hardware

Nintendo GameCube

The hardware breakdown of Nintendo's next-generation console.

September 26, 2001 - Below, you will find the full specs of Nintendo's GameCube system. If you're looking for detailed information on the console be sure to check our

Launch Date: September 14, 2001, in Japan; November 18, 2001, in North America; and Spring 2002 in Europe.

Peripheral Devices: Memory Card, containing 4 megabits of flash memory; SD-Memory Card Adapter; Wireless Wavebird; Controller; 56Kbps, V. 90, Modem Adapter; Broadband Adapter; and Digital Video Cable.

Controller: To provide more comprehensive and intuitive play control, Nintendo has added several new features to the Nintendo GameCube controller, including a second analog control stick, left and right analog trigger buttons, and a built-in rumble motor. The Nintendo GameCube controller has two grips and the controls for the left and right hands have been separated into two "systems." The right-side buttons have been re-arranged to allow the user to set the A Button home position, making the role of each button more natural.

Nintendo GameCube hardware specifications:

MPU ("Micro Processing 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	1.3 GB/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. 2 MB
	Sustainable Latency: 6.2ns (1T-SRAM)
Embedded Texture Cache	Approx. 1 MB
	Sustainable Latency: 6.2 ns (1T-SRAM)
Texture Read Bandwidth	10.4 GB/second (Peak)
Main Memory Bandwidth	2.6 GB/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, Ansitropic Filtering, Real-time Hardware Texture Decompression (S3TC) Real-time Decompression of Display List, HW 3-line Deflickering filter

Audio Processing	(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 & PCM encoding
Sampling Frequency	48KHz

Performance
Floating-point Arithmetic Capability	10.5 GFLOPS (Peak) (MPU, Geometry Engine, HW Lighting Total)
Real-world polygon	6 to 12 million polygons/second (Peak) (Assuming actual game conditions with complex models, fully textured, fully lit, etc.)

System Memory "Splash"	40 MB
Main Memory	24 MB MoSys 1T-SRAM Approximately 10ns Sustainable Latency
A-Memory	16 MB 81 MHz 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
Capacity	Approx. 1.5GB

Input/Output	4 Controller Ports
	2 Memory Card Slots
	Analog AV Output
	Digital AV Output
	2 High-Speed Serial Ports
	High-speed Parallel Port


Power Supply	AC Adapter DC12V x 3.5A

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

Here's a look at Gamecube's storage medium, a smaller, proprietary DVD disk that allows for 1.5 GB of data:

controllers