Wii U CPU Clock Frequencies Below the Xbox 360 and PS3

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Lower clocks than the 360? SOLD! Less chance of frying your console. (Funny how you never hear about the Wii Ring of Death) The GPU only needs to support 1080p, so no need to make it any faster/bigger. Triple core CPU running at 1.25GHz may mean that developers might actually have to - gah! - optimize their code! How horrible for them!
 
@bustapr: The problem you described is in the weak SIMD performance, which could have been helpful for compressing/decompressing data for the gpu. Depending on what the rest of the architecture has to offer, they may just need to rethink their design flow, but regardless, they are eventually going to hit a wall somewhere. Let's face it, Nintendo can't afford to profit only from media like their competitors used to be able to do, hence the less-than-stellar hardware. They just need it to do what their core buyer wants it to do.
 
[citation][nom]dolamite74[/nom]You can build a better gaming rig for 500 bucks and be extremely happy it will smoke the new wii u and the new xbox 720 and ps4 in the coming year. You can easily cobble together a 500 dollar rig on Amazon and be so stoked.[/citation]

You mean to tell me that you can build a $500 PC that is better than a sub $300 console? That's not surprising.
 
Heh 8) as a hard core gamer I couldn't imagine playing on my Xbox 360 or PS3 still lol sure I purchased both and played on them but they suck balls compared to my PC.
 
All Nintendo did was optimize for 1080p. So if that means a 1.2 Ghz 3 core CPU, then so be it. And in 5-6 years if/when a new standard is out they'll release another console for that new standard. It would be stupid for them to waste resources and aim for a much more expensive console so it can do more than what's needed now. They understand the costs of new tech always starts high, and gradually becomes less expensive. They don't dictate what the future is, because they can't afford to do that; they are tiny compared to Microsoft and Sony. What they do well is accommodate the needs of the people now. Right now it is 1080p's time in the lime light. Sure people want 4K but few are willing to shell out $10k for that luxury.

It's like that old pick up line, "I know you're still looking for Mr. Right, but I can be your Mr. Right Now."
 
tell me the flops.
thats what matters, tell me the flops of the wiiu the 360 and the ps3, and the ps3 isnt 3tflops like many places report.

i beleive the 360 is between 150 and 300 gflop total.
 
[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]tell me the flops. thats what matters, tell me the flops of the wiiu the 360 and the ps3, and the ps3 isnt 3tflops like many places report.i beleive the 360 is between 150 and 300 gflop total.[/citation]

PS3 has huge floating point performance. 3TFLOPS might be accurate for it. It's problem isn't performance, it's getting code that can actually use it properly because it's incredibly non-intuitive to fully optimize for it.

Also, the FLOPS generally isn't what matters for gaming anyway, at least especially not entirely.
 
Did that actually say that the Wii U was made as a response to the Kinect?

That is like a response to failure.
 
[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]PS3 has huge floating point performance. 3TFLOPS might be accurate for it. It's problem isn't performance, it's getting code that can actually use it properly because it's incredibly non-intuitive to fully optimize for it.Also, the FLOPS generally isn't what matters for gaming anyway, at least especially not entirely.[/citation]
ps3 had 240GFLOP cpu performance and 200GLFOPS peak GPU. Neither were able to output close to the peak. Overall system is expected to be much less than 100GFLOP in games.
 
Clock speed don't mean everything. Look up something called the MHz myth. where they showed a 500 MHz power PC beating a 1.0 GHz P4.
 
I think Nintendo put great effort into their CPU + GPU to offer the best performance for what the market demands right now and also to keep with their image of being an energy friendly organization. As a whole, Japan is more energy conscious than us here in the US, so the Wii U will fall more in-line with that mentality. I mean they turned on (by default) the power-off timeout feature on the new console.

In keeping with the performance while maintaining a low energy footprint, they went through great lengths to incorporate the gpu & cpu onto one chip. Essentially making this the first console (that I'm aware of) to use a SoC design. Why put this much effort into this design if it were meant as a stop-gap to keep pace with current gen consoles?

Last point regarding 2 gamepads - what if the limitation is not the GPU but rather the wireless communication? They basically engineered a custom wireless protocol to be able to handle video at 60fps being transmitted to the device, in nearly real time. It's quite an engineering accomplishment if you ask me for a console application. Now to generate 2 screens worth, you'd have to practically double the bandwidth of the data transmission - maybe this was a limit within the radio frequency they are using, or how the protocol can handle multiple streams. My point is, maybe the GPU would have been powerful enough and there are other limitations holding back utilizing 2 gamepads.

