Topic: Rumored Nrev specs

[HereticPB]

Nice information!

[nemo_83]

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Originally posted by: BlackNMild2k1
*In reference of Nemo's post*

I'm assuming that there is a part two to your post......

I don't see anything directly relating to the REV, unless you were talking about him saying that CELL won't REVolutionize the gaming industry.

I just thought it was related to this because he explains the difference between the three chips.  He sort of dodged REV in his answer, probably because he didn't know anything about its specs; especially if it had a PPU; or because of those nasty NDAs.  Plus I just wanted to parade a second opinioin that CELL ain't all its cracked up to be.  

When I play games on Cube like WW or Sunshine I feel these games are the penacle of physics.  Yet the system doesn't even have a PPU; its all elbow grease and hard work.  I really appreciate that about Nintendo.  I don't say that enough sometimes in my attempts at objectivity.  If the REV really does have a dedicated PPU with a lot of ram then that must mean that there is some serious in/output on the controller end.

[HereticPB]

Most people are saying this is fake due to the 90nanometer thing. A human hair is 100,000 nanometers. 90 sure just got a lot smaller didn't it.

And don't let the 90nm thing fool you. IBM and AMD have been working on 65 to 45 to 32 nanometer technology. Possibly using the 90nm technology, IBM could put parts into the chip using the 65nm or smaller processes. It is a custom chip afterall! Just a thought.  

[BlackNMild2k1]

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Originally posted by: Truthliesn1seyes
ran into this over at the Macaddicts forum.  It is in regards to the liquid metal cooling tech from Saphire.

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Maybe they could engineer some of that heavy-metal cooling tech that Sapphire will be using into the Revolution to help keep the size down. Wishful thinking on my part probably

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Actually, it might not be too far-fetched of a suggestion.  Apparently, Nanocoolers' technology, with its ability to be 65x more thermally conductive than previous liquid cooling technologies, while retaining a very small size, has gotten a lot of attention.

Supposedly, a currently undisclosed "strategic" investor, rumored to possibly be a foreign company, has contributed several million dollars towards development so that this company can use the tech in an upcoming consumer product.  All the CEO can say of the development so far is that it is a really big opportunity.......

There's no hard evidence pointing toward this (Nintendo/Nanocoolers partnership), but the grounds for speculation is reasonable enough.  It would be pretty cool (pun intended).

Everything you need to know about the tech

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Advantages

The simplicity of the advanced cooling solution and the thermal and physical properties of the liquid metal combine for an impressive list of advantages for nanoCoolers' liquid-metal cooling loops to meet the need for more robust cooling solutions.

-Very low thermal resistances
-Silent performance
-High reliability due to no moving parts and the simplicity of the solution
-Small form factors
-High power efficiency
-Supports extremely high heat flux densities (no longer a limiting factor)
-Orientation independent
-Able to easily cool multiple heat sources
-Scalable heat removal via current control
-High volume solution based on commodity parts
-High heat transport capabilities

[Truthliesn1seyes]

I wasn't really focusing on the actual tech (thanks for the link though) but moreso I was trying to point out the "stragetic" investor they made mention of.  It does make you wonder if in fact it is Nintendo who is investing in them but there really is no proof besides educated guesses mixed together with wishfull thinkin and a pinch of logic.

[KDR_11k]

If that Han_Solo guy really worked for Factor 5 I'm pretty sure now he doesn't anymore. Any developer is tied by an NDA, any console data requires another NDA. Sometimes even telling someone you signed the NDA is already a breach of contract. Breach of contract is obviously a federal offense ands will make sure you will never get a sensitive job again because you cannot be trusted.

Hell, there are so many devs out there but you don't see any of them release information about the next gen consoles, that's because they aren't allowed to talk about that.

Besides, I'm pretty convinced Nintendo will go with a single core CPU, much cheaper, much easier to program for and realistically you don't need much more. Perhaps one of these PPU thingies but I wouldn't count on that. A system that's equipped with a GPU and PPU wouldn't need that beefy a CPU because most gamelogic isn't very computing intensive. The complicated stuff is physics, graphics and to a certai degree AI. The AI would be the only thing left to the CPU, since the general logic takes maybe 10% of the load the CPU could almost be called the AI processor.

Speaking of which, anyone taking bets on how long it will take until we see AI processors?

[HereticPB]

More info relating to heat--

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The 90 nm process does effect the design, like size (of course), heat, efficiency, and most of all cost. Yes it does produce 62 watts per core, but to show you how hot it is, is like this...using physics...

Wattage required for heat-up = Weight of material x Specific Heat x Temperature Rise°C/3.412 x Time

Therefore Specific Heat = 3.412 x Time x Watts/ Weight of material x Temperature Rise °C

Temperature rise = ~15 °C. It stays 15 degrees hotter constantly after 10 mins in G5 PowerPC chips

Therefore Specific heat of the CPU = 3.412 x 10 Minute (600 sec) x 62 watts/ 0.5 KG x 15
= 282 degrees, theoretically, but with aluminum parts and copper inter-connectors with a perfect cooling design, you square the number to get a very good 16.79 degrees per core

Therefore 62 degrees total from the CPU.

