Potential Revolution specs

[Josh7289]

http://forums.g4tv.com/messageview.cfm?...d=489191&FTVAR_MSGDBTABLE=&STARTPAGE=1

This is what Han_Solo posted:

OK guys, got some new things about Revolution.
Yesterday Nintendo released their "near-to-final" specs again
Remember that N-Forum Magazine that was published on the internet about what the Rev will be like. It said Nintendo had 2 systems to choose from. I personally don?t know if that was true or false, but this is what happened.
Nintendo does have 2 prototypes in schedule, and is going to decide some time next year on which one to go ahead with. They also said that some of the specs I have released in my other set of specs have some errors , and that this is the much satisfied spec.

Revolution Specs

System 1
CPU:
IBM Custom PowerPC 2.5 GHz with 128 KB L1 cache + 2 internal Highly customized G5 cores, 2.5 GHz each.
Each G5 core will have 128 KB L1 cache.
The whole CPU (including the cores) will share either 256 ? 512 KB of L2 cache.
Its Dual Threaded, G5 cores to have 2 hardware threads per core, 4 Threads total
10 billion dot product operations per second
Theoretical speed of CPU in a non-realistic way of looking at it, but it still is correct?.
2.5 GHz CPU + 2x 2.5 GHz cores = 7.5 GHz total

Now this seems correct to that GameInformer Magazine that published the specs, but these specs are similar, but faster?

Revolution GPU

The same GPU spec as I released in my other sheet. Here?s a look back on it; But unfortunatley no HD support.....

ATI Custom based RN520 core. The "N" stands for Nintendo, and is because the ArtX team is with them, that is why it?s an "N". There will be 2 GPU cores (just like the nVidia SLI motherboard with two Graphics Chips), this will use ATI's alternative, and will be the first in any console.
GPU cores at 400 MHz each, theoretical 800 MHz. Will support up to 2048x1268 resolution, but no HD support, so that resolution is null.
28 way parallel floating-point dynamically scheduled shader pipelines for each core with unified shader architecture. Thats a theoretical
56 Shader pipes if combined
Polygon Performance: 500 million triangles per second theoretical, average in game would be around <100 Million/sec>
Shader Performance: 45 billion shader operations per second

Revolution memory

512 MB of 700 MHz 1T-SRAM

Revolution will support a PPU chip (Physical Processing Chip). There will be 32 MB?s of its own RAM, which will link to the CPU and GPU and the Controller .
There will also be a separate sound card that will support only DD 5.1 ? DTS 7.1, rumours has it will have 16 MB?s, like the Cube DSP

System 2

CPU:
IBM Custom PowerPC 2.5 GHz + 4 internal Power PC G5 cores running at 2.5 GHz each. Each core will have 128 KB L1 cache.
The whole CPU will share 512 of L2 cache.
Dual Threaded so there will also be two hardware threads per core, 8 hardware threads total.
15 billion dot product operations per second
Theoretical of 2.5 GHz + 10 GHz CPU speed = 12.5 GHz

Revolution GPU

2 GPU cores running at 500 MHz. Now this says there will be HD support up to the resolution as above...
Each GPU will have 256 MB of GDDR4 RAM
28 way parallel floating-point dynamically scheduled shader pipelines for each core with unified shader architecture.
Polygon Performance: 500 million triangles per second theoretical, average in game would be around <100 Million/sec>
Shader Performance: 52 billion shader operations per second

Revolution memory
512 MB of 700 MHz Updated 1T-SRAM

Revolution will support a PPU chip (Physical Processing Chip). There will be 32 MB?s of its own RAM, which will link to the CPU and GPU and the Controller .
There will also be a separate sound card that will support only DD 5.1 ? DTS 7.1, rumours has it will have 16 MB?s, like the Cube DSP

So theres 2 systems. For maximum system performance, i would go with system 2, but since 4 cores are really hard to code, i would go with system 1, as thats more than powerful enough to compete with the xbox 360 or PS3, GPU wise, the CPU i think technically is a little slower than the xbox 360's CPU by 20%.

 

[Josh7289]

He continued in the thread to post (I removed many of the spaces to make it take up less space) (Also at http://www.techpowerup.com/index.php?5449):

WHAOHH!!!!!!!!!! A thread that?s flaming???

Back on subject,

Andross01, when I said Theoretical 7.5GHz, where you add up all CPU Hz, I did say ?this is an unrealistic way of looking at it?; didn?t I. Its just a ?crazy, stupid? way of looking at it that?s all .

