lol

Edit: BTW if you want to get technical and argue about actual specs I can do that but it goes over people's heads most of the time so usally I don't bother

Also I assume that this "All the rumours have told us so far is they could be using an R700 GPU, which could mean a half generational jump (medium end R700) to a generational jump (high end R700). " is the info you got from "techies" from other forums, which while true doesn't give the full picture as the weakest cards in the R700 line are actually weaker than the xbox 360 and the GPU while important is by far not the only factor in graphics rendering potential.

*Sigh*

Sorry about the raging. I guess I was pissed off.

There is no reason for Nintendo to use a low-end R700, especially with what they are trying to achieve.

I follow NeoGAF.  They may be elitist but they know what they are talking about and the information I got from their numerous Cafe threads go against your theory.

Here is IGN's recent article where they try to guess the console's hardware based on info from their sources.

If the console were to be similar to that, it would be able to pump out games much better than what PS360 offer and would be able to get down-ports from PS4/720.

That IGN article displays if I may use the way overused IGNorance term ignorance. They are obviusly making stuff up with the 1080p and stereo 3D as people at Nintendo have made it clear that 3D won't be utalised on Cafe IIRC not at launch anyway. And the very fact that Nintendo are using the outdated R700 chipset pretty clearly suggests that they are not going for a powerhouse console especially if they want a compact fan-less design. If they wanted a console more than twice as powerful as the 360 they should have gone for the vastly superior R800 series which offers both more performance per watt compaired to the R700 series but also the addition of a hardware tesselator which is the most significant advancement in GPU technology since the unified shader architecture that got it's mainstream debut in the 360's GPU, tesselation is going to be a major factor in next generation graphics as shown in the Unreal engine next gen Samaritan demo. The very fact that Nintendo are opting for a GPU that doesn't have that feature will probably be the reason the 3rd parties use to not port next gen titles to Cafe, oh and if that 512MB of RAM rumour is true... Well lets just say I really hope they have at least 1GB total.

To be honest I would love for me and the rumours to be wrong and for the Cafe to be a significant jump but all evidence points the other way...

Just to make clear how "equal" the R700 is to the HD console's GPUs:

In Call of Duty 4, the R700 is able to support a resolution 2.5 times what the HD console's GPUs at (roughly) twice the frame-rate with higher detailed models and textures without any modifications or developers spending any time optimizing their game specifically for it.

Or, in other words, without considering any modifications or optimizations Nintendo could easily produce a system with 4 to 5 times the performance of the HD consoles; and (in the 3 years ATi and Nintendo could have been working on it) it is likely that modifications to increase efficiency and/or performance could have boosted real-world performace by 50% to 100%.

Now, I wouldn't say that something that is (likely) 5 to 10 times the power of the HD consoles is roughly as powerful as the HD consoles.

yup just look at the performance of those R700 GPUs truly they blow the PS360 out of the water with their awsome...

being a R700 tells us very little as the series ranges from far less than the 360s GPU to over 8x in some metrics 

so far most of the specs arent official.

also it doesnt have to be as powerfull as the ps3 inorder to produce similar graphics. its on a much, much smaller screen, so resolution can be a ton lower, you wont need as many textures, etc. to produce games that are on par with their ps3 counterparts

what specs aren't official? Sony released a spec sheet that is about as official as it gets. Oh I know it's nowhere near the PS3 in real terms in fact that was kinda my point...

ROfL...you know what? Forget it. You think next gen consoles are going to be running the Samaritan demo, which had trouble running on three  580s. What's Sony and MS going to do? Use one of those big, hot  expensive GPUs on the market and put a cooling system in a console the size of a PC tower?

Do you know how big and hot the really high end PGUs on the market are today? Do you know how much power they draw? You may be a PC gamer but when it comes to putting tech into consoles, you obviously don't know how it works. It's not the same as putting parts into a PC.

Sony and MS are not going to be looking to launch at $500 plus with unreliable hardware that loses them tons of profits. A repeat of the beginning of this gen is not appealing to them, especially Sony.

Sony and MS are going to launch a year or two after Nintendo, MS a year, Sony might hold back for 18 months or 2 years. There is NO feasible tech they can use for consoles lauching in that time-frame that could slaughter a high-end R700 GPU. The gap is going to be so much much smaller next gen.

NExt gen is going to be like DC/PS2/GC/Xbox kind of power gap.

Edit: And about the 1080 P and 3D thing. Most rumours have said it will do 1080 and what Nintendo said is the console's focus will not be 3D. The console will support 3D just like GC and Wii did. 3D is mostly a software thing and not hardware.

Edit 2: One more thing, a high-end R700 in a closed environment is capable of much more than one in an open environment. And the GPU is being optimised, which means Nintendo can add support for DX11 and tesselation to it. That's how console hardware works. You are thinking in terms of PC, for consoles it's different.

So to get this straight:

Project Café will undoubtely stronger than both the PS3 and the X360, and we already know NGP will not even have PS3 level of power (what ridiculous rumors these were...), and will most likely have a new controlling scheme, and still you expect cross-platform games between NGP and Café?

The bottom end R700 is (roughly) equal to the HD console's GPUs ... But why would you expect Nintendo to use an unmodified version of the worst R700 processor?

Being that these GPUs were originally manufacturered using a 55nm process and the chip in Nintendo's next console will likely use a 28nm (or smaller) process, what benefit is there for Nintendo to choose the low end version? The RV790XT/RV770XT (HD4890/HD4870) would already be inexpensive and energy efficient enough to produce a small affordable console, why would Nintendo choose the RV710 (HD4550/ HD4350)?