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NWR Interactive => TalkBack => Topic started by: Steel Diver on December 01, 2012, 02:33:13 PM

Title: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: Steel Diver on December 01, 2012, 02:33:13 PM

A peak under the hood of Nintendo's latest.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/32670

Hector Martin, a hacker with experience in exploiting both the Wii and PlayStation 3, recently revealed specific details of the Wii U's CPU clock.

Martin posted some of the figures on his Twitter account:

 "1.243125GHz, exactly. 3 PowerPC 750 type cores (similar to Wii's Broadway, but more cache). GPU core at 549.999755MHz." 

The specs indicate that the Wii U nearly doubles the clock speed of the Wii, while tripling the core count.

According to Martin, the internal designation of the Wii U CPU is "Espresso" and the AMD graphics chip is called "Latte," which correlate with the use of the "Project Cafe" codename prior to the console's formal naming.

When asked, Martin suggested the figures came from hacking the system, and not from a leak of information.

Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: Eyothrie on December 01, 2012, 02:41:25 PM
That's a really low CPU clock speed.  I assume that the more modern GPU will be able to handle some of the tasks normally handled by the CPU.  Lets hope so, at least. 
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: ShyGuy on December 01, 2012, 02:50:30 PM
I wonder if Nintendo could increase the clock speed with a firmware update. Didn't the increase the speed of the PSP that way?
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: EasyCure on December 01, 2012, 03:15:58 PM
Quote from: Eyothrie on December 01, 2012, 02:41:25 PM
That's a really low CPU clock speed.  I assume that the more modern GPU will be able to handle some of the tasks normally handled by the CPU.  Lets hope so, at least. 

Hasn't that already been confirmed though? I'm sure I read it somewhere on this site.
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: the asylum on December 01, 2012, 03:41:12 PM
wow they weren't kidding when they said the wii u's clock speed was pathetic
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: joshnickerson on December 01, 2012, 03:45:48 PM
The Genesis clock speed was faster than the SNES, but that ended up meaning dick in the long run.
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: Phil on December 01, 2012, 03:58:48 PM
I don't think third-parties were ever going to take the Wii U seriously, but the low whatever gives them a great excuse not to.
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: Shorty McNostril on December 01, 2012, 04:13:21 PM
Appparently the same guy has heard rumors that:


"If you want more evidence that MHz isn't everything, a little birdie points out that Durango (Xbox 720) is specc'ed to have a 1.6GHz CPU."
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: Mop it up on December 01, 2012, 04:40:32 PM
Quote from: joshnickerson on December 01, 2012, 03:45:48 PM
The Genesis clock speed was faster than the SNES, but that ended up meaning dick in the long run.
This isn't entirely true. Genesis games generally ran more smoothly than SNES games, and that's because of its faster CPU. Just check out how much better the framerate is in Virtua Racing on Genesis compared to Stunt Race FX on SNES:

Virtua Racing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAGhdlj4qnA

Stunt Race FX
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hEXEpLiv0I

Similarly, I imagine the low clock speed of the Wii U is the main reason why most third-party games on it have framerate issues.
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: MegaByte on December 01, 2012, 05:08:42 PM
That's not a good comparison since both Virtua Racing and Stunt Race FX had additional CPUs built on the cartridges. Virtua's was 23MHz and the FX chip was 21MHz (or half that in the earliest games).
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: Mop it up on December 01, 2012, 05:16:51 PM
I know it isn't the greatest, but it's the one I remembered and I didn't feel like looking up some other games.
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: ThePerm on December 01, 2012, 05:40:58 PM
this doesnt mean anything

say clock speed = C
operations per cycle = O
and C * O = P, for power

if C = 3000 and O = 64 then P = 192,000
if C = 1500 and O = 128 then P = 192,000

also there is more m for memory
If most of O and C were  previously wasted moving around M then most of C didn't do anything worth a damn. If there is more M then there is more use from O and C
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: Kytim89 on December 01, 2012, 07:35:57 PM
Any chance that Nintendo weakened the CPU to reduce the generation of heat by the system, and thuse avoid a RRoD situation? This could explain why Nintendo gave the Wii U a streamlined designe in order to keep the system cool. If this is the case then I think Sony and Microsoft will do the same with their next home consoles. 
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: yoshi1001 on December 01, 2012, 09:10:46 PM
Guess Nintendo should have put a blast processing module in the Wii U.  ;)


It's virtually impossible to compare hardware specs these days, as there are so many variables involved in performance, not to mention the needs of the game being played.
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on December 01, 2012, 10:07:19 PM
Just tell us how many bits the Wii U is, then we will know it's true power.
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: Stark_Nebula on December 02, 2012, 12:05:55 AM
I wish people realized that things such as architecture, threads per core, RAM/CPU/GPU efficiency, latency and a slew of other things contribute to a console's performance.