Nintendo has modified the System 1 specs. They have deleted the System 2 specs as it is obviously expensive and really powerful.

System 1 specs can be viewed on the first page of this thread, posted by White Wolf. Nintendo now has to choose between the System 1, that?s on the front page, or these Modified Specs.

System 1 Modified
CPU:
1 IBM Custom PowerPC 2.5 GHz with 256 KB L1 cache and 1 MB of L2 cache (an L3 cache is rumored). It?s Dual Threaded
13 billion dot product operations per second

Revolution GPU

ATI Custom based RN520 core. The "N" stands for Nintendo, and is because the ArtX team is with them, that is why it?s an "N".
GPU core at 600 MHz. Will support up to 2048x1268 resolution, HD support is still being decided. Will have 256 MB?s of 1T-SRAM (the RAM is much better due to some tweaking, compared to GC?s RAM. The latency and Cells are much more efficient and faster. Around 1.2 ns is the latency, on average).
32 parallel floating-point dynamically scheduled shader pipelines.
Polygon Performance: 500 million triangles per second theoretical, average in game would be around <100 Million/sec>
Shader Performance: ~50 billion shader operations per second

Revolution memory

512 MB of 700 MHz 1T-SRAM

Other bits and pieces
Revolution will support a PPU chip (Physical Processing Chip). There will be 32 MB?s of its own RAM, which will link to the CPU and GPU and the Controller.
There will also be a separate sound card that will support only DD 5.1 ? DTS 7.1, rumors has it will have 16 MB?s, like the Cube DSP

So there?s the modified version. I think this would be on par with Xbox360, though PS3 could have an edge in the CPU area. In the GPU area the Revolution beats PS3, and technically would match Xbox 360.

 

[Redefined]

id still rather have a Xbox 360 or PS3. but by far the pc is the best gaming system ever!

 

[hans030390]

if this is true, that kinda pwnz some of the xbox 360/ps3 specs

 

[johnnqq]

nintendo or playstation...decisions decisions.

i have an n64 and a ps2 :\ i'll probalby end up getting both!

 

[piddlefoot]

Originally posted by: johnnqq
nintendo or playstation...decisions decisions.

i have an n64 and a ps2 :\ i'll probalby end up getting both!

pc the only real games comp

 

[videogames101]

though i used to be a console freak, it was justified. When consoles first had some nice 3d comps didn't..... but now the comp pwns all, but nintendo could win the console war with a sleek price with these specs.....

 

[jasonja]

I'm not sure I buy that there will be two seperate 520 GPU cores in it... that would require some impressive cooling, some big power requirements, board space (making the console larger) and would add a lot of cost to this console. Nintendo is normally pretty price conservative and doesn't go balls to wall with horsepower in their consoles.

 

[Josh7289]

Originally posted by: jasonja
I'm not sure I buy that there will be two seperate 520 GPU cores in it... that would require some impressive cooling, some big power requirements, board space (making the console larger) and would add a lot of cost to this console. Nintendo is normally pretty price conservative and doesn't go balls to wall with horsepower in their consoles.

A few people brought up some points like that on the techPowerUp! Comments section for this article. You can read those.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: jasonja
I'm not sure I buy that there will be two seperate 520 GPU cores in it... that would require some impressive cooling, some big power requirements, board space (making the console larger) and would add a lot of cost to this console. Nintendo is normally pretty price conservative and doesn't go balls to wall with horsepower in their consoles.

A. we don't even know how hot a 600MHz R520 will be (yet)
B. these linked (xfire?) "R520"s are supposedly 400MHz...

I'm still kind of skeptical. 2 GPU cores in a crossfire sort of link sounds fishy, especially when Nintendo is giving off the vibe that they don't care much about hardware power (and instead are going with the slick small system and controller aspects)

However this hardware "umphh" would definately do them good as to not scare away gamers who are easily distracted by graphics over gameplay, this would go for developers too.

The CPU probably wouldn't be as good as either of the other two consoles' CPUs, but that might not matter with how developers have been reacting.

The biggest advantage would be the hardware PPU. Neither Sony nor M$ claim to have one. Obviously Sony is banking on Cell to handle the physics, but it would probably be easier to code for the Revolution through a PPU than to do it through Cell.

The single core system from "system 1" would make most sense if it is going to have a PPU. You aren't going to need that second core for much if you're going to have such an asset, perhaps for AI calculations but it wouldn't be needed as much as a PPU would.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Guys, these were leaked like, before E3, so I doubt they're true. It was shortly after the Xbox 360 specs were leaked that these showed up. For the most part it seemed like they had just taken the X360 specs and tried to one-up them.

