Here is the full story on the Wii CPU, 24 hours later.

Read everything so you get all the details.

Eurogamer said:

Today, a post from Wii and PS3 hacker Marcan puts a firm figure on that, precise to six decimal places no less:



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



Having contributed to the discovery of exploits for the original Wii as part of Team Twiizers, as well as cooperating with other hackers as a member of fail0verflow - the team that brought down PlayStation 3 security - Marcan's figures clearly carry some weight.

Marcan's comments corroborate earlier stories about the provenance of the CPU, which suggested that the cores are indeed very similar to the Broadway architecture found in the Wii, which in itself harks back to IBM's PowerPC 750 core which first debuted way back in 1997. The core was still fairly modern when it debuted in 2000's GameCube, and was up-clocked to 729MHz for the 2006 Nintendo Wii. For the transition to Wii U, clock speed has almost doubled, core count has tripled and according to Marcan, there is more on-board cache. Other sources have previously suggested further enhancements to the technology, such as out of order execution - a feature that isn't present in the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 CPUs.

On clock speed alone, it's a whitewash: Xbox 360 operates at 3.2GHz with six hardware threads over three cores, equivalent to 1.6GHz per thread.

However, Marcan reckons that the Wii U CPU shouldn't be dismissed based on clocks alone - even with the speed deficit and with only one hardware thread per core, he suggests that it's like comparing Intel's power-hungry, inefficient Pentium 4 design with the later, better-designed Core series processors.



"The Espresso is an out of order design with a much shorter pipeline. It should win big on IPC on most code, but it has weak SIMD", he reckons.



Asked whether his clock speed metrics may apply to the CPU running in an idling state, Marcan ruled out the idea, suggesting that "1.24G is exactly in line with what we expected for a 750-based design".



"So yes, the Wii U CPU is nothing to write home about, but don't compare it clock per clock with a 360 and claim it's much worse. It isn't," he concludes.

And:

Nintendo Life said:

Digital Foundry@digitalfoundry 29 Nov 12

@marcan42 Any ideas on CPU clock speed?

Hector Martin@marcan42

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

While the GPU figure is in line with some expectations and exceeds that of the Xbox 360, the CPU speed is rather low, falling short of its HD competitors. When quizzed on whether this was actually an idle clock speed, Marcan insisted it was correct, while following up in a later tweet to say that direct speed comparisons with systems such as the 360 would be an over-simplistic approach.

Mister Omar@misteromar_mk2 29 Nov 12

@marcan42 @digitalfoundry How do you know these are not idle speeds?

Digital Foundry@digitalfoundry

@misteromar_mk2 @marcan42 GPU sounds about right, but CPU is really low - are you indeed sure it's not downclocking when idle?

And I'm sure it's not an "idle" clock speed. 1.24G is exactly in line with what we expected for a 750-based design.

So yes, the Wii U CPU is nothing to write home about, but don't compare it clock per clock with a 360 and claim it's much worse. It isn't.

Some discussions around the CPU/GPU questions with Wii U revolve around whether the latter's strengths can compensate for any potential weakness with the CPU, something that Marcan briefly addressed.

Alessandro Sena@ZuelaBR 29 Nov 12

@marcan42 but if the GPU is powerful you can use that instead of the CPU for SMID, right?

Hector Martin@marcan42

@ZuelaBR Quite possibly, yes, if what you're trying to do is nice on GPUs.

It's important to note that these details are unverified and have, by Marcan's own admission, been obtained from Wii U hacks. It's unlikely that Nintendo will confirm or deny these reports, but so far these are the first claims relating to actual clock speeds on the sytem's CPU and GPU. It's also relevant to say that direct comparisons of speeds, side by side, don't provide a full picture, as the architecture of these systems is too complicated for such a crude analysis.

So the U CPU should "win big on IPC " instructions per cycle but be slow on SIMD. The proviso? SIMD is handled by modern GPUs and will almost certainly be done on the U GPU.

Here's another take.

And GAF explains it better:

GAF said:

It's also worth pointing out that Marcan, the guy who reveled these clock speeds, has stated the Wii U's CPU cannot be compared to the Xenon and Cell Processors. He's also said the Wii U's CPU should be able to process more instructions per cycle then them both. Reading his tweets the negative he pointed out about the Wii U's CPU was its inferior SIMD capabilities vs Xenon and Cell, something we all knew. SIMD to quote from Wikipedia's article on it:



"SIMD instructions are widely used to process 3D graphics, although modern graphics cards with embedded SIMD have largely taken over this task from the CPU"

Marcan's claims the CPU should exceed the Xenon and Cell processors at ICP, but is inferior for SIMD. The Wii U also has dedicated processors for sound, input output, and for running the opperating system. So if it does indeed exceed the Xenon and Cell for raw ICP throughout, and also saves work not having to do the I/O, audio, and OS processing, it's even further ahead.



