processor to Micrsoft, a year before it hit the market no less.

All of the dcumentiation I've read says that the 360 uses a Power5 based processor. May have been Power5A but I'm not 100% sure. The "cell" is based on the Power series not the other way around.

Is a 3 core power7 based processor, not 4. it it custom made for the console, just as with Xenon so it won't be a big or power consuming a production modal server processor.