Hardware Specifications of Nintendo Switch Reveal
- Thread starter McHuj
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D
Deleted member 13524
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There really isn't anything plausible to make sense of the 14.4 pixels/cycle spec.
At this point I think the Cortex A73 leaks are more believable. At least those didn't have crucial mistakes.
At this point I think the Cortex A73 leaks are more believable. At least those didn't have crucial mistakes.
Temperature controlled probably?
Knowing Nintendo, they would put the absolute minimum amount of metal in the heat sink, so it would still need a fair amount of airflow at half or a third of the power.
There's no two's exponent that can be divided that way.
It adds up to exactly 10% loss.
Could it be a reserved time slice?
OS overlay?
Only human beings would remove something in base 10, maybe it's an arbitrary choice.
Hrm, where have we seen a 10% OS GPU reservations from before? Oh right, the original current generation consoles like the Xbox One. Granted they worked to free up more of that, but it was their first go at it. It might just seem like a lot in this situation because the numbers are smaller on Nintendo hardware.
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http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...unlock-more-gpu-power-for-xbox-one-developers
"Xbox One has a conservative 10 per cent time-sliced reservation on the GPU for system processing. This is used both for the GPGPU processing for Kinect and for the rendering of concurrent system content such as snap mode," Microsoft technical fellow Andrew Goossen told us.
"The current reservation provides strong isolation between the title and the system and simplifies game development - strong isolation means that the system workloads, which are variable, won't perturb the performance of the game rendering. In the future, we plan to open up more options to developers to access this GPU reservation time while maintaining full system functionality."
It was the entire GPU wasn't it? How would nintendo reserve a 10% time slice of the ROPs only?
Maybe nintendo is making the OS overlay entirely out of writepixel() calls from the CPU, so all they need is the ROPs blending some display planes.
Or it's the ROP time slice necessary for the ray tracing secret sauce, which wasn't unveiled yet.
It's only a 6" tablet. Keep the skin cooler than passive cooling. Etc.
Apparently the Google Pixel C doesn't have those A53 cores enabled either. I don't think it actually has a Big LITTLE implementation and it's not like their previous shadow core implementation either.
Awww yeah! Aluminium fins on an aluminium base mini-sink hi-five, bro!!!
D
Deleted member 13524
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Not according to the recent patent application, which explicitly states the cooling fan is running at a lower RPM while in mobile mode.
It seems unnecessary and it is unnecessary. Clocks have come from a reliable-ish source. The rest has not.
They wouldn't.
The amount of mental gymnastics being made to try and justify those 14.4 pixels/clock that came from an unrealiable twitter post that simply copy/pastes TX1 specs with crass mistakes in the mix is astounding in this thread.
It has the footprint of a 8" tablet in height and width and twice the thickness of a modern tablet.
I am sort of hoping the low clock in portable mode means 100% passive cooling in portable mode..
D
Deleted member 13524
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Patent doesn't consider turning off the fan.
But even if we were to look at this from the opposite point, why would Nintendo or nvidia ever consider turning on the fan for a 2 SM GPU @ 300MHz + 4*A57@ 1GHz if the Pixel C with 2SM GPU @ 850MHz and 4*A57 @ 1.9GHz hardly ever throttles?
tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
Is there any point in going with the X1 over something like a snapdragon 820 if they are going to gimp it like that? I'm sure Nintendo likes Nvidia's software/tools but it seems they are making a mess of the hardware again.
I never expected this thing to be super powerful, especially not when in handheld mode but if Oneplus3 can sell a high end phone with good build quality and all that for 400 euros I certainly expected Nintendo to be able to produce a device that in handheld mode would offer similar performance.
In had this thing on my wish list no matter the price expecting a high and soc with high end soc performance but if it's "fingers crossed you get Wuu performance" like levels Nintendo better make sure they can sell this thing for less than 200 euros.
Anyway, if those clocks are true, why would it even need to be that thick and have active cooling while still having a rumored max 3 hour battery life?
I never expected this thing to be super powerful, especially not when in handheld mode but if Oneplus3 can sell a high end phone with good build quality and all that for 400 euros I certainly expected Nintendo to be able to produce a device that in handheld mode would offer similar performance.
In had this thing on my wish list no matter the price expecting a high and soc with high end soc performance but if it's "fingers crossed you get Wuu performance" like levels Nintendo better make sure they can sell this thing for less than 200 euros.
Anyway, if those clocks are true, why would it even need to be that thick and have active cooling while still having a rumored max 3 hour battery life?
Phones have a workload that spikes from low teens to 80-90% while web rendering or some other task. Their CPUs are designed to 'hurry up and wait' I.e. they aggressively clock up to complete a task so they can aggressively clock down again. This results in lower overall power usage for a CPU with low base clocks and a high peak clock versus a CPU with no throttling. Mobile cores cannot sustain their peak or even nominal frequencies very long before having to throttle cores individually or as a whole.
Console CPUs are running at max frequency more or less constantly and the heat load is continuous. With a peaky workload a passive heatsink can absorb more energy than it can dissipate for a short time before having to throttle and if your workload can be completed before the heatsink saturates all well and good. A heatsink and fan ensures heat is evacuated at a rate equal to that at which it is absorbed so thermal throttling should never occur at all.
The fan may or may not be required in handheld mode (although my reading of the dock patent suggests it is on) but would certainly be required in dock mode.
TLDR phone SoCs are a designed for a different operating paradigm and so are a poor point if comparison for a handheld CPU. Equally they generate and dissipate heat in a similarly different way and thus require different cooling solutions.
Console CPUs are running at max frequency more or less constantly and the heat load is continuous. With a peaky workload a passive heatsink can absorb more energy than it can dissipate for a short time before having to throttle and if your workload can be completed before the heatsink saturates all well and good. A heatsink and fan ensures heat is evacuated at a rate equal to that at which it is absorbed so thermal throttling should never occur at all.
The fan may or may not be required in handheld mode (although my reading of the dock patent suggests it is on) but would certainly be required in dock mode.
TLDR phone SoCs are a designed for a different operating paradigm and so are a poor point if comparison for a handheld CPU. Equally they generate and dissipate heat in a similarly different way and thus require different cooling solutions.
