Revolution on par with the 360?

[trebor]

Rumor: Revolution Specs Leaked
9/25/2005, 10:34am Eastern Time

While unverified, a Factor 5 employee posting as "Han Solo" on forums.g4tv.com has posted supposed specs for system architectures that Nintendo is deciding between for their next console. Normally we'd be more skeptical, but Solo did provide near exact Xbox 360 specs before official details were announced.

According to Solo, Nintendo had two possibilities, canned the less-realistic, more expensive one and is now deciding between the first system and the following modifications to the first. From the middle of the thread's third page:


System 1 Modified
CPU:
1 IBM Custom PowerPC 2.5 GHz with 256 KB L1 cache and 1 MB of L2 cache (an L3 cache is rumored). It's Dual Threaded

13 billion dot product operations per second

Revolution GPU

ATI Custom based RN520 core. The "N" stands for Nintendo, and is because the ArtX team is with them, that is why it's an "N".

GPU core at 600 MHz. Will support up to 2048x1268 resolution, HD support is still being decided. Will have 256 MB's of 1T-SRAM (the RAM is much better due to some tweaking, compared to GC's RAM. The latency and Cells are much more efficient and faster. Around 1.2 ns is the latency, on average).

32 parallel floating-point dynamically scheduled shader pipelines.

Polygon Performance: 500 million triangles per second theoretical, average in game would be around <100 Million/sec>

Shader Performance: ~50 billion shader operations per second

Revolution memory

512 MB of 700 MHz 1T-SRAM

Other bits and pieces
Revolution will support a PPU chip (Physical Processing Chip). There will be 32 MB's of its own RAM, which will link to the CPU and GPU and the Controller.

There will also be a separate sound card that will support only DD 5.1 ñ DTS 7.1, rumors has it will have 16 MB's, like the Cube DSP


Sounds at least like he knows what he's talking about. Solo goes on to say that he thinks, "this [machine] would be on par with Xbox360, though PS3 could have an edge in the CPU area. In the GPU area the Revolution beats PS3, and technically would match Xbox 360." This would be great news to some as it would quell worries about console inferiority and level the playing field for multi-system releases. We'll be here to confirm or deny this rumor when official specs become available. (ps)

Source: G4 Forums

http://www.nintendojo.com/infocus/view_item.php?1127658898

Wouldn't it be sweet if the Rev ended up being as powerful as the 360? I think all the Xboyz would have conniption fits.

[Gadfly2317]

Next-gen graphics look so good, as far as I'm concerned I don't care if it is a slightly less powerful than the 360, because the originality of the game experience due to the control innovations should more than make up for that.

Like I was saying in my response to Mochan, I really hate the 480p max resolution thing, and I hope they change that. Every nintendo fan should be complaining about that to Nintendo (via email and their message boards) until they change their damned stubborn minds.

[trebor]

Will support up to 2048x1268 resolution, HD support is still being decided.

This doesn't make sense to me personally. If it can support HD resolution, then why isn't it supported? I think these specs can be taken with a grain of salt, but it's a testament to not under-estimating what the Rev is until we know hard facts.

[Mochan]

Urgh, another IBM PowerPC. Why don't these guys learn and go Athlon 64?

Anyway this system looks sweet. It's not exactly on par with the 360 but with that power it'll be able to trade blows with the big boys. I like how they're not going multi-core. Multi-core raises costs exponentially but doesn't give good returns at least for the first few genereations of games, since nobody will be able to really make use of the extra cores. Worse case scenario is nobody will ever be able to make proper use of them. If those specs are true, we will see minimal difference between a 360 game and a Rev game when it comes to CPU power.

The Rev is looking like a modern PC and that is good enough. All they need to do is offer HD support and we're set. One thing I would like to note is that, if those specs are true, the Rev will have more RAM than either the 360 or the PS3. Frankly, this is a better built system. We all know I've complained about how the two "giants" have such piddly memory for the processors they are packing. The Rev looks better balanced.

If the GPU is really an "RN520" then we have little to fear in terms of graphical capability. Nextgen graphics look like that because of the GPU primarily; if we have an R520 then the Rev will be able to display that level of graphical bliss.

I also love how it will support a PPU; how is that though? Do you have to buy a PPU and plug it in? Wha? The separate sound card also sounds retarded. Regardless, I wouldn't mind buying those two separately later on if the core system can retail for about $200-$250US. (which means I can buy it here for about $350 bleh).

The Rev is starting to smell better and better. I hope these rumors are spot on.