With the size that the Revolution is going to be, I think you can probably count out these specs, considering the problems ATi had taping out R520. Factor in the fact that Nintendo is not going to eat that much money to put that kind of hardware in it.

The space is just too small and cramped for a 4 core G5 and dual R520 (there's no way 2 high end GPUs and a 4 core version of an already hot running CPU would have enough cooling in a chassis the size of the Revolution's.

I might could believe a dual-core version, although, something kind of tells me that its going to be just a single core, but either clocked high enough or with enough cache to make it pretty fast. For the GPU, I don't think its going to share much in common with R520 or the X360's GPU, as ATi has already said it was a custom designed chip for Nintendo, and has labeled it Broadway (or maybe it was Hollywood?).

Both IBM and ATi were supposed to custom design chips, and from what I recall reading in the article that talked about them, is that Nintendo was aiming for them to be quite a bit different than what either Sony or Microsoft was doing with their hardware.

What I hope though, is that Nintendo has been mum on the specs because they haven't finalized them yet. The reason I would think this to be a good thing is that they are biding their time and waiting for the market to get there (fabrication processes, etc) so that they can get better hardware for their money than if they had it already all figured out and finalized.

We'll just have to wait and see though. I gave up on all the speculation, especially from Nintendo and am just going to reserve final judgement for when I play the thing.

 

[ElFenix]

i don't care about hardware specs if i can have lightsaber battles using that controller. nintendo's gc games, if the dev spends any time on them, typically have at least as much eye candy as those of their competitors, so i'm not particularly worried.


and yes, most of these specs seem completely out of line with what nintendo is aiming for. a single core HT enabled G5 and a single RN520 i could believe (lets face it, no one but ATi knows exactly why the normal one required 3 tape outs, but i suspect it's for the same reason that intel had so much trouble going to .09u: voltage leakage)

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: piddlefoot

Originally posted by: johnnqq
nintendo or playstation...decisions decisions.

i have an n64 and a ps2 :\ i'll probalby end up getting both!

pc the only real games comp

PC Games.

The day you can get better control with your 2 fingers on a console versus a whole mouse in one hand and all your fingers on the keyboard with the other, and when the graphics look nicer than on PC, then you can tell me to switch.

But seriously. #1 Halo guy has about 1/2 the skill of any Cal-O CS1.6/CS:S player and 1/4 the skill of any CPL player.

 

[akugami]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050923-5344.html

I read on Ars Technica a rumor that it'll be a single core PPC based chip but optimized for multithreading similar to the P4's with it's hyperthreading. Obviously they will optimize it for crunching instructions that benefit games. There will be a PPU and since physics is one of the more demanding aspects of a game, it'll be as good as a dual core cpu for the most part. And of course an R520 based GPU.

I would seriously discount a quad core or two dual core CPU's as well as dual R520's. Nintendo has always been a cost conscious company and they'll go for decent, not mind blowing, specs but powerful enough that it's not heads and tails weaker than the competition. That and the size that the Revolution is suppose to be will mean they don't have enough room in there for all that hardware.

No console needs dual GPU's at this time. Heck, at the resolutions a single R520 should run and what a G70 runs, 90% of the TV's in households around the world wouldn't be able to take full advantage of them. Let's face it, while Sony's claims of dual 1080p capabilities sound sexy, how many percentage of households will have a single 1080p capable display much less two of them? I think a much more realistic goal and one I think Nintendo should take is to allow 480p and 720p resolutions for their systems. There isn't even a pressing need to support a single 1080p display at this time. Maybe with the next generation in 5 years when we'll have much more 1080p displays out there and not EDTV's and the 720i or 720p HDTV sets that are more commonly sold now.

 

[Acanthus]

If the revolution had 768MB of SRAM in it, they would cost about $7,000

Its gotta be SD..

 

[RichUK]

7.5Ghz .. lol, it does not work like that.

 

[VIAN]

Theoretical speed of CPU in a non-realistic way of looking at it, but it still is correct?.
2.5 GHz CPU + 2x 2.5 GHz cores = 7.5 GHz total

Yes, very unrealistic, very incorrect theoretical speed.

Andross01, when I said Theoretical 7.5GHz, where you add up all CPU Hz, I did say ?this is an unrealistic way of looking at it?; didn?t I. Its just a ?crazy, stupid? way of looking at it that?s all .

Then why mention it at all? Trying to start rumors or something?

Theoretical of 2.5 GHz + 10 GHz CPU speed = 12.5 GHz

This is pretty stupid.