i'm only followong the sp count, is this bad news for wiii u? 

Very bad. HD3850 has 53 GB/sec memory bandwidth. Chop off half the ROPs and drop memory bandwidth to 12.8GB/sec, the GPU is hopeless for next generation games. Even if it's 50% faster than Xbox 360's GPU, that won't even make a dent for next gen games. However, since people enjoyed Nintendo's 1st party games on the N64, Gamecube, Wii, it's not the graphics that interests them, but gameplay. The gap in visuals between Wii U and PS4 should be a full generation. 

Xbox360 vs. PC in Crysis 3:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a3eilZRlyk

Even if Wii U is 50% more powerful than Xbox 360, that's not even going to reach the level of graphics of Crysis 3 on the PC, not talking about 2017-2019 games.

 looking at the memory bandwidth and cpu, i don't know why people expected something great from the gpu, when the whole system is designed to cheap and effeciante, some of the choices nintendo made are laughable, we rather be green then give decent tech.

That's basically what Nintendo wanted though, something good enough to run PS3/360 graphics + a second screen. Black Ops 2 already does this.

Iwata already said they don't see a future in pursuing higher and higher end graphics because the cost to develop games will out weigh the possible return in most cases.

I agree, the next gen will not be won on graphical or cpu power alone. Anyone who thinks so is sorely mistaken, and will be proven wrong. I honestly don't care about whether I have a bleeding edge system, it's the games that matter, and it's the games that will drive sales. I predict that all 3 major home consoles will be neck and neck in sales next gen, and this is despite any system being 'less' powerful than the others.

dont forget being green is more important then power, and who the heck hides there specs like nintendo, too embarressed to show there specs.

If that were true, 3rd parties would have been more likely to abandon PS4/Xbox 720 to make games for Wii U due to lower costs. Instead they are already abandoning the Wii U and workin on next gen games for PS4/Xbox 720. His theory isn't translating well in the real world.

If Wii U's games compared to PS4/720 look like Xbox 360 vs. PC today, people are going to think really hard before spending $300-350 on the Wii U:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a3eilZRlyk

Nintendo is going to need to drop the price to $229-249 by Q2 2014 I bet. By holiday 2014, I can see places like Costco having the Basic Wii U for $199, unless Nintendo launches the some amazing 1st party line-up of games we've seen during SNES/N64 days.

They are being green in the wrong places. The main console's typical power consumption is 35W, but the GamePad's battery is too small, lasting 4.5-5 hours. There is clearly room to fit a larger battery in the controller. Also, with expected die shrinks to lower manufacturing nodes/technologies, the Wii U could have always lowered the power consumption. They should have at least went with an AMD APU design with a 65W TDP. I can understand their choices to focus on lower-spec components to save power, but the console costs $350, which is WAY too expensive since its GPU power is barely better than that of a $199 Xbox 360! Nintendo is asking us to pay $150 more today for promise of future 1st party games. 

What's going to happen when MS and Sony launch Xbox 720/PS4 and drop the price of the 250GB Xbox 360/PS3 to $199? 

An 8 core mobile cpu and supposedly a 7850 with 4 GB's of RAM which I find very doubtful, a graphics chipset of at least 130 Watts paired with a processor that will most likely use about 1/10th of that...

As for the speed of the RAM. GDDR5 doesn't automatically mean it's extremely fast. There are things like clock speeds and bus sizes to consider. There are graphics cards with GDDR5 RAM doing 25.6 GB/s and there are graphics cards with (simple) DDR3 RAM doing 64 GB/s.

So no, that doesn't sound beastly just on those figures alone. Especially because the 7850 rumor is nothing but speculation, it's not even based on "Journalist A or site X heard it from an anonymous dev".

In fact I'm expecting Durango to outperform the PS4 slightly. But I doubt Durango will be a powerhouse either.

I'm expecting something in the range of 7850M - 7870M for both consoles. Enough to run new, next-gen games close to 1080p at (a steady) 30 fps but nothing too fancy. Certainly not enough to match (current) High end PC's right off the bat at launch.

Mobile GPUs have special binning process (i.e., they can achieve similar clock speeds at much lower voltages or can drop clock speeds a little bit with a very large reduction in voltage). For example:

HD7870 Desktop (1000mhz, 1280 SPs, 32 ROPs, 80 TMUs, 256-bit bus, 153.6 GB/sec memory bandwidth, 2GB GDDR5) = 175W TDP

vs.

HD7970M (850mhz, 1280 SPs, 32 ROPs, 80 TMUs, 256-bit bus, 153.6 GB/sec memory bandwidth, 2GB GDDR5) = 100W TDP

^ 150mhz lower GPU clock and a 75W reduction in TDP.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-GeForce-GTX-680M-vs-Radeon-HD-7970M.77110.0.html

Since HD7970M launched, the 28nm node has matured. By the time PS4 launches, they could release a similar card with an even lower power consumption since 28nm node will be on 2nd or 3rd stepping.

That is true. People were discussing the specs of PS4 in the context of GDDR5 and memory bandwidth in the vicinity of 176 GB/sec or similar. These specs went hand-in-hand. This is why the talk started that PS4's GPU would mop the floor with the Xbox 720's based on these specs.

HD7850-7870 level would be very good for next gen consoles. Earlier rumors from last year discussed HD6670/7670 or 7660D A10-5800K APU. All of those are very weak. HD7850-7870 would be 8-10x the power of PS3's GPU.

Even the GPUs in PS3 was already  more than 2x slower than G80 (8800GTX). PS3 and 8800GTX launched days apart. PS3 cost $800+ to manufacture...

Nvidia's upcoming Titan will have 6GB of GDDR5, 235W TDP and cost $900. It's impossible to even consider a console having those, not to mention just how massive these GPUs are! You can't fit that inside a small console :)

Just to let it out there...

I do keep updating my comparison thread in case peeps forget.

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=136756