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Forums - Gaming - Wii U CPU die shot discussion

RazorDragon on 16 February 2013

Looks like Chipworks was also kind enough to take pictures of Wii U's CPU, codenamed Espresso, and send them for free to NeoGAF for some technical analysis. This is the shot of the entire CPU, with parts highlighted:

 

 

And this is a close up shot and analysis of Core 1 which has more L2 cache than the two others:

 

 

Based on what has been discussed there, those cores look nothing like a 45nm overclocked Broadway chip(Wii's CPU) as rumors have indicated, so we might actually be seeing a new CPU design based on PowerPC 750 for backwards compatibility purposes rather than just a simple Wii CPU shrink as it was first thought. Those are Broadway, Gekko(Gamecube's CPU) and PowerPC 750 die shots for comparison purposes:

 

 

Also, it's confirmed based on the shots that one CPU(Core 1) has more L2 cache(2MB for Core 1 vs 512kb for Core 0 and Core 2) than the others. And that's pretty much what has been discovered for the time being. So, seeing as the Broadway CPU shrink theory doesn't look to bright right now, how do you guys think that would affect the perception of CPU performance on Wii U? As i don't think it would be possible to run the games Wii U is running right now with 3 Wii CPU's duct-taped together, this CPU photo makes much more sense to me, even if I understand almost nothing in it.



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Hibern81 on 16 February 2013

What you staring at Reggie?¿?¿?



"Games are a trigger for adults to again become primitive, primal, as a way of thinking and remembering. An adult is a child who has more ethics and morals, that's all. When I am a child, creating, I am not creating a game. I am in the game. The game is not for children, it is for me. It is for an adult who still has a character of a child."

 

Shigeru Miyamoto

Farmageddon on 16 February 2013

tag



Conegamer on 16 February 2013

Interesting.

...

I feel as though I've contributed.



 

Here lies the dearly departed Nintendomination Thread.

DarkTemplar on 16 February 2013

It does not look like the PowerPC 750 or the Wii's CPU. However, they could just used a different (modern) algorithm the generate this new circuit layout in order to optimize size, power consumption and performance.

Also, I would love to know what type of SIMD instructions the processor offers, this will allow us understand how the performance of a optimized (in this case vectorized) code compares to a simple code ported to the CPU.



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Roma on 16 February 2013

it looks like the DS CPU



    R.I.P Mr Iwata :'(

JWeinCom on 16 February 2013

When I heard it was like a Wii CPU, I assumed they meant that it was an enhanced version of the Wii version. I didn't think it was literally three Wii CPUs in there. That would be ridiculous, and might be more expensive than having a more modern chip. Is that what people really thought?



RazorDragon on 16 February 2013
Hibern81 said:
What you staring at Reggie?¿?¿?


At your soul.



Otakumegane on 16 February 2013

I have no idea what this means.



http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/profile/92109/nintendopie/ Nintendopie  Was obviously right and I was obviously wrong. I will forever be a lesser being than them. (6/16/13)

Psyberius on 16 February 2013
RazorDragon said:

Looks like Chipworks was also kind enough to take pictures of Wii U's CPU, codenamed Espresso, and send them for free to NeoGAF for some technical analysis. This is the shot of the entire CPU, with some important and some unknown parts highlighted:

 

 

And this is a close up shot and analysis of Core 1 which has more L2 cache than the two others:

 

 

Based on what has been discussed there, those cores look nothing like a 45nm overclocked Broadway chip(Wii's CPU) as rumors have indicated, so we might actually be seeing a new CPU design based on PowerPC 750 for backwards compatibility purposes rather than just a simple Wii CPU shrink as it was first thought. Those are Broadway, Gekko(Gamecube's CPU) and PowerPC 750 die shots for comparison purposes:

 

 

Also, it's confirmed based on the shots that one CPU(Core 1) has more L2 cache(2MB for Core 1 vs 512kb for Core 0 and Core 2) than the others. And that's pretty much what has been discovered for the time being. So, seeing as the Broadway CPU shrink theory doesn't look to bright right now, how do you guys think that would affect the perception of CPU performance on Wii U? As i don't think it would be possible to run the games Wii U is running right now with 3 Wii CPU's duct-taped together, this CPU photo makes much more sense to me, even if I understand almost nothing in it.

So that's what weakness looks like?

Like someone said, it looks like 3 WII cpu's ducktaped together.

They are NOT going to impress late in their lifetime with this.  I wonder how long it'll be until they're bit swapping to save power.  

I fully expect Sony and MS to come to the table with something much better designed than this.  Or should I say I hope so.

Come on Nintendo.  You guys are frigging leaders of innovation, putting a tablet on the front of a redesigned WII is disappointing to me.   I love playing my games on my controller but i'm a hard core gamer.   The regular joe isn't buying it...look at those frigging sales numbers.  Every store in creation has stock.  Please guys, get those damn games out and make them good.  I'm tired of the Sony/MS Bla bla we're the tits of power bla bla.