For SIMD processing, no doubt the AMD GPU in the Wii U features technology similar to TetraScale 2. This would allow developers to use the GPU to process SIMD instructions. GPU SIMD processing like that seen in AMD's R700 line would absolutely outclass the SIMD capabilities of the Xbox 360 and PS3's CPU and GPUs combined. All modern Nvidia and ATi GPUs feature the SIMD processing capabilities, and in each case they absolutely blow even top end CPUs like i7s out of the water at doing it.

So on clock speed alone the U CPU is weak and would have to be about 2.5X more efficient than Xenos to match it which is a tough ask? But it's out of order and has a shorter pipeline and is much more efficient so you cannot compare raw clock speeds. The guy who posted the clock speeds says "it's like comparing Intel's power-hungry, inefficient Pentium 4 design with the later, better-designed Core series processors."

It's bad for SIMD but that will be done on the GPGPU so it doesn't matter anyway but it will win big at processing more instructions per cyle than the 360 CPU. Then you have the other features of the U like the DSP which a Microsoft engineer said effectively gives you 50% more CPU power and the GPGPU and I/O as well as the multi-core ARM co-processor.

Overall, it's not as bad as it looks on the surface and overall U should be more powerful when coded for right than current gen consoles but it will likely suffer vs Nextbox and PS4. But it won't be like the Wii>>>>360 gap. The bigger problem, which is something I have talked about in regards to wii 1 is that it will get passed over for full development in most cases and most exclusives will be lower budget and with smaller teams and less money. Probably less talent (graphically) too as those graphics guys will want to work on the beast machines.

You guys aren't gonna fuckin' BELIEVE this shit....

Got my Wii U Gamepad back. Nintendo left a nice letter inside saying they "replaced the broken component". That's great.

Turn it on, sync it back to my U...works fine. 2 minutes later, the battery light comes on...ok, needs to be charged. Plug it in....and no signal. WTF? Why isn't it charging?

I look down at the cable...and right in the middle where I didn't look before is....

FUCKING GIANT TEETH MARKS FROM MY FUCKING CAT!!!!!! YOU GOTTA BE FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!!!!! THIS MOTHERFUCKER NEVER CHEWS ANYTHING, AND HE CHOOSES TO START ON MY WII U GAMEPAD CHARGE CHORD?!!!!???!

FUUUUUCK!!!!!!

THERE WAS NEVER ANYTHING WRONG WITH THE PAD...WHAT THE FUCK DID NINTENDO FIX? IT WAS THE CABLE THE WHOLE DAMN TIME!!!!

SO I JUST ORDERED A NEW ONE WITH UPS 1 DAY AIR!!!

FUCK YOU PUSSYCAT!!!!!!!!!!! FUUUUUUCK YOOUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

edgecrusher said:

You guys aren't gonna fuckin' BELIEVE this shit....

Got my Wii U Gamepad back. Nintendo left a nice letter inside saying they "replaced the broken component". That's great.

Turn it on, sync it back to my U...works fine. 2 minutes later, the battery light comes on...ok, needs to be charged. Plug it in....and no signal. WTF? Why isn't it charging?

I look down at the cable...and right in the middle where I didn't look before is....

FUCKING GIANT TEETH MARKS FROM MY FUCKING CAT!!!!!! YOU GOTTA BE FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!!!!! THIS MOTHERFUCKER NEVER CHEWS ANYTHING, AND HE CHOOSES TO START ON MY WII U GAMEPAD CHARGE CHORD?!!!!???!

FUUUUUCK!!!!!!

THERE WAS NEVER ANYTHING WRONG WITH THE PAD...WHAT THE FUCK DID NINTENDO FIX? IT WAS THE CABLE THE WHOLE DAMN TIME!!!!

SO I JUST ORDERED A NEW ONE WITH UPS 1 DAY AIR!!!

FUCK YOU PUSSYCAT!!!!!!!!!!! FUUUUUUCK YOOUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is so funny.  Totally got owned by your cat.

Positive.

Fucking cat...come to think of it...I caught him chewing my xbox 360 power chord when it ist came out....he must like the smell of new shit. Asshole.

bugsonglass said:

That is so funny.  Totally got owned by your cat.

Not the 1st time...he's a sneaky asshole.

Sony sells 160,000 Vitas during Black Friday

Given the ridiculous deals that I saw everywhere for the Vita I got to say 160K is a drop in the bucket. I was expecting somewhere around 250K. It's still a good sign for the system though. If they can get the regular price down to $200 is will probably start selling much better.

robio said:

1. Nice to see that Nintendo's hardware quality really is right where it should be. I was a little worried that they were slipping.

2. This is god's punishment for touching yourself.

I want to know what the fuck they replaced if nothing was broken.

Fuck...that actually looks like my cat too.

Um...they gave me a new stylus too..I didn't leave mine in the controller when I sent it, and they sent it with a new one.

They also cleaned all the fingerprints off it.

robio said:

Manpretty. I'll add you when I get home tonight.