The Wii U Will Have 8GB Internal Memory,1.5GB RAM And Other Fun
VGleaks, apparently a site of video game leaks, posted what were apparently the Wii U devkit’s specs recently. The specifications of the devkit offer up a good idea of what the final Wii U build will look like and offers up some information Nintendo haven’t yet released. Some users on NeoGAF have confirmed the accuracy of accuracy of the specs leaked through some insider information and Nintendo’s official specs, released after these, correspond to it well. So there’s good reason to sprinkle a bit less salt on these specs than normal.
It’s a very long list but check out the main points after the break.
- Tri-core, PowerPC based CPU with a 3MB L2 cache
- 3GB RAM in devkit; 1.5GB expected in retail
- GPU API currently based on AMD r7xx series (Radeon 4000 series)
- 32MB eDRAM
- Modern unified shader architecture
- MSAA 2x, 4x, 8x
- Multisample shader surface reading
- Anisotropic filtering at 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x
- Tesselation unit
- Compute shader support
- Stream out support
- 120MHz audio DSP
- 802.11 b/g/n wi-fi controller
- 4 USB slots
- SD card slot
- 8GB internal storage
- 512 internal storage for OS
So, what do these neo-hieroglyphics mean? WiiU’s got some power. It’s like that short guy who can benchpress you into the dirt. How powerful? It’s not a full generational leap like the PlayStation 2 to the PlayStation 3 but, at the same time, it’s not simply a slightly better Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 either. If anything, it’s likened to appear anywhere from 1.5x to 2x the power of the Xbox 360.
The processor seems to be at about the same level as the Xbox 360′s, which is also a tri-core PowerPC based CPU, but it’s impossible to tell if it’s better at all without further information. The RAM is thrice that of the Xbox 360′s, which is a rather large boon for developers. So far, a third of it is set aside for OS functions, leaving developers to assume a RAM amount of twice what the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 offer. The textures in this LEGO City: Undercoverscreenshot should speak for itself.
The GPU appears to be rather fully featured compared to the Xbox 360′s offerings. The 32MB eDRAM cache alone is a huge help for developers, allowing for multiple passes at high resolutions, thus the higher amounts of Anti-Aliasing available to the Wii U. To contrast this, the reason the Unreal 3 engine does not support high levels of MSAA is because the Xbox 360 couldn’t perform multiple passes on the GPU. The separate tessellation unit and compute shader support are indications that we’ll see the Wii U pull of fancy graphics that the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 have not touched yet. The Xbox 360 has a tessellation unit as well but it’s about seven years old now. A modern one should yield much nicer effects.
The eight gigabytes of storage is, at first blush, ridiculously small given the original Xbox had the same amount while the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 launched with 20GB (60GB on some models of the latter). However, it appears that Nintendo is also trying to keep costs downso that they can “pleasantly surprise” us with the price of the new system. Cutting down on internal memory is probably the most effective way to do it, especially since it will have support for a variety of alternate sources of memory including USB keys and external hard drives. You could simply plug in a 1TB external flash drive if you like.
Still, a notable exception is digital audio output, again. So far, no Nintendo console has ever offered it while their competitors have since the PlayStation 2 days. It’s disappointing for a system bringing in the new generation to skimp out in such a small, but vital area, but the HDMI support should provide an adequate bridge for some. Notably absent is the optical drive spec. The Wii U isn’t a download-only console, especially not with that size of internal memory out of the box, so it’s a bit odd they didn’t specify any optical drive. For all we know, they could be working on providing a blue-ray drive sans movie playback to provide the most disc space with the least cost. Given the rise of Netflix, why not?
Why in the world would they short change the RAM so much? 3 GB isn’t that much, and 1.5 is just paltry.
And I was hoping for a quad core CPU, which would honestly make a lot more sense. That would make porting from xbox a lot easier, since there would be a separate core just for the wiipad.
Maybe you’re thinking about PCs. 1.5 gigs is quite a bit for a console. The XBox 360 itself only has half a gig, if I remember correctly.
It’s actually quite substantial for consoles. Optimally, 2-3GB would last much longer now than the 512MB they provided back in 2005.
You’ve got to keep in mind it’s a much faster type of ram from what you’d put in a PC too (though I am hoping for a full 2gb, reserving a quarter of that for the OS).
Also, while it’s not as good as a quad core, Wii U does have a dedicated audio DSP which should free up as much as a half a CPU core (or even an entire core for audio-intensive games), so that’s a little more than what you’d get out of the 3 core in, say, the 360. The CPU isn’t really impressive or anything, but with those improvements and a more modern architecture it should still be a step up from what (console) gamers are used to.
This is a console. Not a PC. Quad core or more RAM(wtf?) is irrelevant if the game runs with all the bells and whistles at nothing less than 60fps. Youre not running MS Word and CAD programs on this thing, dude.
The disc hold 25 gigs aprox, but it is not blue-ray. They mentioned it on last years specs and I don’t believe it has changed.
It would be nice to have a direct comparison to the specs of what Nintendo posted on the e3 site which is much more generalized.
There’s nothing worth comparing there. It’s just generic information.
120MHz Audio DSP seems weak, the 3DS has a 134MHz Audio DSP…
And its obvious the Wii U will finally boast 5.1 surround this time around… maybe much of the audio processing will be done on the CPU similar to the 360/PS3?
@RideZeLitenin
Regarding sound even the though the 3DS’s DSP appears is slighty faster however it is only limited to 16 bit Instructions as it’s based on the very first CEVA Teaklite core as these are dirt cheap to intergrate into handheld devices while Wii U’s DSP most likely is a Teaklite 3 or 4 and thus has 32 bit precision. Do you even realize the quantization errors using 16 bit math on the 3DS DSP. The more voices you mix the greater the error.
hi there wow you can buy a 16 gb ssd flash drive for only $20
hi there yeah 64 gb ssd $99 128 gb ssd for $155
The reason why the spec sheet doesn’t mention a disc drive is because these specs are bassed off of a pre-alpha kit (actually, one of the first kits out to developers) and those dev kits didn’t come with an optical drive (it’s also worth mentioning that CAT DEV-V1 is half powered).