According to a Japanese developer insider, Nintendo’s next-generation console, the Wii U will be packing a quad Core, 3 GHz PowerPC-based 45nm CPU, “very similar to the Xbox 360 chip”. It’s the rest of the specs that make this intriguing.
According to the same insider, the Wii U’s visuals will be powered by and unknown, 40nm ATI-based GPU, with 768 MB or possibly 1GB of DRAM “embedded” with the CPU, and shared between CPU and GPU. This is the interesting bit; If it IS embedded, or eDRAM, then that would be a ludicrous amount of really high-bandwidth memory. More likely, that number not representative of system RAM, but rather eDRAM and is in megabits and not megabytes – meaning the device will likely have 96 or 128mb megs of memory interfacing betwixt the CPU and GPU – 10 times more than the 10mb of embedded RAM in the Xbox 360’s GPU. If that is true, then the Wii U should be capable of some pretty impressive visuals.
According to the source, these specs are based on the model announced in March this year – a model that’s already been confirmed to have been underclocked and underpowered. Though we’ve seen little to say otherwise, it’s quite possible that Nintendo’s next gen hardware will perform significantly better than the PS3 and Xbox 360. According to some, the Wii U will be 50% more power than current gen systems – which means it’ll likely be behind by the time the next Xbox and the PlayStation 4 are released, whenever that may be.
Last Updated: December 5, 2011