The GPU wont make any difference to the heat. therefore thats the peak of heat thats allowed in todays computers, therefore its ok.

all the other specs ive produced are correct no matter what you say

P.S that is the closest answer i can give you WITHOUT the aluminium design, that was originally invented by sapphire. Those numbers are basically correct to PC/Mac terms.

67.16 degrees total though.  

[BigJim]

theoretical math. All else being equal, a 4-core design is not going to output the same heat as a single core, no matter what. Copper interconnects, 90mn, SOI, etc are all old news. Already existing and used for the PPC970. They're still hot.

Not sure what "perfect cooling" means. It wouldn't change the power consumption and heat produced by the chip. The math doesn't really work for current dual core chips, it wouldn't apply for a theoretical quad core.

Much less be useful or cheap enough to produce for a gaming console.  

[ThePerm]

when did macs become so overheated...back in the day i had an impression that they managed to keep cool pretty well

[Caliban]

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Originally posted by: HereticPB
May 06, 2004 (yes 2004)

By the end of this year there will already be a new memory technology to replace GDDR3. The GDDR4 memory is build upon the GDDR3 standard. It's not really a revolution, just a few special tweaks to allow higher clock speeds on graphics cards using the new GGDR4 memory. GDDR4 is developed by JEDEC and several graphics companies like ATI and NVIDIA.

The current goals for the GDDR4 are to complete the process of standardization by the end of 2004 and push up the frequencies towards the 1.40GHz (2.80GHz effective) level. Lower clock-speeds, e.g. 1.00GHz (2.00GHz effective) are achievable by the GDDR3 technology, according to Samsung Electronics, who plans to debut such memory by the end of the year.

Source

Ohhhh, cool, I knew I might have been wrong since I haven't been following PC technology news.

[Truthliesn1seyes]

To add to the guote up top on the heating issue with the theoretical math (Han_Solo posted that same responce over at the G4 forums, aint sure if thats where HereticPB got it) Han_Solo had this to say at the end.

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P.P.S about the aluminium cooling, i meant this

link : http://www.sapphiretech.com/vga/blizzard.asp

Seems like he too is saying that Nintendo will use the liquid metal cooling tech.  

[NotSoStu]

Personally, this is bull*bleep!*. He prettym uch gave it away with the whole "Theoretical 10GHz + 3GHz" comment; Three 2GHz cores != 6GHz processor.

[jasonditz]

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Originally posted by: KDR_11k
If that Han_Solo guy really worked for Factor 5 I'm pretty sure now he doesn't anymore. Any developer is tied by an NDA, any console data requires another NDA. Sometimes even telling someone you signed the NDA is already a breach of contract. Breach of contract is obviously a federal offense ands will make sure you will never get a sensitive job again because you cannot be trusted.

Its not quite that draconian... you can certainly tell someone "I can't say, I signed an NDA" without violating that NDA.

I've only ever signed one NDA in my life, and I never had occasion to tell anyone what I saw anyhow.

[Truthliesn1seyes]

take into account that Nintendo did say there was going to be info being dropped off here and there till the full unvieling.  I'm sure some of these "rumors" could be planted by Nintendo.  I highly doubt they are going to have press conferences every few months to announce the slightest of details.  The constant release of info will come from developers and people in the know.

[Truthliesn1seyes]

take into account that Nintendo did say there was going to be info being dropped off here and there till the full unvieling.  I'm sure some of these "rumors" could be planted by Nintendo.  I highly doubt they are going to have press conferences every few months to announce the slightest of details.  The constant release of info will come from developers and people in the know.

This is from techtree.com.  A member over at the Nsider forums states that they are reliable and techtree were right about the Gamecube specs before they were released.

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It seems in this war of new consoles the only clear profit-maker is IBM. IBM has made the PowerPC-based core(s) for the Xbox 360, the Cell processor for Sony in conjunction with Sony and Toshiba, and also the Power-PC G5 based processor(s) for the Nintendo Revolution. Not one, but four! Yes, apparently the Revolution will feature FOUR 2.5 GHz PowerPC G5-class processors, codenamed "Broadway", and a graphics processor by ATI, codenamed "Hollywood", the dual-core RN520, with 16MB of frame buffer DRAM. Technically, this makes the Revolution a bit more powerful (2.5 x 4 > 3.2 x 3, 16 > 10). The Revolution also features 512 MB of memory.

It shows 4 2.5 ghz processors

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Originally posted by: Stu L Tissimus
Personally, this is bull*bleep!*. He prettym uch gave it away with the whole "Theoretical 10GHz + 3GHz" comment; Three 2GHz cores != 6GHz processor.

Could the 4 2.5's be what Han_Solo was referring to?  4 x 2.5 would equal 10.  Either it was a typo in his part or he let some info slide by mistake.

[BigJim]

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Originally posted by: ThePerm
when did macs become so overheated...back in the day i had an impression that they managed to keep cool pretty well

They've done pretty well. In the last year for the G5 it has been more of an issue. The high-end G5 systems needed water cooling to maintain reasonable noise levels. They're particularly hot right now at 2.7GHz, about on the same level as typical Pentium 4s.