For some side reading regarding some of this tech, there are some interesting interviews in the Iwata Asks blog: http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/

I do remember a time when Nintendo was about having the most powerful console. SNES graphics were superior to the Genesis, supporting a larger color palette, more onscreen colors, mode 7 effects, etc. The N64 with its 90Mhz MIPS processor far outshone the PS1 and Saturn consoles. Even the Gamecube could generate better visuals than PS2 and on-par with Xbox 1. But with the lack of success from N64 and Gamecube, they shifted focus toward innovation and gameplay. Hardware prowess took a backseat and from a sales perspective it paid off with the Wii.
 
[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]PS3 has huge floating point performance. 3TFLOPS might be accurate for it. It's problem isn't performance, it's getting code that can actually use it properly because it's incredibly non-intuitive to fully optimize for it.Also, the FLOPS generally isn't what matters for gaming anyway, at least especially not entirely.[/citation]

flops is really the only way you can get a real world benchmark that can tell you a number of what a card or cpu is capable of doing that is processor independent.

a game that is WIMTBP will play better on an nvidia card than an amd, and other games will play better on an amd card than an nvidia, so the only real way to tell how good the cards are is really though flops, independent of games you see the real potential.

[citation][nom]esrever[/nom]ps3 had 240GFLOP cpu performance and 200GLFOPS peak GPU. Neither were able to output close to the peak. Overall system is expected to be much less than 100GFLOP in games.[/citation]

so many places i find only report that retardedly high 2-3 tflop for the cpu alone which is complete bs its really the only reason i mentioned it.
 
[citation][nom]metathias[/nom]Unfortunately as with the Wii Nintendo will have to depend on internal development to create games that work well with the WII U. All 3rd party companys have already stretched the existing 360, and PS3 to their limits technicly and are now hard at work making games that will finally push the PC market again and prepare for the next round of Consoles. Luckily it only takes about 10 minutes to write a game for the wii U that will take advantage of all its bells and whistles.[/citation]

It takes 10 minutes to develop a completely different interface (tablet controller) and optimize for an entire second screen? Get real. You're right about one thing, lazy devs won't port to Wii U because it's too much hassle for them to do anything unique when the XBox and PS3 have the same control setup. The people who do try to optimize for it are devs who actually care about their final product enough to do so.

[citation][nom]bustapr[/nom] if clock speed isnt important, than all the people here on Toms that OC their CPUs are just wasting their time.[/citation]

If you expect an OC to majorly increase your system's power then yes you are wasting your time. OC is about squeezing the last few percent out, not turning it into a different processor.

[citation][nom]bustapr[/nom]according to dynasty warriors dev, the gpu isnt the problem as it can achieve better visual quality than the other consoles. he stated the real problem was in the speed of the cpu, and that it was slightly slower than the other, hindering their ability to do what they wanted with the game. meaning you wont get to see total war caliber battles with hundreds of npcs onscreen.[/citation]

I'd think that's a worst case scenario. DW devs want to draw hundreds of fodder NPCs onscreen, the game is pretty much plow through the cattle, oh no lu bu, okay keep plowing. I'm pretty sure Koei whines about every single new console that comes out.


You know, I just can't fathom why the writers of this site are so willing to nitpick every little thing they can to destroy the Wii U's rep. It's not a PC, nice observation. Nintendo isn't trying to be PC powerful. They try to do new ideas as cheaply as possible. Their focus with this device was the gamepad. Unless you have a problem there, they have succeeded in providing what they aimed for. Break up the price between the system and the gamepad and the actual console costs $150-200, NOT $350. You aren't comparing a $200 device to any PC. You're comparing it to a tablet. It will cost them devs, sure. It will cost them the kind of devs that only care about pushing graphics. You can have them. If I want to play a game thats graphics dependent I have a PC. The kind of devs this system attracts are the kind that want to do something different, that have unique ideas, that still consider their product to be artwork and not a paycheck. I'll take them anyday. Not to mention the fact Nintendo as a company apologizes for their mistakes, whereas MS and Sony would sooner eat a lightbulb out of the socket than say sorry.
 
