Hardware Kotaku: Wii U's Power Problem

[Deleted_171835]

We've relied on industry sources to assess the Wii U's ability to play the probably cutting-edge games of the year 2014. These insiders themselves cannot assess the Wii U's power with 100% accuracy because the might of a console is the product of multiple factors. Judged by its RAM, the Wii U could be viewed as up to four times as powerful as the Xbox 360, boasting as much as 2GB of RAM to the 360's 512. But one insider who has had access to the machine says that the console's impressive AMD Radeon-based graphics chip is off-set by a CPU that runs at low speeds, can do out-of-order processing but has fewer threads than the 360.

The insider says the Wii U has the power to run Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 ports with little difficulty. But they predict trouble when major third-party companies start producing games for the next Xbox and PlayStation, which will be about 6-8 times more powerful than the current 360 and PS3 according to several Kotaku sources who are aware of Sony and Microsft's plans for those machines.

They consider the Wii U close to that DX9-performance/DX11-capabilities combo but possibly hampered by its CPU, which they believe Nintendo is requiring to run at lower speeds in order to keep its chips from getting too hot and therefore allowing the machine to run as quietly as the Wii-and with relatively low power consumption.

"After the next generation of machines comes out, Wii U will be a performance orphan," one industry insider who is familiar with the specs of the new Nintendo console, told Kotaku. "It will be closer in performance to the next iPad than the next-gen machines. "

tl;dr

- Impressive GPU
- Possibly hampered by its CPU, underclocked so it doesn't run too hot. Can do out-of-order processing but has fewer threads than the 360
- Can run PS3/360 ports with little difficulty
- DX9 performance/DX11 capabilities combo
- Wii U could be viewed as up to four times as powerful as the Xbox 360, 4GB vs. 512MB

http://kotaku.com/59...s-power-problem

This seems mostly correct and in line with insider comments. Only issue I have is the "closer to next iPad than next-gen consoles" statement

 

[Rydian]

Still no actual specs, still don't give a fuck.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Seems like more of a blog than anything else and it's still just blabber. As Rydian said, no specs.

To the Wii U section we goooooooooooo...

 

[Hadrian]

Do we need to keep posting these speculative threads all the damn time? There are no sources named so this is meaningless.

 

[DiscostewSM]

Isn't it usually the GPU that gets hotter than the CPU?

 

[Deleted_171835]

Do we need to keep posting these speculative threads all the damn time? There are no sources named so this is meaningless.

It's not really speculative, Kotaku has said that they have insiders with access to the specs.

 

[EyeZ]

Nothing to back it up i know, but i still found it interesting.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Do we need to keep posting these speculative threads all the damn time? There are no sources named so this is meaningless.

It's not really speculative, Kotaku has said that they have insiders with access to the specs.

But we don't have any specs so who gives a fuck about this article anyway.

 

[Rydian]

Do we need to keep posting these speculative threads all the damn time? There are no sources named so this is meaningless.

It's not really speculative, Kotaku has said that they have insiders with access to the specs.

Yet we learn nothing new from the information because nothing being given to us is actual specs.

According to inside sources, I may have up to three penises.

 

[chartube12]

cpu running lower then it is capable may not be a big deal. Rooted Android phones can force 2d rendering and some OS processing to the gpu. Boosting performance in many cases. Nintendo could be doing a similar thing to cpu processes for the Wii-U. Plus Consoles don't usually have a heavy procssing load to begin with.

 

[DiscostewSM]

It's not like we can take Kotaku's word for it, since it seems they are all about reporting things as fast as possible for more pageviews.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

According to inside sources, I may have up to three penises.

Well it's obvious what they're inside then.

But yeah, this is out of news jurisdiction but we really don't need another Wii U power article and thread. If you're really sweating bullets over trying to prove the Wii U's power then I think you have other things to worry about than whether the Wii U can look this good or that good.

 

[Centrix]

I don't listen to insiders much as most of the time their usually wrong or way off which seems to be the case when it comes to Wii U. I'm just gonna wait until I have my system and see for my self but from what I've seen its going to be about 5 to 6x more powerful than current gen and with my own personal opinion why the hell cares, just give us the system and make great games with solid game play and where good to go!