[K-RPG]

Han_Solo's rebuttal;

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The 90 nm process does effect the design, like size (of course), heat, efficiency, and most of all cost. Yes it does produce 62 watts per core, but to show you how hot it is, is like this...using physics...

Wattage required for heat-up = Weight of material x Specific Heat x Temperature Rise°C/3.412 x Time

Therefore Specific Heat = 3.412 x Time x Watts/ Weight of material x Temperature Rise °C

Temperature rise = ~15 °C. It stays 15 degrees hotter constantly after 10 mins in G5 PowerPC chips

Therefore Specific heat of the CPU = 3.412 x 10 Minute (600 sec) x 62 watts/ 0.5 KG x 15
= 282 degrees, theoretically, but with aluminum parts and copper inter-connectors with a perfect cooling design, you square the number to get a very good 16.79 degrees per core

Therefore 62 degrees total from the CPU.

The GPU wont make any difference to the heat. therefore thats the peak of heat thats allowed in todays computers, therefore its ok.

all the other specs ive produced are correct no matter what you say

P.S that is the closest answer i can give you WITHOUT the aluminium design, that was originally invented by sapphire. Those numbers are basically correct to PC/Mac terms

P.P.S about the aluminium cooling, i meant this

link : http://www.sapphiretech.com/vga/blizzard.asp

[Truthliesn1seyes]

that info was already posted on the second page.

[K-RPG]

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 Personally, this is bull*bleep!*. He prettym uch gave it away with the whole "Theoretical 10GHz + 3GHz" comment; Three 2GHz cores != 6GHz processor.

He claims 4, 2.5GHz processors -- not 3, 2GHz cores.

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 theoretical math. All else being equal, a 4-core design is not going to output the same heat as a single core, no matter what. Copper interconnects, 90mn, SOI, etc are all old news. Already existing and used for the PPC970. They're still hot.

Not sure what "perfect cooling" means. It wouldn't change the power consumption and heat produced by the chip. The math doesn't really work for current dual core chips, it wouldn't apply for a theoretical quad core.

Much less be useful or cheap enough to produce for a gaming console.

*sigh* I'll see what he says to that.....

FYI; Just to be on the politically correct side, Han Solo didn't join and say -- "I'm from Factor 5, want the revolution specs?" -- he simply existed until he mentioned, and proved that the GameCube is around 7%, physically, more advanced then the Xbox -- and mentioned benchmarks that he did with Factor 5.

We couldn't get him to spill the details (yes, we believe him for the most part -- although, I agree that would be impractical from Nintendo in 2006) until after he was sure it was ok to do it. There are webpages blurting out similar, yet less detailed, speculations on the Revolution. Like Tech Tree. But he did, 100% completely nail the Xbox 360 speculations. Although he did say they would use HD-DVD, this was month's before GDC -- when Microsoft planned on using some sort of HD-DVD solution.  

[BigJim]

I'm not really worried about the debate. Nobody needs to relate the info back and forth. I'll believe it all when I see it, no matter what. Until Nintendo actual says they're going to use a complex, expensive, hot, quad-core, desktop G5 CPU for their system, I'm not going to believe it. The technical jargon can be debated. It's the practical problems that don't go away.

It's also kind of convenient that liquid metal cooling became news in geek circles just recently, and suddenly that's what Nintendo's using.

I don't doubt the Revolution will be powerful. I don't believe the "2-3x more powerful" thing either. I just don't buy the quad-core G5 idea. I'm much, much more inclined to believe it's a custom PPC with less integer strength than the G5 and stripped of other complexities that have little value in a game system.

Would I believe that it could be derived from the G5?  Sure, maybe.  But a straight move of a desktop chip that has yet to go dual core, advancing to a quad core design, selling in a game system at a fraction of the cost of the computers they will power, containing twice as many cores as those computers, and emitting just as much heat as a current single core, all in a year's time... no. That's a big stretch.  

[nemo_83]

I still don't understand why Factor 5 and SK would leave Nintendo when Nintendo was planning to release a console with total backwards compatibility, free online, better graphics, a faster cpu, and a powerful dedicated ppu?

The controller must be a major piece of controversy.

[HereticPB]

Everybody is flipping out over heat and other issues. You guys/girls do realize that this is a custom chip? With a custom chip it really could be anything. But there is word that AMD with IBM's help is about to drop a quadcore CPU.

Look at GC for more details about heat and small boxes.

[MrMojoRising]

If we were able to see the Rev from every angle and it didn't have what looked like a fan then wouldn't we be able to confirm some other kind of cooling method (like these new-fangled ones all you technologically buffs are talking about)?

I'm going to go look for pictures.

[nemo_83]

They talk about it consuming less power (a smaller AC jack for REV hopefully) this could definately mean there are no fans.  The size of three DVDs says to me that it has a self contained liquid cooling system that generates little noise.

[jasonditz]

I'd still expect an external power supply like the Cube has. They're already going to have a hard time fitting a drive mechanism and a mainboard in that small a case.