Why is the GameCube so good?


GCN Detailed Specs

MPU("Microprocessor Unit")* Custom IBM Power PC "Gekko"

Manufacturing Process 0.18 micron IBM Copper Wire Technology

Clock Frequency 485 MHz

CPU Capacity 1125 Dmips (Dhrystone 2.1)

Internal Data Precision 32-bit Integer & 64-bit Floating-point

External Bus 1.3GB/second peak bandwidth (32-bit address space, 64-bit data bus 162 MHz clock)

Internal Cache L1: Instruction 32KB, Data 32KB (8 way) L2: 256KB (2 way)

System LSI Custom ATI/Nintendo "Flipper"

Manufacturing Process 0.18 micron NEC Embedded DRAM Process

Clock Frequency 162 MHz

Embedded Frame Buffer Approx. 2MB Sustainable Latency : 6.2ns (1T-SRAM)

Embedded Texture Cache Approx. 1MB Sustainable Latency : 6.2ns (1T-SRAM)

Texture Read Bandwidth 10.4GB/second (Peak)

Main Memory Bandwidth 2.6GB/second (Peak)

Pixel Depth 24-bit Color, 24-bit Z Buffer

Image Processing Functions Fog, Subpixel Anti-aliasing, 8 Hardware Lights, Alpha Blending, Virtual Texture Design, Multi-texturing, Bump Mapping, Environment Mapping, MIP Mapping, Bilinear Filtering, Trilinear Filtering, Anisotropic Filtering, Real-time Hardware Texture Decompression (S3TC), Real-time Decompression of Display List, HW 3-line Deflickering filter




The following sound related functions are all incorporated into the System LSI

Sound Processor custom Macronix 16-bit DSP

Instruction Memory 8KB RAM + 8KB ROM

Data Memory 8KB RAM + 4KB ROM

Clock Frequency 81 MHz

Performance 64 simultaneous channels, ADPCM encoding

Sampling Frequency 48KHz

System Floating-point Arithmetic Capability 10.5 GFLOPS (Peak) (MPU, Geometry Engine, HW Lighting Total)

Real-world polygon 6 million to 12 million polygons/second (Peak) (Assuming actual game conditions with complex models, fully textured, fully lit, etc.)

System Memory 40MB

Main Memory 24 MB MoSys 1T-SRAM, Approximately 10ns Sustainable Latency

A-Memory 16MB (81MHz DRAM)

Disc Drive CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) System

Average Access Time 128ms

Data Transfer Speed 16Mbps to 25Mbps

Media 3 inch NINTENDO GAMECUBE Disc based on Matsushita's
Optical Disc Technology, Approx. 1.5GB Capacity

Input/Output Controller Port x4
Memory Card Slot x2
Analog AV Output x1
Digital AV Output x1
High-Speed Serial Port x2
High-speed Parallel Port x1

Power Supply AC Adapter DC12V x 3.25A

Main Unit Dimensions 4.3"(H) x 5.9"(W) x 6.3"(D)