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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - EuroGamer: How Powerful is the WiiU Really?

ninetailschris on 30 August 2012

Guys I got this from anoymous source.

Wii U will be powered by a CPU which features two IBM Power PC Cores, an AMD series 6 GPU and .5 GB of memory available to games. The console’s CPU is apparently formed of three IBM Power PC cores of an undefined clock speed, though reports suggest this to be lower than the Xbox 360 and PS3. The developers also say that the machine has .75 GB of RAM available to games which is approximately quarter more of the Xbox 360. The GPU is a custom AMD 6 series, supporting shader type 2 and DX9 type features, with embedded eDRAM.

Legit stuff here.

I will not name source because they can be sued.

It would be impossible to bs this up ^



"Excuse me sir, I see you have a weapon. Why don't you put it down and let's settle this like gentlemen"  ~ max

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JEMC on 30 August 2012
Pokemonbrawlvg said:
Am I the only one who chooses not to believe this simply because it's from EuroGamer?

No, but I don't believe it just because it's a rumor from an anonymous source, not because it's from Eurogamer.

Pokemonbrawlvg said:

I don’t believe it because of these statements:

“The console’s CPU is apparently formed of three IBM Power PC cores”
“The GPU is a custom AMD 7 series, supporting shader type 4 and DX10 type features”

Power PC was never confirmed by Nintendo. Their own website claims that the CPU is multi-core, but Power based, not Power PC. They are two completely different CPU architectures.
The AMD 7 series GPU family supports shader model 5 and DX11 type features.

I am a skeptic. Grain of salt taken.

Regarding the CPU, IBM has confirmed that WiiU will use the same tech found in Watson. That means it's a Power7 CPU.

About the GPU, the problem I have with this rumor is how it's redacted. An AMD 7 series can mean either a GPU from the HD7xxx0 family (which is what you assumed and I highly doubt) or a GPU based on the R7xx series, which is what previous rumors pointed to, and is DX10.

Either way, until a trusted, named source (preferably Nintendo) confirms anything, I'll be cautious about any rumor.



Please excuse my bad English.

Currently gaming on a PC with an i5-4670k@stock (for now), 16Gb RAM 1600 MHz and a GTX 1070

Steam / Live / NNID : jonxiquet    Add me if you want, but I'm a single player gamer.

Deoz on 30 August 2012

"Eurogamer"

Reading these he has no idea of what he is saying.

Anyway giving it a grain of salt, specially form the anonymus sources.

Edit: I actually think 1-1.5gb of ram is spot on.



Conegamer on 30 August 2012
Sal.Paradise said:
Conegamer said:
That's true. But the point is more that Sony can't afford to just jack up the power-and the price- without any justification again. I doubt it will happen though. And anyway, I'm sure the battle will be on the controls rather than the horsepower.

Really, Sony just can't go crazy and make the same mistakes they made with the Vita's launch. I love the system, but it needs to have its features supported in order for the features being justified, if that makes sense.

Just for the record here, what price do you expect the PS4 and Nextbox to launch at, and around what time? 

720- $400, November 2013

PS4- $450, March 2014



 

Here lies the dearly departed Nintendomination Thread.

FrancisNobleman on 30 August 2012

I wonder if the PS4 will be more powerful than the Wii U given's Sony economic situation.



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FrancisNobleman on 30 August 2012
pezus said:
FrancisNobleman said:
I wonder if the PS4 will be more powerful than the Wii U given's Sony economic situation.

It wouldn't really take much effort from them to make a more powerful console than Wii U, when Wii U is only slightly more powerful than a PS3 (And PS4 will launch at least a year after Wii U)

Any ignorant fool can make things bigger, more powerful and more complex. You could have a console that outshines modern PC's. 

that's not the question.

Sony is on the verge of quiting gaming business like they never were before. They can't go above 400 bucks for their next console. Will that pricetag be enough to create a console that truly diferentiates from the Wii U power wise ?

 

I have my doubts.. If Sony releases a console on par with Wii U ala Gamecube-Xbox, the meltdown will be cataclismic.



DieAppleDie on 30 August 2012

ok so Nintendo haters saying its bad bad bad
and Nintendo fans saying is good good good

ugh..sometimes i really get tired of this.... D:

as a Nintendo fan im really pleased with this specs, specially because im going to pay 300$ at launch
i couldnt care less about what Sony and Msoft do so....of course i understand that tech freaks wont be pleased with this....its not a machine made for them, its for playing games



ethomaz on 30 August 2012
ninetailschris said:

"RAM in the final retail unit: 1GB of RAM is available to games."

This is why Eurogamer has no crediablitly. All rumors point 1.5 not 1 with 3.0 with developers.

But again it's all rumors.

1GB for games... 512MB is destined to OS and Pad integration.

1.5GB of total RAM.

 

OP.

The WiiU will be little better than PS360... PS4/720 will be leagues ahead.



nuckles87 on 30 August 2012
Soundwave said:
Conegamer said:
Soundwave said:
Conegamer said:
From what I've seen, and what most non-anonymous sources seem to agree, is that its between 1.5-2x the power of the current gen. I'd be surprised if the PS4/720 are much more powerful.

Remember, Ninety designed this with 3rd parties; it's their system.


I think this is naive. I'm sure Wii U will be fine for Mario/DK/Kirby/etc. but what would be the reasoning for MS/Sony to make consoles just a tad more powerful than the 360/PS3 that they already make? 

Sony's already said there's no point in releasing a PS4 if it's not a big leap over PS3.

This is basically going to be the Wii-PS3-360 all over again. Nintendo needs the touchscreen controller concept to come up big for them. 

Its not naive, it's a cost issue. Sony cannot afford to release a console several times more powerful than the PS3, and if they do, most devs won't use most of it so you won't see the difference. 

 

Look at the rumour thread; all rumours price all consoles closely with all consoles similarly powered. Expecting a $600 beast is naive.

 

it'll be closer to PS2-Xbox-GC IMO.


A modern $200 consumer priced GPU blows away a PS3/360, especially in a closed console environment. 

PS3/360 are nothing special, this is ancient tech nowadays, you don't need a $600 system to blow those away. The only reason the PS3 was $600 anyway was because of the Blu-Ray disc format. The 360 launched at $299/$399 seven years ago. 


Not true at all.

 

The blu-ray drive was only $125 of the PS3's $840 asking price:

http://www.digitimes.com/bits_chips/a20061117PR200.html

To put things in perspective, total loss on the $600 model was $241, so even without ANY blu ray drive at all, the system still would have lost over $100 per system at the $600 asking price. And this doesn't even take into account shipping costs and retail mark up.


Sony can't sell their next system for this price, and they certainly can't take these kinds of losses with their current financial situation, especially now that they've lost their market dominance.



Scoobes on 30 August 2012

This actually sounds about right for a relatively conservative console so it wouldn't surprise me if it's true or close to the truth at least. The fact that it says 1Gb of RAM available for games suggests that there will be more dedicated to OS and other features like apps so 1Gb for games, ~1.5Gb for everything (~512Mb RAM for OS, networking and apps).

The GPU doesn't sound like anything too surprising either. It doesn't really mention much about power so it could be weak but feature rich ranging to it being relatively powerful and supporting the latest features and effects. Nice and vague, but the dev quotes suggest it's quite capable.

The CPU stuff is suitably vague. Most rumours have suggested 3 cores in the retail unit but with each core having differing levels of cache. If it is clocked at a lower speed than 360/PS3 then I assume it must be a fairly efficient architecture.




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