Svensk Viking
Regular
Even a small bump in clock speeds would be neat to keep Zelda Botw at stable 30 FPS. Though I'd ideally hope for the new Switch undocked to be able to match old Switch in docked mode.
New Nintendo Switch hardware versions?
- Thread starter wco81
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That would be attractive, undocked performance equal to docked performance, on a better display.
Would that bump up sales momentum some 2-3 years after the original launched?
Maybe if they had data showing undocked mode is far more popular, they could even move towards unbundling the dock or getting rid of it.
Would that bump up sales momentum some 2-3 years after the original launched?
Maybe if they had data showing undocked mode is far more popular, they could even move towards unbundling the dock or getting rid of it.
I’m not quite sure what you mean here. I’m assuming that a new SoC would also mean a logic board redesign, there is no socket on the Switch where you can slot in a new processor. If they were to update the SoC (and again there is no indication of anything more than a supplemental screen supplier in the original rumor that the net runs wild with) I can pretty much see two attractive options:
One is to make a new SoC design on 7nm that is similar in hardware capabilities to the X1. Lithographic process advancements would give them 3-4 times as many dies/wafer and LPDDR5 would allow them to halve the memory interface width for further savings. They could drastically lower SoC power draw, extending battery life even with a somewhat cheaper and lighter battery, and dispense with active cooling, again saving money/space/weight. Even so, they would probably be able to achieve improvements in performance, particularly in portable mode.
And/or they could keep the form factor and power budget, use a wider interface to LPDDR5 and achieve roughly XB1 performance in portable mode and correspondingly better docked. This would give them not only the hardware power to run all third party software targeting the current generation stationary consoles, but would probably also position them fairly well when it comes to running next gen stationary console software at lower resolution if the CPUs are updated to something reasonably performant. (And would provide additional justification for publishers to support and sell to the existing installed base of stationary consoles.)
But it’s probably just another screen supplier.
tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
You forgot to mention all of that will easily sell in a 250 dollar package.
Right, so you didn't specify originally if you were changing the memory controller/bus width, hence the question.
Is LPDDR5 even a thing? The latest seems to be LPDDR4X, which seems to just be a power savings effort (perhaps simply owing to using a newer fab process) or to more easily hit the higher end of the freq spectrum.
Samsung announced that they had started production of LPDDR5 in July this year. It’s simply the next step on the ladder, for the usual reasons and at double the speed of LPDDR4 from the get go. Which means that nintendo could get away with a ridiculously narrow memory bus.Right, so you didn't specify originally if you were changing the memory controller/bus width, hence the question.
Is LPDDR5 even a thing? The latest seems to be LPDDR4X, which seems to just be a power savings effort (perhaps simply owing to using a newer fab process) or to more easily hit the higher end of the freq spectrum.
(All redblooded gaming nerds obviously hope they will go the other way, and comission a SoC from nVidia with a 128-bit bus (just like most iPads), and ALU resources to match.) By this time next year, I’d assume that the high end phones will all use it so bulk pricing should be decent.
DuckThor Evil
Legend
I don't see Nintendo using 7nm anytime soon... Tegra X2 however is just the type of off the shelf product that they probably would get a good deal from nVidia, it would not be a very large upgrade, but decent anyway and with double the memory and bandwidth it would be a nice "Pro" version of the switch. The current form factor could house at least an inch bigger screen as well. Sell the regular at $249 and the new one at $349 or something along those lines.
You may well be right about Nintendo not using 7nm soon. But the problem with the X2 is that it’s more expensive without offering one heck of a lot of benefit. One could have hoped that Nintendo would have used it in the Switch from the get go. (I and Totten both argued in 2016 that it might be possible in the final shipping product, which may explain his disappointed venom now.) The best we could hope for with that SoC would be somewhat better performance and battery life all other things being equal which, while it would have been nice to have as the baseline back then, probably wouldn’t mean diddly squat in terms of market possibilities or positioning now.
To be honest though, any random tea leaf reader could probably predict Nintendos next move better than me.
To be honest though, any random tea leaf reader could probably predict Nintendos next move better than me.
There's X2, and there's a Xaviar chip due.
I guess the other parts of the equation is what Nintendo forecasts the sales to be for the next year, whether they think they will get competition in the form of new consoles, etc.
I would imagine the sales of the Switch have plateaued at best, absent some big games releases, like the next Mario or Zelda games coming out in the next year.
I would imagine the sales of the Switch have plateaued at best, absent some big games releases, like the next Mario or Zelda games coming out in the next year.
