It's not a joke, really. The CPU in the 3DS is capable of switching its stepping, which can be seen during DS emulation - one core downclocks to the DS level and deals with emulation (via hardware) while the other keeps the OS awake. There is no solid data on how fast the clock speed is, but 1Ghz is likely the stock speed of the chip, however the 3DS firmware surely changes the stepping to a lower one to preserve battery life on the level of firmware. The PSP worked similarly - full clock speed was unlocked in later updates and a default option was added to control clock speed, originally it was fixed in games, now you can change it to a suitable one.

I'd say anything between 80 to 700 seems reasonable as steppings on the system.

I like "you're a retard." But Foxi's is much more personable.

not true also... the ds have 2 cores clocked max @ 266Mhz it not even come close to 1Ghz lol
i wonder where you get this bs from lol any links ?

RDilus, I would trust Foxi on this one. And the DS indeed has two cores, but not at the frequency you say

Even if the 266mhz is the maximum, many nintendo ds games prooved that with proper graphic engine everything is possible

IT IS POSSIBLE!!!
idunno about the cpu of the psp and 3ds but im 100% sure that the 3DS cpu is stronger than the psp one

The fact that the 3DS has a CPU based on two cpu's up to 266 Mhz is a rumour - it's a custom CPU that nobody has identified yet.
(We're using the "two cores" expression too lightly - the 3DS CPU is a Dual CPU, not a Dual Core CPU, and that also makes a big difference. Just so you know. )

Firstly, I know reading is hard but...



Hardly any chip runs at its top stock speed in a mobile device due to lack of cooling - it would burn to cinders within seconds. I don't think that a cumulative 1Ghz from both CPU's (500Mhz + 500 Mhz, you never do that, but what the hell, why not) is so far-fetched as a top possible clock speed.

I can agree with you as far as the clock speed is concerned, however I have to mention time and time again that this is the clock speed that *has been set* on the 3DS and can be subject to change - it can get lower or higher.

The speculation likely closest to the truth can be found at 3DSBrew - ARM11 MPCore 2x 268MHz & 2x VFP Co-Processor + 134Mhz DSP, but those specs are not proven by anyone either.

These are all assumptions which are not proven yet.

Fine, I'll give them the benefit of doubt, but still - it's entirely possible that clocks are lowered to allow the 3DS for longer battery life - every single ARM CPU nowadays has a scalable clock speed and never works at its top clock speed - look at the data sheets.

ARM11 MPCore is capable of way more than that, it's just capped.



DSP aside, 2x 268MHz on rather efficient twin ARM11 CPU's should already be enough to emulate the PSX flawlessly when it's coupled with the DMP PICA200.

I'll give you another example - XScale ARM processors mostly ran at aprox. 512 Mhz, however they were scalable from really low values up to even 728 Mhz, and later revisions were close to breaking the Ghz boundary. Why were they stepped at 512 Mhz then? To save battery life, keep them cool, enhance their life expectancy, keep the system stable and so on and so forth.

Not many people know, but the DS's CPU also wasn't running at its full power - changing one simple crystal allowed switching the clock speed of the ARM9 core from 67 Mhz to 116 Mhz with no apparent loss of stability.

This post has been edited by Foxi4, Fri, April 13th, 2012 at 19:36

Foxi knows his sh*t!

Not really, because the fun part about the 3DS is that nobody *really* knows anything about this CPU other than the fact that it's a Dual CPU (observation of the silicone) and that it's branded by Nintendo and made in the ARM achitecture - everything else is just lucky guesses based on analyzing various aspects of the CPU's work live, but it's not really a *specs sheet* of the CPU itself.

That's the point I've been trying to push for what, 2 days now? 3DSBrew came to the conclusion that it has to be ARM11MPCore and that the clock speed they measured is 2x 268 Mhz, however the ARM page for the same processor lists it at top speeds of 427 Mhz when in a Dual Core setup and 865 Mhz per Single Core which leads me to assume that the CPU is underclocked on the system and may very well be overclocked to its nominal values when it's hacked.

I know I probably grasped that rather crudely, but that was my point.

This post has been edited by Foxi4, Fri, April 13th, 2012 at 19:43

I meant that you know what you're talking about.
For example, I had no idea that people don't know exactly what kind of guts 3DS has .

And when you say that the processor is underclocked, does this mean that Nintendo could be restricting other devs when using the system in order to make their first party games more impressive?
Think I read that they did this sort of thing with the wii.