[trebor]

Urgh, another IBM PowerPC. Why don't these guys learn and go Athlon 64?

The Cube uses a PowerPC, so that's not too surprising if the Rev does as well.

[Mochan]

Exactly, they never learn!

[shogun]

Icing on the cake if this thing IS about as powerful as 360. The controller has me intrigued regardless, so even if it winds up the least powerful it'll have innovation going for it. Unlike 360 which has practically nothing going for it that PS3 won't do better.

in sum, PS3's the NFL, GC is MBL and 360 is XFL (appropriate no?)

[Superjoint Ritual]

I highly doubt this, although I would love to be wrong. It just sounds too good to be true.

Comparing the 360 to the XFL is pretty harsh... I would say, more like the NHL.

[Fivespot]

Dreamcast = XFL

[Superjoint Ritual]

Dreamcast = XFL I almost took you seriously... :D

[trebor]

For the record, the above posted specs have been officially discounted as internet rumor. Guess we'll be in the dark for a while longer concerning Rev specs.

[Aylmer]

Pretty interesting. But, the genius of the Revolution isn't the hardware, it's the OS. Bi-directional high resolution 3D spatial recognition between console and controllers:i.e. seeing all four controllers at once in real world 3D space. And, that will be part and parcel of the dev kits for developers. It should make for some neat gameplay. Stuff none of us have ever seen before.

[Mochan]

Ah well, I think they said the Rev would only be 2-3 times more powerful than the Cube, right? Cube CPU clocks at like 480Mhz, so peak strength should be like 1.4Ghz. Almost half that projected 2.5Ghz.

You know what? If I can buy the Rev for $200, I think I'll buy it on the spot. I don't care what its specs are. I just feel like getting one right about now. That I can play GC's Zelda and Metroid, RE4, etc. sort of sweetens the deal.

[Superjoint Ritual]

Ah well, I think they said the Rev would only be 2-3 times more powerful than the Cube, right? Cube CPU clocks at like 480Mhz, so peak strength should be like 1.4Ghz. Almost half that projected 2.5Ghz.

You know what? If I can buy the Rev for $200, I think I'll buy it on the spot. I don't care what its specs are. I just feel like getting one right about now. That I can play GC's Zelda and Metroid, RE4, etc. sort of sweetens the deal.Well, you have to remeber that Nintendo is notoriously humble when it comes to hyping thier spess. I can recall when they said the GC was only capable of 14 million polygons when Sony and Microsoft where talking 100 million or something like that.

Rouge Squadron 3 and Resident Evil 4 are a two of the best looking games this gen. So I expect the Revolution to be at least somewhere in the 360's power range. I would be surprised, however, if it's more powerful. I think Nintendo is aiming to be the least expensive of the three. If Nintendo can nail a unique interface, an online plan, and get third parties to offer thier old school Nintendo games, I'll be happy.

I have a dream that Sega and Nintendo will hook up and somehow be able to offer old-school Sega games as well.

[Renzatic Gear]

The rumor that the Rev was only gonna be 2-3 times more powerful than the Cube was denied by Nintendo recently. No one really knows what the machine is gonna be capable of just yet.

[Mochan]

One thing I would like to point out is that Nintendo can get huge savings already from using a single core CPU. A singlecore Athlon CPU at the same operating frequence costs less than half the price of a dual core CPU. (Athlon 64 single operating at 2.2Ghz for instance costs some $200 but the dual core at 2.2Ghz costs over $500). Anyway I wouldn't mind one console offering the most inexpensive solution. As long as it's still a complete solution, anyway.

So the 2x-3x power has been denied? Well that's good. I think Nintendo is going to push for a little more power. I mean, really; a 1.4Ghz Athlon can be had for what? $50? If they build a console only that powerful, they should be able to sell it for like $150, lol.

[Gadfly2317]

The rumor that the Rev was only gonna be 2-3 times more powerful than the Cube was denied by Nintendo recently. No one really knows what the machine is gonna be capable of just yet.

I thought all along the "2-3 times better" referred to the appearance of the games, not the tech specs of the system. I mean, take a look at the 360 and Ps3 trailers; some of these games look 2 or 3 times better than the best games currently out this gen; but some of them dont' even look 1.5 times better. There is nothing coming up that looks 20 or 30 times better than this gens creme de la creme, and there won't be.

That's the whole point Nintendo has been making about graphics reaching the point of limited returns. Once things look fantastic, investing craploads of money into making them a little better is a dead-end avenue which WILL eventually bore the tears out of gamers.