[citation][nom]kinggraves[/nom]It takes 10 minutes to develop a completely different interface (tablet controller) and optimize for an entire second screen? Get real. You're right about one thing, lazy devs won't port to Wii U because it's too much hassle for them to do anything unique when the XBox and PS3 have the same control setup. The people who do try to optimize for it are devs who actually care about their final product enough to do so.If you expect an OC to majorly increase your system's power then yes you are wasting your time. OC is about squeezing the last few percent out, not turning it into a different processor.I'd think that's a worst case scenario. DW devs want to draw hundreds of fodder NPCs onscreen, the game is pretty much plow through the cattle, oh no lu bu, okay keep plowing. I'm pretty sure Koei whines about every single new console that comes out.You know, I just can't fathom why the writers of this site are so willing to nitpick every little thing they can to destroy the Wii U's rep. It's not a PC, nice observation. Nintendo isn't trying to be PC powerful. They try to do new ideas as cheaply as possible. Their focus with this device was the gamepad. Unless you have a problem there, they have succeeded in providing what they aimed for. Break up the price between the system and the gamepad and the actual console costs $150-200, NOT $350. You aren't comparing a $200 device to any PC. You're comparing it to a tablet. It will cost them devs, sure. It will cost them the kind of devs that only care about pushing graphics. You can have them. If I want to play a game thats graphics dependent I have a PC. The kind of devs this system attracts are the kind that want to do something different, that have unique ideas, that still consider their product to be artwork and not a paycheck. I'll take them anyday. Not to mention the fact Nintendo as a company apologizes for their mistakes, whereas MS and Sony would sooner eat a lightbulb out of the socket than say sorry.[/citation]

i think he meant 10 minutes on paper, or if you look at a pc, my brother has a 1920x1200 and a 1920x1080 monitor and he uses one for games and one for other crap while he plays games, im assumeing its kind of the same principal there, so really it takes FAR less effort that you are probably thinging to display something like a map on it.

and if you ever go into controller specs like the ps3 and the 6 axis, you see that that crap is on 24/7 so while you are playing a game, lets say the ninja star game they demoed, that ninja star is more or less just a button, the angle the pad is pointed is always being tracked, so they use that to figure out if you hit or not. its really FAR simpler than you are probably imagining.

an oc can take a computer than is just good enough, and make it good enough. god knows i did that when i was useing something that was already 4 years out dated and it made it SO much nicer.

dont forget, the ps2 had a game with 65000 npcs on screen at once as canon folder.

and i thank you for the last paragraph, so much better than i could put it... well... more diplomatic than i would be at least.

also, that game pad probably has lower latency than your tv...

also, with proper use, that pad could make the wiiu the go to system for fps.
 
You're arguing about a Console's processing power that
A)Doesn't represent or affect the high end gaming community or PC games
B)Doesn't deter or bring in more sales because people buy it simply for the ease of use for children and content friendly games and nostalgic value
C)Will never be used in a bench to any modern games.

This article, and all the comments, including my own, are pointless.
 
[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]flops is really the only way you can get a real world benchmark that can tell you a number of what a card or cpu is capable of doing that is processor independent.a game that is WIMTBP will play better on an nvidia card than an amd, and other games will play better on an amd card than an nvidia, so the only real way to tell how good the cards are is really though flops, independent of games you see the real potential. so many places i find only report that retardedly high 2-3 tflop for the cpu alone which is complete bs its really the only reason i mentioned it.[/citation]

AMD has a huge advantage in FLOPS over Nvidia overall in the graphics card market, but I don't see AMD doubling Nvidia's performance (or more) just because of that. Heck, in single precision, the Radeon 6970 kicks the crap out of the GTX 580 and in dual-precision, AMD's 7970 is almost 6 times faster than the GTX 680. FLOPS is obviously not a real-world method of testing gaming performance on GPUs and especially on CPUs which mostly do integer work, not floating point work. Furthermore, what kind of operations are we even talking about here? Single precision, dual, etc? Being WIMTBP doesn't guarantee playing better on Nvidia whatsoever. In fact, several such games prefer AMD's current cards with current drivers, somewhat depending on settings.
 
[citation][nom]bustapr[/nom]to say clockspeed isnt important is a dumb claim.[/citation]That depends, actually. If you're comparing clockspeeds across different architectures, then it DOESN'T matter. In this case, the chip inside the Wii U is quite different from the 360 or PS3 processors. It is clocked much lower, and yet delivers roughly the same performance. Hence the clockspeed in and of itself didn't tell us a damn thing.
 
