314 replies to this topic

[The Lonely Koopa]

I was about to agree with this until i read the article. Well, I still agree with the poster... but...

Wow... just... wow. Thats bad. I didnt realize the extent of eurogamers cluelessness until they so woefully attempted to extend well beyond their reach.

Um, they try to state the audio digital processor and arm secure processor (nicknamed starbuck by fail overflow) are among the unidentified logic units. The problem with this is that they are both PROCESSORS, and even embedded on a die, are easily identifiable as such. Simply put, they need more than well, logic units, because they are more than logic units. An easy example is the serdeslike interface processor in the lower left of the die, it is easily recognizable as different from logic units, as its an embedded processor, not a logic unit. The arm secure and dsp are likely among the OTHER processors nearby not identified by chipworks. Particularly the one that looks suspiciously the size and composition of an arm secure processor... particularly since its another arm 9. Just sayin.

Please dont look here for anything other than entertainment. This... Rich Ledbetter? Remember his name. He is apparantly Eurogamers self proclaimed 'tech analyst' yet has no certifications whatsoever in his profile beyond 'game journalist', and it is on full display here.

Look to other sites to analyze this information (trust me, they will) and from authors with displayed credentials.... more substantial than 'game journalist since 16 bit days makes me a tech analyst!'

Anyways, back to the op i quoted original sentiment...

Its good if all youve been observing is cackling idiot trolls talking about how crap and bandwidth starved the system is.

Its bad if you have been holding out for the wii u to release its latent superpowers, or suddenly double power consumption and go super sayin or something.

Its pretty much the same ballpark weve been looking at, 2-3x 360.... With some very specific strengths in the form of the == 50mm^2 of unidentified logic units (whats left after identifying shader, texture, rops etc and removing i/o's, embedded processors, controllers and ram etc. They do something, and it pertains to graphics.... I understand more now what shin en meant when they said you cant compare it to standard environments.

UGG I really shouldn't have read that article as well as the topic about that article on neogaf .... listening to wispers of madness is't good for your health.

[Lord Pickleton]

That Digital Foundry article has less information than NeoGAF does.

Edited by Cerberuz, 05 February 2013 - 07:54 AM.

[dragomix]

Ok 3Dude, dont kill the messenger!

Here is the die shot from gaf with mapped logic, can you help to identify any specific logic on die?



So far we know:
N - SPUs
J-TMUs

Thraktor from gaf did this!

Edited by dragomix, 05 February 2013 - 07:58 AM.

[Plutonas]

there is 1 more theory about the spus... asymmetric ones... if its asymmetric, that means its more than 320. about 450-600

They claim that, because some are bigger, some are smaller. That translates, that not all of them are the same... eg 8x20 or 8x40....

And in my personal opinion, wii U is not using 10-15w for the gpu... but around 25-30w... close to e6670 which is 35w that gives 640 spus and 1.2 tflops I think.

Green console, means efficient, it uses the power it needs, no locked watts, waste of power and usage. So wii U was tested with 2d mario, very light game... lets see how much it consumes, when the new heavy games will pop up.

Edited by Orion, 05 February 2013 - 08:21 AM.

[dragomix]

There is no e6670, only e6760, and it has 480 spus. It can be that this is true!

The chip has the same clock speed, same Process Technology...

But it has 6, not 8 SIMD engines. If the architecture is same as e6760 tahn Wii U would have 700 gflops.

http://www.amd.com/u...oduct_Brief.pdf

[Plutonas]

well i am not keen with amd models, i made a mistake.. haha.. Nvidia rules

Maybe thats the one, because it has nothing to do with the r770 or r700 architecture diagrams... It must be much modern and VERY efficient... Something arround 35w gpu

Edited by Orion, 05 February 2013 - 08:30 AM.

[dragomix]

Everybody ruled out e6760, and they still think that we are looking at R770 architecture with 40 shaders per SPU block (SIMD engine)!

[3Dude]

Ok 3Dude, dont kill the messenger!
Here is the die shot from gaf with mapped logic, can you help to identify any specific logic on die?

So far we know:
N - SPUs
J-TMUs
Thraktor from gaf did this!

oh yeah, weve been talking about this, pretty confident in the more obvious stuff, shader, texture, rops, unorthodox but i feel identifiable. The rest of the stuff? I cant tell from this pic, id need to see the actual arrangement of the logic/math circuits to see what its trying to do... if i even recognize whats its trying to do. I mean i could maybe compare and guess... but guessings being pretty well covered. Although, that wont be necessary, getting that in depth. documentation will leak before that ever happens. it always does.

Im pretty certain there is a competant tesselator in that logic somewhere.

the arm 9 (starbuck) is probably nearby if not on that ocsilator chunk attached to hs/io. or near SOME i/o It would be very tiny. like, less than a mm^2.

it should look very similar to wiis starlet.

Edited by 3Dude, 05 February 2013 - 09:37 AM.

