Concrete Revolution specs?
Just like the Windows Vista release date, the rumored specs for the Nintendo Revolution continue to both change and disappoint us. IGN has posted some new info from sources in the game development industry who supposedly possess official Nintendo documentation and claim to have run benchmarks on the IBM-supplied Broadway CPU and ATI's Hollywood GPU in dev kits that are similar in design to final production units. Originally we had heard that Revolution would sport a 1.8GHz processor, and possibly as high as 2.5GHz -- the new figure, according to IGN's sources, is a rather pokey 729MHz -- compared to 485MHz on the GameCube, 733MHz for the original Xbox, three 3.2GHz cores on the 360, and the deified Cell processor in the PS3 (although direct comparisons are unfair due to the different architectures). Meanwhile, the supposed 600MHz ATI chip is now speced at only 243MHz (with 3MB of texture memory), which is a decent bump over the 'Cube's 162MHz GPU, and in the same league as Xbox 1's 233MHz. Total RAM is also rather disappointing -- only 88MB -- but all of these numbers, even if true, are totally in line with what the company has been saying all along: rather than fighting a next-gen console war, they want to provide a unique gaming experience based around an innovative controller in a wallet-friendly package.
[Thanks, James S.]