[citation][nom]snowzsan[/nom]You're arguing about a Console's processing power that A)Doesn't represent or affect the high end gaming community or PC gamesB)Doesn't deter or bring in more sales because people buy it simply for the ease of use for children and content friendly games and nostalgic valueC)Will never be used in a bench to any modern games.This article, and all the comments, including my own, are pointless.[/citation]

The article and argument is definitely not pointless. Wii U is a new console, it's processing power is somewhat similar to PS3 and Xbox- we know that. And we know, that it has a good GPU. Now, if its CPU power was about the same as CPU power of competition, that would mean that basically every game to be released on PS3/Xbox would also come out on Wii U, but would look better. However, if Wii U has a much weaker CPU, it means that some games will not be ported to it at all (like Metro2033), while others might be slow on it, like Batman. Information about the CPU having the same number of cores, but running at 1/3 speed kind of indicates that Wii U will still be different than outgoing PS3/Xbox. It will have it's own games, and some god ports, but also, when developer doesn't put the extra effort to optimize for slower cpu- then bad ports.
 
[citation][nom]neblogai[/nom]The article and argument is definitely not pointless. Wii U is a new console, it's processing power is somewhat similar to PS3 and Xbox- we know that. And we know, that it has a good GPU. Now, if its CPU power was about the same as CPU power of competition, that would mean that basically every game to be released on PS3/Xbox would also come out on Wii U, but would look better. However, if Wii U has a much weaker CPU, it means that some games will not be ported to it at all (like Metro2033), while others might be slow on it, like Batman. Information about the CPU having the same number of cores, but running at 1/3 speed kind of indicates that Wii U will still be different than outgoing PS3/Xbox. It will have it's own games, and some god ports, but also, when developer doesn't put the extra effort to optimize for slower cpu- then bad ports.[/citation]

Running at one-third the frequency with triple the performance per Hz of the frequency makes frequency beyond useless information by itself because not only does it not help alone, but it is then potentially misleading. So, frequency does not at all indicate the sort of games that will be supported. Furthermore, having similar performance to the current consoles doesn't in any way indicate that a ton of their games will be ported over to the WiiU. If that was all that'd happen, then Nvidia would be screwed because they're not offering much more than the current consoles are. They needs a large repository of their own games if they want to succeed. They have that and that gives them the potential to succeed.
 
It's not really about hardware as much as the developers that make the games. Since a PC (Even a gaming PC) isn't made specifically for games, a PC has to have quite a bit higher specs than a console considering it has to run an OS very differently than a console, and many other background applications just to keep it updated. The actual hardware itself isn't the biggest deal though. Look at Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii, for example. I don't know about you, but that looks like Xbox 360 graphics to me. Also, look up comparisons of the Wii U and PS3/360 (There are a few videos, like Black Ops 2). The Wii U clearly has the better graphics, even with inferior hardware.
 
[citation][nom]zakaron[/nom]I do remember a time when Nintendo was about having the most powerful console. SNES graphics were superior to the Genesis, supporting a larger color palette, more onscreen colors, mode 7 effects, etc. The N64 with its 90Mhz MIPS processor far outshone the PS1 and Saturn consoles. Even the Gamecube could generate better visuals than PS2 and on-par with Xbox 1. But with the lack of success from N64 and Gamecube, they shifted focus toward innovation and gameplay. Hardware prowess took a backseat and from a sales perspective it paid off with the Wii.[/citation]I see your rose colored glasses arrived via Fedex. 😀 You skipped the NES, it wasn't exactly a speed demon - although it did have its strong points. The SNES launched in Japan TWO YEARS after the Mega Drive (known as Genesis here) - and it STILL didn't definitively cream the Mega Drive. The SNES has more colors and other neat graphical goodies, but the Genesis still had a faster CPU which it used to good effect.

Then you've got the N64. It had some pretty impressive 3D capabilities at the time. However once again they were late to the party, and it was not superior in every aspect. In particular, it didn't have the ability to store and play high quality (for the time) FMV. It also had basically no real 2D capability to speak of. Saturn had the best 2D capability, and PSX was probably the best balanced console of the era.

Gamecube was OK, but in terms of performance it was a bit inferior to the Xbox. Everything after that, well you don't buy Nintendo for the graphics now. You buy a Wii or Wii U for the games, and I don't see anything wrong with that. Even though I mostly game on PC, I play some console games too, if they're fun I don't mind that they don't look as good.
 
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