[Plutonas]

if its r770 or r700 it is rap#$#d why the effort, from 110 or 90w downgraded to 20-30? Also 5550 is applicable but it uses ddr2 memory... all the rest are similar to what neogaf is talking about.

Edited by Orion, 05 February 2013 - 08:45 AM.

[3Dude]

if its r770 or r700 it is rap#$#d why the effort, from 110 or 90w downgraded to 20-30? Also 5550 is applicable but it uses ddr2 memory... all the rest are similar to what neogaf is talking about.

Whatever it was, its certainly not anymore.

However, simply designing the gpu and cpu on a mcm reduces a LOT of the power needed for the same thing on a standalone chip.

[SDDMN]

Well, we have Digital Foundry with their opinion that the Wii U isn't next gen:

http://www.eurogamer...inally-revealed

Any thoughts on their article?

[3Dude]

Well, we have Digital Foundry with their opinion that the Wii U isn't next gen:
http://www.eurogamer...inally-revealed
Any thoughts on their article?

Yeah, its click bait.

click this instead

http://www.chipworks...hics-processor/

They deserve the hits, and the thanks, and hashing them on twitter would be great. They deserve it.

Holy crap chipworks. Above and beyond. A million thanks. Just, pure awesomeness doing this.

' Been reading some of the comments on
your thread and have a few of my own to
use as you wish.
1. This GPU is custom.
2. If it was based on ATI/AMD or a
Radeon-like design, the chip would carry
die marks to reflect that. Everybody has to
recognize the licensing. It has none. Only
Renesas name which is a former unit of
NEC.
3. This chip is fabricated in a 40 nm
advanced CMOS process at TSMC and is
not low tech
4. For reference sake, the Apple A6 is
fabricated in a 32 nm CMOS process and is
also designed from scratch. It’s
manufacturing costs, in volumes of 100k or
more, about $26 - $30 a pop. Over 16
months degrade to about $15 each
a. Wii U only represents like 30M units per
annum vs iPhone which is more like 100M
units per annum. Put things in perspective.
5. This Wii U GPU costs more than that by
about $20-$40 bucks each making it a very
expensive piece of kit. Combine that with
the IBM CPU and the Flash chip all on the
same package and this whole thing is closer
to $100 a piece when you add it all up
6. The Wii U main processor package is a
very impressive piece of hardware when its
said and done.
Trust me on this. It may not have water
cooling and heat sinks the size of a
brownie, but its one slick piece of silicon.
eDRAM is not cheap to make. That is why
not everybody does it. Cause its so dam
expensive'

Edited by 3Dude, 05 February 2013 - 10:23 AM.

[dragomix]

Can SPUS be with 80 processing elements? How can we confirm that?

Is there anybody who can post on gaf and ask this? I have free email account!

[3Dude]

Can SPUS be with 80 processing elements? How can we confirm that?
Is there anybody who can post on gaf and ask this? I have free email account!

They can be. We cant really tell from this picture alone. Im hanging my hat on 40.... for now.

[Crispy Bacon]

Doh! I was posting Jim Morrison's(Chipworks) comments and completely missed 3Dude's post. My bad.

Edited by Crispy Bacon, 05 February 2013 - 11:28 AM.

[Majarra]

Hey Franklin! How have you been doing?

Autosaver?

[alan123]

we need someone like Rat from The Core !

https://www.youtube....h?v=g3KPSyNxnL8

&



not sure what all this adds knowing what the GPU & CPU etc can do, what i want to know is, is where are the dam games ?

[3Dude]

we need someone like Rat from The Core !
https://www.youtube....h?v=g3KPSyNxnL8
&

not sure what all this adds knowing what the GPU & CPU etc can do, what i want to know is, is where are the dam games ?

Hidden behind nintendos.... IRON CURTAIN.

Nintendo will feed us new games info slowly as they see fit with Nintendo directs.

[tboss]

This many good news.

It has a lot of, A LOT OF, custom stuff just not seen anywhere else. Im hesitant to use the term fixed function right now... But it would explain a lot about why this thing is punching so much higher than its size and power draw should allow from a more conventional design....

And it definately has programmable shader units as well, so it wont fall so easily into fixed function pitfalls....

Basically, take one of the first ground up 360 games, like say, condemned, and now compare it to one of the latest 360 games.

Now look at the gif of X i posted... And imagine the same level of improvement... But only from nintendo games, or joint nintendo/third party games.



Protip: Leave the wii u HARDWARE forum, and go to the wii u GAMES forum.

hella lot of custom parts... so once people learn how to push them to the max we should see truly amazing looking games.

[routerbad]

Current count I think leaves 16 of the blocks unexplained on the chip, thraktor believes asymmetric SPU's is a strong possibility considering the number of repeating groups of logic units that can't be readily explained. Looks like ~30-50% of the chip is unaccounted for so far. This thing could be a closet beast for all we know, and with the memory structure they are using they should be able to get much closer to whatever theorietical peak it has than anything we've ever seen before.