And to Mop it Up, since the ports of other games where coded to used the the CPU as the main source of processing power rather than the GPU, it would make sense. Nintendo's games probably use more power but are coded efficiently and to the specs of the system.
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: Caterkiller on December 02, 2012, 12:21:59 AM
Hey everybody go to the general gaming section and look at the rumored 720 CPu clock speed from the same source!
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: ShyGuy on December 02, 2012, 01:50:26 AM
Quote from: Caterkiller on December 02, 2012, 12:21:59 AM
Hey everybody go to the general gaming section and look at the rumored 720 CPu clock speed from the same source!

I bet those dirty GAFfers are having a bitter tears party over low speed Xbox 4 rumors.
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: Sirpennywise on December 02, 2012, 09:25:27 AM
I believe more in content over graphics/computing power, The Wii did amazing things with 1/3 of the specs. With that said.

There is more to producing games than raw processing power / ram / GPU etc.. if those were all that mattered PC games would be decades beyond consoles. My home PC has 8 cores running at double the WIIu's clock speed with 10X faster GPU and yet the games don't look a whole lot better than whats on the consoles.



Numbers don't matter to the average consumer, Wii's have always been targeted at the family and they have done incredibly well with that. the graphics can be toned down as long as they keep producing amazing and innovative content.


People will continue to buy their products and game companies see that and hopefully will produce titles for them.
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: MagicCow64 on December 02, 2012, 11:34:45 AM
This clock speed conversation is just a distraction.

How many polygons can the Wii U output?
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: NWR_insanolord on December 02, 2012, 11:41:10 AM
Polygon count is more of a function of the graphics chip than the CPU, and there's no question that the Wii U's graphics chip is a significant improvement over the other consoles.
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on December 02, 2012, 12:18:14 PM
BITS DAMNIT that's all we need to know. How many BITS is the Wii U!?

I heard it's a 256Bit system. That's 4x as good as the Jaguar or the N64. 8X more powerful that PS2!!
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: NWR_insanolord on December 02, 2012, 12:23:52 PM
But only twice as powerful as the Dreamcast.
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: Caterkiller on December 02, 2012, 03:17:51 PM
Ok so there are or were a few of us here that really got upset over this CPU speed issue. So how long before we see a game that totally erases this out of our minds because of it's amazing visuals but who will be the first one to say, "But it could have been better with a faster CPU!"

I'm going with E3 2013 and... Chozo...

 ;)
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: EasyCure on December 02, 2012, 03:32:46 PM
Hasn't everyone been raving about how amazing Rayman Legends looks? Or does that not count because it's not based on the Unreal engine? ;)
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: Blur256 on December 02, 2012, 05:41:22 PM
Sure the cpu is slow However, today's gaming standards are geared toward the gpu. Without a fast gpu a system is pretty much useless while trying to run today's standard of games. Also, what people fail to realize is the fact that we haven't even seen the Wii-U's true potential, just wait till next year and we finally get a glimpse into games that are being made specifically for the system. Also, from what I hear nintendo has some sort of software in the system which actually ghosts the systems true clock speed on the cpu, either way only time will tell.

Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: iDraTion on December 03, 2012, 02:42:30 PM
It's a triple core processor, so if things are coded for it well, it seems like it should be more than sufficient.  Boiling a video game down to its numbered rating is about as accurate as boiling down a processor to its clock speed.
Title: Re: Hacker Reveals Wii U CPU Clock Details
Post by: ThePerm on December 03, 2012, 07:40:35 PM
The xbox 360 had a triple core processor. What this will amount to is programmers bitching about the lack of clock speed for a few months before they realize that the system has a way better gpu than the xbox 360 and way more ram. The thing about processor power is its usually underutilized because there isn't enough ram.