There have been murmurs about Orin, nVidias next offering after Xavier in the automotive space. More details may actually show up next week. To what extent Orin would have any direct relationship to a new Switch SoC though....
Well Smash and Pokemon are likely to be big system sellers in the immediate future.
Nintendos previous president said that they would try to extend the life of the Switch as far as possible but that may not necessarily mean the device as is (which would throw a wet towel on any speculation), but rather the platform and concept.
I basically feel that both the options I outlined above would have merit for Nintendo and their customers, but they are hard to predict in general, and the sales volumes of the Switch definitely makes bespoke SoC designs a realistic option making predictions even harder. It’s all up in the air at this point.
Sigfried1977
Legend
Besides a new screen, my bet is on more power efficiency and possibly bluetooth functionality for headsets now that they're trying to sell you their shitty online service. Oh, and a better stand. The current one is probably the most pathetic thing about the entire device. An entirely new SoC doesn't really sound like a Nintendo thing to do this early in the console's lifespan. Neither does a 1080p screen considering how crisp the native 720p games look on the thing.
If you try and look at Nintendo's doings through the pixel counter/hardware enthusiast lense, you're assuredly in for a disappointment. By Nintendo standards (look at what powered the Wii, the WiiU, the 3DS and all their other portables), the hardware inside of the Switch is bleeding edge.
If you try and look at Nintendo's doings through the pixel counter/hardware enthusiast lense, you're assuredly in for a disappointment. By Nintendo standards (look at what powered the Wii, the WiiU, the 3DS and all their other portables), the hardware inside of the Switch is bleeding edge.
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Deleted member 13524
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If LPDDR5 reaches 6.4GT/s then I doubt smartphone SoCs will need a 128bit bus anytime soon. The Apple X SoCs have a different cadence now (there was no A11X AFAIK), but I question if the next one with LPDDR5 will go with a 128bit bus too. Maybe 96bit is more than enough (~75GB/s?).
Correct term would be disappointed saltiness, if you please.
As for a new SoC, nah. Nintendo is selling this model at high margins with decent sales figures. No need to spend more money on a TX2 that would bring next to no difference to sales.
Besides, nvidia apparently dropped the ball with security and the Switch was running pirated games 1 year after release without a firmware solution, so Nintendo might be closer to ditching them than to give them more money for another SoC.
As for decent gaming on the go, we just need to wait for Intel to solve their 10nm woes and they'll launch a 4.5W Y-series SoC with Gen10/11 GPU that GPD can put into their next console and play PC games. That or AMD scales down a Raven Ridge / Picasso successor down to the same power envelope and Asus, Razer or something picks it up for a PC console.
Or maybe the SMACH-Z leaves the vaporware realm in 2019, though I'm growing more skeptical everytime they fail to show a working prototype based on final hardware.
Seeing as how the current Tegra X1 doesnt run at max clock speeds, wouldn't a move to a smaller more energy process be the simplest solution to a more powerful Switch revision? If the Tegra X1 could run the 768Mhz in portable mode, this would allow for a new 1080p screen, and run 1Ghz docked. Not sure how much they could do with the CPU clocks, but Microsoft was able to get a bump with the S model, and I do not recall any compatibility issues.
It was only a GPU clock bump for the OneS.
I just looked at 3ds Wikipedia and turns out the first hw revision was bigger screen. Hopefully it will be the case with switch too
Yeah the cpu clock bump was on regular old one too thru os update
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Deleted member 13524
Guest
Yes, it would. But it would cost money.
Nintendo isn't fond of spending money on hardware. As we all have noticed.
Most likely they'd just trick all the games into entering docked mode all the time and keep the GPU clocks at 768MHz.
Besides, the Jetson TX2 on 7.5W TDP Max-Q mode clocks the GPU at 864MHz, the A57 module at 1.2GHz and the Denver 2 module turns off.
With a 768MHz GPU / 1 GHz CPU, the TX2 with half the memory channels disabled will probably have around 6W TDP with an average consumption of 4.5W or less. Which is close to what the TX1 is consuming right now in mobile mode (~3h playing time on a 16W.h battery, considering IPS panel, speakers, etc).
The XBone runs the games in a virtual machine, which probably helps coping with various SKUs with different CPU clocks without additional work from developers. The Switch almost certainly has no such thing.
Without that feature in the PS4, Sony enabled Turbo Mode on the PS4 Pro to take advantage of the higher CPU clocks for older games that lack a Pro path, but that resulted in compatibility problems on some games.
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